Gathering of Shadows (A Darker Shade of Magic) (59 page)

She jerked back to attention. Ister was fitting the last of the armor plates on her leg.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, trying to focus on Alucard’s lessons.

Magic is a conversation.

Be an open door.

Let the waves through.

Right now, she felt like a rocky coastline.

She looked down at her wrist. The skin was already healing where the ropes had cut, but when she turned her hands over, her veins were dark. Not black, like the Dane twins, but not as light as they should be, either. Concern rippled through her, followed swiftly by annoyance.

She was fine.

She would be fine.

She’d come this far.

Delilah Bard was
not
a quitter.

Kell had beat the Veskan, Rul, by only two points, and lost to her by four. He was out of the running, but Lila could lose by a point and still advance. Besides, Alucard had already won his second match, securing his place in the final three alongside a magician named Tos-an-Mir, one of the famous Faroan twins. If Lila won, she’d finally get a chance to fight him. The prospect made her smile.

“What is that?” asked Ister, nodding down at the shard of pale stone in her hand. Lila had been rubbing it absently. Now she held it up to the tent’s light. If she squinted, she could almost see the edge of Astrid’s mouth, frozen in what could be a laugh, or a scream.

“A reminder,” said Lila, tucking the chipped piece of statue into the coat slung over a cushion. It was a touch morbid, perhaps, but it made Lila feel better, knowing that Astrid was gone, and would stay gone. If there
was
a kind of magic that could bring back an evil queen turned to stone, she hoped it required a full set of pieces. This way, she could be certain that one was missing.

“Of what?” asked Ister.

Lila took up the dagger hilts and slid them into her forearm plates. “That I’m stronger than my odds,” she said, striding out of the tent.

That I have crossed worlds, and saved cities.

She entered the stadium tunnel.

That I have defeated kings and queens.

She adjusted the helmet and strode out into the arena, awash in the cheers.

That I have survived impossible things.

Rul stood in the center of the floor, a towering shape.

That I am Delilah Bard …

She held out her spheres, her vision blurring for an instant before she let them go.

And I am unstoppable.

* * *

Kell stood on the balcony of his room, the gold ring on the rail between his hands, the sounds of the stadium reverberating through the metal.

The eastern arena floated just beside the palace, its ice dragons bobbing in the river around it, their bellies red. With the help of a looking scope, Kell could see down into the stadium, the two fighters like spots of white against the dark stone floor. Lila in her dark devil’s mask. Rul with the steel face of a canine, his own wild hair jutting out like a ruff. His pennant was a blue wolf against a white ground, but the crowd was awash of silver blades on black.

Hastra stood behind him in the balcony doors, and Staff by the ones in the bedroom.

“You know him, don’t you?” asked Hastra. “Stasion Elsor?”

“I’m not sure,” murmured Kell.

Far below, the arena cheered. The match had started.

Rul favored earth and fire, and the elements swirled around him. He’d brought a handle and hilt into the ring; the earth swirled around the handle, hardening into a rock shield, while the fire formed a curving sword. Lila’s own daggers came to life as they had the day before, one fire and the other ice. For an instant the two stood there, sizing each other up.

Then they collided.

Lila landed the first blow, getting in under Rul’s sword, then spinning behind him and driving the fire dagger into the plate on the back of his leg. He twisted around, but she was already up and out, readying another strike.

Rul was taller by at least a foot, and twice as broad, but he was faster than a man his size had any right to be, and when she tried to find her way beneath his guard again, she failed, losing two plates in the effort.

Lila danced backward, and Kell could imagine her sizing the man up, searching for an in, a weakness, a chink. And somehow she found one. And then another.

She didn’t fight like Rul, or Kisimyr, or Jinnar. She didn’t fight like anyone Kell had ever seen. It wasn’t that she was
better
—though she was certainly fast, and clever—it was just that she fought in the ring the way he imagined she did on the streets back in Grey London. Like everything was on the line. Like the other person was the only thing standing between her and freedom.

Soon she was ahead, six to five.

And then, suddenly, Rul struck.

She was rushing toward him, mid-stride when he turned the rock shield and threw it like a disk. It caught Lila in the chest, hard enough to throw her back into the nearest column. Light burst from the shattered plates on her stomach, shoulders, and spine, and Lila crumpled to the stone floor.

The crowd gasped, and the voice in the gold ring announced the damage.

Four plates.

“Get up,”
growled Kell as he watched her stagger to her feet, one hand gripping her ribs. She took a step and nearly fell, obviously shaken, but Rul was still on the attack. The massive disk flew back into his hand, and in a single fluid move he spun and launched it again, adding momentum to the force of magic.

Lila must have seen the attack, noticed the stone careening toward her, yet to Kell’s horror, she didn’t dodge. Instead she dropped both daggers and threw her
hands
up instead of her forearms to block the blow.

It was madness.

It wouldn’t work—couldn’t work—and yet, somehow the rock shield
slowed.

