Chapter 4 #2
I stopped her from falling by pulling on the thread that connected us. Then the vision ended. I came back to myself to find an assassin’s knife in my chest, and I had no choice but to abandon my pursuit of the Oracle while I recovered. Alone. Surrounded by ice.
I snarl softly into the rushing wind.
Well. The Oracle will escape the Iron King this time.
I’ll fucking see to it.
Even if I have to ignore the frozen cruelty that awaits her if I succeed in taking her with me.
My churning thoughts stop, brought to an abrupt halt as Nara leaps from the tunnel’s edge and out into the dark night.
I was ready for a swarm, but the sky around us is clear, the silence unnerving as we sail through the air toward the ridge.
Far behind us, faint shrieking echoes from the distance, the sounds of a fight I can’t risk looking back to see.
I don’t allow myself to breathe easily.
Safety is a fucking illusion. Always.
Just as Nara’s front paws touch rock and the mountain range stretches out before us—a path to safety—an immense gush of wind rushes across us.
A flying figure blurs at the corner of my eye, approaching too fast to evade.
Our downward momentum is against us.
As Nara’s legs bend to take the impact of her landing, the Iron King hits us from the side.
In that heartbeat, I catch the flash of black claws on his fingertips—ten of them, all extended—as he reaches for the Oracle, ready to rip her away from me.
My left arm was already free and ready. My palm connects with his shoulder in the nick of time, a torrent of ice pouring into him, knocking him back through the air before he can get a hold of her.
He quickly rights himself, coming to an abrupt halt mid-air and spearing back toward us.
I have mere seconds to call to Nara. “Go slow. Keep the Oracle safe.”
Quickly draping the Oracle across Nara’s back as best I can in the time I have, I wait another heartbeat for Nara to slow down and stop before I jump from her back.
Landing at a run, I extend my arms, one after the other, and pour ice across the mountain ridge and upward, creating frozen pillars in the Iron King’s path, forcing him to zigzag between them.
He’s quick, strong, and, unlike with me, gravity doesn’t dictate his movements. I have to be smart about how I approach this fight, or he’ll defeat me.
What’s more, I can’t assume that ordinarily mortal wounds will kill him. The only sure way to end him will be to take off his head.
The pinnacles slow him down for the seconds I need to calculate my next moves, a sequence of strikes and counterattacks, maneuvers that can use his rage and mindless need to reach the Oracle against him.
My intentions solidify like freezing dewdrops.
Just as the Iron King clears the final pinnacle, I leap upward, about to meet him mid-air, my fists extended. The gleam in his black eyes tells me he wants to tear right through me.
In the last seconds before we would collide, I switch tactics, drawing my swords, but, with a quick flick of my wrist, I transfer the sword in my left hand to my right, the two hilts fitting neatly side by side in my closing fist. Immediately, I allow my icy power to flow across my right palm, solidifying around the hilts of both swords as well as my fist so the blades become part of my arm.
And free up my left hand.
Striking with the combined blades, I narrowly miss impaling the Iron King’s chest, but that wasn’t my intention.
To avoid the striking steel, he rapidly adjusts his flight path, his muscles bunching, carrying him to my left, where he has a direct line of sight to the Oracle.
Exactly the direction I anticipated he’d move.
I pour ice from my left hand directly into his new path, sharp shards forming in the air with which he can’t avoid colliding.
They don’t stop him, but they do knock him off-balance, ice shattering around him.
Twisting mid-air, now facing Nara and the Oracle, I swing my left arm, pouring ice into the gaps around the Iron King, filling every escape so fast that he can’t avoid knocking against the ice in the air. When he does, I strike hardest, a driving cascade of ice into his back.
He drops through the only clear space at his feet, but I’m relentless.
Even as gravity takes hold of me, I use it to my advantage, filling the air with frost, a snowstorm raging around him and me as we meet the ground.
Whatever sharp eyesight he has, it’s obscured by the flurry raging around us.
A fury of falling snow that’s nothing new to me.
And contains a trap.
The smallest clear gap that will lead directly to the Oracle, who is safely outside the storm.
He dives toward the gap.
To be met with a wall of ice, the highest, widest wall I can create in the heartbeats I have.
