Chapter 22
Tanyl’s face twisted into a snarl. “Seize her.” The command snapped, stripped of his usual composure, driven by a frantic need to reclaim control before it slipped away entirely.
His knuckles paled as he gripped the Drasil even harder, as if he could anchor his crumbling authority through the wood alone.
The guards surged the instant the order left his mouth. She guessed they were all High Breeds if they were protecting the king, but none of them had wands like the one they’d encountered in the hallway.
Six from the edge of the dais moved first. The two nearest Imani drew short swords, broad enough for combat but compact enough to wield in a crowded ballroom.
Behind them, another pair leveled narrow metal-tipped staffs meant to strike, hook limbs, and force a prisoner to the floor without killing her.
Two more spread wider along the edge of the crowd, cutting off her retreat toward the ballroom doors.
Nobles recoiled in delayed shock, silk skirts and polished shoes scraping over the floor as they cleared a widening circle around Imani.
The first swordsman came from her right.
He slashed toward her ribs with the flat of the blade angled to disable rather than gut her.
Imani stepped into his reach before he could recover, caught his wrist, and twisted.
His sword clattered from his hand as she broke his balance and sent him hard onto the floor.
The staff-wielding guard came from her left.
Imani pivoted inside his strike, caught the shaft, and wrenched it aside hard enough to send him stumbling.
But before the next guard could close, Imani raised the Drasil.
A heavy wave of magic surged outward and caught the advancing guards mid-step, rooting them beneath its crushing pressure.
Her shadows finally slipped free from the leash of her willpower. They bled like black ink across the tiles, coiling around ankles and wrists until the guards lost their balance and mobility. Imani was done holding back.
She was the queen, and no one in this room possessed the power to stop her. Mercy, she was learning, worked best when it followed fear.
A bright light flashed at the edge of Tanyl’s magical signature. The sensation disappeared before she could identify it, swallowed beneath the Drasil’s much stronger presence.
She dismissed it. Despite his magical talent, Tanyl had spent his entire reign hiding behind other people’s power, like Kiran’s, and there was no reason to believe this fight would be different.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Some guests shrank back instinctively, while others leaned in, morbidly captivated. Ellisar broke away, his body angled to intervene, but then he stopped because he must have seen that she was prevailing
Imani couldn’t help but steal a glance at Kiran. For once, he looked genuinely caught off guard. He stood frozen, entirely oblivious to the struggling guards. His unblinking focus was locked on her. What was he thinking?
Then surprise transformed. A wild, maniacal grin pulled at his mouth, his single clear eye burning with a possessive, obsessive glee.
Imani knew that look. Kiran loved the unraveling, and it brought her more comfort than she cared to admit.
Later. I’ll deal with him later, she thought as she swept the Drasil in a broad arc, releasing another burst of magic that overwhelmed a secondary group of guards.
Their discipline broke, the formation dissolving into hesitant chaos as the guards abandoned coordinated movement and reacted on instinct.
Imani took a step forward. Then another.
Guards retreated as the crowd instinctively parted, creating a clear path to the dais. Noise faded until the room narrowed to Imani and Tanyl.
He rose slowly, setting his drink aside with one hand while his other gripped his weapon with white knuckles.
Above his head, the glamoured crown wavered, its light warping at the edges.
As the only other Drasil wielder in the realm, and the true queen, it made sense that only she could see through it, but the thought didn’t make her any less furious as her magic thrummed in her blood.
Tanyl lunged without warning, raw temper shattering his careless facade. He swung his Drasil high, driving forward with brute force. Imani tried not to flinch, sliding to the left and letting his strike carve empty air. Then, she released the full depth of her shadows.
Darkness flooded the floor, shadows rising around her. The sconces flickered and died. Ignoring Tanyl’s stumbling momentum, she drove her power upward with a feral scream.
Shadows swirled around him, smashing into the illusion with a fury that reflected her own. Branches snapped, and leaves crumbled, then it warped violently before collapsing into nothing but empty air.
Victory swelled in her chest, and for one breath, Imani thought she had done it because Tanyl stood with an empty brow, no Crown of Life or divine image to save him. Indeed, no lie remained between him and the court.
But then light burst from his wand.
