Zalindov, Kiva realized, her heart hurting for her friend. Cresta must have found out about Serafine sometime during the five years she’d been locked away.
“Luckily for me,” Cresta went on, “you’ve already taken care of Father.” A feline grin touched her lips. “And now I’m going to take care of you. Mirraven has seen too many tyrant kings — it’s time for that to change.”
Before anyone could process the threat in her words, Cresta declared in a loud, carrying voice, “By the laws of the country to which we were born, I, Crestoria Vossendi Kildarion, challenge you, Navok Arakkis Kildarion, to the blood duel.”
Waves of tension hit Kiva from all directions, with the gray-clad Mirravens on the bridge sucking in shocked breaths, and even Jaren turning solid beside her.
This time it was Queen Ariana’s voice in Kiva’s mind, words she’d spoken months earlier during the Royal Council meeting beneath the palace: Mirraven law states that if anyone of royal blood challenges the ruling monarch and defeats them in combat, they can claim the throne as their own.
Cresta had challenged Navok, just like he had once challenged his own father. If she triumphed over him —
She would become queen of Mirraven.
Kiva stared at her friend, recalling how obsessively she’d been training since leaving Zalindov.
There’s always going to be someone stronger than you. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
Cresta had been preparing herself — for this.
A laugh left Navok, dark and ugly. Kiva expected him to oppose the words, maybe even give Cresta a chance to rescind her challenge. But instead, he said, “You always were a brash, foolish child.” He returned her feline grin, his sharp and feral as he added, “I didn’t mourn you the first time. I won’t this time, either.”
And then he moved lightning-fast, pulling a dagger out of nowhere and flinging it straight at her.
Kiva screamed a warning, but there was no need, because Cresta had predicted the underhanded move. She pivoted to the side, the blade flying past her to sink deep into the chest of one of Navok’s guards, making him cry out and stagger backwards into another, before collapsing to the ground.
Madness descended then, with Cresta unsheathing her blade and charging toward her brother just as he pulled out his own sword, the two meeting in a clash of steel. But they weren’t the only ones — their attack had broken the spell on the bridge, and suddenly everyone leapt back into action.
Jaren grabbed Kiva and pressed her against the railing, yelling at her to keep down as he stood in front of her, using his swords and magic to fight off the Gray Guards and anomalies flinging everything they had at him. By unspoken agreement — or perhaps Mirraven’s laws — none of them aimed their powers at Cresta, leaving her and Navok to their duel without interference. Kiva watched in amazement as the redhead — the princess — slashed and stabbed, blocked and ducked, jumped and lunged, meeting every one of Navok’s attacks and returning her own. All the while, the bridge succumbed to mayhem, with Jaren pushing his magic to its limits to keep the anomalies from tearing it apart beneath them and sending them all into the river.
Kiva’s ears rang with the crashes and groans of metal and bodies, her nose stung from the smell of sweat and blood, her eyes burned from the fire and water flashing across her vision. Through the railing, she spotted Torell and Ashlyn, closer to the palace now, near to where Mirryn and Ariana were throwing their magic more slowly than they had in the queen’s chambers, their fatigue catching up to them. Kiva prayed Oriel and Tipp were hiding safely inside, perhaps wherever Cresta had told her sister to run to when she’d sent her away from the fight. But not even the palace was safe. Because as Kiva watched, a crack formed at the base of the western residence, cleaving upward through the luminium-fortified surface, all the way to the highest tower. The bridge shook in response, the river roared, but then it stilled just as quickly when the anomaly responsible was brought down by a blood-splattered Rhessinda.
It was then that Kiva lost track of her friends and brother, the pandemonium on the grounds too difficult for her to keep up with, and the danger facing her too real to not be giving it her full attention. Because while Jaren was trying desperately to hold off their attackers, they were now coming at him from both sides, and his already strained magic was beginning to splutter into wisps and embers, before finally failing him completely. Even with the Royal Guards and Evalonian soldiers helping to beat back their opponents, he wouldn’t be able to keep up his defense for much longer. And Kiva couldn’t just keep hiding behind him like some pathetic damsel waiting for a rescue.
Ignoring his order to stay down, she lunged for the nearest body and claimed the fallen woman’s sword. It was heavy in her hands, but that didn’t stop Kiva from swinging it madly when a Gray Guard ran toward Jaren’s unprotected side, her lack of technique irrelevant. An image of the golden warrior she’d killed in the arena came to her, along with Naari’s words: Kill or be killed. Knowing this was the same, Kiva didn’t hesitate to slash her blade toward the man, aiming low and slicing straight through his leather boot to sever his Achilles tendon. He roared and dropped his weapon to clutch at his leg, the sound causing Jaren to spin around with wide eyes — and then his eyes widened even more, but not in surprise at what she’d done.
In fear.
Kiva had just enough time to turn and see Xuru’s flames heading for her, to feel dread pool in her stomach, to brace for her flesh to be seared off her bones — but that never happened. Because Jaren, no longer having enough magic to combat the flames, jumped in front of her, shielding her with his body.
She still felt the heat of Xuru’s attack, could smell her hair burning, even had to slap fire from her sleeve, despite being otherwise unharmed.
But Jaren —
She dropped her sword as he fell and wrapped her arms around him from behind, an agonized moan leaving him as she helped slow his descent until he rested on the ground.
“No, no, no,” she breathed as she saw the damage to his chest, his black leather armor disintegrated from his waist up, his exposed torso nothing but pulpy blood mixed with black ash and melted skin.
Kiva swallowed back bile and made herself look instead into his half-closed, pain-filled eyes. “This is f-fine. You’re fine.”
He wasn’t fine. And neither was she, because they were still in the middle of a warring bridge, and Xuru was now walking toward them, a smirk on his face, his hands lit with more flames that he was readying to throw.
But he didn’t get a chance, because his smirk transformed into a silent scream as a sword pierced his chest from behind.
Naari’s sword.
The amber-eyed guard didn’t wait for his body to crumple before she ripped out her blade and sprinted the remaining distance to Kiva and Jaren, swinging her weapon to defend them from a new wave of approaching warriors.
Kiva drew in a trembling breath and used Naari’s cover to summon her magic. Her golden glow was blinding as it poured into Jaren, eliciting another moan, but one of relief this time.
Please, please, please, Kiva begged her magic, willing it to hurry.
She felt the weakness come over her again, just like when she’d awoken his family, but she pushed through it, coaxing her power to mend his flesh. It took only seconds, but in the midst of the battle, it felt like hours, until finally, finally, his chest was smooth, the skin pink and fresh, the burn completely healed.