Shock went through the crowd as they realized Stasion Elsor wasn’t a dual magician after all. He had to be a
triad.

The shield dragged through the air, as if fighting a current, and came to a stop inches from Lila’s outstretched hands. It hovered there, suspended.

But Kell knew it wasn’t simply hanging.

Lila was
pushing
against it. Trying to overpower Rul’s element the way she had with his. But he’d let her then, he’d
stopped
fighting; Rul, momentarily stunned, now redoubled his efforts. Lila’s boots slid back along the stone ground as she pushed on the disk with all her force.

The arena itself seemed to tremble, and the wind picked up as the magicians fought will to will.

Between Lila and Rul, the earthen disk shuddered. Through the looking scope, Kell could see her limbs shaking, her body curved forward with the strain.

Let go!
He wanted to shout. But Lila kept pushing.

You stubborn fool
, he thought as Rul summoned a burst of strength, lifted his fiery sword, and threw it. The blade went wide, but the flame must have snagged Lila’s attention because she faltered, just enough, and the still-suspended rock shield stuttered forward and caught her in the leg. A glancing blow, but hard enough.

The tenth plate shattered.

The match was over.

The crowd erupted, and Rul let out a howl of victory, but Kell’s attention was still on Lila, who stood there, arms at her side, head tipped back, looking strangely peaceful.

Until the moment she swayed, and collapsed.

IV

Kell was already moving through his room when the judge’s voice spilled through the ring, calling for a medic.

He’d warned her. Over and over, he’d warned her.

Kell had his knife in his hand before he reached the door to the second chamber, Hastra on his heels. Staff tried to block the way, but Kell was faster, stronger, and he was in the alcove before the guards could stop him.

“As Staro,”
he said, sealing the door shut behind him and drawing the symbol while Staff pounded on the wood.

“As Tascen.”

The palace fell away, replaced by the tournament tent.

“The victory goes to Rul,”
announced the judge as Kell surged out of Kamerov’s quarters and into Lila’s. He got there as two attendants lowered her onto a sofa, a third working to undo her helmet. They started at the sight of him and went pale.

“Out,” said Kell. “All of you.”

The first two retreated instantly, but the third—a female priest—ignored him as she freed the hinged pieces of the demon’s mask from Lila’s head and set them aside. Beneath, her face was ghostly white, dark veins tracing her temples and twin streams of blackish red running from her nose. The priest rested a hand against her face, and a moment later her eyes fluttered open. A dozen oaths bubbled up, but Kell held his tongue. He held it as she drew a stilted breath and dragged herself into a sitting position, held it as she rolled her head and flexed her fingers, and lifted a cloth to her nose.

“You can go, Ister,” she said, wiping away the blood.

Kell held his tongue as long as he could, but the moment the priest was gone, he lost it.

“I warned you!” he shouted. Lila winced, touching a hand to her temple.

“I’m fine,” she muttered.

Kell made a stifled sound. “You collapsed in the ring!”

“It was a hard match,” she said getting to her feet, trying and failing to hide her unsteadiness.

“How could you be so stupid?” he snapped, his voice rising. “You’re bleeding black. You play with magic as if it were a game. You don’t even understand the rules. Or worse, you decide there are none. You go stomping through the world, doing whatever the hell you please. You’re careless. Senseless. Reckless.”

“Keep it down, you two,” said Rhy, striding in, Vis and Tolners at his back. “Kell,
you
shouldn’t be here.”

Kell ignored him and addressed the guards. “Lock her up.”

“For what?” growled Lila.

“Calm down, Kell,” said Rhy.

“For being an impostor.”

Lila scoffed. “Oh, you’re one to tal—”

Kell slammed her back into the tent pole, crushing her mouth with his hand. “Don’t you
dare
.” Lila didn’t fight back. She went still as stone, mismatched eyes boring into him. There was a wildness to them, and he thought she might actually be afraid, or at least shocked. And then he felt the knife pressed against his side.

And the look in her eyes said that if it weren’t for Rhy, she would have stabbed him.

The prince held up his hand.
“Stasion,”
he said, addressing Lila as he took Kell’s shoulder. “Please.” She lowered the knife, and Rhy wrenched Kell backward with Tolners’ help.

“You never listen. You never
think.
Having power is a responsibility, Lila, one you clearly don’t deserve.”

“Kell,” warned Rhy.

“Why are you defending her?” he snapped, rounding on his brother. “Why am I the only one in this fucking world to be held accountable for my actions?”

They just stared at him, the prince and the guards, and Lila, she had the nerve to smile. It was a grim, defiant smile, marred by the dark blood still streaking her face.

Kell threw up his hands and stormed out.

He heard the sound of Rhy’s boots on the cobbles coming after him, but Kell needed space, needed air, and before he knew what he was doing, he had the knife free from its sheath, the coins free from his collar.

The last thing he heard before he pressed his bloody fingers to the nearest wall was Rhy’s voice calling for him to stop, but then the spell was on Kell’s lips, and the world was falling away, taking everything with it.

V