“I would, love, but I’m under orders,” he said with that same smirk. His eyes seemed to zero in on her necklace that had started to glow as more power flowed into her. “Interesting choice.”
“Don’t you just love being a lapdog?” Cyrene said, trying for diversion.
“I’m no one’s lapdog,” he snapped.
“Because we all know that she’s controlling the magic that’s in you. That’s her domain. You’re blood-cursed, and that curse comes with a long leash, but you’re still collared.”
“If I am, then you are,” he said with an arched eyebrow.
“I am of the light,” she told him with conviction. More than she had ever felt before this moment. “I shunned the darkness that you so cling to.” She raised her chin. “And the light will always drive out the darkness.”
“We’ll see about that,” Kael snarled.
Then he threw that first wave of unbreakable darkness toward them.
It was the moment she had been waiting for. She had been nudging him along, anticipating the moment that her words hit home. When he would throw the first punch. She didn’t want to start the fight, but she sure as hell would finish it.
Cyrene whirled, snatching Shadowbreaker out of the sheath from Dean’s hilt and ripped a long tear through the middle of his attack. Her sword that was immune to magic cleaved straight through it, rending it in two as if it were nothing more than fabric. She hadn’t even had to use her magic to deflect the blow. But she felt Dean obliterating what was left of the darkness.
Cyrene straightened. Shadowbreaker alive in her hands. The ruby glowing to match the golden hue surrounding her figure. Her eyes were leveled on Kael’s. The surprise evident on his face, though he tried to mask it.
He’d thought that she would be a weak opponent. That she would roll over. The last time they had fought, he had just been training her with her powers. She had never bested him while practicing. He had always had the advantage. And, only when she had had the element of surprise, she had been able to knock him unconscious and escape Byern.
But that was in the past. She had accepted her powers and mastered spirit. She’d spent months training her powers for combat and had Shadowbreaker forged out of pure Tendrille. She was the Domina. She would not back down.
She raised her eyebrows at Kael. A look of defiance laced with her own brand of arrogance. She had spent two years waiting for this moment. If it ended here, then it ended here.
31
The Treaty
“Stop,” Killian demanded from his throne. “I command you to cease fighting.”
But no one was listening to him.
No one even looked to him.
All eyes were riveted on Cyrene, Dean, and Kael. The magic brimming between them. The unthinkable power that radiated from them.
Cyrene’s magic at the ready, a sweet, blissful relief. So deep that she couldn’t find the bottom. Plus, with the honeycomb center of her ruby full, she could go even further. The diamond at her throat a reminder of not just what she was, but who she was. The legacy she had been born to protect and preserve.
“You’ve been busy,” Kael said. He had no sword at his belt. He didn’t need one. He built a blade out of solid darkness, hard as steel and twice as deadly.
But he had to know it wasn’t as formidable as Shadowbreaker. Not with its natural immunity. If he didn’t yet, he would.
“As have you,” she taunted, matching the circular steps he was taking.
She recognized the movements for what they were. Practiced sword stances. Specific footwork that Fallon had tried to drill into her head back in Kinkadia. Though he only had a theoretical knowledge, and she was no swordsman. But she was Doma, and that was always enough.
Kael lunged forward with all the precision of a prince who’d had the best trainers in all of Byern. Dean would have been better for this. He was the swordsman. He was the trained captain of Eleysia. A prince in his own right. But it wasn’t his fight. It was hers.
Their swords matched. Tendrille meeting the darkness of his own. Then her blade rent his sword into pieces. She whirled, moving like water, letting her magic guide her steps. Sinking deep into her magic, deep into that diamond. Her footwork coordinated and on target.
He flung magic up to deflect the blade, but it wasn’t enough.
He needed a real blade. And she saw the moment he realized it.
That he had been counting on his magic before his earlier training with steel and fists. A lesson that Avoca had drilled into her head time and time again.
Then she felt it. In her moment of distraction, his mind touched hers.
So gentle, so coaxing that she hadn’t noticed it at all.
An invasion.
One she should have expected.
One that he had trained her in.
She slammed a wall down around herself, but it was too late.
He was in.
Shadowbreaker clattered out of her hand. It hit the marble floor with a satisfying clunk. She gritted her teeth and forced her way through his machinations.
This was his domain. Malysa’s domain. She had spent thousands of years learning to work her way into people’s minds. Spreading that festering evil through the world. Keeping Doma magic from resurrecting. A disease. A dilution of the pure Doma magic to enter the bloodstream of useless humans. And now, Kael was using that same power to lock down her body.
He stepped forward, and his fingers grazed the diamond. “I know someone who has been looking for this a long time.”
“You will have to take it off my dead body,” she spat at him as he held her hostage.
“I have never wanted you dead, Cyrene. I have always protected you.” His voice was low, coaxing. “Join me. Choose the right side.”
“I…already…have,” she got out.
Kael laughed and bent to retrieve Shadowbreaker. “Always so stubborn.”
And then the smile was wiped off of his face as a bolt of electricity shot into his side. He barely had time to deflect it before he was thrown backward, colliding with the wall.
His grip slipped, and Cyrene wrenched back control of her own body. She slammed a shield around her mind. A shield made of Tendrille that no one could hope to penetrate. She would never let him in again. Not ever.
Dean appeared at her side. “I thought you had him covered.”
Cyrene rolled her shoulders. “Thanks for having my back.”
“What I’m here for.”
They stepped together as a unit. Kael rose to his feet. Shadowbreaker still clutched tightly to his fist. She wanted that damn sword back. She had not faced all of Kinkadia and fought for Sarielle just to have her prized blade in the enemy’s hands.
But Kael was looking between them. He held his side. Saw the formidable team that they had become. That she wasn’t the easy mark he had expected. The young girl she had been when he coaxed her into the darkness. When she had been so broken by Maelia’s death that she went willingly.
No longer.
She was so much more than that now.
So much more than he could ever understand.
And today, she stood before him, ready to end it.
He must have seen it flickering in her eyes. Not rage, but purpose. Not anger, but resolution. This was the end.