The soldier leading him shoved Pyetar to his knees at Karvek’s side.
He wasn’t blindfolded like the others, but his hands were bagged and his arms tightly bound to his sides. Like just removing his hands from the equation wasn’t enough to keep him from wielding his forging.
Pyetar’s eyes latched right onto her, and he stared, first with relief and then terror. She doubted Karvek had told him that Iryana had escaped. Pyetar wouldhave just seen that she wasn’t in the dungeons with him, that Karvek had her or she was dead. Karvek might have even lied to him, taunted him.
“And what do you think will happen to my dear brother?” Karvek’s gaze pierced into her, and Iryana forced herself to rip her eyes off Pyetar. “After I kill you?”
She forced her heart to harden.
“The same thing as the rest of your prisoners, and anyone else that challenged you.” Iryana kept her voice light, as if the entire conversation was tedious. “The same thing that you’d have done to them anyway.”
“Well, well, well.” Karvek smiled, but it was forced now. “My poor brother, it seems our lady here is not as fond of you as you are of her.”
Pyetar jerked, and Iryana fought to remain still. How much did Karvek know?
Karvek shrugged. “I suppose he can still watch me kill you. That will teach him a lesson. One he just can’t seem to learn.”
She had known this would be hard for Pyetar to watch, but it had to be done.
“So you accept my challenge then?” she demanded.
Karvek took three long strides toward her, and Iryana tensed, ready to cast her weapons, but then he stopped a few feet away.
“I accept your challenge,” he declared. And then gestured toward the Kleesold prisoners. “Remove their blindfolds. Let them watch their savior fail.”
Then his eyes narrowed at her.
“You were a broken little bird when we met. I showed you what you were truly capable of. And this is how you repay me?” He drew out each word, lacing them with venom.
Karvek was always cool and calculated, which made him hard to beat. His rage was a bit of an unknown though, something she had only seen hints of below the surface. If she drew it out, she wondered, would he be sloppy? Or would his rage swallow her like a great avalanche?
It was a risk her plan required.
“You’ve showed me things, Karvek, sure. Like how much I hate being used. How much I despise how you kill anyone that gets in your way. How I can’t let you continue your spree of destruction.”
Karvek sneered. “And yet you latched onto my praise like a pathetic dog. You threw yourself at me like I could make you worthy.”
“Please. I’ve been trying to destroy you since the beginning, Karvek. You were so desperate formyaffection that you couldn’t tell how fake it was. I could never want you, never care foryou.”
Karvek roared, his face unmasked and twisted with rage. His arm wrenched back and cast his sword mid-swing. Iryana was ready, twisting out of the way and casting her own metal-forged spear.
They danced; there was no other way to describe it. His movements were aggressive and overextended in a way they hadn’t been before. Iryana was merely reacting to him, unable to do much more than defend herself from the powerful blows that made her magic harder to hold with each swing.
“Must be lonely trying to control everyone,” she taunted.
Too quickly, Karvek shattered her forging, sending a painful rip through her magic.
Iryana fell to her hands and knees, sensing Karvek as he circled her. Pyetar was being held down now, struggling to get to her. She shook her head at him, but that just seemed to make him more desperate.
I love you,he mouthed. Like he was saying goodbye.
The shock almost made Iryana miss the cue she had been waiting for. As Karvek stepped in, ready to finish her, Iryana rolled and sprung to her feet.
With her hand outstretched, Iryana summoned the water-forged staff. The effort was taxing, nausea clawing up her throat, and she ached down to her bones.
Karvek’s eyes widened, and he stared at the staff. She had too little time to make something more complicated, but the staff was unmistakably sky-colored.
He glanced around, as if trying to see if there was a water-forged hiding somewhere.
