by K. A. Linde
“We’ll see,” Dean said. He strode several paces away from her and withdrew his sword as the room was cleared for a duel.
But Cyrene didn’t move. She stood in the middle, between men she had thought she loved. The men who would now fight to the death.
Her hand was over her heart, her mouth open. This was not about honor. This was about her. About who could win her over.
She was not a prize. No duel would ever change that.
And where is Kael Dremylon in all of this?
Smirking like a fool across the room.
She stalked toward him. Her anger was a lit fuse, ready to burst at any moment.
“What have you done?” she demanded.
“Careful, Cyrene,” Kael said. “You do not want to get in the middle of this.”
“Why did you tell Edric? You are going to get your brother killed!”
“I didn’t tell him anything.”
“Liar!”
He arched an eyebrow. “You think it wasn’t obvious the moment he pulled you away from Edric? He knew. He didn’t even need my confirmation.”
“Though you gave it, I’m sure.”
“Now, do you think I’m the kind of person who would like to see you suffer?” His hand reached for hers.
She yanked it away. “Perhaps you enjoy suffering. You could stop this, yet you are doing nothing.”
“Nothing can stop this. It was inevitable.”
“Well, I am not going to stand on the sidelines and watch.”
Kael grabbed her hand. “You are the consort. For the time being, that is exactly what you will do.”
“Do not test me, Kael.”
“That is all I plan to do.” He leaned forward and brushed his mouth against her ear. “If you want to stop them from going through with this, do it. Coerce them.”
She jolted back. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Then, you will play the victim. Again.”
Cyrene glared at him—more because he was right than he was wrong. She wanted him to be wrong. But both Edric and Dean were hotheaded. Both trained warriors. Both infatuated with her.
If she wanted to stop them, then she had to make it happen. But mental coercion felt…wrong. On so many levels.
“Have you done it to me?” she asked.
“Once since the docks.”
“And when was that?”
“When you were starving, filthy, and spent on my ship, and all you wanted to do was argue with me. I needed to take care of you first, and you wouldn’t let me. You were so beaten by that prison,” he said softly.
Cyrene tensed at his words. She hated thinking about that prison and the shell of a person she had been when she got out of it.
“I would do anything to be the man ripping out Dean’s throat for hurting you. No one should ever make you feel like less than you are.”
Cyrene swallowed and closed her eyes as Dean and Edric turned to face one another, swords out. She had seen the way Dean fought. She knew Edric was trained, but she didn’t know his skill. She wanted neither of them dead—particularly because she had just done something utterly horrible to save Edric’s life.
Slipping into Edric’s mind was like burying her feet in soil—grounded and teeming with possibility. Her powers released with a sigh, as if she had been made to do this. She sifted through memories, getting a sense of exactly who Edric was—proud, fair, erratic. There was something almost wrong with the way his mind was working. She couldn’t exactly place it.
The crowd gasped, and she opened her eyes, losing that grasp on his mind. This was not the time to be learning a new skill.
“Help me,” she begged of Kael.
“You can do this. Tell them to stop, if that is what you truly desire.”
She ground her teeth and blindly reached back. This time, she sank into Dean’s mind. It was like dipping her hand in cool water—effortless and refreshing. The water called to him. Though he had a soldier’s mind, his thoughts were like reading poetry. Refined, flowing, and charismatic, but with a precision she couldn’t possibly explain. Order and disorder, all in one.
The men circled each other as she went to work, trying to find a way to tell them to stop. Yelling it into their mind did nothing. This seemed more intricate work than brute force. And brute force was always her specialty.
Swords clanged. Teeth bared. Choreographed footwork maneuvered in circles. Dean struck quick and true, slicing across Edric’s arm. Edric growled and retaliated, reaching for Dean’s exposed shoulder. He nicked him, but Dean danced out of the way. The next attack from Dean showed how much he had loosened up. He was exquisite. Cyrene had seen him fight for his captain’s position back in Eleysia. Fierce and deadly. In fact, now that she looked more closely, it appeared that Dean was toying with Edric. He could have ended it at anytime.
“He’s messing with Edric,” Cyrene whispered.
“You’ve just noticed? Your captain appears to have been practicing since we last fought,” Kael said with a bite in his voice.
She reached out for Dean one last time to try to will him to stop this. She read the shift in his intentions at the precise moment he decided to go for the killing blow.
“No!” Cyrene reached her hand and commanded him to stop.
And he did.
It was like trying to stop a galloping horse with her bare hand, but she did it.
“Very good,” Kael said.
What was not so good was that she couldn’t possibly hold Edric at the same time. He charged Dean and opened a long gash through his arm. The pain lashed through Dean, and she released him with a gasp.
She held her own arm, as if Edric had sliced through it, but there was no blood. Only remnants of the pain Dean felt.
“Aren’t you going to do more?” Kael taunted.
But she could do no more.
Within seconds, Dean batted Edric’s sword from his hand and knocked him to the ground. Dean stood over him, the clear victor, as he held his sword to Edric’s throat.
“Dean, please,” Cyrene cried into the silence.
