“Oh, no, you don’t,” Briec said.
“Daddy!” Rhi quickly chastised.
“Sorry, love, but we have been waiting since that child’s birth to see this moment. Just let it play out.”
“Plus we already have gold on this,” Gwenvael stated. “You can’t stop it now.”
“You’re all horrible!”
“Shhhhh.”
Eyes wide, Talan focused on one of his favorite kin, shocked and disgusted all at the same time. “Auntie Morfyd?”
“Don’t hate me,” she pleaded in her sweet way. “But even you have to admit this has been a long time coming.”
Realizing that unless he wanted to fight all his kin—he didn’t—he’d have to wait this out, Talan turned back to the battle already raging inside the ring.
Talwyn was going after their mother with a shocking amount of power. An unnecessary amount, as far as Talan was concerned. Although she trained every day with two Kyvich witches and many of their fellow Abominations, Talwyn always held her true skill back.
Until now. Until she faced their very human mother.
Annwyl had a round shield that she held up as her daughter repeatedly brought down a sword and axe, hacking away at the wood with such brutality that Talan couldn’t believe that no one—absolutely no one—was stepping in to stop it.
Why? Why wasn’t anyone helping?
Even more frightening, where was his mother’s rage? If she ever needed it before in her life, it was right now, with her full-of-herself daughter!
But his mother seemed cool and calm under that badly damaged shield.
Why? What the hells was happening?
“Such easy money,” Gwenvael laughed.
Talan yanked his arm away from Gwenvael, ready to tell him where he had every intention of sticking that money when Gwenvael got it, when Annwyl finally raised one of her blades, blocking Talwyn’s sword.
Mother and daughter locked eyes and, in that moment, Annwyl used what was left of her shield to slam it into her daughter’s leg.
With a scream, Talwyn dropped to the ground and Annwyl got to her feet. She tossed the shield away and walked around her daughter, gazing down at her. Still no rage. No anger. But there was definitely something there, something Talan didn’t actually recognize.
As Annwyl blankly gazed at her daughter, she suddenly raised her leg, and brought it down hard.
Hard enough to crush Talwyn’s chest. But Talwyn blocked her mother with her arm and rolled away. She stood on one leg, the other unable to bear any weight. Talwyn still had her sword, though. And even on one leg, she was ready to fight.
She struck first, swinging her sword at Annwyl’s head, but Annwyl slipped out of the way with such speed that for a moment, Talwyn could do nothing but stare at the spot their mother had been standing in.
It wasn’t simply that Annwyl moved so quickly. She’d never been slow. But there was an . . . elegance to it that Talan had never seen in his mother. An elegance of movement.
He loved her, but even he had to admit she was a bit of a lumberer.
“Like elephants marching across the plains,” Morfyd had muttered more than once when Talan was growing up.
Annwyl ended up behind Talwyn, but Talwyn sensed her immediately and moved quickly to block the oncoming blow. Their blades clashed under the morning suns and held for a moment. The power of each female halting the other was palpable.
Until Annwyl kicked Talwyn, sending her only daughter flying halfway across the ring. She hit the fence near Talan, cracking the wood as her body made contact.
While his mother casually returned her sword to its sheath, Talan rushed to his sister’s side, crouching near her right. Rhi on her left.
“Good job,” he whispered to his twin. “Let her think she’s winning.”
That’s when Talwyn looked at him, dark eyes crazed behind all that black hair, bruises blossoming on her cheeks.
“You are letting her win . . . right? I mean, I know the blow to your leg was a lucky punch, but . . .”
With a roar of rage he hadn’t heard from his sibling in more than a decade, his sister pushed herself up until she was standing again on her one good leg.
Talan grabbed her sleeveless chain-mail shirt, but she batted him off and went after their mother.
“This is going to be awful,” Rhi said, almost in tears.
She was, as always, right.
Without weapons, Annwyl outmaneuvered every attempted attack by her daughter. She used her steel gauntlets and speed to block Talwyn’s blade, quickly disarming her after a few seconds. When Talwyn then struck at Annwyl with her fists, the queen blocked those blows too, and she didn’t even lose her breath.
Talwyn began to use Kyvich hand-to-hand techniques on their mother, but, again, the queen blocked them easily until she had both of Talwyn’s arms gripped in her hands. Then, by shifting her weight, she sent Talan’s twin flying into the far wall of the barracks adjoining the training ring.
Annwyl dusted off her hands and leggings, and said, “I expected you to be more advanced, Talwyn. We’ve got a war coming up. And you’re not ready.”
Talwyn lifted her hands and drew runes of fire in the air, chanting words that allowed her to craft a spell against her own mother.
“Talwyn, no!” Rhi cried out.
Talan leaped over the fence and ran until he stood in front of his mother. He raised his hands and created a shield, but the power of Talwyn’s unleashed spell rammed into it, pushing Talan back into Annwyl. Her hands braced against his spine, keeping him upright and trapped in one space.
That alone shocked him beyond words. His mother shouldn’t be strong enough to keep him in place. No one should be strong enough to do that, considering the rage behind Talwyn’s rune spell.
Talan and Talwyn, of equal power, pushed against each other, their spells fighting for dominance.
“Stop it! Both of you!” Talan heard Rhi screaming. She didn’t want to unleash her power. Not with her cousins’ powers in combat. The combination of the three together . . .
But just when Talan was afraid nothing would control his sister’s wrath, the wind around them whipped up, sending dirt and stones from the ground into his eyes. Talan turned his head but kept his shield up.
“That is enough!” a voice bellowed before a line of flame lashed out, splitting at the end to tear into the spells of both Talan and Talwyn, until they were both forced to stop. Talan, because he was sent flipping back several feet. Talwyn because she simply didn’t have the strength to fight the onslaught.
When everything had stopped and Talan could see again, his eyes watering from the dirt still irritating him, it was his mother who held her position. Standing tall.
But it was the Dragon Queen who had stopped the whole thing.
“Have you all lost your minds?” Rhiannon the White demanded of her grand-offspring, standing regal in the clearing on the opposite side of the training ring. Her white scales fairly glowed under the sunslight and her wings flickered angrily as she glowered down at them.
Their grandfather, Bercelak, had landed on top of one of the barracks, overseeing all, but saying nothing. As a Cadwaladr, he’d never stop a fight. His main concern was the safety of Rhiannon.
The queen’s head turned toward Talan’s mother. “Are you all right, Annwyl?”
“Is she all right?” Talwyn exploded.