Shrike frowned. “Strike at me. Not at my blade.”
Wren hesitated.
Shrike thumped his own chest with his free fist. “Aim here.”
“Why the deuce should I aim at something I’ve no wish to hit?” Wren shot back.
Shrike remained unmoved. “Because it’s the only way you’ll survive.”
Wren stared at him.
“You are the Holly King,” Shrike continued. “You must duel upon the solstice. And you must win.”
“What?” Wren barked out a bitter laugh. “Do you intend to kill me?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“I’m not training you to defend yourself against me,” said Shrike. “I’m training you to defeat the Oak King she crowns in my stead, and every Oak King that comes after.”
Wren dropped his arm. His sword’s point struck the dirt. “What?”
“It will be worth it to know you will survive after I’m gone.”
“Not to me, it won’t!” Wren snapped.
Shrike balked. “What?”
“I’m supposed tomurderyou?” Wren continued, his voice dripping with indignant sarcasm. “And then what? Just keep on cleaving Oak Kings in half until Judgment Day? What sort of plan is that? Even if I wanted to kill you—which, and I cannot emphasize this enough, I do not, though my patience is sorely tested—what happens to the rest of the world if an Oak King never reigns again? Another year without a summer? Another decade? Anothercentury?”
Shrike had no answer for him.
Wren tossed his sword aside entirely, his eyes fixed on Shrike as the pommel thudded against the ground unseen. “I’m not doing it. I don’t care what you think or what you want or what you say. I’m not killing you, and I’m not condemning everyone else to suffer along with us.”
“Very well,” said Shrike, his voice dull and distant. “When our duel begins, I will yield and fall on my own sword.”
Cold dread seeped through Wren’s veins. He pushed it back with a hiss. “You will do no such thing!”
“Then,” said Shrike with a face that seemed carved from stone, “if you hope to prevent my doing so, you had better practice your swordplay.”
“If you so much as drop to one knee, I will slit my own throat.”
Shrike’s eyes flew wide with a horror that matched Wren’s own.
“I’m human,” Wren said before Shrike could protest. “Mortal. I’ll bleed out within a minute. And there’s no coming back from that. No force of will, no determination, no promise will prevent me from dying on the field. Youwilloutlive me—if only by a few moments.”
Shrike continued his silent regard of Wren for some time after Wren ceased speaking. Then, in a stricken voice, he asked, “What do you propose instead?”
“Neither of us dies upon Midsummer,” declared Wren.
Shrike waited. When it became apparent Wren had said all he meant to, Shrike asked, “And how shall we accomplish this?”
Wren didn’t know. Yet. “You trusted me to find a way to see you safely through the Winter Solstice. Trust me again to find a way to see us both through Midsummer.”
Shrike fixed him with a steady gaze that seemed to burn through his stoic visage and strike Wren to his very core. Then he threw down his sword—his arm moving faster than Wren could perceive, only realizing what had happened when he heard the blade thud against the ground. Two strides brought him to Wren. His strong arms swept him into a fraught embrace, his rough palm cradling Wren’s jaw as tenderly as one might hold a wounded bird, and the kiss he pressed to Wren’s lips held an oath, a promise, a vow of eternal faith.
Wren knotted his fingers in Shrike’s silver-shot tresses and returned the kiss with bruising determination.
