Page 112 of In the Ravenous Dark
Kadreus—I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking of him asthe kinganymore—doesn’t even draw a weapon. He conjures a blade from the air: obsidian, just like his throne, and dripping with blood. It’s dramatic, but it’s an effective combination of blood and death magic, so I line my half-moon blades with blue fire. Just as dramatic.
I know they probably won’t work on his heart for the final strike, but I have something special for that.
Kadreus bats my weapons aside as if they’re twigs and almost casually sends a blow my way that nearly beheads me. I remind myself that he benefits from Athanatos’s experience as much as I do Ivrilos’s. My only hope is that maybe, in ruling Thanopolis and the underworld, both he and his father neglected to practice throughout the years, overly confident in their power.
But it soon feels like Kadreus has everything I have and more.
His sigils are as precise and efficient as his blade work. He tripsme by bucking the stone under my feet and lands three more burns on me that heal over just as rapidly as before. I’m barely able to throw any sigils at him. Flame comes so naturally to me, but when I encase him in a massive sphere of it, he simply snuffs it and steps out from behind a curtain of smoke.
Death magic might come easier, but he keeps me so much on the defensive that all he has to do is purse his lips and blow away my attempts to open the floor under his feet or pin him down with metal spikes.
I’m surprised when he tries to poison me like he did Japha. I still don’t let it reach me, utterly vaporizing the snaking black tendril.
“Pity you didn’t do that for Japha,” Kadreus says conversationally. “Since you’re already dead, it can’t actually hurt you.Physically, at least.” His smile cuts like a razor.
I scream and launch myself at him, flaming blades twirling, but he batters me back. As I dodge, something nags at me. It comes from Ivrilos’s knowledge, no doubt. Kadreusisn’tas efficient, even leaving slight openings whenever I try to move a certain way and he’s forced to stop me.
He’s keeping my focus elsewhere. Keeping me from going deeper into the room, putting himself between me and the throne. Keeping meawayfrom the skull. He doesn’t even know for sure that I want to reach it, which tells me for certain that I do.
I throw a few more blows at him while I think. He’s the better fighter. For now he’s testing my limits, maybe even toying with me. But if he realizes I’m going for the anchor point, he’ll end me as fast as possible. Whatever I throw at it, he’d probably put himself between me and it, even at risk to himself.
Unless… unless the risk is too great. Maybe it’s time to tip my hand. Just not in the direction he expects. He needs to believeI want to kill him even more than I already do. He needs to score a hit on me, which means I need to leave him an opening. And not a physical hit.
I start crying, even as I swing my blades. It’s not difficult to start. I see red on my cheek out of the corner of my eye, a blood tear. Hard to miss.
“I forgot that’s what happens when we cry,” Kadreus says, locking my blades for a minute to stare. He sounds almost curious. “I haven’t in so long. Nothing to cry over.”
I toss his sword aside. “Because you’re alone.”
The bastard doesn’t even bother to raise his guard again. “I’m never alone.”
“And yet everyone hates you. Your people. Evenhim.” I nod without looking at the clashing black shadows around us. “Your father. He loves no one, and you know it. You can see it in his eyes.” Something flashes inKadreus’seyes to show me I’ve scratched at some long-buried hurt. “Ivrilos’s and my bond is stronger than yours and Athanatos’s could ever be, because we love each other and we have people who love us.”
I realize even as I goad him that it’s true. Idohave something Kadreus doesn’t—a caring family. My father and my mother. Ivrilos. And Lydea and…
Japha.
Kadreus must see it in my face, because he says, “So how does it feel to lose someone who loved you? Do you feel stronger now, after watching the light fade from your friend’s eyes?”
My cry of rage is real. I use a quick sigil to slice the dark cloth wrapped around my wrist and reveal the stake: half bone, half wood, twined in a spiral of steel to keep both sides together and the point sharp. It’s a tool designed specifically for putting down creatures like us, courtesy of Skyllea.
Kadreus’s red eyes only have a split second to take it in, towiden, before I throw, aiming right for his heart. I’ve never thrown something so hard, so fast, so accurately. I could have hit the eye of a needle, threaded it.
Kadreus dodges with a mere blurring flick of his shoulders, his eyebrow already raised in derision. It’s too dangerous a weapon against a revenant, too solid a throw, to risk anything else.
Except I wasn’t aiming for him. I only lined his heart up perfectly with his father’s skull.
He hears the sharp crack as soon as I do. His father’s outraged shout is even louder.
The shadows stop moving, revealing Ivrilos, hair disheveled, panting, gashes up on his arms and one on his thigh that ooze darkness instead of blood. He looks grateful for the respite. Athanatos appears untouched, except for his face twisting in contempt.
“Fool,” he snarls at Kadreus.
It’s there and gone on Kadreus’s face—the same look I saw when I said his father didn’t love him. The briefest flash of a little boy’s pain in a man’s rage.
When he turns to me, all I see is hatred.
“Kill her,” Athanatos says. “I may be forced to leave this fight unfinished because of your mistake. Hurry if you don’t want to face them both alone… although perhaps that would serve you right.” He doesn’t wait for a response. He simply launches himself at Ivrilos with renewed speed, and the two of them meet and melt back into a blur of shadows.
