Chapter Thirty-Three
I had three fathers. The first sent me on a mission to destroy the prosperous five kingdoms. The second accepted me into his life with only a letter as an explanation.
But the last, the one I had the least connection to but somehow took after the most, had hired every tutor in the kingdom to prepare me for this fight.
“We don’t have to fight.” I crossed my short swords in an X to block the old man’s downward strike.
His lips curled in a sneer. “And you didn’t have to betray me!”
When he tried to pull back, I tightened the X. His eyes widened as he found his sword caught between mine. I twisted to the side, yanking the blade out of his hands. It skidded across the polished floor before disappearing in a whiff of shadow.
A second later, the sword appeared in his hand again and he thrust it toward my stomach. I spun out of the way and blocked the blade with one of my own, pushing it away from me. “What did you expect?”
“I expected you to obey your father! Your real father! Not those bumbling fools who have stolen your loyalty from me!” Each sentence was punctuated with an exclamation point and another furious attack.
I dodged and parried as best as I could, but it was difficult fighting an opponent who wanted me dead when I just wanted to talk. “My real father? For most of my life, you’ve been a reflection in the mirror. You don’t feel real to me.”
Hot pain sliced across my side when I was a second too slow.
Blood seeped from the wound, sticking my shirt to my skin and creating a slick trail across the floor.
“Does that feel real?” He started to swing again but suddenly froze.
The sound of fighting instantly stopped, transforming into an eerie silence. Even the air around us stilled.
An arm wrapped around my waist and yanked me backwards against a solid chest. My breath hitched as I recognized Wilde’s steady presence behind me. Defending me, protecting me, standing with me rather than his master.
Everything that had stopped started all at once. The sword came down on empty air. The roar of the fighting returned, making me dizzy with the sudden noise. The air surged back into my lungs in a harsh gasp.
Wilde’s arm tightened on me while I tried to reorient myself.
The old man looked at us tangled together and his lips spread in a nasty smile. “Good job, apprentice. Now hold him steady—” He raised his sword again, glee filling his eyes as he lined up the killing blow.
He really didn’t see me as his son anymore. Just an obstacle he needed to eliminate.
Wilde shoved me out of the way and lifted one hand to meet the blade.
What is he doing? He doesn’t have a weapon or shield! The blade will slice right through him!
Except it didn’t.
The shadow sword stopped midair.
The old man blinked at it in shock and tugged on the hilt. No matter how he pulled and yanked, it remained locked in place. He turned furious eyes onto his apprentice. “Even you would disobey me?”
Wilde’s delicate features hardened. “We aren’t yours to control.”
“We’ll see about that.” The old man abandoned his stuck sword and twisted his wrist, fingers splayed wide as he raised them toward the ceiling.
Roots erupted through the floor, aiming straight for Wilde. Before I could shout a warning, he raised his other hand. They stopped in midair, an inch from his palm.
All noise cut out again.
This time, I saw how everything froze. At some point, everyone else had descended upon the throne room.
My fathers and Kit were stuck in the doorway, fighting off the minions who had come to defend their master.
Kit had taken off their helmet and was in the middle of smashing it down on a lacertian’s head.
Angelica had started limping toward the other side of the room. Her rapier was still clutched in her fist and her golden curls hung limply around her shoulders. She ignored the fighting around her, her gaze locked on the throne.
A few feet from the throne, two imps attacked Maximus, pummeling him with their tiny fists. The imps’ wings were paused mid-flap and if I squinted, I could see the displaced air around them.
Delilah had wrapped cloth around her hands and was tugging on one of the roots. Her shoulders strained and her face pinched as she used all her strength.
The root in question was wrapped around Fitz’s ankle. It’d started to cut into his skin as it pulled him toward the throne. Blood soaked his pantleg but the flow of it had stopped with the rest of the world.
I fully intended to freak out about the fact that Wilde could stop fucking time later. Right now, I had to fix the mess in front of us before time started again.
Sweat dripped down Wilde’s face and into his pale hair. A muscle feathered in his jaw as he strained to hold on. His eyes flicked between me, my father, the royal champions, and the throne. Resignation filled his dark eyes, and he grunted a single word, “Go.”
