Page 122 of Frost Like Night
ANGRA IS HERE.And I’m still alive.
But I didn’t come this far to live.
I pull myself to my feet and reach for my chakram, letting it soar at him before the new wounds scattered over my body sing out a resounding chorus of pain. One of my ribs aches; a slice in my thigh burns; blood trickles into my eye, but I swipe it away as my chakram cuts through the air at Angra.
It won’t hit him. He knows I’ll use it, but it will distract him, just for a beat—so before it has time to reach him, I run. The edge of the cliff is only a few paces from the wall of the chasm, but it stretches before me as each footfall draws me closer yet still too far. I pull at the coldness in me, intending to hurl myself magically to the edge—
But a wave of Decay comes at me again. The cord of shadow wraps around my body, straining taut as it snatchesme back. Angra deflects my chakram as the Decay yanks me away, and my blade drops out of the air, clanks against the cliff face—and falls over the edge.
I see my chakram fall as if in a dream. The ball of magic spikes with the electric, crackling destruction of an object falling into it.
My chakram is gone.
Pain screams up my arm as I drop like a sack of coal on the rock. Something popped, but I’m too desperate and blind to know where. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. I’m ready to end this—Ineedto end this—
“You will not defeat me!” Angra’s bellow crashes through the chasm. Wrath emanates from each word, and when I roll to my feet, left arm pinned to my side, I face a madman.
His eyes sit crazed in his blotchy face as he rocks toward me. Mather hurls himself in front of me.
Angra chortles.
“So sweet,” he rumbles. “But I’ve brought someone to take care ofthat.”
I grab Mather’s shoulder with my one good arm and try to tug him behind me—of the two of us, I’m better suited to fight Angra—but a shadow moves in the exit tunnel, one that makes both Mather and me stiffen instinctively.
The shadow hobbles into the chasm with just as much delirium as Angra. He’s being fed Angra’s emotions, I realize—every spark of anger, every flurry of rage. Angra pumps all of it into Theron, who doesn’t waste a heartbeat.
He plunges down the cliff, both his fists wrapped around a blade. Mather shoves me back, but it isn’t me Theron swings at.
He propels his blade straight at Mather. I stumble to the ground, screaming as Mather ducks, drops, and flips away to put space between him and Theron. A knife appears in Mather’s hand, glinting off the magic chasm.
“I won’t lose her to you,” Theron snarls, and launches forward.
I scramble for my short sword, finally get it in my grip, but the choice to help Mather is taken away when the Decay snakes around me. Magic loops over my arm, wrenching the sword from my hand. My broken arm grates and I cry out as the Decay drags me over the uneven ground toward Angra.
My own magic responds with a surge of ice that shrivels the darkness, and I leap up. Angra stands not four paces away, between the edge of the cliff and me. My eyes scan the ground to look for my sword, and it’s there, waiting behind a stalagmite—
I reach out toward the sword, magic bursting in an icy column from my fingers, but Angra sends a blast to match me. His reaches my sword first, a smoky shadow looping around the blade like vines eating up a tree, and with a harsh jerk of his arm, the sword flies behind him to drop off the edge of the cliff just like my chakram.
“Oh, no, Highness,” Angra taunts. “I’ve seen all yourtricks. I’ve survived everything you’ve ever thrown at me. There is no ending where I don’t emerge victorious.”
I don’t acknowledge him. I run, aiming to dart around him, racing on nothing but primal drive for the ball of magic. Nothing else is in me anymore, no pain or love or feeling at all. All I am is all I’m meant to be—a void from which anything could sprout. Goodness or evil, purity or darkness—whatever happens after this, it will be the world’s glorious, unaffected choice.
Angra whips the shadow back and the line of magic barrels at me, blocking my path to the chasm. I scream—no, no, NO—and drop to my knees. The dense, humid particles of air that hang in the chasm fly to me, lengthening into a solid wall of ice that slams up in time to block me from the burst of Angra’s magic.
He cackles, sends another whip that chips away at my ice barrier. “I told you, Highness—I know your tricks.”
I grunt, arms up to keep the ice barrier reinforced with my magic. Nothing he says matters.I will end this.
“Every defense you have, every pathetic plan you made,” Angra continues. Another knot of Decay slams into my barrier. “Nothing you do can stop me. Even your ally, the Summerian princess? She’s mine now.Mine.And all the world will follow her, one by one, until it is as it was meant to be:controlled by me.”
Ceridwen fell to Angra?I choke on it. His words make me glance to the side, where my shield ends. Mather andTheron fight still, back and forth across the cliff.
The last time they fought, months ago, lifetimes ago, they were matched skill for skill in Bithai’s training yard. But now Theron has Angra’s Decay fueling him, and he moves faster than any normal human could—slashing around Mather so quickly, I can barely keep track of him. And if I’m having trouble watching him, Mather has to be even more frenzied.
I swivel to Mather, ready to launch one invigorating burst of strength and energy to help him. But before the magic leaves my body, Mather turns, and Theron swipes his blade through the air, both of them arching toward each other. All breath leaves me, my throat closing in horror that Mather won’t be able to duck Theron’s blow.
But Theron’s blade doesn’t plunge into Mather as it should.
