CHAPTER

14

The specter advanced upon Bree with his wide grin still visible upon his masked face. Bree stood wing to wing with Saul, the two trapped on either side by Center’s elite assassins in one of the holy mansion’s numerous hallways. Their serrated swords swam through the air, ice and stone hovering above their gauntleted hands.

“Come now, Phoenix,” her foe said. “Let me see those blades you are so famous for.”

Bree lifted her burning swords, her knees bending as she posed for a pounce.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “No one has survived them yet.”

In answer, the specter slid his gauntlet across the smooth edge of his blade. Ice sheathed the weapon, thin and sharp.

“You have your fire, and I have my ice,” he said. “Let us see which is stronger.”

“Stay on task!” the other specter called, his gauntlet up and ready to counter the moment Saul made a move to use his ice. “The Archon is our goal.”

“It’s the damn Phoenix,” the first specter shot back. “I will not turn down such a chance at glory.”

“You want a shot at glory?” Saul asked. “Take it. I’ll make sure the playing field stays even.”

Ice poured from his gauntlet, forming a solid sheet across the hallway. The specter on the other side smashed it with boulders from his gauntlet, shaking the ice wall and shooting deep cracks throughout. Saul’s gauntlet never stopped spraying, banishing the cracks and thickening the wall with each passing moment so it might withstand the opposing barrage. It was a test of elements. Bree didn’t know who would win, but she could not spare a moment in aid.

The specter ripped off his mask, revealing himself as a dark-skinned man with even darker hair cut close to the scalp.

“A private duel,” he said. “I could not ask for more. See the face of your better, Phoenix. It’s come time to pay the price for your blasphemy.”

“Shut up and fight me already.”

She flicked her wings with a momentary surge, gaining speed as she lunged toward the specter. Her burning blades hammered against his sword. It should have melted right through the metal but instead the ice held strong.

“Did you think you were special, Phoenix?” the specter said, laughing. “We’ve been watching your tricks, and we’ve been learning. You are not the only one who can bless their blades with elements.”

He shoved her back, then spun while ducking low. His gauntlet passed over his sword, refreshing the icy sheath so that a fully covered blade cut for her knees. Bree barely blocked, the contact between their weapons releasing the hiss and crack of fire on ice instead of the sharp ringing of metal on metal. She chopped with her other hand, not surprised in the slightest that the specter easily blocked. He batted his weapon back and forth, ice crumbling off it as every single attack she made found a waiting answer.

“Where is the skill?” he asked. “Or have you relied on your fire to hide your flaws, Phoenix?”

Bree parried twice, staggered backward to avoid a thrust she missed, and then had to cross both her swords together in an X to stop a vicious chop toward her neck. Three blades screeched, fire dwindling, ice melting. Bree felt the strain in her mind, an exhausting pull similar to the one she’d felt when she had been forced to release her flame back in the dungeon. If the specter felt a similar strain, he hid it well.

“Your lack of skill will make the honor of killing you a falsehood,” the specter said, his sword a blue blur as he weaved it through the air. “Not that it matters. You will be dead, and only the worms will know how terribly lacking you were in all things.”

Bree leapt onto the offensive, hoping to surprise him while he boasted and blustered. Her swords rained down on him with all her might channeled into the blow. The fire roared, her mind equally focused on overwhelming him with power. Her swords were blazing infernos slamming against a spinning, dancing beam of ice. Every hit showered the ground with frost. Every hit, that ice returned to withstand another blow. She kept going, no finesse, no feints, just savage rage.

This time the specter did not laugh and mock.

Bree sensed him weakening, sensed her control over the battle becoming singular and total. Her world swam red, all her fury unleashed on the boastful, unbearable specter in the form of two, simultaneous downward slashes. She bellowed out a mindless, formless battle cry. The specter clutched his sword with both hands and blocked, but his strength was not enough. Nothing could possibly match it. The flame across her blades’ fine edges sparked a blinding yellow, the entire hallway between them flooding with a sudden eruption of fire. No dodging. No avoiding. The prism in her gauntlet cracked and drained, but the power continued to flow out from her through the blood washing over it. The ice about the specter’s sword vanished into white mist. The metal melted as if it were warm butter. The eruption surged on, swarming over the specter’s body, blackening his flesh and reducing his clothing to cinders. When Bree’s swords cut through him, they scattered only ash and bone.

“Holy shit,” Bree said as she dropped to her knees and gasped for air. She’d lashed flame out from her swords, and she’d released greater infernos before, but never had her swords themselves blazed with such heat and fury. Even Center itself would have split in half at her strike.

“Bree!” Saul screamed.

Bree spun to help her friend. Ice roared from Saul’s gauntlet, fighting back against an advancing wall of stone. Spikes lined its front, and like a battering ram, they were beginning to punch through Saul’s ice barricade. It was only a matter of time before Saul’s wall shattered completely.

“Back away,” Bree shouted, a plan forming in her mind. “Strike when I give you an opening.”