No one could believe what had just happened. Their king had dueled and…lost? It seemed impossible.
Cyrene knew that Dean was a fool for coming, but Edric was the fool for underestimating his opponent. She had thought that Dean would win but hadn’t wanted to consider what would happen for either of them.
The terms of duels were simple. A fight to the death.
That meant that Dean could take this killing strike in front of all of the highest-ranking officials in Byern and walk away scot-free. For Edric had initiated the duel, and law stated that no man could be punished for the death. Not even of the king.
“Please,” she whispered, fighting to contain her magic as rage pulsed through her.
All of this over what?
She uncoiled the magic from her center and set it free to build in her hands. She would stop this madness. Dean would not do this.
Her head held high, she stepped into the empty circle. “Do not kill him.”
Dean didn’t break his concentration from Edric, who was clutching his injured side and breathing heavily. “I’ll offer you a trade.”
“I’ve no interest in negotiating with you,” Edric spat.
“A life for a life,” Dean said. “Your honor intact.”
“I’ll never give her to you. I’d rather die.”
“I know that feeling well.”
Cyrene came to stand before Dean. “No one can give me to anyone. I pick and choose where I go. I will not be bound to anyone ever again,” she said firmly. “Let him go, Dean.”
“He will lose all honor if I do so. He will owe me a debt for the rest of his life.”
“Then, take me with you,” Cyrene offered, appearing like a martyr before her people.
“Cyrene, no,” Edric cried.
“It is the only way.”
She offered Dean her hand with promise of vengeance in her eyes. If he thought for a second that he could
hurt Edric while she was here, she would prove otherwise. He had thought her magic made her dangerous before…but he had no idea what she was capable of now.
With a wince at the look on her face, Dean sheathed his sword and took her hand.
“The debt is paid,” she said simply.
“Cyrene, please!” Elea cried from the corner. “Don’t go!”
She faced her sister with grief on her face. “I love you. I always have, and I always will.” She looked around the ballroom for her brother but didn’t see him. “Tell Reeve and Rhea the same.”
Elea nodded with tears streaming down her face. No matter that they had quarreled, her love was true.
Then, Cyrene took a deep breath and prepared to leave Byern again once and for all. Not a kidnapped innocent but a martyr.
Dean sighed next to her, as if he couldn’t believe that his ruse had worked. They walked toward the door, and the sea of Affiliates and High Order parted before them. Not a word was spoken. Every set of eyes was one of deep pity, compassion, and gratitude. This was how it was supposed to be. Now, she could leave and never look back. She could be at peace.
But then she felt it.
A tug on her bond.
A slight shift in the air.
A fury that rivaled her own.
She wheeled around at the last possible moment and threw up a shield as a ball of swirling darkness shot toward them. It harmlessly bounced off the shield and disintegrated. Cyrene knew exactly whose magic that belonged to.
Kael Dremylon stepped off the sidelines and into the ring. “You will not take her anywhere.”
He was holding another ball of darkness, as if he were holding an apple, and the silence from the crowd turned into screams. Pandemonium ignited in the room as everyone realized exactly what they had seen.
Magic.
In a world where magic did not exist.
Or so they’d thought.
“Try to take her away from me again,” Dean growled, removing his sword.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Kael told him.
“The feeling is mutual.”
Kael lobbed the darkness at Dean with a quickness that was unrivaled. Cyrene barely got her shield up in time to protect Dean.
Her eyes darted around the room. No one was leaving. Why is no one leaving?
Then, she felt it. Kael had enclosed the room. No one could leave. They all had to bear witness to what was about to happen. He wanted an audience.
If he wanted a show, then Cyrene would give him one. She stepped in front of Dean and faced off with Kael.
Here he was…finally showing his hand. Darkness, chaotic destruction, and madness filled the room as his power intensified before her.
Darkness and light.
Heirs.
A matched set.
He couldn’t have been more right about that. Drawn to each other like magnets.
Good and evil.
Perhaps the prophecy had simplified it all down to that, but she knew that she was not wholly good, and he was not wholly evil. But, as she squared off with him, everything seemed to click into place. This was the showdown of a lifetime.
Forget all the buildup to the end and all the added revelations the prophecy promised to her. She was here and he was living death. She wasn’t ready, but she knew she never would be against Kael.
“You protect him?” Kael snarled. “After all he did to you?”
“I protect the innocent.”
“He is hardly innocent.”
“He does not deserve death for his idiocy.”
“Come back to me, Cyrene,” he pleaded. He held out his hand. “Rule the world at my side.”
“Who did you sacrifice for it?”
His eyes darkened at her question.
“What did you do to attain it?”
He lashed out at her shield, shattering it into a million pieces. Then, he clawed at her mind, but she was prepared. She had up a mental barrier that she had learned while battling the Braj. Nothing was getting through that she didn’t allow. Not while she was brimming with blood magic.
“Do you even mourn them?”
“You don’t know what you speak of.”
“Oh, I think I, of all people, know exactly what I speak of,” Cyrene said. She drew wind to her and threw it at him like a knife.
