A cold breeze cut through, and Lila fought down a shiver. The men broke into rotting grins. She lowered her knife. And then, in one smooth move, she drew the pistol from her belt, raised it, and shot the first man between the eyes. He went down like a sack of stones, and Lila smiled before she realized how loud the gunshot sounded. She hadn’t noticed how quiet the city was until the shot rang out, the blast carrying down the streets. All around them, doors began to open. Shadows moved. Whispers and murmurs came from corners of the street—first one, then two, then half a dozen.
The second man, the one with papery skin, looked at the dead one, and then at Lila. He started talking again in a low threatening growl, and Lila was glad she didn’t speak his tongue. She didn’t want to know what he was saying.
Slivers of dark energy crackled through the air around the man’s blade. She could feel people moving behind her, the shadows taking shape into people, gaunt and grey.
Come on, Kell, she thought as she raised the gun again. Where are you?
V
“Let me pass,” said Kell.
Holland only raised a brow.
“Please,” said Kell. “I can end this.”
“Can you?” challenged Holland. “I do not think you have it in you.” His gaze went to Kell’s hand, the dark magic twining around it. “I warned you, magic is not about balance. It is about dominance. You control it, or it controls you.”
“I am still in control,” said Kell through gritted teeth.
“No,” said Holland. “You’re not. Once you let the magic in, you’ve already lost.”
Kell’s chest tightened. “I don’t want to fight you, Holland.”
“You do not have a choice.” Holland wore a sharpened ring on one hand and used it now to cut a line across his palm. Blood dripped to the street. “As Isera,” he said softly. Freeze.
The dark drops hit the ground and turned to black ice, shooting forward across the street. Kell tried to step back, but the ice moved too fast, and within seconds he was standing on top of it, fighting for balance.
“Do you know what makes you weak?” said Holland. “You’ve never had to be strong. You’ve never had to try. You’ve never had to fight. And you’ve certainly never had to fight for your life. But tonight that changes, Kell. Tonight, if you do not fight, you will die. And if you—”
Kell didn’t wait for him to finish. A sudden gust of wind whipped forward, nearly knocking Kell off-balance as it cycloned toward Holland. It surrounded the Antari, swallowing him from sight. The wind whistled, but through it Kell could hear a low, haunting sound. And then he realized it was a laugh.
Holland was laughing.
A moment later, Holland’s blood-streaked hand appeared, parting the cyclone wall, and then the rest of him stepped through, the column of wind crumbling around him. “Air cannot be made sharp,” he chided. “Cannot hurt. Cannot kill. You should choose your elements with more care. Watch.”
Holland moved with such smooth swiftness, it was hard to follow his motions, let alone keep up. In a single fluid move, he dropped to a knee and touched the ground and said “As Steno.”
Break.
The paving stone beneath his palm shattered into a dozen sharpened shards, and as he stood, the shards came with him, hovering in the air the way the nails had done in the alley. He flicked his wrist, and the shards shot forward through the air toward Kell. The stone against his palm sang with warning, and he barely had time to throw up his hand, the talisman shining in it, and say, “Stop.”
The smoke poured forth and caught the slivers in their path, crushing them to dust. Power shot through Kell with the command, followed instantly by something darker, colder. He gasped at the sensation. He could feel the magic climbing over his skin, and under it, and he willed it to stop, pushed back with all his strength as the smoke dissolved.
Holland was shaking his head. “Go ahead, Kell. Use the stone. It will consume you faster, but you might just win.”
Kell swore under breath and summoned another cyclone, this one in front of him. He snapped the fingers of the hand without the stone. A flame appeared in his palm, and when he touched it to the twisting air, it took it, engulfing the wind in fire. The burning cyclone scorched across the ground, melting the ice as it charged toward Holland, who threw out his hand and summoned the ground up into a shield, and then, the instant the flame was gone, sent the stone wall surging toward Kell. He threw up his hands, fighting for control over the rocks, and realized too late that they were only a distraction for the arcing wave of water that struck him from behind.
The surge from the river slammed Kell to his hands and knees, but before he could recover, it swept him up and coiled around him. In moments, Kell was trapped by the swell, gasping for air before it swallowed him entirely. He fought, pinned by the force of the water.