It wasn’t the gate’s energy. It was a combination of light energy and dark. Max’s energy and that of the dark elves.
Nails scraped against stone. Alarm surged, and I spun. Eyes stared back at me. Red eyes. Demon eyes. I heard a similar sound behind me and spun again to see more of them crawling over the wall I’d been leaning on only seconds before. Then the wind started whispering, and I glanced up sharply; there were five winged demons in the air.
I’d been wrong in presuming this trap had been aimed at Mo. I was their target, just as Luc had feared.
I flexed my fingers but didn’t unleash the lightning that flicked and buzzed across my fingertips. No matter how fast I was or how deadly my lightning, I wouldn’t be able to kill them all. And that was no doubt the whole idea.
I backed into the middle of the bridge. None of them reacted; they simply watched, red eyes gleaming with anticipation and hunger. They wanted blood, wanted to rend and tear, but were being restrained by something.
Or someone.
My heart began to beat even harder.
Max. It had to be. He was the only one who could wield the fake sword. And that was no doubt the reason for the odd energy I’d sensed emanating from the gate’s rune. Mryddin might have created the fake sword, but a man who’d crossed from light to dark now wielded it.
Elysian’s pulsing grew stronger, and a gentle mist stirred around me, momentarily blurring my vision. There was an odd wrench sideways, though I didn’t physically move, and suddenly I was neither in this world nor in the gray, but somewhere in between. There was no bridge, no demons, and no Gill. All I could see was a man-shaped sliver of darkness walking toward me. In his right hand was a sword; it was richly embellished with gold and emitted a twisting, writhing mass of blackish purple and golden energy that moved in time to Elysian’s beat.
Were Elysian and the fake sword acknowledging each other? There were certainly some ancient artifacts that could recognize similar energies, but I really hadn’t expected it in this situation.
I blinked, and normal vision returned. Max stopped at the beginning of the bridge; not only was he holding the sword, but a gun.
My heart stuttered to a brief halt. For several seconds, I could only stare at him, unable to believe that my brother—my twin—was willing to shoot me for his insane cause. I swallowed heavily and somehow said, “So it has come down to this? You’d kill your own sister to claim what will never be yours?”
Thankfully, my voice remained calm, untouched by the inner terror and heartbreak. I wanted to cry—to rant and rage at him—but it would do little good and leave me with nothing more than blurred vision. That could be fatal given the number of demons surrounding me. I needed to see if I wanted to survive, and while I might never be able to kill them all, I was more than willing to give it a damn good go.
Of course, it might simply be easier to kill my brother, even if he was the only reason they weren’t currently attacking.
Could I do that, though? Could I stare into his eyes as I stabbed lightning through his heart?
I really didn’t know.
Really wished I didn’t have to find out.
A sad sort of smile touched his achingly familiar features. Unlike me, he’d inherited the full De Montfort coloring, which for the males of our line meant black skin and hair, and blue irises ringed by gold. He was the image of my father, while I’d taken after Mom.
What was new was the shimmer of darkness that surrounded him. It bore the same blue-black color that fought with the gold around the sword’s blade, and I very much suspected it was a magical emanation of the darkness he had fallen into.
Had that descent started with Winter? Or had there been a tipping point well before he’d found his Darkside consort?
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said softly. “I can’t. But if you so much as twitch the wrong way, they will tear you to pieces. And we both know not even you can erase them all before they’re on you.”
Meaning he was well aware of my ability to use lightning. But I guess that wasn’t surprising, given who his lover was.
“The only reason you can’t kill me yourself is the fact I’m your blood price and they want me for their breeding program.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Something that resembled sadness and regret. Or was that merely wishful thinking? The need to believe the boy I’d grown up with—the brother I’d shared everything with—was still in there somewhere? That he would in the end do the right thing, even if all evidence pointed to the exact opposite.
“They will look after you. You’re my sister—the better half of my soul—”
“Your soul was lost the day you entered into a pact with Darkside, brother.” My voice vibrated with an edge of violence, and I sucked in a breath to keep it contained. Calm. I had to remain calm. It was the only way I was going to escape this situation. “Just tell me why? Surely it’s not just about the power.”
“It isn’t,” he replied evenly. “It’s about restoring what was stolen from us. We De Montforts are the rightful heirs to the throne, not the half-witch monstrosity who currently claims the palace as her own.”
That sounded like something Winter had whispered deep in his ear late at night. Twisting my brother’s soul, making him hunger for things that were neither right nor just.
Which really wasn’t giving Max due credit. He’d always hungered for more, be it power, money, or recognition. No matter how much he had, it had never, ever been enough, even from a very young age.
“Witch king rule ended with Layton,” I said. “Drawing that sword from the stone doesn’t change anything, however much you might wish otherwise.”
His sudden smile was so achingly familiar, it felt like a knife had sliced through my heart.
“You no more believe that than I do.”
I didn’t reply. Nothing I could say would alter his determination to take what he now saw as his due.
He raised the elaborate sword and pointed it at me. Elysian responded, her pulsing stronger. I had no idea what it meant or even if I could use her against Mryddin’s sword or my brother, but I would try, if it came down to that.
But if I did, it would be the end of me, as it had been the end of Cedric. The only way to survive the forces she raised was to step fully into the gray. And that wasn’t an instantaneous process—not if my experience with Nex and Vita was anything to go by. The minute I even tried to cross, he’d set his demons onto me.
“Tell me about this sword,” he said.
I didn’t immediately reply, my gaze caught by a glimmer of silver on his left hand. It was a ring, and very similar in design to the one I’d not only found in Tris’s bag after he’d been murdered, but also on the demon who’d attacked Jackie but hadn’t lived to tell the tale.
It was an oath ring—a ring that bound one or more demons to a dark practitioner.
This one was bigger—fancier—than the other two, and there could only be one reason for that. It was the control ring.
While it was no real surprise that Max was wearing it, it nevertheless was just another knife through my heart. Not just that he’d obviously approved the murder of a man we’d both grown up with, but also because it was yet another indicator of where his allegiances now lay.