by Kova, Elise
Off balance, Ferro dropped the sword and his grip on her. Eira landed, rolling backward. Her side slammed into a rock by the lake bed. She gasped, wheezing. But the ice continued to protect her flesh. The covering stayed as she stood once more, staggering to her feet as Ferro approached.
“You…you made the shield on the lake,” Eira whispered, trying to get her thoughts in order.
“You two were the last to die tonight and I got clumsy.” He took a breath, opening his mouth once more. But Eira didn’t give him a chance to say another word of power.
With a cry, she lunged forward. Ice flaked off of her. A weapon appeared in Eira’s hand by instinct more than a conscious command. She thrust forward, ready to skewer him.
“Mysst soto xieh!” Ferro barely had time to react. Eira’s trident shattered on his shield.
She spun in place, feeling the air around her condense. The moonlight shifted through her distortion. A copy of her—an illusion—jumped back as she spun around Ferro, invisible in the darkness.
“Juth calt,” he snarled, and Eira watched as her illusion was ripped to shreds.
She summoned a dagger to her palm and went to plunge it into his side. But Ferro was too fast and too well-trained. He dodged at the last second, her ice merely clipping his luxurious coat harmlessly.
“Kot sorre.” A glyph appeared between them. It charged into her, pushing Eira back. She tumbled through the snow, trying to fight against it. But the circle of light moved with the speed of a carriage pulled by a dozen invisible horses and she was just as helpless to fight it.
Her back cracked against a trunk as the glyph nearly doubled her around a tree. Eira let out a gasp of air and the remaining ice vanished from her skin. Everything in her body hurt. Everything was aflame with an agony she’d never known before.
The only thing that kept her moving was a drive deeply rooted in her—survival. She would do anything to survive. She would keep moving at all costs. She wasn’t going to let him or anyone steal the breath from her lungs.
Especially not before she avenged her brother.
Eira groaned, plunging her fingers into the snow. She dug deeper than ever before for magic. Ice spiked upward, racing from her to Ferro.
“Juth calt.” He shattered her magic with two words, sending a spray of ice in all directions. “You can’t beat me. You know that, right?” He laughed. “You’re tougher than you look, I grant you. But I am the son of the Champion. I am destined for glory!”
Eira groaned, moving her hand through the snow, trying to leech its cold—its strength. But she was tired, so tired. There wasn’t enough left in her to fight him. He was right. She didn’t even know the first thing about combat.
Ferro came to a stop, looming over her. “Now, it’s time for you to die.”
Eira pressed her eyes closed. Make it stop, she begged her magic, the goddess, anyone. This can’t be it; I can’t die here.
“Loft dorh,” he snarled.
Weight piled atop her, trying to hold her down.
No! The instinct to survive was back—even when her body broke, it persisted. Eira resisted against the invisible force. She pushed herself to her knees.
“Loft dorh,” Ferro repeated with purpose. Eira saw the glyphs that hovered in his palms flickering, as if they were unstable, as if his own strength was fading. “How…how are you—”
She didn’t give him a chance to finish. With her magic waning, Eira was left with no other choice. She punched him square across the jaw. Her knuckles split on his bone but she followed up her first punch with another. And then a third.
Ferro stumbled backwards, putting space between them. He wiped the back of his hand against his bloodied face. Eira knew she shouldn’t ease up on her attacks but she was too weary to keep going. Every movement was leaden.
“Maph,” he snarled. A glyph sparked like a tinderbox around his wrist. Barely there and fragile. Ferro looked at it in disgust and then back to her. He opened his mouth to speak but Eira wasn’t going to give him the opportunity.
Running on the last of her power, she froze his mouth shut. He grunted and groaned in agony, raking his fingers down his face, his nails clipping on ice. But her magic didn’t budge, and his lips could no longer move.
Lightspinning was powerful and incredible in its versatility. But it had one key weakness that Eira had just figured out—a sorcerer had to be able to say the words to summon the glyphs and use the magic.
