Page 42 of Empire of Flame and Thorns

Tommen stands there, his red and brown eyes gleaming with menace, as he grins at me.

My brain fights through the fog of pain and lingering poison.

Tommen. The guy with enhanced strength.

Oh fuck.

He charges towards me.

I swing my arm, swiping my blade at his chest. It forces him to dodge and buys me a few precious seconds to drag air back into my lungs. My ribcage screams in pain at the simple movement.

Fuck. I think he might have fractured some of my ribs.

My brief seconds of grace come to an abrupt end as Tommen launches himself at me again. I try to twist aside, but the pain that spikes through my ribs at the movement makes me falter for a second.

And one second is all he needs.

His boot smacks into the side of my knee.

I scream in pain as my leg bends at an unnatural angle.

But it’s cut off as Tommen tackles me.

We hit the ground hard. I gasp in pain. Black spots cover my vision like a wild sea. Yanking my arm out from between us, I stab blindly towards him with my knife. His hand shoots up and wraps around my wrist right before I can sink the blade into his chest.

Pain streaks up my forearm as he grips my wrist so hard that the bones grind together. I cry out and try to yank my arm back. But he just rips the knife from my hand and then plunges it towards my throat.

I throw my other hand up.

But I know that I will never be able to stop his hand because I’m so hopelessly outmatched against his enhanced strength. So I don’t even try to reach his wrist. Instead, I aim for his throat.

The blade slashes along the side of my forearm on its way down.

But my fingers stab right into the front of his throat before he can ram the knife into my chest.

A choked gasp tears from his lungs.

The knife slips from his grip, clattering down on the ground next to me, and he releases my other wrist as both of his hands fly towards his throat. He sucks in strangled breaths, pain pulsing in his eyes.

I try to use that moment of inattention to escape. But he’s sitting on my chest. I barely manage to wiggle a little upwards before his eyes snap back to my face. Fury pulses in them.

And that’s when I realize that I will never get out from underneath him.

Yanking my arm up, I point up into the sky above us and scream, “DRAGON!”

He whips his head around.

And I push with every smidgen of magic I have.

My magic finds a tiny spark of fear, and I blow it into a fucking explosion.

Tommen screams in sheer terror and scrambles off me. While ducking the dragon that isn’t actually there, he sprints away.

For a few seconds, I just lie there in the dirt and gasp air into my lungs.

Pain slices through my chest with every breath, and it pulses through my left leg when I move it. Blood wells up from the cut along the side of my forearm, staining my shirt red and making my fingers slick.

All I want to do is to just close my eyes for a second. But I can’t. Because Imar hasn’t ended the trial yet. And I still need to win.

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