Epilogue #2
He advanced through them with even swipes of his wand, magic bursting forth. He stepped over the fallen as the last of the resistance collapsed before him, his attention already moving beyond the fight. The ward-locked door loomed ahead, untouched by the chaos behind him.
Wailing alarms still echoed around him, but Kiran could barely hear them anymore over the hammering of his own heart.
Pounding feet above drew his attention for a second. They were sending reinforcements. Steeling himself, Kiran reached for another spell and started cracking through Ellisar’s shields.
More shouts rang up from down the hall. He shot a glance over his shoulder and found a mass of guards forming at the end.
He ignored them and sent another surge of magic pummeling against the barrier. The interlocking spells rippled and bulged, but they were woven so tightly that they snapped back into place after a moment.
With a growl, he struck again.
And again.
He had to admit the defensive magic was some of the most sophisticated he’d encountered.
But not impressive enough to stop him.
Fisting his wand with both hands, he raised it over his head. Magic gathered in his muscles and blood, dancing across his skin as he let his power build until it crescendoed into a force he could no longer contain.
Roaring, he unleashed his magic in a shockwave that cracked the walls and sent pieces of the ceiling crumbling onto the floor. He heard several bodies drop behind him and grinned.
The reinforcements were now dead.
Ellisar’s wards tumbled away, breaking apart in a violent surge that left the air humming with residual magic. Not wanting to waste any time, he gave the door a decisive kick, forcing it open, and stepped through.
All the noise and screeching quieted as he waved his wand and slammed the door shut. With a murmur, he cast his own protective wards around the threshold… ones no guards could break without killing themselves.
More thick carpet spread beneath his feet, dark and dense, muffling his movement as it absorbed the remnants of chaos he carried in with him.
Walls paneled in deep-toned wood and laced with subtle spells and markings worked into the grain.
Low tables sat anchored with paperweights and other trinkets, shelves lined with maps and documents, and seating faced inward toward a central point of command. Ellisar lived here, no question.
He wondered if Imani had slept here and immediately regretted the thought.
At the center of the room, Ellisar waited.
He sat lounging in a high-backed chair, posture relaxed without surrendering presence, one leg angled slightly forward, like he had been there long enough to grow comfortable.
The Drasil rested across his lap, held loosely but within immediate reach, and his fingers pressed together in front of him, steepled as he watched Kiran enter without rising to meet him.
Kiran walked further into the room. Blood still trailed from him, and sweat dripped down his back, but his magic was still surging, so none of it mattered. All that mattered was the elf sitting before him.
He drawled, “This is simple. Hand over the Drasil. Step aside.” Kiran pointed his wand at Ellisar. “And give her back to me.”
Silence held for a beat.
Then Ellisar let his head fall back as he laughed.
The sound echoed freely through the apartment as he leaned back further in his chair, not bothering to reach for the wand on his lap. “You break into my rooms,” he said, amusement threading through his voice, “bleeding across my floors, and that’s your offer?”
Kiran shrugged. “It’s the only one you’ll get.”
Another huff of laughter escaped Ellisar. “If you think I’m giving you anything,” he said, the humor fading just enough to expose the challenge beneath it, “you’ve misunderstood your position entirely.” His fingers tapped once against the Drasil. “Come take it.”
With an exhale, Kiran’s chest heaved. Yet he didn’t deign to reply. Instead, he raised his wand.
“Or walk out,” Ellisar added, motioning to the door. “Unless you are exactly what they say you are.”
Kiran’s grip tightened on his wand. “I know what they say about me.”
“That you’re a sniveling snake who only knows how to take from behind.” He gave Kiran a pointed look. “It seems they were correct… because Imani will never choose you over me.”
Power rose through Kiran’s limbs, hot and fast. He let it burst from his wand. “Don’t you dare say her name!” he roared.
The first strike tore across the room in a wide surge, ripping through the air toward Ellisar with enough force to crack the wood behind him.
Ellisar evaded at the last second, and the attack grazed past as his own wand lifted, answering with a counter that snapped forward in a tight line.
It struck Kiran in the side, forcing him back a step, but he did not slow.
