The Young Elites (The Young Elites, #1)(78)

Teren deflects the dagger with his sword, then catches the dagger in midair and throws it back. Enzo ducks to the ground in a graceful sweep. “I am cursed, just as you are. Yet, while you continue to defend those born from the leftovers of the blood fever, I’m doing what the gods always intended.” Teren’s pale eyes seem to soak in the flames that surround them, shading them a terrifying color. His lips curl into a snarl.

Enzo pushes against Teren’s blade. His muscles bulge under his sleeves. Teren is simply too strong—I can see Enzo’s strength slowly ebbing away. Still, I can hear Enzo’s voice ringing out over the melee. “Perhaps you do it because you love your powers,” he shouts, mocking, “and you want to be the only one with such a gift.”

Teren’s smile vanishes. “How little you know about me, Your Highness,” he replies. “Even after all these years.”

Enzo lunges forward and slashes at Teren’s eyes. This time, his blade manages to cut the edge of Teren’s eyelid before he darts away. When he looks at Enzo again, blood smears the film over his left eye, turning the pale iris bright red.

Teren launches himself at Enzo. He sidesteps with him, then plunges a dagger deep into Enzo’s shoulder. I gasp. The flames around them falter. He shudders—but still manages to yank himself away. The blade tears out of his shoulder. Violetta and I are now so close that I can feel the heat from the fire. We are in position. Is everyone else too?

Teren’s eyes burn. Enzo steps in front of Raffaele and turns to face Teren again, ready for another attack. Blood drips from his shoulder. Then—he raises a dagger high in the air and waves it once.

Our signal.

Several things happen at once. Arrows hit the two Inquisitors holding Raffaele down. A curtain of wind smashes into the other Inquisitors nearest Raffaele—it flings them all into the water in a chorus of shrieks. From deep within the lake, two baliras explode from the surface, translucent bodies arcing over the path where Violetta and I are crouching. I flatten against the stone. My sister follows. The baliras send tides crashing against the platform, and rain down glittering water across the entire arena. Their eyes are black with fury, their calls thundering. One of them flips in midair, its enormous fleshy wings coming down on a line of Inquisitors at the end of the stone path. They are swept into the water. Another enormous wing sweeps right over our heads, flinging away the Inquisitors closest to us.

The other balira has a rider on board. Gemma. I look on as her creature turns, allowing her to reach down and clasp Raffaele’s arm. She pulls him to safety on board the balira’s back.

Our turn. Violetta reaches out with her energy at the same time I reach out with mine. She pulls Teren’s powers away from him. Out on the platform, Teren’s eyes bulge—he stumbles backward a step, then crouches down on one knee as if someone had struck a violent blow. Violetta sucks her breath in sharply. She won’t be able to hold his powers back for long.

I drop our invisibility. For the first time, we are exposed in the arena. I focus all my concentration and reach out for Enzo’s energy. In a flash, he transforms from himself into an exact copy of Teren.

The arena bursts into a scene of chaos. All across the stands, patrons and their fighters leap into combat, attacking Inquisitors wherever they stand, sending the people into a panic. Some of the Inquisitors still on the stone pathway in the arena’s center look poised to join the duel between Teren and Enzo—but with the two now identical, they can’t seem to tell which one is which.

Enzo doesn’t wait. He leaps forward, dagger raised. Teren manages to hold up his sword just in time to meet Enzo’s blade, but in his sudden weakness, he can’t deflect it. The two tumble backward onto the ground—Teren shrieks as Enzo’s blade finally makes contact, white hot and sharp, slicing deep into Teren’s shoulder and burning his flesh. Enzo’s second blade seeks out his heart. In a rage, Teren slashes out at Enzo. Even now, he still manages to force the prince to dance away. He staggers to his feet. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s laughing. He notices Violetta and me crouched at the edge of the platform. He scowls.

“About time you made your move,” he shouts through the chaos.

The words have scarcely left his mouth when I notice that Inquisitors, hundreds—thousands—of them, are flooding into the arena. We were ready for him—but he was ready for us too. The people around us leap to their feet, screaming, and scramble for the nearest exit, but Inquisitors fence everyone in. It will be a bloodbath in here, whether or not we win.

I narrow my eye. The darkness building in me is overwhelming now, feeding on an entire arena’s worth of terror and fury. I reach out, take hold of that energy, find Teren, and pull.

He freezes in mid-attack, then falls to his knees. He shrieks in pain as I conjure the most agonizing illusion I can muster. Enzo engulfs him in flames, then lunges forward, aiming at his eyes.

This is it. My heart leaps in anticipation. He’s going to kill Teren.

Something cold pushes violently back against my energy. I gasp. Teren’s fighting me. My illusion on him wavers, then breaks. Violetta puts a hand on her forehead and stumbles backward. “I can’t hold on,” she says hoarsely to me, before collapsing to her knees. Out in the arena, Teren sucks in a deep breath of relief as his burned skin starts to heal over. He starts fighting back. The window to fatally injure him is closing. I look at my sister. Her eyes roll back, and, exhausted, she faints on the path. My concentration flickers.