Page 152 of A Game of Monsters

Power that was not inherently good or bad.

Power, the morality of which was determined by the person who wielded it.

I strode forwards, stopping just shy of Cassial’s fingers. The fake Cassial was between us, snivelling at me, eyes drinking me in. I barely looked at him. Cassial would think it was because it hurt me to see what had been done to the love of my life – the truth couldn’t have been more different.

“Remember,” the real Cassial hissed through clenched teeth. “One wrong move, and he dies.”

“I heard you the first time,” I replied, knowing these would be the last words I could physically speak. Part of me wanted to say something grand – some inspiring speech that told Cassial he had failed just so I could watch the shock morph to horror, and then to defeat.

But my actions would be enough. They had to be enough.

Cassial’s lip curled upwards, his smile one I’d looked into many times before. The expression tugged at the scar down the side of Duncan’s face. I fixed my gaze on it, letting a tear fall down my cheek. It wasn’t sadness born from a place of fear or grief.

But relief – relief that this was all going to be over soon.

Cassial laid a hand over my chest, his touch abnormally warm. I looked down, watching the hand cover the burn scars Althea’s hand had left on me when she saved me from dying the first time.

Funny, how one saved me, and the other would lead to my demise.

I didn’t know what I needed to do. Nor what to expect. I simply allowed myself to be open to the power, accepting it like a gift – the last I’d receive.

Cassial closed his eyes and exhaled. He uttered no words of power or conjuration, he simply let go, and I accepted.

What followed was a rush of pure, blinding light as it filled me. It bloomed in my chest, spreading from beneath Cassial’s palm, filling every vein, sparking my blood into an inferno, melting my bones and reforming them into something stronger –older.

My mind conjured an image of a thread. Something tying me and Cassial together. It unspooled into me, knotting within my gut as I gathered the thread into mental hands. I pulled at it, drinking it in with vigour until it abruptly stopped.

“It is done,” Cassial exhaled, a tinge of sadness in his voice as he had to give up this power. He withdrew, shaking hand falling to his side, fingers flexing. But that thread inside of me pulled taut, as if I was separated, but still bound to Cassial.

Because he hadn’t given it all to me. I couldn’t explain the sensation, except the new power inside of me was drawn – stretched as it searched for the missing part of it. I felt it tug inside of me, like a rope pulled taut, fraying in the centre. Panic rose inside of me – because Cassial revealed his final attempt to trick me. He’d not given me all of Duwar. That was how he kept his glamour up. He’d saved a sliver of power, and now we warred for it. My initial instinct was to grapple with Duwar, forging unseen hands to ice, doing my best to keep hold.

We fought for Duwar like two starved mutts for a bone.

I didn’t speak, but my shock told Cassial that I had worked out his final deception.

Cassial fixed Duncan’s verdant eyes upon me, refusing to look away as his smile darkened. “You know… what needs to be done. Consider my hesitation as insurance if you go against me.”

I would’ve replied, but the vial was forced between my teeth, the glass aching beneath their tension. My silence drew out, and lips curled over my teeth.

Duwar was in part within me, and the remaining part left inside of Cassial. And it was wrong – the separation of a corrupted power.

“Make the right decision, Robin,” Cassial warned, quickly drawing the false Duncan back to his chest, sinking nails into his shoulder like the claws of some great bird of prey. “Do not be blinded by the power. Do as I command, or he will die–”

I leaned in toward them both, gathered the moisture in the air around my hand and conjured a shard of pure ice. Cassial’s eyes widened a second too late, because he couldn’t move. Not that it would matter if he had, because my blade of ice was never meant for him.

I thrust it directly through the fake Cassial’s chest. Piercing through flesh, chipping bone and goring muscle, not stopping until the ice spear came out the other side of him.

Blood spluttered over the gag, choking the fake Cassial on their own gore, their death slow and torturous. The real-Cassial attempted to stagger back, but the end of the spike had caught his side. His gasp roused the Nephilim around us into action, weapons drawn from hilts, the song of metal against leather splitting the air.

“You fool!” Cassial cried, pushing the body away from him, which tore the blade from his side.

I smiled, vial straining between my teeth, as a thought speared through my mind. I hoped, between the odd connection of a separated Duwar, that Cassial heard it.

No, you’re the fool.

It had never been Duncan under that glamour.

Duncan would never have not finished our signal. Even as he was dying, he did it. And this was no different. Except the person Cassial wished for me to believe was Duncan looked at me with the very same hate of the Nephilim around me. It was an expression I had grown used to, so much so that I almost found it comforting.

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