“Still holding back? And they say you’re a twelve-mark,” Kiran taunted, breath pushing harder now, a dark grin breaking through as he struck again. “She deserves better.”
Ellisar’s mouth thinned. The Drasil wand sliced through the air, and the next spell hit faster, driving straight for Kiran’s heart.
Kiran twisted, caught the spell, and sent it back doubled.
The impact finally drove Ellisar from his chair, forcing him to step fully into the fight.
Furniture splintered as the exchange escalated, each strike meeting another, power colliding in bursts that tore through the room and shattered anything caught between them.
Pushing harder, faster, with more magic, Kiran set the pace, forcing Ellisar backward across the carpet, each movement building momentum, each strike landing closer to his heart. His breath hitched as the advantage shifted to his side, clear and undeniable when Ellisar retreated.
“There it is,” Kiran sneered. “That’s all you are.”
Ellisar reached up and touched the blood welling at the corner of his mouth before glaring at Kiran for the first time.
Then his wand moved once. Magic cracked out with brutal strength, catching Kiran in the chest and slamming him into the far wall.
Breath tore from him on impact, the spell breaking apart in his grip as he hit hard enough to crack stone behind him.
Pain hit Kiran. Real this time.
Ellisar advanced without pause, stomping over the broken furniture as if he were merely walking through a field.
Kiran pushed himself off the wall, barely getting his wand up in time to block the next strike.
His injuries made each strike land harder; each blow forced him back, breaking the rhythm he had built and turning the fight in a single moment he could not stop.
“You mistake noise for strength,” Ellisar said. “And speed for victory.”
Another blow landed. Kiran dropped to one knee with a grunt and clenched his jaw to keep from shouting in pain.
Magic stole the breath from his lungs, suffocating him and forcing him to hold against it with everything he had left.
Ellisar raised his wand again.
“End it, then,” Kiran said through gritted teeth, panting as he searched the room for something, anything, he could use to his advantage.
A shout erupted in the corridor beyond the rooms. Ellisar’s attention whipped to the warded door.
The shields around the apartment flared with the impact from outside, drawing another hard pull of magic from Ellisar as he reinforced them on instinct.
Kiran sensed the change against his magic signature.
Ellisar still held the room, the Drasil, and the defenses beyond it while preparing to finish him, but for less than a second, his focus belonged elsewhere.
And it was the opening.
Kiran ducked and rolled around Ellisar, then rose in one fluid motion and pummeled him with a single, brutal punch to the blind side. Ellisar doubled over. Then Kiran’s wand rose at once, magic hitting Ellisar from behind before he could fully stand and turn, the impact slamming into his back.
“Hmm,” Kiran muttered, breath coming in rough pants. “Seems you were right about me.”
Ellisar staggered forward a step, nearly falling into a broken chair.
Kiran moved in faster now, one hand striking out as his magic locked Ellisar in place just long enough for the second move to land. His grip closed around the Drasil.
The wand rejected him at once, uncalibrated to his magic. Power tore through his palm and up his arm, reopening the healing flesh across his back as his body seized around the shock. It burned his skin, but he did not let go.
Ellisar twisted free, but the moment had already passed. The wand tore from his hand, and Kiran pulled back with it, the magic signature snapping into Kiran’s grasp with violent force.
The room blurred around him as he turned and ran toward the windows.
He wished he had beaten Ellisar instead of stealing one second from him. One second was enough for today, but soon, he’d take on the other elf uninjured. He’d prove who Imani deserved to be mated to once and for all.
Glass shattered under the impact as he drove through the pane without slowing, the night air hitting him hard as he cleared the frame. The drop came fast, but he did not fall far.
Kiran’s stomach dropped at the weightlessness of the fall, but he shifted midair.
Healing magic poured through his limbs on instinct, bracing what remained of the wounds as adrenaline flooded him one last time. He let out a roar of pain as his body broke apart and reformed in a single motion, wings tearing outward, the Drasil still clenched between his jaws.
The dragon fell a few feet until his wings caught the wind.
Panting heavily, Kiran flew upward into the dark clouds… and did not look back.