Lord Riis and King Magnus were engaged in swords.
“Why isn’t the king using his magic?” Thyra asked.
“Lord Riis’s power is to negate,” I reminded her, excitement building in my chest. “He must have nullified the king’s power.”
“Ha!” Thyra grinned. “How long does it last?”
“Arie?” I asked the Riis male riding with Tonna.
“Varies,” Arie replied. Droplets of blood trailed across the bridge of his nose and down his neck, emphasizing that while I thought of Arie more as a Scholar, he’d grown up with Luccan and Thantrel and Lord Riis had insisted that they all train. Arie could fight well. “Who my father is up against, and their power level, has to be taken into consideration.”
Once, Lord Riis had said that he could not negate more than three opponents during a fight. Considering Magnus was very powerful, I assumed Lord Riis could only focus on him—and likely not for too long.
“You ruined her!” Lord Riis’s words hit my ear as we closed in.
“She was a deceitful whore!” King Magnus yelled back.
Lord Riis rushed the king, swinging his sword with fury and skill, but the king was ready. The two powerfully built faestruggled against one another, locked in an impasse, blade to blade.
“Might as well help him out, no?” The cold built around my twin. I recognized that sensation as her readying to send an icy projectile. I was about to warn her off in case she hit Lord Riis, when the spymaster let out a roar.
He fell to his knees. Struck. King Magnus kicked him in the shoulder, and the blade Lord Riis held fell, skittered across the rain and blood-slicked deck.
“No!” A scream ravaged my throat as Magnus brought his sword down. The metal glinted in a flash of lightning, and Lord Riis’s head went flying.
Behind me, still on gryphonback, Arie roared. A struggle ensued, presumably Tonna keeping Arie on the gryphon. My wings snapped out, and I soared off Arava’s back.
I landed behind the king, my boots striking the wood hard. Thyra hit only a second after, and other boots joined. When King Magnus turned to take us in, he smiled, as if he’d expected nothing less.
“Isolde. And Thyra.” He pointed a pale finger at my sister. “The rebel archer.” King Magnus wiped Lord Riis’s blood off on his pant leg. “An orc and a faerie, presumably rebels, a Riis—unsurprising. And an oath breaker.” His eyes lingered on Caelo the longest. Once a Clawsguard, King Magnus would take Caelo’s desertion personally.
“You’re outnumbered,” I said.
“It’s a pity Vale didn’t find you, Isolde.”
I fumed, which, I suspected, was what he wanted when he added, “And if only I’d killed you at the theater, Thyra, none of this would have happened.”
“This was always going to happen.” My chin lifted in defiance. “You’ve reaped your own end, Magnus.”
“How presumptuous of you to deal out endings.”
A pulse of magic erupted from the king, and I reached for my power, only to find he had not directed the attack at me or Thyra. No, we were unaffected, but everyone around us—our friends, those soldiers who had ambushed the king with Lord Riis, the king’s own soldiers—were frozen in place. No help would come from this ship. It was only us and Magnus.
“I propose that we play by the rules of old,” the king said. “The strongest wins the Crown of Winter.”
I’d barely processed this turn of events when Thyra rushed forward. Steel bit steel, magic flew, and I dodged two wayward magical blows as I debated what to do. They were moving rapidly, both sure of their prowess and power. If I struck, I was just as likely to hit my twin as the king. So I held back and waited for an opening.
That moment came with the slash of enemy metal across my sister’s shoulder. Thyra screamed and doubled over, and I sent a stake of ice right for the king’s heart.
Chapter 56
ISOLDE
My stake was a hands breadth away from his chest, when the king deflected my attack. Thyra stumbled a few paces away, out of his reach, but the king was a quick thinker and sent a jagged shard of ice at my sister. The ice cut her upper thigh, and she fell face-first to the rain-slicked deck.
“That’s not very noble of you, Isolde.” Magnus sidestepped so that his back was not to me or Thyra. “Attacking before Thyra and I have finished is against the rules.”
I laughed, and the cold inside me rose, chilling the air far more than the storm ever could. Another barrage of icicles materialized, and I sent them at him all at once, just like he’d done that one day to those poor actors.
