Darren’s final step placed him mere inches from my face. The heels of my boots dug into the slippery granite and ice.
“Still no weapon?” His eyes flared in the dark. “You don’t need to pretend to be the hero, love. We both know the villain is the traitor who called herself my wife.”
“Darren, please, just listen—”
His reprimand was sharp: “I heard enough of your lies the first time.”
I took a step back. “I’m not going to fight you.”
“Perhaps this will change your mind.” He raised his hand and produced a knife. In all of a second, he had dragged it across his wrist. Blood spilled freely onto the snow at our feet.
Somewhere miles below, the ground exploded in light.
I spun around to look, gasping, only to have the king grab me by the arm and send me hurtling back toward the cave with a jerk of his wrist.
My shoulders hit the wall with a terrible thwack.
“Time to find out who the best mage really is.” Two axes appeared in his hands. The iron heads whistled as he spun them by the haft. “You always wanted my title.”
“D-Darren.” I was choking on air. “P-please don’t d-do this!”
“The only way to truly know,” he continued, and I edged back along the granite, my fingers trailing the frozen edge, “is a fight to the death.”
My teeth clenched. “I won’t.”
The king laughed, and it made my stomach go hollow. “If that’s your decision.”
And then he attacked.
A part of me refused to accept the hurtling blade flying across the cavern—not Darren, never the boy I loved—but another part of me, the part that had spent years honing an instinct to survive, knew better.
My defense was a translucent sphere, something so intrinsic I didn’t even stop to think. The casting rose just as our eyes met across the way.
And then I ran as my sphere shattered from his axe.
Darren yelled as my boots skidded along ice.
“You can’t run forever, Ryiah.” His voice reverberated through the passage as I pitched forward and ducked to the right. “Sooner or later, you will have to fight.”
A moment later, another axe found the corner, a whisper’s width from my head.
Chunks of ice clunked to the floor.
I spun, casting a metal shield as the Black Mage sent out a bolt of ice. How fitting. I sucked in a breath and my defense shifted to a wall of fire before the ice could find a way to my hands.
There was a pool of water at my feet.
“Please…” My words were stuck in my throat, and my hysteria was rising. This wasn’t supposed to be us. “Darren, this isn’t you!”
“You don’t know anything about me.” He spat the words as a hoard of knives rose above his head. “You never did. You only saw someone you could use.”
I threw up my hands and a wall of stone caught his attack. The force of his blow, however, was enough to send a wave of pain down my wrists. Darren wasn’t holding anything back.
Panic flared in the pit of my chest.
“Just listen to me!” I shouted the words as I ran. I would not return his attacks; I couldn’t. “I never lied about the rebels!” I ducked around a formation of ice as a ball of fire hit not two inches from my neck. The flames hissed and sparked as a trickle of water wound down the column of ice.
“Blayne wasn’t who you thought he was! You were always blind to his cruelty—”
The entire barrier shattered like glass, like it was nothing. Little shards of wall crumbled into crystalline studs.
I dove, my heels digging for traction along the ice.
But this time, I wasn’t fast enough.
Darren’s casting caught me in the ribs and slammed me against another column of ice. The impact rattled my bones, hitting along every point in my spine, so hard and so fast that I lost control of my defense. My magic ceased. I choked on my own blood, fighting the upsurge in my stomach, as I dropped to the floor on my knees.
Darren made no motion to follow up his attack; instead, he stood there watching me, two yards away, toying with a bit of cloth he had tied around the slim cut at his wrist.
“I was going to run away with you. Did you know that?”
His confession was so abrupt that every muscle in my body halted in place.
“I didn’t believe a word you said, but I had made up my mind. Paige would get you to the docks, and I was going to come find you after the war. I knew it was wrong… but a part of me just couldn’t let you go.”
“Darren.” My voice cracked. I’d had no idea.
“I was prepared to turn my back on Jerar. My family. The Crown. This robe. Everything I had ever known. For exile with you.” His eyes shot to mine, and I saw twin pools of fire. “I would have died before I let my brother take your life. I would have done everything in my power to save you even after all you had done…” His words shook as his hands fisted at his sides. “And then you took his life instead.”