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Arkimedes dug his heels into the ground and rushed to a nearby tree, gripping its rough bark to keep his balance. He tucked his wings behind his back. He hadn’t learned how to blend into the shadows like the others of his kind, but he’d mastered a spell that would hide him from view for a time.
A shield popped up in front of him, and he pressed his body against the rough texture of the tree behind him, just as slow steps resounded from somewhere nearby. The task should be straightforward. He had to strike fast.
Leaves ruffled in the distance as a large shadowy figure wandered into the clearing.
“Briar?” Leir’s voice shook with hope as he stepped toward the burnt tree. His face was visible from Arkimedes’s hiding place, but seeing that expression robbed him of his breath.
The emissary’s confusion wouldn’t last long. It would become clear soon enough that this was a trap. Arkimedes’s heart constricted inside his chest as he watched his uncle walk toward the spot where his mother had died. An expression of pure pain took over his features.
None of this was fair.
Then understanding flashed through Leir’s pale features as he twirled in his spot. He widened his blood-red eyes with a snarl. “You make a mockery of my pain.” Leir swung his weapon like a pendulum, and waves of static bounced across the ground, cutting down limbs from the tree.
The king’s aura exploded into a black sea of spilled ink, and he stepped out from behind the tree, the ring still on his finger. The stone hummed with green light, like a heartbeat.
Thump, thump, thump.
Time slowed as dead twigs crunched under the king’s feet, and here, in the cursed clearing where the king had murdered the queen, the twins finally met face to face.
Leir straightened in a slow, calculated movement as he faced his brother. His arms fell to his sides. “I should’ve known it would be you.”
They looked like mirror images of one another, standing so tall their shadows stretched up to the trees. The only difference other than the color of their glowing eyes were their wings, for Leir’s were misshapen.
The king planted his feet wide, his neck corded with tension. “Last time we met, brother, you should have learned your lesson to stop messing with what belongs to me.”
Their voices were so loud it was as if Arkimedes were kneeling right beside them. He swallowed. When had the king last met the emissary? Had they fought? Arkimedes wasn’t surprised that the king had kept more secrets.
The ring continued to beat louder in the silence.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The king pulled his sword from its sheath. “You would think losing your wings would be enough to teach you that lesson.”
“This?” Leir reached over his shoulder with one hand, right before a laugh tore from his lips. The sound was wrong, like a banshee’s cry. He advanced toward the king.
It was almost time. The moment the emissary attacked, Arkimedes and Nava had to strike.
Arkimedes’s heart clenched. Part of him didn’t want to. In his uncle, he saw everything that he could have become.
“You fool, my wings heal every day. I burn them to remind myself of the torture Briar went through.” Leir’s eyes took on a crazed look that turned Arkimedes’s blood to ice. Spit bubbled from his lips as they split to reveal pointed canines. “Now your kingdom will suffer the same fate as she did.”
Leir was going to burn everyone who lived in the Copper Kingdom. His madness had reached a point of no return. The new information of how he mutilated his body only confirmed it.
Leir leaped toward the king, swinging his deadly artifact, which sucked the life out of the ground. Despite his illness, the king moved out of the way faster than anyone Arkimedes had seen. His aura enveloped the emissary in a cocoon of life-draining magic.
Leir stumbled back, his white skin recovering from the onslaught of the king’s dark power, although blood trickled down from his tunic. The king hunched over with a pained expression, the façade of his strength vanishing quickly after commanding so much power to hold the emissary at bay.
Arkimedes abandoned his hiding place and ran toward the twins when his father’s complexion turned even paler. With how sick he was, there wasn’t a chance he would hold on for much longer.
Arkimedes lengthened his steps and beat his wings so he could cut through the space quickly. Thankfully, Leir hadn’t spotted him yet. He was far too focused on the king.
“Allow me to bring the cavalry that will destroy your precious kingdom,” Leir gloated. As he held his hand to the side, the first portal hummed with static magic. It looked like a small dot of petroleum suspended high up in the air, dark and shiny and thick in consistency. Its popping sounds became louder as it grew like a festering wound. Another one swiftly followed.
Arkimedes’s steps faltered as he paused and stared at the portals. If the demons made it through, it would be impossible to steal the weapon. His aura burst around him, calling on the same magic Aristaeus had taught him, and the portal closest to him shrunk to nothingness before his eyes.
Then a dozen more appeared where the first had closed.
“Ark—” Nava’s panicked voice invaded his head but quieted when the black dots appeared around the space, so many he couldn’t count them all. They grew at a frantic pace, and the scent of sulfur thickened with each passing second.
