Not yet, I whispered to it.Let me see his face when he breaks.
“She screamed your name when they dragged her away.” Cadoc sneered. “Sounded to me like she was cursing you for not being there.”
For what felt like an eternity, I did nothing but stare him down, watching the pulse at his throat accelerate.
The monster inside me licked its lips.You failed her, it whispered back.But I won’t.
I hated that it might be right.
With a flick of magic, I sent his sword flying, startling his horse as it landed on its far side. Then I was traveling through the mists of magic, sword sheathed, dagger in hand. The world only slowed when I had Cadoc’s shoulders in my grip.
And with a second flick of my wrist, I opened his stomach with the precision of a surgeon.
Cadoc collapsed to the earth, clutching his insides as if he could hold himself together. All it took was a slight, contemptuous push using my free hand for him to fall onto his back in the dirt.
The fallen general of my kingdom’s oldest enemy looked up at me in astonishment. I pressed my boot to his gaping stomach, careful to avoid his guts now spilling over the grass in a mess of blood. His gaze flicked in the direction his sword had disappeared as if it might save him.
“This was never going to be the grand fight you wanted,” I snarled. “Tell me where she is, and I’ll allow you to die like a soldier with your sword in your hands.”
Cadoc’s lip curled. “Even if I die, you won’t get her back.”
“I will,” I said, and meant it.
When I withdrew my boot, the monster reveled in the cry of pain Cadoc tried to hide from us. Even as he realized there was no “if” about his death, defiance was written in the lines of Cadoc’s face. His hatred for my family was so old, so deeply ingrained, that he would die before he told me anything that would help me.
I had offered him pity once. I wouldn’t again.
“It takes a long time to die from a clean disemboweling,” I said, relishing the feeling of my sneer. “I’ll enjoy imagining you lugging your corpse across this field, guts dragging in the dirt, as the crows hop after you, eagerly awaiting their turn at your flesh. Nothing can make you a brave man now.”
I started to walk away.
“Wait…” he nearly begged, voice weaker. Cadoc’s blood gurgled in his throat as he forced a laugh. “You’re going to walk right in…and they’ll allow it. She’s too tolerant of abominations like you. Do us all a favor and kill her too.”
She? Did that mean Princess Anwen?
I almost turned, almost said something, but decided it wasn’t worth my time. I would kill anyone who came between me and Isca. That was a foregone conclusion.
Just to spite him, I flicked his sword even farther away as I started toward his horse. Let him die like the coward he truly was without his weapon in hand.
I had the capacity for cruelty, but I’d never wanted any of this. The petty act should’ve satisfied me, but it didn’t.
If Cadoc had seen Isca, that meant whoever had taken her had rendezvoused with this regiment. They would be a half day’s ride or more ahead of me by now. I needed to cover a lot of ground, and his horse was still fresh.
I started walking toward it when magic pulsed from the tree line the soldiers had been trying to drag me into. It matched the signature of the one I’d felt lingering in our tent back at the camp.
My vision went red.
I stalked into the woods. It took me less than a minute to find the source. Corrupted druidic magic warped the air around the hiding mage—an effective veil of illusion that allowed him to blend into the base of a nearby tree. The average soldier, even the average mage, would’ve missed him.
I was not average.
Instead of announcing myself, I removed the air from his lungs. All I wanted was answers. He could breathe when he supplied those.
But he gave me another fight instead, sending a pillar of earth flying into the space between us.
The curse crushed it with a blast of pure magic.
He summoned twisting vines that were meant to trip me, to distract and bind me.