Her confidence was a mask. Bree felt exhausted, and though the elemental prism in her gauntlet shone vibrant red once more, the toll of refueling it was wearing on her. Could she pull off what she needed for her plan to work?

Not that she had a choice. Saul gave her one last doubtful look before ending his stream of ice. The specter’s spiked stone wall shattered it to pieces with the sudden lapse in reinforcement, then continued scraping forward, carving deep grooves into the carpet and walls. Bree braced her legs, lifted her gauntlet, and closed her eyes. What approached appeared stone, but it wasn’t truly stone. In mere minutes it would begin fading into mist. It was merely a magical creation of a prism, no different from her flame, and its power would reflect its master. The specters were skilled wielders of demonic power, but Bree did not wield it as they did. She carried that power in her blood. It pulsed within her veins.

A scream escaped her throat as she braced her arms and legs. A burning sphere swelled before her gauntlet, then erupted like a volcano. A thick beam of fire flowed into the wall, the pressure of its release jarring Bree’s shoulder back so hard she feared it broken. The roar of it deafened her ears. The heat of it warmed the metal of her gauntlet. She felt its contact burning her flesh, but flesh would heal. Her foe would not.

The jagged stone wall lost all momentum. It hardened and cracked, its earthy brown turning black. Bree took a step forward, still screaming, her every muscle locked tight. Unconsciousness flitted at the edges of her mind. The fire pushed deeper, sinking into the wall, crumbling away its form, until it broke through with a thunderous clamor. Bree immediately clenched her fist, ceased the fire, and collapsed to her knees. She could only watch through blurred vision as Saul dove through the smoldering crack in the stone wall, his gauntlet a shimmering beacon of blue ice.

Someone’s hand touched her arm. Not Saul’s. She tried to cry out but lacked the strength. Another hand, lifting her up by the armpit. Her view turned. Her heart warmed.

“Hey, Kael,” she said, her words slurred as if she were intoxicated. “You missed the fun.”

Her brother shifted her arm over his shoulder, taking on more of her weight. Clara stood next to him, concern painted across her bloody face.

“I saw the end of it,” he said. “Goddamn, you’re terrifying.”

Bree laughed.

“Fear me,” she said. “The girl who can barely stand.”

Saul stepped through the cooling opening in the wall. Blood trickled down his face from a gash above his brow, but he otherwise appeared unharmed.

“Kael, Clara,” he said, nodding to them both. “You two look like shit.”

“I think what you meant to say was, ‘Hey, Kael, glad you survived this awful nightmarish day,’” Kael said. “But don’t worry. Bree’s alive, so I’ll forgive you.”

Clara knelt before Bree, her hands carefully touching Bree’s gauntlet. Both winced.

“That’s what I thought,” Clara said. She loosened the buckles on her gauntlet one after another. Bree stifled a cry when she pulled it free, the tiny needle in her skin hurting more coming out than it had going in. She had to admit she felt immensely better with it removed. Clara set the gauntlet aside and took her hand to examine it. Deep burn marks covered her skin from her fingertips to her wrist.

“You’re supposed to heal wounds from your own element unnaturally fast,” she said. “But even then, I think you’ll have these for a few days. You have to be careful, Bree. You wield your fire with far more power than these wings and gauntlets were originally devised to control. Give yourself a chance to rest. I think we’ve cleared out the last of the specters in this area.”

“Make that the whole mansion,” a deep voice called from down the hall. Bree followed it to see Chernor calmly approaching, his maul slung casually over his shoulder. Blood dripped from cuts along his waist and left leg. “Nice to see you four survived. I shouldn’t be surprised by now; you’re all tougher than cockroaches.”

“Where is Brett?” Bree asked.

“It’s only me.” Chernor stepped to one of the windows and peered outside. “Have you checked for the patrolling knights?”

“Still there,” Kael said. “Still watching for any escapees. They’ll suspect something’s amiss soon enough, I think.”

“Which is why we should attack them before they realize their precious specters are dead,” Chernor said. “Five on six isn’t the best odds for us, but if we catch them with their pants down we might take out a few to make it manageable.”

“They’ve got the high ground,” Saul said. “How could we be the ones on the surprise?”

“We won’t with that shitty attitude,” Chernor said, waving him off. “The knights are waiting for fleeing royalty, right? I say we give them exactly that.”

All eyes turned to Clara, who stared back with an icy glare.

“Bait,” she said. “You want me to be bait.”

“It’s either you or the Phoenix,” Chernor said. “And I know which one they’ll underestimate more. Plus, she looks a little on the woozy side if you ask me.”

Kael took her hand in reassurance.

“No one’s going to make you,” he said.

“Like hell,” Chernor said, pulling his maul off his back. “Our whole island’s in danger, so no special treatment for Archon’s daughters. I’m still your superior, so consider this an order, Seraph. Either abandon your harness or join us in ambushing Center’s knights currently laying siege to your home.”

Clara stood up straighter, all emotion drained from her face.

“I will not abandon my home, my island, or my friends,” she said. “Tell me what to do.”