I’m dangerously aware that I’m depleting my power at a rapid rate, but only an onslaught will give me victory against his strength and speed.
He spins to face me, fangs bared, his dark hair and black pants clearly visible within the flurry.
Now it’s time for my true attack.
As I close the gap between us, I smash my left fist against my right hand, cracking apart the ice sealing in my swords.
The Iron King roars through the storm as he lunges at me, his claws bared and right arm punching at me, but I don’t hold back, a cascade of ice knocking him the short distance back against the ice wall.
In the same move, I step right, drop my second sword’s hilt into my empty palm, and adjust the swing of both blades.
One sword strikes directly through his upraised right hand, impaling his palm and ramming into the wall behind it, pinning him. At the same time, I strike my other sword, side-on, toward his neck, aiming to cleave his head from his shoulders.
He sacrifices his hand, ripping it downward, the sword cutting through his palm so he can duck the blade coming for his neck.
I was ready for that move, my booted foot kicking into his chest before he can move off the ice, shoving him so hard that cracks appear on impact, radiating out from his body.
Once more quickly adjusting the trajectory of my still-moving sword, I slice it downward, again at his neck.
“No.”
The Oracle’s sudden whisper is a shout in my ears.
She stands in the snowstorm only five paces to my right, somehow withstanding my billowing power, her hand outstretched toward me. “Please.”
The pure agony in her voice knocks into me as savagely as a punch, my jolting movement sending my sword off-course, scattering chunks of ice and missing my target.
The Iron King lurches toward her. “Thyra!”
Is that her name?
In the instant that he tries to get to her, I catch sight of the flash of emerald in his eyes, no longer completely black.
But his back is exposed, he’s lurching up from a kneeling position, and I have no mercy.
With a snarl, I strike my sword through his chest before he can completely turn toward the Oracle, using his upward and forward momentum against him.
The sharp angle at which I drive the blade takes it across his clavicle and through his heart.
“No—!” The Oracle’s cry rips at me, her feet moving, but only a single step before her legs give way and she falls to her hands and knees.
As I strike the blade through the Iron King’s chest, forcing him back against the icy wall, his focus flies to me, his irises fully green, his forehead creasing, a dawning recognition in his face. Of me. Of the Oracle. And finally of the steel impaling his chest.
His legs buckle, already partially bent, now fully giving way.
“Please,” the Oracle cries. “Stop.”
My focus is on the Iron King now, but I can tell that the Oracle is trying to drag herself through the snow by the soft, scuffling sounds she’s making. She’s barely moving, shivering so hard that her breathing is ragged.
Many times I’ve listened to a foe collapse to their knees. Always, I’ve welcomed it.
Today…for her…not so much.
But I don’t stop, continuing to drive my sword deep through the Iron King’s chest and into the ice behind him, impaling him in such a way that he’ll have to slice through his own chest to escape.
Lowering my face to his, I take in his shallow breathing, his dragging inhalations as I whisper, “She is no longer yours.”
He slumps against the wall, his head drooping toward his chest.
Blood, deeply crimson, finally trickles from his lips, a blood loss that makes me wonder if the wound I’ve already inflicted could be fatal…
I can’t assume so.
“Thyra was never mine.” The Iron King’s fangs are gone, and I’m unsettled by the clarity in his green eyes, the ferocity in his voice, a monstrous determination as he rasps, “Stellen… Keep my hope safe…”
His hope?
The Oracle sobs where she huddles, her cries tearing at the air around me, plucking vibrations within the storm.
I want to give in to her wishes, to ease her grief and stop her weeping. She’s expending precious energy, energy she needs to conserve. But I can’t let this opportunity to finish the Iron King slip through my fingers.
I had the chance to end him three days ago. I didn’t because it would have meant physically wounding the Oracle.
I won’t stop this time.
Not even as her quiet, soul-crushing wails wash over me, or as she tries to drag herself toward me.
Not even as she begs me, “He didn’t choose this.”
My lips settle into a hard line as my power finally depletes and the snowstorm dies around us, the ground sparkling as snowflakes settle onto it.
Into the sudden silence between the Oracle and me, I whisper, “I am heartless. The sooner I prove that to you, the better.”