Lightning streaked down the dark gray sky, directly into the Black Knight’s outstretched arm. Except his armor was not black anymore. He glowed with light—with deadly energy. Then he swung that arm down and aimed at my mate.
I swallowed my scream, closed an internal fist around the golden thread that connected us. I would not let myself be a distraction, could not let him die because of me.
Not again. It can’t be happening again.
Arran twisted in midair, evading the deadly arc of sizzling power. His growl rolled through the water-logged plain, the ground seeming to vibrate as he crashed into the Black Knight, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
A lightning wielder—an elemental. What in the humans’ bloody hell was an elemental doing here, serving Palomides?
My skin began to crawl again, that awful sizzling. The Black Knight had gotten his arm up, was trying to channel power from the sky. But Arran knocked him aside.
Who?
“It can’t be,” Lyrena breathed beside me. But I could not look away, did not dare.
Even as my mind spiraled. Lightning wielders were rare—had I ever even met one? Teo, my traitorous royal councilor, had been able to summon storms. But he was dead. A relative?
Lyrena was shaking her head beside me—she’d arrived at no firm conclusion either.
On the plain, Arran was a storm of death, a dance of fangs and fur.
The Black Knight shoved him off, managed to get the sword into his hand.
Arran pounced, dodging the blade, clamping down on the Black Knight’s arm. Bone snapped—I heard it from the other side of the plain even through the rushing rain.
Blood. Blood flowing out, pooling, coating my hands.
I dug my nails into the flesh of my palms, trying to focus on the pinpricks of pain. That was rainwater wetting my hands. Not Arran’s blood.
He’d injured the Black Knight. But the elemental did not cry out, did not show any sign of slowing. He threw up his other arm, drawing down another streak of lightning until his armor glowed brightly once again.
Arran was already running.
He did not make himself an easy target—like dodging arrows, he ran from side the side, changing his direction so rapidly the Black Knight could not predict. He sent down bolt after bolt of lightning.
“He’s going to get himself killed,” Lyrena muttered.
The scabbard could have protected Arran from the Black Knight’s sword. But it would do nothing to stop him from being roasted alive from the inside.
The scabbard could not protect him.
Not from me, not from his soul-bonded mate…
“He’s testing the range,” Lyrena said. She was clear-headed. She could see what I failed to. Arran moved side to side, yes, but also farther and then closer. Testing the accuracy of that lightning.
But why? Why did that matter? Why not attack, wrestle the Black Knight to the ground, rip off his head?
I realized the answer a minute later.
Arran’s movements had changed. No less erratic, but more controlled. Tighter. He was moving in closer, preparing to launch an attack that would be final. That must be final.
Because he was tiring.
Palomides knew it too. His chuckle should have been lost to the elements, but somehow it reached me on the other side of the plain. He had one elemental in his charge; maybe he had another hidden away nearby, a wind-wielder who could amplify and carry the sound. Nausea churned in my gut at the thought. My own kind… betraying me, again.
As I’d betrayed Arran, when it was my sword that pierced his chest.
My fault. My fault. My fault.
