Steel clashes with steel in a violent crack that shudders down my arm so viciously, I have to grip my handle with both hands.
“You should’ve come when I told you to the first time!” he snarls, shoving against me. “You never fucking listen. Now look what you did.”
“What I did?” I fire back, twisting out of his range and swinging again. “You both kidnapped Laney. You killed her parents.”
“I didn’t kill them.” He blocks my strike and sparks scatter between us. “I can only control these monsters to an extent.”
I drive forward, faster, harder. Every attack is fueled by the images and noises that are burned into my mind.
Mr. Armend’s prune body.
Mrs. Armend’s last words. Her blood still on my hand.
Laney’s cries. The cut on her neck that’ll scar.
My screams. My blood. My back.
“You caused this! You caused all of this. You are the monster, Mellcom.”
An agonized shout rips from my throat as I unleash hell with my sweet little sword of death.
He meets me with equal force. Our blades lock, and we shove. They grind together, and we strain against each other. My muscles scream, but my memories are louder. This dance, this battle…it’s so routine. So familiar.
I hate it.
I hate him.
We separate for half a breath.
Then collide again.
He drives forward this time, relentless, and his strikes land heavier, designed to overpower. I block, deflect, and refuse to allow the rhythm to shift in his favor.
Our blades lock together again, trembling with the force behind them.
Neither giving. Neither yielding.
“You are fucking ungrateful and blind, Thayla.” His weapon whistles past my shoulder as we push apart from one another, and I duck as he slices it back toward me just as fast. “Everything I’ve ever done was for you.”
For me.
He slides a step under the clash of my sword, and I lunge forward, driving my fist across his jaw.
“No.” The word erupts out of me. “Everything you’ve done is because you’re controlling, possessive, fucking manip—”
I stumble back, heaving as I stare at his glowing, green eyes. His jaw tightens, and something akin to satisfaction flashes across his face.
My breathing grows heavier as my hearing hollows.
Somewhere among the madness, cutting through the grunts of other fights and the fretful shrieks from the ungodly beingsin this arena with us, a giggle pierces my ears and soothes the rolling in my stomach.
Four encouraging strokes against my soul keep my knees from buckling.
“Say it, Thayla.”
He shoves a burst of power at me, and my nostrils flare when the slimy, uncomfortable,familiarsensation rolls across my skin.
“Manipulative. Your power is Manipulation.”
