It’s her light. I can feel it within me, making my magic stronger and more vibrant. I can see it swirling in my shadows, particles of light mixed with the darkness. If I weren’t fighting for our lives, I’d be standing and staring at it in awe. So strange after everything that’s happened. So different. So beautiful.
The last of the four elite guards falls to the ground, lifeless, his face a bloody mess. The taller Titan twin hunches over his knees. The other spits mucus and blood onto the frozen ground. I stretch my arms above my head, roll my shoulders, feel for Briony, steady myself for the next attack.
What comes strolling out of the mist this time is far more deadly.
The Titan twin next to me groans.
It’s the Empress herself.
She’s dressed from head to foot in solid silver armor, something that should make her movements stiff and impeded. I’m guessing it’s magical, though, because she moves with ease,the armor seeming to slide over her lithe body. She has a sword in her hand, longer, bigger than the one Beaufort had out in the demon wastelands. A sword that seems to glow in her hands with dark magic, snake-like tendrils of deep crimson crawling over the blade. The dark magic that prickles against my skin and sets my killer instincts frantic.
The Empress stares at us with her cold silver eyes.
I always considered the woman beautiful. Her skin is like porcelain. Her bone structure chiseled to perfection. But there’s no beauty to her face, really, because there’s no emotion in it. None at all.
The woman is ruthless. I see it now, plainly. It’s how she’s kept a grip on this realm for all these years, with very little struggle and practically no dissent.
“We are disappointed,” she says, her voice cutting through the mist. “In the three of you. You’re foolish to throw your lives away. You especially so, Fox Tudor, after we spared you once, after we showed you mercy. We won’t do that again.”
She slices her sword through the air, and her dark shadow magic races toward us.
For a moment, I’m struck by indecision.
My magic can’t meet hers, even with Briony’s light swirling through it. I’m not as strong as she is. Trying to fend her off, trying to battle her, is of no use.
But I am immortal.
She can’t kill me with her magic. She can make me hurt. She can torture me. But I’ll live. I’ll live through it all.
This is my moment, though. She’s here. Yards from me.
I can’t fight her magic, but can I find another way to strike at her? To save Briony and us all?
I am faster than her, after all.
I leap out of the way, but the two Titan twins are not as fast as I am. They start to move, start to dart away, but they’re tooslow. The Empress’s black shadow magic strikes them both with a sickening blow and they tumble to the ground in synchronicity, just as lifeless as the elite guard moments before.
I race toward the Empress, leaving the bodies of Titan twins behind me. She fires her magic at me, missing me by mere millimeters. I fire too, but my magic simply bounces off her armor, without even a scratch, or a dent, or a flinch.
Damn.
I swerve out of the way as her magic keeps coming, zigzagging this way and that, like a rabbit attempting to escape the clutches of a fox. I keep firing, hoping I’ll get a lucky hit, some chink in the armor where my blow might do damage, if not be fatal.
Her magic hits me on the shoulder, on the foot, singes my hair. I gasp and grunt and groan. It can’t kill me, but then she’s swinging that great sword again. And though a stab through the heart will not render me lifeless, if I lose my head, that will be the end.
I jump back. I flick fire at the sword. I swerve. I spin.
I know I’m so fast that my movement must look like a blur of motion to her, or at least it would to any normal shadow weaver. But she seems to see me perfectly, seems to predict my every move.
And then suddenly the sword is coming for me.
Coming for my neck.
This will kill me. If I lose my head, it’s the end.
I try to fall backward, away from the blade. I send my shadows spinning in all directions, but I can see it’s no good. The blade will hit me and I will die.
Then someone roars my name, speeding in front of me – a flash of black shadow.
