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Mias jumped down from the porch. Rain and mud sprayed up as he stalked toward Renton.
Brother,I’m almost through Boedworth’s mental shields.I just need a bit more time to scramble him.
More time. I can handle that.Flooded with relief that Aeyis was somehow safely hidden, Renton pushed up from the street. His jaw throbbed where he’d been struck, but it was nowhere near the worst injury he’d suffered.
Renton ducked under another rapid snap of Mias’s fist and landed a blow to his brother’s gut. It felt too good. Years in the making, this fight. Years of Mias’s nightmarish illusions and torture. Mias might look like their father, but he was nothing like him in nature.
Other than topaz, there was nothing more intriguing to the councilman than watching punishments. It would be the last one Boedworth ever saw before his mind was forever altered.
Mias delivered a lung-crushing blow to Renton’s ribs, curling his spine. Renton returned the favor, and Mias grunted, his mouth pinched tight as if he’d never expected him to land a hit.
“More,” Boedworth demanded. “Teach him what it means to cross me. Teach him what he has cost all of us with his foolishness.”
Renton turned to spit blood at Boedworth’s polished dress shoes and then exchanged another round of blows with his brother. Prickles of icy, bitter magic lashed against his fortified mind, eager to crack it open like an egg. When Renton didn’t break, Mias slid pointed iron knuckles onto each hand. Malice flashed through his cruel eyes.
“I have worked tirelessly to protect the Boglands from Adra,” Boedworth said. “I bought our safety from their king with that disgusting Chaos lord and his offspring. Then you go and mess everything up. For once, we wouldn’t have had to suffer from the aftershocks of war between these insignificant isles.”
Renton stiffened. “You allied with Adra.”
He should have suspected that Boedworth would turn, but he’d assumed the councilman enjoyed his position with the High Court too much to do something so drastic.
Mias landed an iron blow to Renton’s ribs and dragged him upright by his hair, green eyes seething. Another precise hit to the same spot tugged a grunt of pain from Renton.
“You should be freezing to death on Dreaddix for killing Father,” Mias uttered. “Now you’ve doomed us all.”
Bones snapped on Mias’s next strike, and Renton struggled to catch his breath as Mias dropped him into a puddle on the street. Between the shard and the agony of broken ribs, he couldn’t find the strength to stand back up.
Ren!
Just focus.
I think he’s high on topaz. It’s messing with my ability to grasp onto his deeper thoughts. If he was sober I could have done it. I know I could have.
Renton’s hands tightened into fists.Keep working. We end this here.
Not at the cost of losing you. Boedworth doesn’t plan on letting you walk away from this.
Boedworth let out a sound like a bark. “What is that filthy wraith brother of yours trying to do? Get him out of my head. Show yourself!”
Aeyis stepped out of the second townhouse. His magic had turned black like ash floating through the air. There was no mistaking the pulse of Chaos in the veins, streaking up into his temples.
Aeyis, no!
You will be free from him, brother.
Renton’s heart was breaking and not because of the shard’s angry response to his brother’s dark magic.
A knife whizzed out of the swamps, thudding into the neck of one of the hunters. Blood spurted, then he crumpled to the ground.
Hass.
Boedworth’s eyes bulged in his sallow face as he fumbled for an object in his pockets. But Aeyis’s dark magic had wrapped around them all like a cocoon of death. Slowly, Aeyis pulled it in tighter and tighter.
Boedworth spewed curses. A flash of orb light cut through the swirling black dust. When Aeyis let his magic drop, the other hunter and their eldest brother lay dead on the street.
Boedworth was gone.
Aeyis staggered, and Renton tried to shove his body up on shaking arms. Screw this shard. Screw Boedworth.
