Gasps echoed through the courtyard, and when I climbed onto the platform again, a cheer followed. Angrily, Joth grabbed a knife from his waistband and shouted, “I am your king! Bow to me, or you will die!”
Then he threw the knife directly at me. No doubt it was sent on the wings of magic, which meant it could not miss.
He had no intention of losing.
Neither did I.
There was no explanation for me to have awoken, other than that I now had Endrick’s powers and, with them, his near immortality. The wounds in my leg and in my hands had healed, though both were sore to the touch. Although I was capable of standing, I continued to lie in the snow without moving. Joth’s attack on me was the nearest I’d ever come to death, and I was still shaken from it. Even Lord Endrick, knowing I was the Infidante, had been controlled in anything he had ever done to me. Joth was untethered from any compass between good and evil. He was sheer venom.
What Joth was, what Lord Endrick had been, would be me in time. That was as inevitable as the rising sun each day. I could see it now in full view, with all its ugliness and stain.
I could see myself now, as if reflected by the clearest mirror, and all I wished was to shatter it, to shatter that part of myself. If only it were possible.
Loelle had said that, for all her searching, she had found no way to pull the corruption from me. Every attempt that Joth had made to take my magic did weaken me, but it always returned. Over and over, I had been assured that with magic would come corruption and that any chance of a cure was hopeless.
Yet deep within my mind, I had always held to one small possibility, something that had not been tried, had not even been considered: If magic could not be pulled from me, could I give it away?
I lay with that thought for some time, rolling it around in my head like a loose marble that shifted with every movement I made, never settling in one place long enough to know if there was anything tangible to my ideas.
And finally I sat up, having made my decision. What I was about to attempt would likely fail, and failure here meant certain death. But in my current weakened state, I knew that I could not continue to live as I had been. I had to take this chance.
Lord Endrick had come to power by killing all those whose magic he wanted, thus obtaining their powers for himself. At some point, he must have begun to sense his own mortality, should someone ever make him the target. So he poured a portion of his magic into the Olden Blade. Whatever thus happened to him would be irrelevant, because the magic in the Olden Blade could restore him.
It was a plan that should have worked, until the Olden Blade was stolen. Then the object that could save his life now became the sole object that could take it.
And I had done just that.
Despite that, Endrick’s plan had been a good one. So good, in fact, that I wondered if there was any hope of my doing the same. I wouldn’t use the Olden Blade. It already held magic, and I didn’t know how the powers already existing there might merge with mine.
I glanced down at Harlyn’s disk bow and then remembered the satchel at my side with the two disks. One black and one white.
Perfect.
I set the black disk on the ground in front of me and studied it awhile. Nothing about it was more remarkable than any other disk I’d ever seen. It was a simple metallic circle with a color to designate its purpose.
Black, for death.
The other, white, to separate the soul of the victim from her body, creating a half-life. The eternal punishment.
For my purposes, they both would now have a very different use.
Holding the white disk in my hands, I willed only a single power into the metal, the ability to control the heartbeat of another, as Endrick had used for the Ironhearts. I felt the power empty from me, down to nearly nothing, yet I wasn’t worried. As always happened, I knew it would eventually return, as strong as before. But now I had preserved the magic for another use.
The black disk had a higher price, for it was the greatest of all of Endrick’s powers, to take a person’s magic by killing them. It was the one power I had to protect above all others, and might be the only way to restore myself before this battle was finished.
Sending magic into the black disk felt similar to when Joth had pulled strength from me. I was drained in a most literal sense and was physically weakening. Yet this was different too because I wasn’t fighting its release. Instead, I was forcing this element of magic out of me like a fountain would spew its water.
Expelling these two precious powers cost me more than I had expected, but I began to understand why. The first disk was the power over life; the second was the power over death. Nothing greater was in me.
I finally released the black disk when the metal became so hot to the touch that I could not keep hold of it any longer. Etched into the metal was the same symbol that was now a faint scar on my right palm, a square cross, narrowed and slightly curved at the tips. I dropped it into my satchel, then collapsed to the ground, exhausted.
“Kestra!”
Recognizing Darrow’s voice, I lifted my head and vaguely saw him running toward me with Rosaleen at his side. While she helped me into a sitting position, he looked up. “Did you fall from the palace windows? How can you still be alive?”
“I had magic.”
“Had?”
I gestured to the white disk in front of me. “That one is for you. Should you ever need to use it on me.”
Darrow fiercely shook his head, horrified at what I was suggesting. “Do you know what the white disk does to its victim? I never would do that to you, never.”
“Take it. And this disk bow too. It’s not mine anyway.” For some reason, that made me smile. A day ago, I wanted Harlyn dead. Now my conscience was prodded by the thought of having stolen her weapons.
Darrow put his arm around me and helped me to my feet, though I still leaned heavily upon him. Rosaleen stood on my other side, helping to brace me.
“We can get you to Loelle,” she said.
I shook my head. “Take me to the palace courtyard.”
Darrow stopped walking. “That’s not a good idea. Joth is there fighting Simon. It isn’t going to end well. Joth will not let Simon win.”
“That’s why I have to go.”
“You can’t even stand! What can you do to help him?”
“Joth has the same magic now as Lord Endrick. If the Olden Blade could kill one, it should be able to kill the other.”
“You don’t know that. And if you’re wrong, Joth will not let you walk away from there.” I had looked away from Darrow so he counterstepped to catch my attention again. “Listen to me, Kestra. If you enter that courtyard, you will not leave it alive.”
This time I stared directly at him. “But I am going to enter because this is my responsibility. I will crawl there if I must, but nothing you do or say will stop me. This may be my last chance.”
Darrow sighed and tightened his arm around me, and he and Rosaleen began again to help me walk toward the palace courtyard.
Joth believed he was on the verge of victory, but I had no plans to make his claim on the throne this simple.
With his knife headed straight toward my chest, I braced myself, standing perfectly still until the blade was just in front of me. Then I swung my sword at it, connecting with a clash of metals that rang in my ears. The knife careened off sideways, and before Joth had time to react, I raced toward him.