Page 58 of A Kingdom of Lies

“You are wasting time, Robin,” Duncan bellowed, breathless from the excursion of his strength. “Kill the bastard, or I will.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, raising a cautious hand towards Erix’s cheek. He snarled, teeth snapping at my hand, but I didn’t stop reaching. Not until my cold, wet fingers brushed the stubble that I’d grown all too familiar with. “I don’t want to hurt you, Erix. Even after what you have done. I know that it was out of your hands. Just like this is not you now.”

Duncan groaned as he stood, picking his sword up with him. “You are wasting your time.”

“His life is not yours to take,” I warned as a freezing cold gale of wind begun to rip at the ground around me. “It is for me to decide what his fate is.”

“Then make the decision before I help it along.”

I pushed Duncan’s threat to the bottom of my mind and faced Erix once again. With my hand pressed to his cheek, Erix seemed to calm. His curled lip softened, the darks of his eyes calming to the silver I had grown to love. “Give me a sign you are in there. Please, I’m not ready to give up on you yet.”

It could have been mindless and easy to let my ice devour him only to shatter his body apart. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, not even now. Instead, I’d encased his limbs, keeping him safe from himself and me.

“Robin.” A firm hand fell upon my shoulder. “If you can’t do it, allow me. His death will not haunt my conscience as it would yours.”

The sudden touch shocked me. Erix’s moment of calm broke like glass to stone. He reacted to Duncan’s hand like a feral creature, hissing and growling as though words weren’t possible within his animalistic state.

I pulled my hand away from Erix’s face, letting it drop back to my side as the other gripped tighter to the hilt of the stolen sword. “Do not underestimate me. Doing so has not ended well for others, the same will go for you.”

My head was pounding as viciously as my heart. Deciding who lived and died was not an easy decision to make. Especially when it related to someone I thought I could love – someone Ididlove.

Duncan’s breath tickled my neck as he whispered into my ear. “Then do it. Prove to yourself that this is what you’ve wanted. It begins withhimand ends with Doran.”

I couldn’t raise the sword, not as I looked at the shell of the man before me. There were many possibilities of how this would end, but they were all just out of reach.

The hilt slipped from my hand, sword splashing into the muddied ground. “I won’t do it.”

“Won’t or can’t?” Duncan asked, voice as harsh as the blistering winds that danced around us.

“Both,” I admitted. “If there’s a chance Erix could be freed from this… this curse when Doran is dead, then I must hold out hope. He’d do it for me, I must do it for him.”

Duncan squeezed my shoulder, rain falling upon us with vigour, then let go of me. “He killed your father; Duwar knows if I had the chance to face my parents’ killers then I’d sell my soul just for a chance to show them my lack of mercy.”

I looked back to Erix, a stabbing pain gripping at my gut. “To you, he is one more fey to kill in the name of that god you preach of. Just as I would not stand in the way of your revenge, you are not permitted to stand in mine.”

I turned my back on Erix as he struggled in my conjured prison. “So, we walk away? Just like that? He will follow you to the ends of the earth, that much is clear.”

“Yes, let’s go.”

Duncan didn’t move. He stared at Erix, then to the bodies scattered on the floor around him. “Unfortunately, this fey has killed my soldiers. Men and women who have given their lives for a greater cause than your chase for closure. In their memory alone I cannot leave this fey alive.”

I spun around, already reading what was to follow.

Duncan drew up his broadsword, ready to carve it down through Erix’s neck. Time seemed to slow as the blade closed in towards the helpless and trapped Berserker. Even Erix stopped fighting, closing his darkened eyes, a soft look of peace smoothing his face.

There was no time to shout my refusal, only a brief second to act.

Nothing could stop the blast of uncontrolled, raw power as it ripped across the bloodied ground towards Duncan and Erix. It was my own inner Berserker, released into the wild without much of a thought, a beast of wind and ice. Ready to hunt its target, devour anddestroy.

CHAPTER 20

Duncan and Erix were laid out before me, eyes closed and bodies buried by a torrent of snow. The force had appeared from nothingness, exploding out from my body as though I was nothing but a vessel for the frozen storm. Ice and snow slashed outwards, leaving a scar across the bloodied, wet earth until everything around me was stained white.

Then everything was quiet.

I tried to steady my breathing, focusing through the throbbing pain that careened across my skull. It was a struggle to pull back the power, for my emotions were wild.

Both men were unmoving, hardly visible beneath the snow covering them. Erix was closer to me. The encasing of ice shattered around him, splayed out like wings of glass beneath his unmoving body. Duncan was further away; I could only just see the glint of his body, cheeks red and skin so pale it was almost blue beneath the cold.

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