I summon a deep breath and leap across the room. My sword clashes against my father’s, intercepting a blow intended for my mate. Sparks of green flame clatter, and Malekai stumbles, a look of bewilderment across his face.
One that quickly turns to fury.
“Cas, you’re…” Rosalina breathes.
“Beautiful? Elegant? An awe-inspiring hero?” I flash her a grin. “All of the above?”
Her golden briars rise. “Who I always knew you were meant to be.”
Imagine all the heartache I could have prevented if only I’d figured that out when she did, I think.
“It’s not possible!” Sira screams, disbelief etched on her face. “You’re undermycontrol! Caspian?—”
Dayton strikes at her before she can utter a command.
Malekai’s blade swings toward me again. It’s colossal, shimmering with that sickly green fire. I meet it midair with my briar-forged sword. The impact rings through my bones like a song I was born to answer.
The surrounding shadows twist to life, dancing at my feet, climbing my arms. Green flames spark from my fingertips. Briars slither across the ground, growing sharper with each breath I take. I’ll need every part of who I am to face him.
My father steps back, his eyes narrowing. “You dare stand against me, son?”
I tilt my head. “All that blathering about legacy, power, destiny, and you’re mad I actually lived up to it?”
“I gave you everything. My blood. My power. My purpose.”
“You gave me chains,” I say, raising my free hand. Shadows whip forward like spears, slamming into his side. He stumbles but doesn’t fall.
He growls, swinging again. His sword is so massive it seems to cleave the air itself, but I duck low, roll, and come up in a surge of thorns and green flame. My blade lashes across his shoulder. A clean strike.
“I gave you my power!” he bellows, magic crackling. “Without me, you’d be nothing.”
I smirk. “Look at me now. Glowing. Gorgeous. Very much something.”
My briars lash again, snapping from the floor like vipers. He burns half of them away, but not fast enough. I leap into the air, twisting in shadow, and slam down with a blast of green fire wrapped in thorns.
He bats it away with his sword but grunts.That’s new.
“You’re drawing on my power,” he spits.
“No,” I say, eyes locked with his. “I’m using what was always mine. This isn’t some gift you can pull away. You, in your arrogance, passed your power down in myblood. Try to take it back. I dare you.”
He roars, lunging for me.
But then ice whistles through the air.
Keldarion.
He flies past me in a blur of sapphire, blades of frost drawn wide, intercepting a bolt of shadow that had been arcing toward Farron. “Keep fighting, Cas,” he shouts. “We’ve got Sira!”
I glance over. Dayton’s plume flashes gold and teal as he pins Sira with a trident strike. Farron comes in hard beside him, the flames wreathing his body like a meteor. Keldarion joins them in the fray, and she finally seems to shrink away.
Good.
Because I’ve got my own monster to slay.
Malekai swings again, and this time, I welcome it. My shadows catch his blade, just long enough for me to slip through. My sword carves a line down his side, and I twist, letting the momentum spin me into a backhanded strike that sends a spray of embers across his chest.
He snarls. “You are still mine!”
