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“Challenge me, Isaiah.”
An icy calm descended over the Raeth at her side, the antagonism in his features tempering into resentment. “No. I refuse.” Isaiah straightened to his full height. “You have your answer, now leave my territory.”
Tempered sorrow shadowed the eyes of the other sovereign. “So be it.” A pregnant pause before Jacob locked his gaze on Isaiah. “Isaiah, I challenge you for the sovereignty of the Sylth.”
Explosive shock ran rampant through every one of the Isaiah’s lieutenants, but none more so than Isaiah himself. Rukia cringed at the debilitating emotions running under his skin, which she could somehow feel. The agony. The disbelief. The anger.
The anger was what won out. “How dare you!”
Fury rode Isaiah’s voice hard, the muscles in his neck pulsing as he took a menacing step forward. His power pulsed through the air, a mere side effect of the vitriol that coursed through his veins.
“You are the coward to hide behind this challenge!”
“You must accept, Isaiah.” Undisguised concern injected into the deep azure of Jacob’s eyes. “You must accept, or you will be killed!”
Isaiah’s teeth bared a split second before the glowing orb emitted a threatening tone above their heads. Beside her, Derikles voice sounded, fraught with tension. “Sovereign, accept!”
His lieutenants’ voices echoed behind him, Isaiah finally coming to his senses. The words of acceptance ground out of his throat a bare moment later, his hands fisting at his sides.
“I accept.”
No longer afraid for Isaiah’s life, Jacob tilted his head to look at his protégé. “I’ve told you, there is no escape for us, Isaiah. Once a sovereign, you are always bound to its rules. My time on this earth is finished.”
“And in doing so, you chose to trap me into assisting in your suicide?” Vehemence rang out in Isaiah’s voice, desperation following quickly on its heels. “How far you have fallen, old man. Why would you do this to me?”
“Because I trust no one else with the safety of my clan.” Jacob slowly closed the distance between them to rest a hand on Isaiah’s shoulder. “I never mated, Isaiah. Don’t walk alone like I did. It’ll only destroy you.”
There was sadness in Isaiah’s eyes, the unvarnished emotion lingering in his features. “I can’t raise my sword against you, Jacob.”
“You must, Isaiah.” Determination filled Jacob’s features, his grip tightening on the younger Raeth’s shoulder. “You know what will happen if we delay. You have always been stronger than I, Isaiah. Now, you must prove it.”
Isaiah cringed as he stepped back. “That’s not true.”
“It is.” Sincerity rang in Jacob’s voice. “Ever since I saw you take your first breath, I knew your strength would eclipse mine. And so it has.”
Isaiah didn’t respond.
Jacob materialized a long sword in his palm, the blade snow white. “Draw your sword, Isaiah. I will not yield.”
Rukia watched, her heart in her throat, as Isaiah merely looked at Jacob, despair stamped into every cell of his being. There was a despondency there that she’d never seen on his features before. Like his heart had been torn from his chest and was floundering on the earth before him.
Sensing the fruitlessness of words, Jacob stepped away and into fighting stance. And still, Isaiah only looked at him, seemingly unable to respond.
Jacob did what he had to. Less than a second later, his sword had sliced Isaiah’s left shoulder, the wound superficial. The blade gleamed red as it withdrew from flesh.
“Fight, son. Allow me the honor of dying on my feet.”
When Jacob went to cut him once more, Isaiah’s black blade clashed diabolically with his opponent’s. Animosity running over his features, Isaiah struck out against the other man. Rukia could feel the rising wave of hatred blooming in her Raeth’s veins, her heart clenching as the two exchanged blows in a series of masterfully parried movements.
Rukia observed, astonished at the magnificence of the two Raeths in front of her. Their fighting styles were eerily similar, clearly built and refined from the same basic principles.
At some point during the exchange, the two immortals who’d arrived with Jacob teleported to stand abreast with Isaiah’s lieutenants.
They’d known why Jacob had come. They’d known what it was that Jacob would ask of Isaiah. And they knew how it’d end.
As enmity toward the two Raeths raged in her own veins, Rukia found she couldn’t even acknowledge them. Not when they’d hurt Isaiah purely by allowing this to take place. Isaiah’s lieutenants, apparently, were of the same mind.
Both males separated in the minutes that followed, breathing hard. Neither one bore new blows, and Rukia knew, without a doubt, that they’d both been pulling their punches.