Imani threw an arm across her face as white-gold magic flooded the ballroom and her shadows recoiled.
The darkness nearest Tanyl burned away completely, erased so fast that pain tore through Imani’s magical connection and drove a gasp from her throat. She staggered backward, unable to understand what she was feeling. Her shadows had endured fire, blood magic, Kiran’s power, the Fabric itself.
But this magic consumed them on contact. The only other witch who was capable of destroying her shadows was Zadie. A half-Deity breed.
Tanyl straightened as fear vanished from his face.
Imani’s jaw dropped. “That’s quite a secret you’ve been keeping all these years.”
His lips spread into a grim smile. “It is.”
With a swipe, another blast hit before she could prepare.
Raising her own Drasil, she tried to block it with her shadows, but the Upper magic struck with enough force to drive her several feet backward.
With a grunt, her heels dragged across the polished floor.
Heat bit into her palms through the wand.
The next burst punched through her wall of darkness. Pain ripped across her shoulder as his magic caught her, burning through fabric and skin. She hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
People scattered farther back, and she rolled over onto her side.
Someone shouted her name.
Ellisar.
Imani shoved herself onto one elbow before he could reach her. “Don’t.” His advance stopped as Imani growled, “This is mine.”
Tanyl laughed as she struggled to her feet. “You came here convinced you would win. You always were too arrogant for your own good, Imani.”
She forced herself upright, one hand pressed against the burning wound on her shoulder. “What did you have to give up to get the Drasil, though?” She rolled her arm, trying to ignore the agony.
Tanyl’s smile fell slightly.
“Worse, they only chose you because your father was a Deity breed, not because you’re worthy,” she sneered.
“Careful.”
“They recognized Upper blood… and someone they could control.”
His wand rose. Imani barely got her shadows around herself before the attack came.
Light crashed against darkness, and the impact drove her backward again.
Her shadows fought to maintain their form, but every point of contact burned them away.
Imani forced more power into them, thickening the barrier, drawing darkness from beneath furniture, bodies, walls, every place the Upper magic could not completely reach.
It was not enough, though. White-gold magic bored through as more pain shot through her skull, and her knees struck the floor.
Tanyl advanced. “You wanted to know why they gave me the Drasil?” he asked. “Why did the Upper answer me when they ignored every other pathetic ruler begging for their favor?”
Imani pushed herself up again.
“They know what I am.”
A blast struck her barrier. Tanyl’s shoulders rose with the cast, and his next breath came harder. Light still poured from him, but the veins glowing beneath his skin pulsed unevenly before brightening again.
Cracks opened through the darkness.
“They know what I can become.”
The next attack broke through completely.
Imani flew backward and struck a column’s base. Her head snapped against stone. For several seconds, the ballroom disappeared beneath agony.
She heard Tanyl’s boots scrape. Wrenching her eyes open, she saw him come into focus above her. He was winded now, though nowhere near enough for Imani’s comfort. She heard the court’s frightened breathing… and Kiran laughing somewhere behind her, obviously reveling in the chaos.
She ignored him and glared up at Tanyl. Bright light coated the Drasil and crawled along his forearm, brighter with every step. Her shadows gathered weakly at her feet, only to shrink whenever his magic reached them.
Nausea churned in her gut as it dawned on her that she could lose. Tanyl had raw, rare magical talent, becoming a Master Witch at sixteen. One of the youngest ever. He had trained his whole life to be monarch, surrounded by the best of the best.
Imani came into her magic at twenty-six and had barely gone to school.
His grip tightened around the red-grained wand shaft, and the unreadable carvings seemed to deepen as the magic rippling around the wand intensified.
“I didn’t want it to come to this. We were friends,” he said with a frown.
Blood filled Imani’s mouth where she had bitten her tongue. She spat it onto the floor. “You should have learned how to fight without borrowing power from your relatives.”
His frown deepened, and he raised the Drasil. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But she did, because he was right. They had been friends, and memories surfaced with brutal clarity. Every defensive outburst, every need to be admired, every performance of certainty. The insecurity beneath it, that feeling of inadequacy that his mother had planted and fed for years.
Not clever enough.
Not good enough.
Not worthy enough.
Never powerful enough.