Page 112 of The Deadliest Candidate

At his words, a cold, hateful grimace replaced the empty sadness on Srivastav’s face.

“Spare me your judgement, Lautric,” he spat. “The power of your house will only get you so far, boy. Soon, you shall learn that getting what you want isn’t as easy when you have to take it yourself.”

“I won’t ask you again,” Edmund interjected. “Where is my sister?”

Srivastav tore his eyes away from Lautric and looked at the alchemist.

“I intended only to trap her, not to kill her. I did not wish to punish your sister for what she did—for it was not my place to do so. But neither of you could remain in Carthane, you told us yourself you’d allow nothing to get in your way. I knew you would never stay withouther. I intended only for you to leave. I never meant for any of this…” He let out a soft laugh of wonderment. “Fate knows better than any of us, in the end. Your sister killed Josefa Novak, and I killed your sister, and now, you’re going to kill me.” He tilted his head. “Who will killyou, alchemist?”

Edmund sprung towards Srivastav, his expression a blank canvas of rage.

“Liar!” He spat the word like searing bile off his tongue, like rank poison. “Speak of my sister again and I will rip you apart!”

“Your sister,” said the general, “killed Josefa Novak because it’s what she needed to do. You both came here knowing Josefa’s relationship to Lord Battyl—your sister killed her to secure your positions. I did not intend to kill your sister, but she would have killed me first had I given her the chance. I could not give her thechance.” Srivastav caught his breath and lifted his chest as though he were about to scream, and then his voice melted from him like molten iron. “You and your sister came here together, you are fortunate. I was forced to leave my loved ones behind.” The pain in his voice burned white-hot, eroding everything away. “My men, my household, my daughter, mywife,whose laughter is the sun my existence orbits. The Emperor holds their lives in his hand. I’ve given him everything I’ve had to give—I cannot give him this.“ He met Edmund’s eyes. There was fear mingled with his pain, but he spoke with the cold steel of conviction. “I gave your sister’s life for theirs, just as you would have given theirs for hers. I would do it again.”

Before the words had even time to fade into echoes, Edmund’s alchemical symbol flared and shattered with a boom like thunder. Fern started and looked up, hoping Sarlet or the Grand Archivists had arrived, that they had finally intervened.

But the entrance to the sewers was a blank portal of shadows—nobody had come.

Fern barely had time to register the Grand Archivists’ absence before her eyes flew back to Srivastav and she understood what had happened.

The pyromancer’s hand was raised, the veins beneath his umber skin smouldered like embers in the wind. He had destroyed Edmund’s spell in an instant. Now, his mouth was open, and he was reciting an incantation, and the fire swirling around the room gathered to him like serpents of flame summoned by the will of a fearsome master.

Srivastav, it would seem, had come too far to turn back.

“N—”

Fern’s scream did not even leave her lips. The air exploded into flames.

Chapter fifty-four

The Curse

Fern was aware ofthe hard ground beneath her and a warm body above her. She blinked into blinding light. The air was an inferno. Above her, the body moved with a rasp of pain.

Lautric had thrown them both to the ground, protecting Fern’s body with his. Above them, Edmund had formed a crystal shield around him; it glittered like ice and cracked.

And Ravi Srivastav, the great general of the Jathvi Empire, the prodigy pyromancer, stood in a whirlpool of fire, and his arms glowed white with power, and a jet of fire streamed from him. Fern’s heart sank; he was going to kill Edmund Ferrow.

Edmund fought with all his might.

Another alchemical symbol formed in the air, slower than before, because Edmund was tired now, and under duress. It gleamed green and flashed. His shield splintered, and the silver turned acid-green and exploded towards Ravi Srivastav like poison shrapnel.

Srivastavdidn’t so much as flinch.

This, Fern saw, was his element. His reputation was not formed of air. He was a true soldier and a mage: violence and magic were his art. He swept his arms through the air, an incantation like a song ringing from his throat and mouth. He manipulated the fire like it was a handful of ribbons.

The flames rose like a tidal wave, and the green poison thrown by Edmund sizzled and disintegrated in the flames.

Edmund stepped back. It was only a small step, and in the mad coruscation of pyromancy and alchemy, Fern saw the darkening of his eyes, that fraction of a second, and the emotion there.

Fear.

Edmund threw up a new shield, and Srivastav, almost simultaneously, sent up a whorl of fire that lapped the length of the room. It curled in on itself like a great serpent and sank down upon Edmund on all sides.

The shield held, gleamed, then cracked. Edmund’s body shuddered from the force of the impact. Fern saw the sweat on his forehead, and the tears on his cheeks, and she turned, and she saw the grim, heavy sadness of Srivastav’s dark eyes. She felt sick to her stomach, utterly helpless. The fire coiled, seared from red to purple, and then blasted Edmund’s shield with deadly intent.

Edmund’s clever alchemy would simply not be enough to outmatch the sheer force and talent of the world’s greatest pyromancer. Srivastav was going to kill Edmund just as he had killed Emmeline Ferrow, who had killed Josefa Novak. Had she killed Vittoria, too? Did it matter, in the end? Fern, who had saved nobody at alland made mistake after mistake, was going to become the helpless witness to yet another death.

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