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“No, actually. Or at least, I wasn’t sure. Winona had done you a favor by binding your magic. You were the right age and the only new student that no one had any idea of their background. But you didn’t display any of the Fae or Elven magical indicators at first. But the Council still planned.”
“So you what? Fed them information about me? Tried to kill me?”
“I still needed to play the part,” he said. Their duel had softened to more of a spar as they talked but Claire didn’t let her guard down. If he was planning on double-crossing the Council all along, who’s to say he wouldn’t serve her up to them and then steal the weapon for himself. She had no doubt he would go after her people next. “Besides, you had the magic to get yourself out of those situations.”
“We almost died,” Claire was indignant. “You almost killed my Triad.”
“”Then you would have known what it felt like.” He didn’t say the words with smug anger but instead a deep sadness. As much as Claire wanted to be angry at him, each of his actions hid a deep grief. The man before might have lived after his Triad and Fourth died but he was dying internally every day.
“I tried to stall as long as I could,” Henry Storm said. “I didn’t want to kill you. Not if you weren’t the heir. But then you unlocked your magic and the Council found the perfect combination of ingredients.” Deep grief flashed across his face. “So I’m sorry. But I have to kill you now. I can’t allow the Council to build their ultimate weapon.”
With those words, he stopped holding back. Their spar jumping back into a battle duel with one powerful blow. Claire scrambled to keep up, calling on her magic to help as she absorbed the Energy from his blows and shot it back at him.
The Energy shots barely seemed to phase him. Henry Storm was focused with an intensity of decades of grief, resentment, and anger radiating off of him. She needed an opening.
An idea came to her. If he didn’t want to serve her to the Council to create the ultimate weapon then there had to be a shred of his humanity left, right? She wouldn’t be able to best him in combat, but what if she could reach him a different way?
“What would your Triad brothers have thought of this?” she asked, ducking under a blow, stumbling on her feet a little bit. He seemed unphased by the question, not even bothering to answer her. The only sign her question got to him at all was the increased ferocity of his attack. Claire was barely keeping her feet underneath her now. If he got her on the ground, it was game over. Time to step up her game.
“Would your mate have wanted this?” Claire shouted under his assault.
This time he faltered, just briefly. “Leave her out of this.”
“Why?” Claire pressed. “She’s at the core of this, isn’t she? She and your unborn daughter. I wonder if your daughter had lived, what would she think of her father now?”
Her words struck him like a physical blow and Henry Storm hesitated just a fraction of a second. That fraction was exactly what Claire needed though. With a move that Malcolm had taught her, she stepped in close to him, catching his sword with her daggers and spinning so she ended up at his side. She sent an Energy blast through her foot as she slammed it into the back of his knee, sending his sword flying and Henry Storm to his knees in front of her.
Instead of trying to scramble for his sword, Henry Storm just hung his head. Her question about his unborn daughter seemed to have snapped his will to fight. Still she didn’t remove her daggers from either side of his throat as she carefully stood behind him. She leaned down ever so slightly, intending on her words to deliver the final blow.
“I understand grief,” Claire said softly. “More than you probably know. I understand losing family. All my life I grew up wanting one. Wanting one that saw me not as the orphaned low-level witch from an unknown coven but as me, Claire, and all that I am and all that I am not.”
She paused, taking a breath. “I have that now. And I understand that if I lost this family I’ve built, that my grief would threaten to swallow me whole and in another life, I might have made the choices you did. I understand all of that and…” She closed her mouth and swallowed.
“I forgive you for your actions despite your grief swallowing you.” At her words, Henry Storm’s shoulders sagged even further, his posture that of a defeated shell of a man.
“But I cannot allow you to live with how many lives you’ve taken in the name of your grief.” His shoulders stiffened and for a moment Claire worried he would try and make a move.
Instead, Henry Storm, the man that had taken so much from Claire, mumbled something almost too soft for her to hear. “Please.” The soft whisper floated to her in the still air of the shield dome. “Please. Allow me to join my mate and brothers.”
Claire’s throat clogged with emotion. She didn’t need Holly’s empathy gift to read this man. He had allowed his grief to swallow him and his anger to carry him for too long. She wouldn’t do the same as he had. She could offer him that and more.
“I will,” she promised through the lump in her throat. “I swear to you that I will end this. This unnecessary fighting and the corrupt men who started it. No one else will lose family over this after today.”
Henry Storm nodded, lifting his eyes from the ground to meet hers for the first time since he landed on his knees. Claire allowed him to see the single tear she let escape trickle down her cheek. She would take no joy in killing him. Not when she recognized the suffering in his eyes.
He nodded imperceptibly at her and Claire took a breath. Before she sliced the daggers across his neck, he uttered his last words into the world, “All magic comes at a cost, remember that.”
Claire nodded and then with a tremble in her hands, drew her dagger back and struck.
His head dropped to her feet and for the second time today, Claire looked into a man’s face as he realized his death. Henry Storm had a small smile on his face and Claire took a breath. He was with his family finally.
But he had one last trick for her apparently, the words he was trying to warn her with. His body shook on the ground in front of her and Claire saw something shoot out of his neck. Dark magic. His entire body exploded with dark magic, surging towards Claire looking for a new host.
Her magic reacted before Claire realized what it was, reinforcing the barrier around her and throwing up a shield with one of the daggers. She quickly cast a fire rune, burning away some of it but not enough. It pounded at her shield just inches from her face, trying to get to her. Some of it split off and lashed out at the barrier, trying to get out to the others. Claire fought it though on both fronts, she couldn’t let the dark magic infect anyone else. No one needed to bear the burden Henry Storm did all of these years.
When regular fire didn’t seem to be helping, Claire called on the Dragon Fire inside her, opening her bond with Malcolm as she did so. The fire heated her palms but didn’t burn as Claire used a wind rune to push the dark magic into a swirling sphere. She pressed her Dragon Fire hands against the sphere, gritting her teeth as the dark magic snapped at her fingers. She poured more magic on the Dragon Fire and watched with relief as the dark magic started shrinking.
It finally winked out of existence and Claire fell forward to her hands and knees. Exhausted and low on magic, she let the barrier fall. Her Triad was probably right outside and sick with worry. Footsteps sounded behind her. She lifted her head to turn and see who it was but froze when cold steel pressed against the back of her neck.