He batted it away, as if it were a fly. “Try harder, love.”
The ground beneath them shook as she shoved the tiled floor toward him, trying to knock him off-balance. He used the air to haul himself off the ground and landed, unharmed, not five feet from her.
“This isn’t practice. If you want to get out of here, you’re going to have to do more than that.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she told him.
Kael laughed. “You’re not capable of it.”
Cyrene gritted her teeth and took the taunt for what it was. Because she knew, deep down, that the only reason he had walked into that circle was because he was hurt. Her taking Dean’s hand had hurt him. A betrayal in his eyes. One he could not, would not, forget.
“Cyrene, let’s just go,” Dean begged behind her.
“I wouldn’t be so sure she wants to go with you,” Kael ground out. “She’s spent all this time with me, trying to forget you.”
Kael shot a bolt of lightning at Dean. He threw himself into a dive roll to avoid it. The crowd screamed and scrambled away from the magic. The bolt hit the wall with a sizzling smash, leaving a crack from floor to ceiling. Cyrene could hear the women weeping at the explosion.
Her eyes landed on the one woman who hadn’t gotten away. A young redhead with alabaster skin and wide-sightless blue eyes. She hadn’t gotten away fast enough. A name drifted up to her from the depths—Affiliate Robin. And now she was dead…at Kael’s hand. An affiliate.
Dean reached for Cyrene’s hand, trying to tug her out of the ballroom, but she knew she couldn’t leave it like this. Not with Kael’s shield up. She would have to finish this before she could leave.
“Kael,” Cyrene said, “please, stop this. You don’t have to be this person.”
“I’m afraid I do,” he said, his hands crackling as he readied himself for another attack.
“I knew that you had these powers. I…suspected where they had come from,” she said, inching toward him. She held her protective shield up…wondering if it would be enough to stop him. “But I didn’t believe that you…or anyone could take blood magic.”
“You did it,” Kael told her.
“My parents were already dead! And I did it to save Edric’s life,” Cyrene said.
A murmured gasp came from the crowd. Cyrene’s eyes darted to Edric’s, who was behind a wall of guardsmen.
“It doesn’t seem to matter,” Kael said.
And, in her split second of distraction, Kael shot forward, air circling her and yanking her off her feet. She was lifted ten feet off the ground before she could find a way to break through the air with a sword made of flames. She dropped like a stone in the sea but landed gracefully on her feet in a crouch. Then, she stood, whipping her dark hair out of her face and holding her flaming blade aloft.
“Impressive,” Kael said with a grin.
“Let these people go. They are blameless.”
“No one is entirely innocent, Cyrene. You taught me that.”
“Tell me what happened, Kael. How did it happen for you? Who did you kill?”
“You know, I can’t seem to remember them all.”
Cyrene let the horror show on her face.
“But Jardana was the most powerful. The greater the connection, the more magic.”
“Jardana?” Cyrene muttered. She had hated the queen’s lackey and Kael’s lover at one point, but she had never wanted this to happen to her. “How could you do it?”
“Oh, you’ll feel it soon enough.”
“Feel what?” she asked. She stepped forward, clearing the remaining distance between them, and angled the sword toward his chest
.
He looked at it as if it were a toy. Not a deadly weapon.
“The hunger. The need. When the magic runs low, you crave it. You’re sitting at the top of a full well. Wait until you reach the bottom.”
“You said yourself, we could do anything together,” she said, pushing the sword against his chest. She singed his black button-up and left a small mark over his heart. “Then, end this now.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe I don’t want to?” Kael asked.
She saw the swell of magic in his eyes. She felt the raw power that emanated from him, and it filled the room.
“I want the power, and so do you.”
“Not like this!” she cried.
“Yet you sank into his mind so easily.”
“To keep them from killing each other!”
Kael laughed and snapped his fingers. Her sword went up in a cloud of black smoke. She was left holding her empty hand out toward him. Kael latched on to her wrist and tugged her forward. Their faces were only an inch apart. He could kill her as easily as he could kiss her. And, with the magic brimming through him and the intensification of her own at his touch, she had no idea which it would be.
“Good intentions mean nothing with blood magic, love,” he whispered like a prayer. “Once this is gone and the power disappears…you’ll kill. You’ll try to justify it, but I’ll know. You’ll know.”
“I won’t.”
“When have I ever been wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She shed only one tear and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.
It was all she needed to divert him. She reached deep in her powers and sent a shock wave against him. He released her and shot thirty feet across the ballroom, slamming back against the far wall with a crunch.
His shield dropped at once, and the crowds he had held back dashed through the exits in a hurry. But she just stood there. Her magic stuttering and sizzling against her skin. The force she’d had to use to tear down his shield and stop him from harming anyone was tremendous. Not quite like stopping a hurricane, but Kael was more powerful than she had ever dreamed. If she hadn’t had that edge, she didn’t know if she ever would have stopped him.
“Cyrene,” Dean said, gently touching her elbow.
She jolted away. She couldn’t tear her eyes from Kael.