I ran.
I could feel the air on my face, thicker than usual. It felt more like swimming than running.
When I reached Fitz, I sliced through the root with one of my swords. A thin line formed along the root, but that was the only sign of injury. It remained taught against Fitz’s ankle, ready to drag him backwards. I had to trust that I’d freed him and turned my attention to the throne.
The throne was a wild collection of sharp branches and twisting roots. It had looked odd and uncomfortable when I’d stood next to it earlier, but now it looked malevolent. A perfect fit for an evil mage.
If this wasn’t the anchor for the curse, I didn’t know what else could be. I raised my sword and plunged it into the throne’s trunk, where a person’s heart would be if they were sitting in it.
Time restarted with a sickening jolt. My vision blurred as the world tried to reconcile my new place within it. Air caught in my lungs, and I tried to remember how to exhale.
Screeching filled my ears, drowning out all other sounds. A desperate, dying rage.
Something sharp plunged into my stomach. The breath I’d been desperately trying to exhale escaped me in a pain gasped. I looked down to see a branch piercing me straight through the middle.
“Trey!” Several voices called my name, but the loudest—the closest—was Delilah. She leapt to her feet, hands outstretched to grab me.
The branch pulled me out of reach. My knees connected with the seat of the throne.
Twigs cut into them, but the stinging pain was nothing to the all-consuming ache of my stomach.
Blood trickled down the branch, coating the seat.
I fumbled for something to grab onto and finally grasped the hilt of my sword.
I tried to pull it out, hoping I could use it to cut myself free, but only managed to dig the blade in deeper.
Black sap squirted from the wound. The putrid stench filled my nose and mouth, mixing with the scent of my own blood.
After a few seconds, the black sap began dripping from every inch of the throne.
As they bled, the branches and roots shriveled, curling in on themselves and withdrawing back into the throne.
The branch in my chest withered and slipped away. And that was not fucking ideal because now my wound bled more freely.
I grasped the arm of the throne and collapsed into it, barely avoiding the jutting pommel of my sword. It stuck out of the smooth, wooden back of a perfectly normal chair. What it had been before it’d become the anchor for a curse.
Hands tried to grab me, to pull me up, to inspect my wound. Every time they jostled me, it sent a fresh spike of pain through my stomach. “S-stop,” I panted, barely able to get the plea out. I just needed a second to catch my breath and then I could—
I coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Fuck, that’s not good.
The hands around me froze. The feeling in the air changed again, like it had before when Wilde stopped time. Even my wound stopped bleeding, a few drops suspended in the air between me and the throne.
My friends and family were ruthlessly shoved out of the way as someone else took their place. Wilde gently turned me over so he could examine the wound.
I leaned against the chair back, staring up at his familiar face. He was usually hard to read, but pain and panic crumpled his features as he surveyed the damage. When he noticed me looking, he slammed the doors closed on his emotions, shuttering his expression again. “I can fix this.”
“I don’t … think a health potion will be enough.” The words were broken and breathy, barely above a mumble, but he seemed to understand them.
He cupped my face with his hands, holding me steady as he looked into my eyes. “I will fix this. But it won’t be the same.”
I couldn’t tell if the pain was making him hard to understand or if he just wasn’t making sense. “What won’t be?”
“Will you love me, if things are different?”
I think I love you now. I wanted to say the words, but another wave of pain assailed me. I tried to breathe through it. That would be so much easier if Wilde’s magic hadn’t stilled the air, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
A touch on my cheek finally grounded me. I focused on the soft, back-and-forth caress off his thumb rather than the pain for as long as I could.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered.
I almost fought him, to prove that he couldn’t boss me around just because I was dying, but I slowly let them drift shut.
“And think of home.”
Did he mean the apartment upstairs? The manor I’d grown up in? None of those were home. Home was the castle of Bane. Sitting across the table from my father’s. Training with Hector and sitting through endless diplomacy lessons. That was home. The only thing missing was Wilde.
Soft lips pressed against mine, burning with magic. Like trying to eat an ember. I only had a second to enjoy the taste of him before the world faded away, and everything went black.