Page 118 of Blade of the Nightking

Gods, he was too close.

I tried to turn my head away from him, but the tip of the dagger pressed faintly into my skin in warning, forcing me still. Forcing me to keep looking up at him.

“Do you yield?” he asked softly. Mocking me with my own words.

The bond between us tightened painfully. My magic stirred eagerly, coiling beneath my skin, drawn to the terrible, deadly power lurking beneath his. The faint glow spread through my veins, brightening with each racing heartbeat.

The silver flecks in his eyes flared in answer. His gaze hardened. He pulled away suddenly and I scrambled backward across the mat, desperate to put distance between us.

He glowered at me, arms crossed tightly over his chest. “We’re done for today.” Blood ran along his forearm from the latticework of shallow cuts the flying glass had sliced into his skin. The sight of it—of his blood dripping slowly toward his elbow—filled me with vicious satisfaction.

Until he pointed toward the bow resting abandoned on the terrace.

“Tomorrow.”

The single word carried enough promise—and warning—to sour my triumph instantly.

Before I could argue, he turned away. Three strides later, shadows swallowed him whole. Unlike Aedric, who skelded in circles of roaring flame, Rìan simply dissolved into darkness until there was nothing left of him at all.

Only silence remained. A gull cried somewhere beyond the terrace, wheeling over the bay.

Breathing hard, I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet, brushing at my clothes for any slivers that might have caught in the fabric during the fight. Nothing fell.

Only then did I realize that despite the hail of glass, not a single shard had touched me.

The floor was spotless. Every last piece was gone.

CHAPTER 24

Ididn’t want to go back to the apartments. I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting there alone surrounded by Dannis’s books, The Little Moon Boat still abandoned on the dining table, torn and broken.

So I wandered the halls instead.

Where were Levinica’s chambers? What was she doing right now? Had she resurfaced at all? Was she sleeping? Crying?

I chewed absently at my thumbnail as I walked, lost in the churn of my thoughts.

What would she have thought if she'd known what had happened during training? That I'd hurt Segolayne? That I'd lost control of my magic?

The thought troubled me, filled me with shame.

No. Levinica would’ve understood. She would’ve known Segolayne had pushed and pushed until something inside me finally snapped. She would’ve known I hadn’t meant to hurt her.

The brisk sea wind struck me as I wandered onto the terrace, down the winding stairs toward the secluded beach. I tugged my boots off when I reached the sand and walked toward the waterline, sinking down near the edge of the tide. I drew my knees to my chest and stared out across the gray sweep of the bay.

I’d been angry. So impossibly angry.

And for what?

A bow and arrow.

That was all it had taken to push me over the edge. To send the magic inside me spiraling violently out of control again.

A damned bow.

But it all came back to that, didn’t it? The beginning of whatever doomed path my life had turned down.

The night Midland fell, my magic had burned through the darkness like a signal flare, calling the Infected from miles around. And when it had mattered most—when my father’s life had depended on it—I’d missed.