Page 52 of A Fury Of Shadows

He didn’t realize he’d charged toward the Sorcerer King until Oscar blocked his path. Metal glinted on his left.

Nikolai ducked beneath his brother’s sword and slashed his thigh with his spear. Oscar scowled and cast a spell bomb at him.

Nikolai deflected the black magic orb with a snap of his wrists and sent it flying into the crowd. Someone screamed. He didn’t even bother to look to see who had been struck down by the wayward attack, his attention fully focused on his foe.

An ugly expression twisted Oscar’s face. He moved.

Nikolai ground his teeth as he parried the blistering blows his brother delivered with blade and magic. Oscar pushed him back again and again, their wild dance taking them across the amphitheater and drawing enthusiastic shouts and jeers from the crowd.

A faint sound had him glancing toward the dais where Vedran sat with his mother. Gabriela had bitten her lip until she’d drawn blood. She swallowed another groan.

Horror chilled Nikolai to the bone when he saw her broken wrist.

Vedran held the twisted limb in a tight grip, heedless of his favorite concubine’s suffering. His gaze bore into Nikolai like a black hole seeking to suck in all his hope.

Heat seared Nikolai’s core at the same time Alastair’s fury scorched his mind, the crow releasing a screech that silenced the baited audience. A pale haze bloomed around them as they drew on the power the Sorcerer King had forbidden them to use. The white magic that lived in their souls, a gift from Gabriela Stanisic.

“No,” his mother mumbled.

She shook her head numbly, her gaze beseeching him not to do the unthinkable. Nikolai shut his eyes. There was no way out of this and they both knew it.

Resolve knotted his belly. He opened his eyes and glared at Oscar.

The sorcerer grunted as he started fighting back with a relentlessness born of desperation. Rage thickened the black aura around him when he was finally forced to cede ground for the first time in their battle.

He raised a hand, his lip curling in a distasteful sneer.“Rot.”

Black magic overwhelmed Nikolai, bringing him to his knees and robbing him of breath. Alastair swayed and fell. Nikolai caught the crow and clutched him protectively to his chest as Oscar’s powers started crushing their flesh.

Black spots swarmed his vision. The taste of iron filled his mouth. He coughed up blood, his consciousness flickering.

Gabriela’s scream roused him in the next instant.

Nikolai turned his head with agonizing slowness, the muscles in his neck feeling like they were tearing as he resisted the debilitating force holding him prisoner.

“No! Please!I beg of you!” his mother pleaded with the man beside her, her shattered wrist forgotten. “Spare him! I will do any—!”

The spell bomb struck her left temple, killing her instantly.

Nikolai stopped breathing. Vedran’s pupils flared.

The crowd fell silent.

Oscar’s cold voice rang around the amphitheater in the frozen hush. “She distracted me.”

This…isn’t happening!

Nikolai blinked dazedly, disbelief making his head spin.

A woman laughed, one with red hair and hateful gray eyes that matched those of the sorcerer before him. She stopped when Vedran cut his gaze to her.

Black magic exploded around the Sorcerer King. He stood up, his fingers still clasped around the wrist of the dead woman slumped in the chair beside him.

“Why did you do that?!”

His vengeful roar shook the arena and brought dust down from the ceiling. The spectators shrank back in fear. The pressure crushing Nikolai started to ease.

Oscar swallowed and retreated a step, his expression uncertain. “I—”

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