14. Aldrin
I slam my fists into the thick pad in Dante’s arms, one after the other in a fast rhythm. The force of my blows makes him retreat a step. “Can you explain to me”—I gasp for air—“how in all the darkness you managed to get a time stutter?”
The other man visibly flinches, the motion making him lower the pad marginally, and I almost miss it and hit him in the chin. It’s not like he wouldn’t deserve it with the stunt he pulled during my final trial.
“The only way a fae can get a time stutter.” His eyes slide away from mine.
I pause in my onslaught, my eyebrows shooting up. “You’ve been to the Temporal Court?”
“I have.”
“But it’s in ruins. Isn’t setting foot within that space a death sentence?” I ask. “I thought people became fractured by the clouds of unbridled time magic that hover over the lands.”
Dante puts the punching pad down and wipes a towel over his face.
“I think that is the point of sending people there. As a fucked-up death sentence. Others are stupid enough to go in voluntarily, believing they can master the power. The gods know it nearly fractured me. It took decades before I was able to stop uncontrollably popping in and out of time.”
I want to ask him so many questions, but it is clear from the tension rippling through him that it triggers great trauma.
The doors to the training room slam open, ricocheting off the walls, and half a dozen assassins stalk through. They are in full armor, with weapons strapped to their legs, hips and backs, wearing the signature indigo robes of the order.
“Aldrin, newly elevated Assassin of Belladonna, the Mistress of the order has summoned you,” one of the soldiers announces.
I glance in confusion from them to Dante and back.
“Good luck with that,” Dante says under his breath. “I’m sure you’ll need it.”
I strap on the pieces of my armor I removed for our sparring session and pick up a helmet from a long rack. “I am taking this with me,” I shoot over my shoulder at Dante, following the other assassins out of the room.
A horrible twisting churns my gut as I stride down a long stone corridor, flanked on either side by warriors. I feel like a man walking to his death. The Mistress must know of my intentions here. Why else would she summon me?
This is the true last trial.One final brutal fight to get everything I need to save Keira and my court.
I hardly survived my battle with Dante. The Mistress is famed to be the strongest and most skilled of the assassins. It is the reason she has kept her mantle for over a hundred years.But I can do this, even if my heart races frantically and sweat drips down my spine.
I am led to a set of brilliant blue double doors, and the assassins pull them open to reveal a small, private fighting arena beyond.
The wooden floors are speckled with blood, tiny burns and black droplets that could only be poison.
Fresh mats cover its center and a ring of pews spanning two levels surrounds the ring, with many columns holding up the second-level balconies.
The huge glass panels of a skylight occupy the center of the ceiling and beams of silver light illuminate the entire room in that soft glow the Nightmare fae prefer.
Clicking footsteps draw my attention to the woman who approaches from the far end of the arena.
The Mistress. Her hair, pitch black on one side and stark white on the other, is pulled up into a tight bun on top of her head.
Darkness curls around her, seeping into her black armor of skintight scales.
Her eyes are expressionless as they run up and down me.
The only part of her that isn’t cool and collected is her pointed black tail. It swishes with agitation.
“Aldrin. Exiled King of the Spring Court. What could possibly convince a man like you to turn your back on your people and join our ranks instead?” she muses in that high-pitched, musical voice.
I tip my head to her in respect. “Mistress of the Assassins of Belladonna, you didn’t leave me much choice when your warriors attacked me every single night.”
“Call me by my name: Belladonna. We both know you are here for more than that.” Her irises turn a swirling silver. “Challenge me. You have fought hard through every trial and waited patiently for the opportunity.”
My eyebrows shoot up. She knew my plans this entire time.
Her laughter is like tinkling bells. “ Challenge me! You want to take what’s mine, do you not?
What I have worked hard for centuries to build.
An army of skilled assassins, ripe for the picking, to win back your throne.
Do you think you are the first warlord to knock on my door and attempt to rob me?
” The cloak of shadows around her flares.
