Chapter Forty-Two
“Ronan!”
I rush to his side. He’s alive.
He’s alive.
He’s alive, and he’s an idiot. There’s no way he can fight her in this state. He’s barely able to stand.
Adria laughs and laughs. I want to rip her tongue right out of her mouth. “How moronically noble. Sure. Let’s go.”
“Help them,” I tell him. His eyes are still glazed from the poison. “You can heal them. Help Quinn. Help Stella. Help Larus. Let me fight for you.”
“Your arm,” he says, pressing his fingertips to it.
Sweet, wonderful relief. The throbbing ache of Adria’s burn is gone in an instant.
At least whatever she poisoned him with didn’t affect his magic.
“Quinn,” he says weakly. I protect him from Adria’s fire as he stumbles over to her. I don’t think he’ll be able to help her—he couldn’t heal me from poison. And I don’t think he can help Stella, judging by the way she fell. But at least he can try.
At least he can help Larus.
“A fair fight?” I ask Adria as I face her. I take my guard, my body turned to the side as it should be for this weapon.
This is my real blade. Its edges are deadly sharp. It’s not made for sport. I’m not here to score the most points.
I’m here to kill.
Adria, the greatest sword fighter in Selara, the Champion of Sai, nods her head and raises her sword at me. “A fair fight.”
I remember what Ronan told me. Fighting to the death is different from fighting for sport. In a fight for sport, you take chances. You make mistakes to learn how your opponent moves. You find their weaknesses through trial and error, hopefully before they find yours.
But in a fight to the death, there is no room for error. One wrong move means your death. You can’t leave yourself unguarded, even for a second. You can’t hesitate. You can’t let an opportunity pass you by.
Most duels last mere seconds. Few go longer than two, maybe three, exchanges.
One of us will die today.
One of us will be dead, seconds from now.
I can’t—I won’t—let it be me.
Adria makes the first move, a quick lunge forward, testing my defenses.
Is that hesitation I see? Could it be that there’s a part of her, somewhere deep down, that doesn’t really want to do this?
“Say goodbye to your lover,” she taunts. “It’s your last chance.”
Ronan has quietly moved away from Quinn to Larus. My heart aches for Quinn, but maybe there’s hope for Larus. Maybe if he gets there in time…
Adria takes advantage of my distraction to strike. I parry her just in time, binding our blades. I push forward until I’m close enough to kick her. She grabs at my hair with her free hand, and both of us lose control of our points.
I fling myself out of her grasp, tearing a chunk of hair from the back of my head. She stumbles and then regains her balance in time to try another thrust at me, but she just grazes my arm.
The wound stings, but it’s not deep enough for me to drop my sword. She’s moving behind me now. I spin to face her, bringing my sword down. She blocks it with the basket of her hilt, but my point slashes her chest as she tries to jump out of the way.
I go in for another thrust, but she parries it hard to the side, sending me off balance. I parry her next cut from the ground, just stopping her sword from taking half of my arm with it.
I spring up and forward while she’s recovering, putting distance between us and getting back on guard.
Then she feints to the left.
I see it coming. I know what’s coming next. Her right thrust, quick and aimed at my heart.
I parry it with the strong part of my sword, finally avoiding her trap. There’s a chance here. I can go for a riposte. One quick thrust into her neck, and she’s dead.
I lunge forward—
“Enough!” yells Larus. It is enough. Enough to throw me off my balance. Enough to make Adria turn her head. Just enough for my thrust to miss the mark. “Adria, let’s go. They’re coming.”
There are boots in the hallway beyond. The main doors burst open with a rush of magic.
I lower my sword as Larus runs over, healed by Ronan. He takes Adria by the arm, and with one last, regretful look in my direction, he runs with her into the antechamber as the guards close in.
We’re running through the courtyard. Taran, Ronan, and I. Ronan is still weak, but he refuses to wait while his kingdom is falling around him.
Stella is gone. Stella, who never wanted to be a guard. Stella, who never failed to help me, to help Ronan. She’s gone.
The healers are with Quinn. The best nature-born and the last of the loyal alchemists. Ronan healed her head wound, but she took the worst of the poison, and she still hasn’t woken. I say a silent prayer to Vayla to save her as we run.
The streets are filled with blood and death and chaos. We move to the sound of fighting, the sound of steel, the smell of smoke. It takes us a moment to find our rhythm, to learn how to work together. How to help each other with blade and magic.
This isn’t like the fight where Ronan, dressed as Soren, defeated Marcella’s guards nearly single-handedly. As weak as he is, he fights like a normal man. He can take one, maybe two people at a time. He can’t cut his way through a dozen in moments.
That’s where Taran and I come in. Taran flings not water, but ice at our enemies. Sometimes, it stops them in their tracks. Other times, it cuts through them like a knife through butter. I’ve never seen a water-born fight like this. It’s a terrifying thing.
I don’t think about anything that has happened between us. I throw my shadows out to defend him when he needs it, just as he uses his ice to defend me. None of it matters now. We’re a team.
The fights are quick and bloody. We take no time to ensure the defeated are fallen. I take no time to grieve for my fallen compatriots. Not even when I recognize them, as I do from time to time.
They made their choice.
And I have made mine.
It feels like hours, but it’s over before dawn.
The guards are in the streets with us. The fighting thins until we go minutes hearing nothing.
This isn’t the main battle. This is only a distraction from the real war that wages in the harbor.
That marches in across the desert beyond the city walls, in companies of green soldiers my brother is leading.
This is a distraction that lets Adria escape. They pursue her, but she loses them. Larus shifts the earth to let them get away.
Larus chooses her. Larus saves her.
I can’t think about it now.
I’m bleeding from where she cut me. I’m bleeding from a lucky stab with a dagger. Ronan heals me, and then I’m bleeding again moments later. My clothes are burnt. My leathers are destroyed.
I’m exhausted, physically and emotionally. I’m terrified of what’s to come.
But I’m alive. And Ronan is alive.
Side by side, we take on the fight my family started.
Side by side, we’ll finish it.