Eira sank back, collapsing. She kept a firm hold on her magic. She’d die before she let him speak again.
Ferro charged forward, hands balled into fists.
With a look toward his feet, she rooted him to the ground. Ferro toppled forward, no longer able to move. Three points of magic—she had to sustain three points, his mouth and two feet.
As Ferro tugged against her holds, Eira stared at him listlessly. It was because of him her brother was dead. He had tried to kill them both.
Whatever remnants there had once been of her heart were now turning dark and cold. Part of her was dying alongside where her brother lay. Whatever goodness Eira had once possessed was leaving her.
Kill him, an ugly voice within her snarled. It grew louder by the minute. Blood for blood.
Eira stared at Ferro. He’d stopped struggling and now stared at her with an almost content gaze. He was going to wait her out. He knew how weak her magic was and the moment he was free, she wouldn’t be able to put up a fight.
Her gaze drifted back to Marcus.
Pushing herself up for what felt like the final time, Eira made her way to her brother, ignoring Ferro. She knelt down, scooping him up—or trying to.
Marcus…the golden child. Marcus…the better one. Marcus…the true son of their parents.
His blood was on her hands as much as it was on Ferro’s.
She hadn’t been fast enough. She’d told him to stop trying to break the shield. She’d gone out on the lake with him in the first place and skated in stupid circles when she should have insisted they keep pressing onward.
Her mind jumped from one dark thought to the next. Further and further down she spiraled until she was the one who had sunk into a dark abyss. But when Eira opened her eyes, she was the one still breathing.
Eira bowed her head and pressed it into the center of Marcus’s chest. He was freezing over. The water had sapped the warmth from his body before they’d even come ashore.
“We promised… I promised you,” she rasped. “We would go back together. Let’s go, brother. One last time.”
She didn’t have much magic left and what she was about to do risked depleting the last of it. She was risking Ferro getting free to bring her brother back with her. But Eira couldn’t have it any other way.
Eira lifted a hand and her brother rose off the ground, supported by a bed of snow and water. It gurgled and shifted around him. Marcus was carried on the tides of her magic as Eira began the long march back to Solarin.
Ferro sounded like he was laughing behind her. His throaty chortles and snorts echoed into the forest, chasing her with the promise that soon he would be as well. She ignored the noise and focused on her magic. One hand guided Marcus. The other was balled into a fist and held Ferro in place. She would keep that fist all the way back to Solarin. She would keep it until Ferro was captured by someone stronger than her.
It wasn’t even an hour when Eira slipped the first time. Marcus tumbled to the ground and she caught herself on a tree. Tears spilled down her face once more.
“I’m sorry.” Eira hastily lifted her hand, bringing him upward on his bed of snow and water. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”
Eira spoke as she walked. She told her brother of all the things that she should have said when he could hear her. She told him about her fears, about her wants, about her worries.
But her voice soon gave out. It was just as tired as she was.
So tired.
One step.
Then the next.
That w
as all she could think about. One step after another. A relentless march toward Solarin.
“I’ll get you the Rites of Sunset,” Eira vowed aloud as the sun rose. “I’ll see your soul has a proper send-off to the realms beyond. I promise, Marcus.” The tears were flowing again. “I couldn’t save you, but I can do this.”
Silence was her only reply.
One step.
Then the next.
The fingers of her left hand were sweating. They trembled with the strain of keeping a fist and a hold on her magic. Eira refused to release them. She would die before she let that man free. If she repeated that enough times, it would come true.
The trees blurred around her, eventually relenting to a road that appeared out of nowhere. Eira stumbled down the snowy bank. Tripping, and falling hard. The cobblestones bit into her. Red splattered gray and white.
Marcus tumbled next to her. Eira pressed herself upright, uttering a thousand apologies. Warm, wet tears thawed the chill on the cobblestones as they fell from her cheeks.
