Luc darts forward. I gain my feet in time to dodge his first strike. With that single move, I know I’m beat. He’s as good at swordplay and noxior fighting as he is at creating from nightmist. Go figure.
“You think you can defeat me in my own world?” he growls.
“Seems like we did just that,” I return, using snark as my weapon even though that will only incense him. “Not all of it is your father’s creation. God has the last say. You can’t keep Him out.”
“God is a figment of imagination.”
I contradict him. “God is the source of imagination.” I gesture to the wheat field. “Who do you think put this here?”
He grinds his boot into the earth, sending up little puffs of ash. “It doesn’t matter who made it. What matters is who has the power to destroy it.” He lunges. I brace myself, then duck and tackle. I miss, sprawling on the ashy ground.
“Cain!” Stranna’s voice is unexpected and fairly close.
“No!” I want to shout. She followed me, and now she’ll get herself killed.
I flip to my back just as Luc plunges the blade. It pierces the dirt, but he redirects within seconds, swiping at my neck. I throw up my arm, and the blade glances off my forearm with a sharp cut. Blood spills from the wound, but numbed by survival instinct, I hardly feel it.
I scramble for my feet, feeling the threat of his blade at my back and the gaping weakness of being unarmed. Why did I follow him? Did I think we’d stop and have some sort of heart-to-heart?
I manage to stand, but Luc gives me no ground.
Advance. Cut. Advance. Swipe.
Stranna calls my name again, and I vaguely register that she’s not alone. Erik and many of the parents from Ithebego came with her. I pray I can dodge Luc long enough for one of them to cut him down.
But when they reach the veil between Castle Ithebego and the wheat field, it has reformed enough under the sunlight that it doesn’t open to let them pass through. It seals itself, despite the shreds and tears from Luc’s attack.
Stranna pounds against it like glass. I can hear her, but she can’t come through. None of them can.
Something tells me I can’t get back through to them either.
I stop my retreat, tired and gasping for breath. My arm bleeding and stinging more by the minute. Luc’s grin touches on the maniacal. He knows this was a foolish battle, and he’s determined to claim at least one victory.
“This time, you’ll stay dead.” He lifts his sword, and for the first time I see three colors in the blade instead of just metal and nightmist. There’s light in the blade too. Light from the wheat field.
And somehow I know that this blade will truly kill me. There will be no waking up in the Real World.
He swings down and I tense for impact.
Clang. Metal on metal.
An Adelphoi sword. I spin expecting to find Stranna behind me, but she’s still trapped on the other side of the veil. What I do see is a mysterious new sheath at my belt.
This Adelphoi sword is mine. And it blocked the blow.
Luc snorts. “Look at you. Spore to the core.”
I reach for the pommel of my sword, but it evades me, driving Luc back. He swings at it, it parries. He cuts, it blocks. This hardly seems like a fair fight. I’m not even in it.
Then I realize my sword is driving Luc around and toward me. He stumbles a few steps back, getting closer. Closer. I search my belt for a dagger or something to end this, but there’s nothing. I’m relieved. I don’t want to stab anyone in the back.
But the magical Adelphoi sword is making it easy for me. I waver briefly. If it’s driving Luc right into my grasp, is that a sign? Some sort of divine permission to take his life?
Luc angles his body, trying to distance himself from me, but the Adelphoi sword is too efficient. Two more steps, and Luc’s life will be in my hands.
He draws another dagger from his belt and swipes it at me. The Adelphoi sword knocks it from his fingers, and there it sits, at my feet.
I bend to pick it up, but the airborne Adelphoi sword swoops down and places its own hilt in my outstretched hand. This time, it doesn’t burn.
I grip it tight and Luc steadies, ready to fight me. In this moment understanding pierces my mind—like the sword has its own thoughts, its own instructions, and I know them implicitly.
Pierce to bone and marrow. To spirit and soul.
I lunge. Luc throws his blade up to block, but he’s not fast enough. My blade impales his skull. There is no resistance. It’s like cutting into butter. He crumples to the ground, and I wrench the blade free.
There is no blood. In the place where a wound should be is a slit of light and darkness, writhing like two snakes.
I hear shouts from people with Stranna, but Luc’s not dead. I didn’t kill him. I did whatever the sword told me to do, and now . . . I watch.
His skin withers.
At first I think he’s disintegrating, but then his skull morphs, and for a wild moment I think he’s turning into a rhinoceros like mine.
Instead, his wiggling and morphing body goes still, and when I take a step back I take in the full sight.
Luc is gone.
And in his place is Hex Galilei.
