He swung the greatsword wide. I threw myself sideways, one hand reaching for the wall to brace the impact. The tip of his sword caught my shift, tearing a wide gash in the linen. He was more than competent with the sword, but it was a large and unwieldy weapon. I shoved myself off of the wall, putting the table and chairs between us. He’d have to come around them to reach me, and those few precious seconds would give me an advantage.
“A table won’t be enough to save you,” Nash said, bracing his hands on the first chair that blocked his way. “Or your little dragon.”
It was the absolute wrong thing to say, and not because of the floor-shaking roar that ripped from Isanara.
“He’s mine,”I declared to Isanara.
For once, my familiar did not argue.
Nash sprang to my left, going for what he presumed was my weaker side. But my power flowed just fine from both of my hands.
I sent shards of ice at his face with my hands while I kicked out the chair from my side of the table. Nash swiped aside my frozen missiles with his sword but stumbled on the chair. I saw my advantage. Ice spread across the floor, sweeping his feet out from under him as I dove in with my dagger aimed squarely at his chest.
His sword arm tangled in the legs of the chair, but he deflected me with the other, sending me sprawling. I slammed my elbows into the floor beneath me, forcing myself back up, but before I could gain my knees, Nash crashed down on top of me. I thrashed wildly. I had to knock the sword away. If he got that blade against a vital organ or artery, I was dead.
My hand found his arm. I forced all of my power into that one hand, freezing him the way I had Alize. He shrieked, wresting his arm away, but his knees on my chest kept me pinned. He ripped back the sleeve of his tunic to reveal the dark splotch where the skin had already begun to die. “You frigid bitch.”
He punched me in the face. Blood flooded my mouth. Before I could react, he’d knocked my dagger from my right hand, leaving me without a blade.
“I spared you,” I gasped out between blood-filled breaths. I did not know why I said it; there was no good in him for me to appeal to, no mercy.
“Do not blame me for your foolish mistakes. I thought that witches were ruthless. Then I met you and I realized that was just a tale told to children to keep them in line.” He leaned down, pinning an arm across my throat to cut off my air supply. “You are weak.”
“Strength takes many forms.”Isanara had remained silent, honoring my request to fight this battle myself. But she gave me those words.
“Strength takes many forms,” I repeated aloud, letting her strength of spirit meld with my own. “I only have to be strong enough to beat you.”
“When you die, your dragon will answer to me.”
He’d robbed me of my blade. But I still had a weapon. And he’d assumed that my left hand was too weak to bother pinning.
I formed the ice dagger in my palm, fusing it to my hand so he could not knock it loose, and raked it down his face from forehead to chin. Blood spurted, the warmth of it shrinking the dagger as he rolled away. I released it, letting the chunk of ice fall to the floor, diluting the pool of Nash’s blood.
“Dragons answer to no one,” I seethed.
I let myself savor the sight of him hunched over on the floor, cupping his face and moaning. But the second he moved to face me, I released all control.
Frost poured from my hands, glowing a faint, pale blue as it swirled around him. It speared into his ears, mouth, and nose. Into the socket where the eye I’d destroyed had once been.
I felt the flakes coalesce inside his lungs and in the arteries of his heart.
In one last moment of lucidity, Nash turned to me. He looked at me with one ragged, murderous eye. I saw only what he’d done to the woman in the stable. What he’d tried to do to me. What he’d promised to do to Isanara.
I turned the frost to solid ice.
His heart stopped. His lungs could not pull air. I stood over his frozen body, holding my power in place until every organ ceased to function and not a single spark of life remained in his body.
The once warm blood on his face and hands sparkled, transformed into a deep, glittering scarlet.
“So, you do know something about dragons.”
My gaze snapped to Isanara, her body cast in an eerie silhouette by the flames of the hearth behind her. The spikes on her back stood up, raised like the hairs of a cat when riled. Her delicate snout and curved horns seemed longer, more imposing than ever before. She’d been ready to come to my aid, I realized. If she’d truly thought me in danger, she would have thrown herself between me and Nash. She would have sacrificed herself.
I hit my knees.
My breath came hard and fast, the blood in my veins thrumming wildly. I fell forward, catching myself on my hands. I slid through the frozen shards of Nash’s blood, ripping open little wounds across my palms. The blood began to thaw, the scent of it more noxious with every second. My heart was going to explode out of my chest.No—that isn’t possible. My heart does not beat anymore…
Not my heart. My power. It was going to explode out of me, take out everyone and everything?—
