Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(86)

His words echoed along the walls, sending splinters of ice right into my chest.

“So tell me, love…”

The mage king turned around and his garnet eyes flashed as he took me in. They were burning with hate.

“Tell me, my wife,” he said, “why I shouldn’t destroy yours?”





18





I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was stand there and stare.

Darren had been waiting for me all along, and I had walked right into his trap.

“You’ve always wanted to save the world.” The king laughed darkly and motioned for me to come forward with the casual flick of his hand. The black hematite crown gleamed as he turned toward the valley below. “Why don’t you come and see what you’ve wrought.”

I knew what he was about to show me.

And, for some reason, I still walked. My footsteps echoed along the cave as I approached the lookout and peered out over its ledge.

Down below were hundreds of flickering flames. Torches and little bits of shadow raced in patterns, no bigger than ants. Thousands of men and women dressed in uniforms, battling late into the night. There were large catapults filled with fire and the clash of shields. The wind carried the sound of each cry to the precipice.

And their screams as each one fell to the blade of a Crown’s Army knight.

“Commander Nyx is dead.” I didn’t even have a chance to react before Darren continued. “She was one of the first when I dispatched my army.” He laughed. “Didn’t take much to figure out who your leader was after we found the keep empty.”

All of the emotions I’d worked so hard to hide surged to the surface; my fingernails cut into flesh.

“I told them your brother should be next.” He was still watching the crowd below. “They haven’t located Alex yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“D-don’t.” The word came out a broken whisper.

“Why?” He turned, and there was an inferno in his eyes. “You killed mine.”

Darren took a step forward, and I instinctively took a step back. “Even after I spared Derrick.”

“Darren—”

“You could have run away and never looked back.” Disbelief and hatred were etched into every line of his face. “You could have spared Blayne—for me, Ryiah. For all that we were, all that you claimed to feel, you could have given me that. Even if you believed in their rebel lies.”

I tried. I opened my mouth, but Darren wasn’t listening. The wind howled on the ledge and his rage built with every word.

“I betrayed the one person I swore my whole life to protect for the one person that betrayed me.” He took another step and the flames lit half his face, the other shrouded in shadow.

“I never t-told you because I… I didn’t want you to choose between us.” My voice was hoarse, and I could hear the desperation in my words. “I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” Darren’s sneer was cold. “The only one I needed protection from was you.”

Inadvertently, I had let him lead me to the ledge. My back was to the drop. I swallowed, doing my best to hold still.

Darren’s final step placed him mere inches from my face. The heels of my boots dug into the slippery granite and ice.

“Still no weapon?” His eyes flared in the dark. “You don’t need to pretend to be the hero, love. We both know the villain is the traitor who called herself my wife.”

“Darren, please, just listen—”

His reprimand was sharp: “I heard enough of your lies the first time.”

I took a step back. “I’m not going to fight you.”

“Perhaps this will change your mind.” He raised his hand and produced a knife. In all of a second, he had dragged it across his wrist. Blood spilled freely onto the snow at our feet.

Somewhere miles below, the ground exploded in light.

I spun around to look, gasping, only to have the king grab me by the arm and send me hurtling back toward the cave with a jerk of his wrist.

My shoulders hit the wall with a terrible thwack.

“Time to find out who the best mage really is.” Two axes appeared in his hands. The iron heads whistled as he spun them by the haft. “You always wanted my title.”

“D-Darren.” I was choking on air. “P-please don’t d-do this!”

“The only way to truly know,” he continued, and I edged back along the granite, my fingers trailing the frozen edge, “is a fight to the death.”

My teeth clenched. “I won’t.”

The king laughed, and it made my stomach go hollow. “If that’s your decision.”

And then he attacked.

A part of me refused to accept the hurtling blade flying across the cavern—not Darren, never the boy I loved—but another part of me, the part that had spent years honing an instinct to survive, knew better.

My defense was a translucent sphere, something so intrinsic I didn’t even stop to think. The casting rose just as our eyes met across the way.

And then I ran as my sphere shattered from his axe.

Darren yelled as my boots skidded along ice.

“You can’t run forever, Ryiah.” His voice reverberated through the passage as I pitched forward and ducked to the right. “Sooner or later, you will have to fight.”