They were close.
Just a little more from her, from her magic. And then… She didn’t know what then. She would sleep for a thousand years, maybe. She would sleep until the hurt stopped.
Keeping her left hand in a fist, Eira tried to stand. But her feet slipped on her own blood. She fell once more, clipping her chin. Her whole body was a mess of bruises and exhaustion.
Eira lay on the road next to her brother. She stared at his lifeless face.
“I can’t,” she rasped. “I can’t, Marcus. I can’t do this alone. I can’t make it back without you.” He continued to lie there, lifeless. “Please wake up.”
He didn’t.
Eira lay back and stared at the trees above her. Every second was harder than the last to keep her hand in a fist. Her muscles had long since cramped and locked up.
Blinking slowly, she watched as dawn broke on a silent world. She imagined people waking and going about their business and she hated every last one of them for their ignorance to her suffering. She would freeze it all if she weren’t so tired.
Every time her eyes closed was longer than the last. Yet Eira kept her hand locked. Maybe she was Adela’s offspring after all. Maybe Ferro was right and she had elfin power. How else could she sustain for so long?
Eira hoped he was right. For the first time she hoped she was spawned from the cold and cruel pirate queen. That would make her life, and her blood, cursed. And she would inflict that curse on whatever existence Ferro had beyond her.
Just when Eira’s eyes were closing for what felt like the final time, a rumbling echoed through the earth to her. It drew nearer and nearer until it could no longer be ignored. Eira twisted, barely able to lift her head.
In the distance was a rider, moving faster than the wind itself—as if the horse was flying more than galloping. Only one man could perform such a trick.
Eira opened her mouth, croaking, “Cullen.” She swallowed thickly; it tasted of blood. “Cullen!”
25
Eira felt as though she was being lifted from the grave. Cullen’s arms were sturdy as he hoisted her, supporting her on a bent knee, a hand cradling her head.
“Mother above, Eira, what—”
She knew by his expression what had halted him. His eyes had landed on Marcus, who was unnaturally still. Eira gripped Cullen’s shirt with her free hand.
“Ferro, he…”
“Meru’s ambassador?” Cullen shook his head, his eyes growing red with tears he was struggling to hold back. “What happened to you two?”
“Ferro attacked us.”
Cullen stared in shock. Then, his face twisted with a rage Eira had never thought possible from him. It shattered all of her notions of the prim and proper man who was always in control. He looked as if he was about to level the forest with a twister.
“I know you won’t believe me, but I swear—”
“I believe you.” Cullen looked back to Marcus once more. His arms tightened slightly around her. “We need to get you back. You need medical attention.”
“Yes, and I need your help to bring Marcus with me. I’m not strong enough to carry him and hold Ferro captive.”
“You have Ferro captive?” Cullen let out a curse word that sounded impressed rather than angry.
“I think so.” Eira lifted her fist. “I pinned him down and gagged him with ice. I can still feel my magic draining, so I think he’s still in place…” Unless he had broken free and she was just sending magic to a patch of ice in the woods.
“You’re incredible,” he murmured.
Eira had waited years for someone like Cullen to say that to her. For someone in the Tower—other than Alyss—to see her as valuable. To see her magic as powerful as Eira had always known it was. And now that she had the praise and attention…
She didn’t care.
All that mattered right now was Marcus and bringing Ferro to justice. She didn’t need Cullen’s—or anyone else’s—validation. She needed his help and strength.
“I have Ferro back by a lake, where he trapped us. I don’t know how much longer I can last. I can feel him struggling against my tethers… I have to get back and then we can send the guard. That way they can apprehend him.” If she could hold that long.
“Let him go; save your strength.”
“No. He must be brought to justice. He killed Marcus!” She clutched Cullen with her free hand. Cullen staggered some, eyes darting to Marcus and back to her.
“I agree with you. I do. But we need to focus on getting you back. And we can’t bring Ferro to justice alone.”
