My father stands in the very center of it all, the rotten heart that must be carved out.
We plunge into the embrace of Kasamere Forest like arrows loosed from a bow. The ancient trees close in around us immediately, their massive trunks thick and primordial, bark black as midnight and scarred with the passage of centuries. Gnarled branches claw at the sky above like skeletal fingers reaching for something forever out of reach, while overhead the canopy grows so dense that daylight becomes a distant memory. I release a slow breath, feeling the familiar tingle of recognition that runs along my skin like electricity.
The forest knows me. It recognizes the magic that flows in my veins, senses my intent with an awareness that predates civilization itself. Kasamere bends toward me with each thundering gallop, ancient and watchful, waiting to see what I will ask of it.
Wasting no time, I lift one hand from the reins, my fingers curling in the silent command gestures my father taught me so long ago. Irony tastes bitter as copper as I feed my magic into the forest’s willing embrace, and Kasamere answers like an old friend.
Massive vines surge up from the mossy ground with serpentine grace, thick as ship’s ropes and studded with thorns sharp enough to pierce armor. They snare the hooves of the last two soldiers in my father’s retinue, wrapping around fetlocks and cannon bones with crushing force. Their steeds scream in terror and agony as they topple, massive bodies crashing into the thick underbrush with the sound of snapping branches. Riders are thrown clear, their bodies hitting the ground with sickening cracks as their limbs break like kindling. Before they can even register what’s happening to them, Rue is there, leaping from his horse mid-motion with liquid grace, twin daggers flashing silver as they find throats with surgical precision. Their blood spatters the bark of a nearby ash tree in dark, arterial sprays.
Leaving Rue to catch up when he’s finished his grisly work, I don’t let the rest of them get far.
I call upon the forest again, and thick roots twist from the earth like living serpents, erupting through moss and fallen leaves to block their path with impenetrable walls. Ancient trees lean into their desperate route like massive sentries slamming shut the gates of a fortress. The very ground beneath their horses’ hooves becomes treacherous, shifting and buckling until mounts stumble and riders fight just to stay upright.
One by one, my father’s soldiers are dragged down into the forest’s hungry embrace, their screams cut short as vines close around throats and roots pierce through gaps in their armor. The silence that follows is profound and absolute, broken only by the soft whisper of leaves settling back into place.
Until only General Erron remains.
His warhorse, a massive destrier bred for battle, stumbles into a circular clearing ringed by black-stone boulders weathered smooth over millennia. Ancient ash trees tower overhead like pillars in some forgotten cathedral, their silver bark gleaming faintly in the filtered light. Sunlight cuts throughthe thick canopy in thin, ethereal beams that dance with motes of pollen and forest dust.
I dismount slowly, deliberately, my boots making barely a whisper on the thick carpet of moss that covers the forest floor.
He turns to face me, still mounted, still armored in the regalia of his rank. His expression is unreadable beneath the polished steel of his helm, but I can see his eyes through the narrow visor. My eyes, the same gray-green that I see in my reflection, but cold now, proud and utterly, furiously defiant.
“So, it’s come to this,” he says, his voice echoing strangely in the cathedral hush of the clearing. “My own son, sword drawn against his blood.”
The disappointment in his tone cuts deeper than any blade, but I don’t let it show on my face. I won’t give him that satisfaction.
“You stopped being my father the moment you tried to kill the king,” I say, my voice steady as granite. “You stopped being anything to me the moment you tried to kill her.”
He dismounts with practiced grace and throws his helm to the ground, where it lands with a dull clang against stone. His graying hair is matted with sweat, his face lined with years of command and recent sleepless nights. His eyes, those familiar eyes burn with righteous fury.
“You were meant to follow me, Locke. Me!” The words come out strangled with rage and something that might be grief. “Not this half-blood witch, this naive child playing at power! You were meant to take my place when I was gone. General of the Night Guard. Protector of Vanir. It was supposed to be your legacy!”
“I am protecting Vanir,” I growl, my hand moving to the hilt of my sword. “By stopping you.”
His face twists into something ugly, something I’ve never seen there before. “She’ll destroy this kingdom, mark my words. You can’t see it now, but I can. You’re too blinded by whateverspell she’s cast on you, whatever dark magic she’s used to cloud your judgment.”
“She didn’t cast a spell.” I unsheathe my sword in one fluid motion, the steel singing as it clears the scabbard. “I love her.”
He laughs, and the sound is bitter and cracked, like old bones breaking under pressure. Like everything good between us finally shattering beyond repair.
“Then you’re a greater fool than I ever thought possible.” Without warning, he lunges for me, his own blade already in motion.
Steel meets steel in a scream of sparks and tortured metal. The impact sends shockwaves up through my arms, jarring my shoulders and rattling my teeth, but I hold firm. Parry. Counter. Riposte. Our blades become silver blurs in the dappled light, dancing the ancient, deadly ballet of single combat. He’s fast, still devastatingly fast despite his years. Still strong, his muscles honed by decades of warfare. Every swing he makes is calculated, precise, trained into his very bones by a lifetime of violence.
He taught me every move he now uses against me, every technique and strategy, but I’ve learned more since my days in the training grounds. Pain has sharpened my instincts to a razor’s edge. Love has tempered my strength into something unbreakable.
When he drives toward my chest with a thrust meant to pierce my heart, I twist low and slam my shoulder into his gut with all the force I can muster. He stumbles backward, momentarily off-balance, and I don’t waste the opportunity. My blade slashes across his thigh in a silver arc, parting leather and chainmail to find flesh beneath. His blood sprays across the moss-covered ground in a dark fan.
He roars in pain and fury, enraged that I’m besting him, that the student has truly surpassed the master. As he straightensand comes at me again with renewed ferocity, his face is a mask of murderous intent.
“You betray your own blood!” he shouts, spittle flying from his lips.
“You betrayed everything!” I roar back, driving him backward with a series of brutal, hammering blows that ring like thunder in the clearing. “You betrayed the king who trusted you! You betrayed the people who looked up to you! You betrayed me!”
We clash again with renewed violence, our blades sending showers of sparks flying with each strike, steel against steel in a symphony of destruction. Bark explodes from the trunk of an ancient ash as his blade misses my throat by mere inches, carving a deep gouge in the silver wood. I duck under his next swing, pivot on the balls of my feet, and drive my sword upward in a stroke that would have opened him from groin to sternum if he hadn’t deflected it with a desperate, ringing parry.
“You were always weak,” he pants, sweat streaming down his face as we circle each other like predators. “Always too soft, just like your mother. She made you weak, filled your head with foolish notions of honor and mercy.”
