Focus.
I bind his blade, trying to control it the way Kai did with Moroslav, but my father is stronger. He wrenches free, nearly tears my sword from my hand.
Then he attacks.
A flurry of cuts and thrusts that drive me backward, my heels skidding on the ice. He's fast—faster than he should be at his age—and every movement is precise, economical. No wasted energy.
The tip of his rapier finds my shoulder, just above my collarbone. Not deep, but enough to sting. Warm blood seeps into my shirt.
"You're hesitating," he observes. "You can't kill your own father, can you?"
He's right. Some part of me is still holding back. Even after everything, some stupid, childish part of me that still wants his approval, his?—
No.
I think of Gwenna, covered in paint, hands bound, eyes wide.
I think of a woman I never knew, bleeding me into life.
The hesitation shatters.
I catch his blade in a bind, twist hard. The rapier goes flying from his hand, clattering across the tarmac twenty feet away.
The force makes him stumble, and he falls to one knee. For the first time since I've known him, he looks old. Breathing hard, his face drawn, snow clinging to his coat.
I put my blade to his throat.
“Kingston.” His inhale is a wheeze. “Come, now.” He looks up at me with that one eye, something almost like pride in his expression. Testing me one last time. “You couldn’t kill your own father.”
My hand is shaking. The blade trembles against his throat.
Behind me, I can sense the others watching—Gwenna, Kai, Lanz, Callahan.
"You were supposed to be better than me," he says.
"I am," I say.
And I run him through.
His eye widens. Shock. He truly thought I couldn’t, right until the very end.
Unceremoniously, I yank back, and my father falls forward, his dark blood flowing onto snow.
For a moment, I stand over the body.
Blade dripping red.
Hands shaking.
Face wet with my own blood.
"Kingston."
Gwenna's voice.
I turn. She's standing there, Callahan still supporting her, my coat still hanging off her shoulders, her face unnaturally pale and shocked. But her eyes?—
Not horror. Not disgust or hatred.