“That’s why I wanted to get the guard. My aunt—”
“Think of how this will look,” Cullen said firmly. “You and I both know your history. If you return with a dead body and holding the Ambassador to Meru captive and demand he be apprehended, fingers will end up pointed at you.”
“But I didn’t—”
“I know how this works, Eira. Trust me, I know better than anyone. Let Ferro go. He’ll be on the loose, yes, but then the guard can chase him down. We’ll leave Marcus here—”
“You want to leave my brother here?” Eira nearly shrieked. She wrestled herself from Cullen’s arms. He didn’t force his hold on her and Eira tumbled to the ground. She shook her head, pushing against the icy cobblestones. She’d get her and Marcus back to Solarin herself, alone, if that’s what it took.
“You have to listen to me, or you’ll be a suspect in his death.”
“I would’ve never hurt my brother.” She hung her head. The incident from three years ago would haunt her forever. She could never escape its repercussions.
She’d killed someone. She was forever branded as a murderer.
“I know that, but he’s not the only competitor who’s died tonight!”
“What?” She brought her eyes back to Cullen’s.
“That’s why I came looking for you both… The proctors found the other Waterrunners dead. Traps had sprung early and wrong. The others…they had their throats slit.”
Ferro had killed them. That’s what he’d meant about having a long night and the “others.” Eira’s gut turned molten and she had to consciously pack her ice tightly around her mind to keep a cool head.
“All the more reason we must bring him to justice. We can’t let him run free.” Eira stood, swaying. “I’m going back to Solarin with Marcus, then I’ll send the guard.”
“If you do this—”
“I’m doing this.”
“But—”
“This isn’t a negotiation, Cullen!” Eira turned to face him. “I made a promise—the last promise I will ever make to my brother was that we would go back together. We would finish this trial together. I don’t care what happens to me. I have let him down too many times in my life. I won’t, I can’t, let him down now. This is my last chance to do something for him. Don’t take it from me!” Her voice was cracked and broken, shaking apart like the rest of her. But no tears fell. She’d cr
ied out every drop of water within her. All that was left now was ice.
Cullen stared at her until he clearly could not bear to any longer. He looked away, back at his horse. Without a word, he strode over to the mount. Eira expected him to leave her. The Prince of the Tower couldn’t be seen with a murderer, after all.
Plus, he had his secret to guard—whatever that was—and he was right…they would suspect her. Even if she could prove her innocence, she would be under investigation. She knew how the events unfurled after something like this. She’d been here before. And the Waterrunners—her direct competitors—were the ones murdered. Eira’s gut twisted. Ferro had left her for last because he knew, even if he didn’t succeed, Solaris’s justice would finish her off for him.
No, she wouldn’t blame Cullen for leaving. It had been inevitable that he would. She was a risk to him and his family, a liability through association.
Except…he didn’t leave.
Cullen led the horse back to her. “Get on.”
“What?”
“You’re dead on your feet, get on.”
“But—”
“You need your strength to keep holding Ferro in place, don’t you? Don’t walk the rest of the way, ride. And before you ask, I’ll carry Marcus.”
“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered.
“I don’t, and I likely shouldn’t.” Cullen frowned. “I’m risking a lot right now, more than you realize.”
“Then why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. Because Marcus was my friend and he would want me to look out for you and because I…I want to look out for you.”
The last man that had “looked out for her” murdered her brother and tried to kill her. But Eira kept the thoughts to herself and gave a small nod. She needed Cullen’s help right now. But she wouldn’t be swept away by the kindness either. She would guard her heart from being vulnerable ever again.
Cullen helped her into the saddle and then faced Marcus. He stood in tense silence, head bowed, and Eira allowed him to have his moment. She had mourned through the entirety of the forest and would continue to mourn long after she’d returned to Solarin. When he was ready, he lifted his hands and Marcus’s body hovered off the ground.