“Do your worst,” Ryan snarled at him as Ruv took a step toward him.
I groaned. “Don’t tell him to do that, you idiot. Now he’ll do it.”
“It’s okay, Ryan,” Lady Tina said, hands clutched between her breasts. “Soon you will be free from all of this. I promise you.”
“You will be,” Ruv agreed. “Free, that is. From all of this. Do you remember, Knight Commander? In Mashallaha. How many times you threatened to stab me. It’s ironic, really.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “How is that ironic? I didn’t actually do it. Although now I wish I had.”
“No,” I whispered. “No, no, don’t—”
“That’s not the irony, Ryan Foxheart. The irony here is that I’m going to be the one to stab you.”
I screamed at him.
But it didn’t matter.
Ryan looked confused as Ruv moved quicker than I’d ever seen him move. One moment he was standing near Tina, a small smile on his face. And the next he was scooping up Ryan’s discarded sword by the hilt and charging my knight.
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Ryan Foxheart didn’t cry out as the sword pierced his skin just below his rib cage. He exhaled explosively, but the only other sound was the harsh thunk as the sword ran him through completely and hit the wall behind him. His eyes bulged as he looked down slowly at Ruv, who stood in front of him, hand still holding the sword, crimson starting to bleed along the cold steel.
“What?” Ryan whispered. “What?”
And still I screamed.
My hands were bleeding, and I thought two of the fingers on my right hand were broken with how hard I was hitting the barrier that surrounded me, trying to do something, anything, to get to Ryan, to tear Ruv to pieces and to make it all okay again.
But it was the price of magic.
I could bring the lightning out from my heart.
I could hold a bird in my hand and give it life once again.
And I could not break the seal of dragon’s blood above me.
I was shattering, breaking into a thousand tiny pieces, and Ryan coughed weakly, blood dribbling down his chin. He looked up at me as Ruv took a step back. His teeth were stained red, and when he said, “Sam?” all I could think about, all I could remember was the day Morgan took me away from the slums by the hand, and how I’d looked back just once and saw the boy named Nox standing on the road behind me.
I had waved at him.
He’d waved back.
And then I rounded the corner and Nox was gone, and I didn’t think about him again until I sat beside a knight I loved next to a fire under the bright, bright stars on our way to rescue the Prince from the clutches of a dragon, and he’d said You’ve never been turned to stone, Sam? It’s an interesting experience to say the least.
Nox Ashford.
Ryan Foxheart.
I loved them both.
Because they were the same.
So, yes. I screamed for him.
I begged Ruv to let me out.
He ignored me, eyes only on Ryan.