“Holy shit… He’s really… What’s the plan, Vi?” Mira asks, gripping her other knife.

“Kill him before he kills us, and whatever you do, don’t let him get his hands on you.” I grab my hair into a low ponytail and wrap the fabric from my dress around it to secure it quickly. I’m dead if I can’t see.

The venin holds the guard like a shield, blocking me from any potential knife throw. The screams stop as the man slowly desiccates before my eyes. At least two of the other three are already off the field.

Letting Tairn’s power consume me, I wield again and again, scorching the grass around the venin without fucking hitting him. The guard falls to the ground, parts of him flaking off as the rain pelts harder and faster.

“Damn it!”

“It’s you,” the dark wielder says over the growing noise of the storm. “The one who commands the sky.” His eyes widen in eerie excitement. “Oh, how I’ll be rewarded when I return with you.”

“And here I was thinking I was the only Sorrengail with a reputation beyond the border.” Mira takes a fighting stance, keeping only inches between us.

“By your Sage?” I ask him, tracking his movements as rain falls in sheets. Shit, I can’t chance throwing my dagger. If I miss, I’m defenseless, and it’s not just me on this field. “I need daggers.”

“Which Sage? I promise, you’ll wish—” he starts, raising his arms.

“For death?” I interrupt. “Already heard it. I killed that messenger, too.” But I wasn’t in a cumbersome ball gown. This thing is a fucking liability.

“Behind you,” Xaden says.

I glance back and see two alloy-hilted daggers embedded in the ground five feet away. “Mira!”

She follows my line of sight and is already moving when I flip my dagger to its tip and flick my wrist, throwing for the dark wielder’s throat.

The dagger sinks into his side.

Shit, I didn’t account for the downward pressure of the driving rain.

The venin shouts in pain, yanking the dagger loose as Mira hands me one of the two Xaden flung our way. My fingers grip the water-slick handle, and I prepare myself for the worst when the venin lifts his hands.

But it’s not the daggers he throws.

The Rybstad chest hurtles toward us, coming so quickly that I barely have time to knock Mira to the ground before it passes by, close enough that I hear it split the air.

A dagger immediately follows, then another, missing me but pinning the left side of my dress to the ground. I use our momentum to keep rolling, the diaphanous silk tearing away as I’m pulled to my feet by Brennan—who’s decided to join us, I guess.

Gods, no. I can’t lose them both in this.

“We need to surround him,” Brennan says, grabbing the alloy-hilted dagger from the sodden grass. Water collects quickly, soaking my feet, my hair, and what’s left of my dress.

“And how would you like to do that if we can’t see him through this shit?” Mira asks.

“I’m minutes out!” Tairn bellows.

We might be dead in those minutes, but we’re all dead eventually if I don’t secure that fucking luminary.

“We have to keep him on the field, no matter what. One of them is capable of draining everyone in the palace,” I tell my siblings. Back-to-back, we scan the field, and my breath catches when the dark wielder comes into view, dropping to a knee about twenty feet away.

No. Time slows to sluggish heartbeats as I watch him reach for the ground.

There’s no time to run. We won’t make it.

My worst nightmare is seconds away from becoming reality.

Our mission is going to kill my brother and sister.

“I’m so sorry.” It’s barely a whisper.

His fist slams into the ground, and through the storm, I watch in breathless horror as his eyes burn fire red, the grass around him shriveling into brown blades.

“Mira!” Brennan shouts. “Shield!”

“I…I can’t this far from the wards!” Her mouth drops as death races for us, the ground rippling as it surrenders its magic.

“Shield or we’re dead!” Brennan grabs onto us both and yanks us into a tight hold.

I tuck in, hoping to make our trio as small as possible, while Mira throws her arms up over us. Her body trembles, and Brennan and I wrap our arms around her back to keep her steady. She screams as though she’s being ripped apart.

She’s going to burn out.

Shadows stream toward us, but they won’t make it.

“I love you.” I push the thought Xaden’s way and wait for my power to bleed out, wait for my death to make the venin unstoppable.

But it doesn’t come.

“You will live!” Xaden orders, as if it’s that simple.

Mira collapses, and Brennan takes the brunt of her weight as I scan our surroundings.

The entire field is dead with the exception of the tiny circle we occupy. She saved us. But it’s just the field that’s drained. The spectators are all alive and well above the steps from what I can see through the downpour. All the stone was quarried from Braevick, from east of the Dunness River. Isn’t that what Tecarus said?

I wipe the water from my eyes and stand to face the dark wielder.

He rolls his shoulders in satisfaction, a blissful smile distorting his features as he throws his head back.

“If you can’t strike him with lightning, then we’ll have to get close enough to engage. He can’t take both of us,” Brennan says, lifting an unconscious Mira into his arms.

“How far are you?” I ask Tairn. Rain doesn’t strike the remains of the grass as much as it splashes into water that has yet to run off.

“Less than a minute.”

“I don’t have to strike him,” I whisper as the idea hits, scanning the flooded field. “Get Mira to the steps. You’ll be safe there.”

Brennan looks at me like I’ve just suggested our world is flat. “Until the next time he drains—”

“I need you to trust me. Get our sister to the steps.” I glance up at my brother and soak myself in Tairn’s power, giving it free rein, letting it fill every inch of my body.