*
Blood streaked Athos’s cheek.
Kell gasped for breath.
The king’s white cloak was torn, and shallow gashes marred Kell’s leg, his wrist, his stomach. Half the statues in the courtyard around them lay toppled and broken as the magic clashed, striking against itself like flint.
“I will take that black eye of yours,” said Athos, “and wear it around my neck.”
He lashed out again, and Kell countered, will to will, stone to stone. But Kell was fighting two fights, one with the king, and the other with himself. The darkness kept spreading, claiming more of him with every moment, every motion. He could not win; at this rate, he would either lose the fight or lose himself. Something had to give.
Athos’s magic found a fissure in Kell’s shadow-drawn shield and hit him hard, cracking his ribs. Kell coughed, tasting blood as he fought to focus his vision on the king. He had to do something, and he had to do it soon. The royal half-sword glittered on the ground nearby. Athos lifted the stone to strike again.
“Is that all you have?” Kell goaded through gritted teeth. “The same, tired tricks? You lack your sister’s creativity.”
Athos’s eyes narrowed. And then he held out the stone and summoned something new.
Not a wall, or a blade, or a chain. No, the smoke coiled around him, shaping itself into a sinister curving shadow. A massive silver serpent with black eyes, its forked tongue flicking the air as it rose, taller than the king himself.
Kell forced himself to give a low, derisive laugh, even though it hurt his broken ribs. He fetched the royal half-sword from the ground. It was chipped and slick with dust and blood, but he could still make out the symbols running down its metal length. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that,” he said. “Create something strong enough to kill me. Since you clearly cannot do it yourself.”
Athos frowned. “What does it matter, the shape your death takes? It is still at my hand.”
“You said you wanted to kill me yourself,” countered Kell. “But I suppose this is as close as you can come. Go ahead and hide behind the stone’s magic. Call it your own.”
Athos let out a low growl. “You’re right,” he said. “Your death should—and will—be mine.”
He tightened his fingers around the stone, clearly intending to dispel the serpent. The snake, which had been slithering around the king, now stopped its course, but it did not dissolve. Instead, it turned its glossy black eyes on Athos, the way Kell’s mirror image had on Lila in her room. Athos glared up at the serpent, willing it away. When it did not obey his thought, he gave voice to the command.
“You submit to me,” ordered Athos as the serpent flicked its tongue. “You are my creation, and I am your—”
He never had the chance to finish.
The serpent reared back and struck. Its fanged jaws closed over the stone in Athos’s hand, and before the king could even scream, the snake had enveloped him. Its silver body coiled around his arms and chest, and then around his neck, snapping it with an audible crack.
Kell sucked in a breath as Athos Dane’s head slumped forward, the terrifying king reduced to nothing but a rag doll corpse. The serpent uncoiled, and the king’s body tumbled forward to the broken ground. And then the serpent turned its shining black eyes on Kell. It slithered toward him with frightening speed, but Kell was ready.
He drove the royal half-sword up into the serpent’s belly. It pierced the snake’s rough skin, the spellwork on the metal glowing for an instant before the creature’s thrashing broke the blade in two. The snake shuddered and fell, dispelled to nothing but a shadow at Kell’s feet.
A shadow, and in the midst of it, a broken piece of black stone.