Guilt rolls through me, but I force it down.
A younger, more idealistic version of myself would have been horrified at my actions.
Now, I will do whatever is necessary to give me the power to defeat Titania.
The High Chancellor’s power doesn’t come from great magic, but from the cult-like influence she has over the civilians.
She can call up a frenzied, blindly loyal army from their ranks by simply telling them to rise.
Half the city will do so without question, and not even our army can compete with those numbers.
“You haven’t lost your nerve, have you, Spring King?” Belladonna circles around me.
I put on my helmet, pull my sword from my back and allow my raw power to visibly crackle along its surface. “I challenge you as the leader of the Assassins of Belladonna to a duel to the death. The winner takes ownership of the order, as are the rules.”
A burst of black light erupts from her hand, followed by a crack of sound, forming a tall staff.
Its center is the deepest, darkest void, a blackness without end, but the strangest glow of silvery light ripples and thrashes around its outline like flames.
“You, Aldrin of the Spring Court, challenge the leadership of the Assassins of Belladonna, and I accept.”
In a flash, she charges across the fighting floor and her staff collides with my sword.
Sparks fly off both weapons. The starlight falling off hers burns with a frozen intensity wherever it finds my skin between the cracks in my armor.
I grunt with effort as I thrust her staff wide, and she skips back with a dancer’s grace.
Belladonna launches forward as I bring my sword in a powerful blow toward her neck.
She plants her staff into the ground and drops her entire body low, swinging it around the pole and under my attack.
Both her legs slam into my stomach with momentum and I stagger backward, half hunched over.
She swings herself in a full circle to land gracefully on her feet, facing me once more.
I have seen professional dancers use such a move, but never anything like it in a fight.
We clash again in a series of brutal blows, getting a feel for each other’s fighting style and weaknesses. I slide to my knees as her weapon of starlight and blackness takes a swing for my head.
I erupt the purest white light of raw magic from the blade of my sword as I try to take out her legs from beneath her.
Shadows cover her skin entirely and she somersaults away, landing in a handstand while her tail catches the staff she tossed in the air.
In that position, she jabs the spiked tip toward my face as she lowers one leg to the ground, followed by the other, in a fluid motion.
I am forced to bend my back almost parallel with the ground to dodge the attack.
Belladonna has the advantage, on her feet while I am spread back on my elbows. I roll out of my position as she stalks toward me.
I sense thin, mostly dead brambles climbing up the exterior walls of this room and feed my magic into the little life left within them, making their essence surge.
Within a heartbeat, huge, spiked branches shatter the glass panes of the ceiling and slam down into the floor right where Belladonna stands, just missing her as she backflips away.
A rain of glass shards falls upon us. I throw up an air shield to protect myself. One large piece penetrates halfway through my defense, its sharp tip stopping inches from my face.
I pull into motion the many branches that now reach from the ceiling into the floor, having them sweep through the air to pursue my enemy and slam together in attempts to catch her.
She is too fast, darting away a fraction of a second before those immense woody bodies can pulverize her.
Not even their long spikes are able to get close enough to slice her.
The ground heaves and shakes as each of my attacks slams down against it.
Wild laughter rings out.
It is coming from Belladonna.
A vortex of shadows erupts out of her, sharpened to a thousand blades.
I hurl myself to the ground and put all my power into an air shield and a woody barrier.
Her attack slices through the brambles until they are nothing but splinters.
My reinforced shields take longer to fall, then the lessened impact of that explosion cuts across my armor, digging rents into the metal.
I shake my head to clear the fog of pain blossoming across me, then leap to my feet and charge Belladonna before she has a chance to make her next move.
With my sword raised high, I bring forth the power reservoir within it.
I will stab her in the chest, then illuminate the inside of her body with that purest white light her kind cannot take.
Deep where her shadows cannot protect her.
That tail of hers tells me she is not completely high fae.
We clash in a series of strikes, my blade getting infuriatingly close but never quite connecting.