Blackbourne signaled, and the combatants on either side of the challenge ring dropped into a ready stance. Both had stripped down to the waist, oblivious to the December chill. Ice rolled his shoulders, every muscle rippling with repressed action as he clutched his new wand. It was clear he wanted this fight.
Sabelle wanted to vomit.
Lean as a whip, Mathias waited, looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
God, if she had known when she suggested Ice for this Council post that it would place him in grave danger, she would never have mentioned his name.
“Stop blaming yourself,” Bram whispered beside her.
“Who else am I to blame, then?”
“He could have declined. Ice wanted this … and perhaps I drove him to it as well. He wanted revenge against Mathias so badly after Gailene’s murder. I stopped him. He was too young to fight Mathias. In my attempt to protect him, I only made him more desperate.”
The truth of Bram’s words washed an icy chill over her. Fear gripped her stomach. “I cannot simply sit and watch him die.”
“Then don’t. Send him your thoughts and good wishes. And don’t underestimate him. When we were friends centuries ago, I saw huge promise in him, but knew it would never be achieved until he curbed his temper. He’s come a long way since then. Let’s hope it’s enough.”
Ice and Mathias began a slow circle, each sizing up the other. A glib smile played across Mathias’s mouth, as if he mimicked Ice merely to toy with him. Ice ignored the silent jibe.
Dread slid through Sabelle. Her heart roared with disquiet, and she feared nothing good would come of this challenge. Ice was everything she wanted in a friend and mate. Sitting next to Bram and the others, watching Ice fight for his life, was eating at her composure.
Suddenly, Mathias raised his wand. She gripped her brother’s hand, terror clutching her throat, as Mathias pooled water at the bottom of the ring, quickly making it into something of a fish bowl. Around and around, he swirled the water at his feet, then sent a tidal wave of water Ice’s way.
With a mere hand, Ice froze the wave before it crashed over his head and swallowed him whole.
Mathias laughed. “So you can fight. Maybe today won’t be deadly dull. How about this?”
With a flick of his wrist, Mathias blasted a wall of fire at the frozen wave. With a flash, it crashed into the icy barrier and began melting it. The resulting water rose to the ankle, then waist, again to the neck … and kept rising.
Treading water, Ice whooshed his wand in a circle. The water began to dissipate, mist floating at the top of the challenge ring’s ceiling. It formed small clusters, then grew into big clouds in an angry gray.
Then snow began to fall, a light, harmless dusting of powdery brilliance.
Again, Mathias smiled “Interesting. Now that we’ve discussed the weather, are you going to try to kill me or not?”
Ice said nothing, just stared, his concentration unwavering.
Mathis sighed, then hurled a ball of fire Ice’s way. Ice drew in a mighty breath and, waving his wand, blew snow directly into the ball’s path with a howling wind. The fireball popped, sparked … fizzled.
“More childish games?” Mathias goaded.
Sloshing around in the snow, Ice continued to stare, circle him. “Fuck off.”
“We’ve had this conversation before. I’d hoped you learned to be more eloquent since I introduced you to my friend with interesting toys. But alas . . .”
Sabelle shuddered into Ice’s silence, thinking of the whip Mathias had flayed Ice with so viciously. But Ice said nothing, and minutes slid by. Mathias put out a hand, thumb and fingers curled toward Ice, who clutched his throat a moment later.
With his other hand, Ice sent a spell zinging to Mathias that was full of spark and electricity. Mathias tried to dodge it, but he’d been too preoccupied cutting off Ice’s windpipe to oppose it. Instead, Mathias feinted to the right. The spell caught him in the arm, just above his elbow. He roared, his shoulder jerking with the effort to pull and tug at the muscle. It didn’t move.
“Bloody bastard. You think to paralyze me temporarily? Is that a fair fight?”
“Choking me is?” Ice countered.
Mathias reared back, then lashed back at Ice, free arm raised, fingers bared like claws. A twisting fireball made its way toward Ice. Quickly, he threw up a sheet of frozen water between them, but before the spell reached it, the ball dissolved. But Sabelle sensed the spell wasn’t broken.
A moment later, Ice clutched his eyes with a roar. “What the—”
“Burns, doesn’t it?” Mathias sneered, trying to work his arm free of Ice’s temporary paralysis. “Also keeps you from hexing me when I can’t move.”
Sabelle gasped and leapt to her feet to run to Ice’s side. Bram and Tynan pulled her back down. “We’re impartial observers only.”
Her brother’s words punched her in the stomach. “You would simply let him die?”
Bram ground his jaw. “We’ve no choice. These were the risks, and Ice knew it when he stepped into the ring.”
“He wants revenge so badly . . .” She bit her lip, trying to hold still her trembling chin.
“And you,” Bram admitted, then sighed. “He made me promise … if he managed to win the Council seat, that I would not disclaim you if you wished to mate with him.”
Horror spread across Sabelle’s face. In that moment, she both loved and hated her brother. He was making Ice prove his worth, earn a prominent place in magickind before allowing her to mate with him. That was a guardian’s task, true, but did he care so little for her heart? For his former friend?
Yes, Ice wanted revenge. But he was willing to fight the worst evil in a millennium, in part, for a chance to be with her. How stupid had she been not to Bind to him already? She had put Bram’s blessing over Ice’s heart, and now … This couldn’t end soon enough. She had to talk to Ice.
“Bloody git!” Ice growled at Mathias.
Right now, Sabelle could say the same about her brother.
“I underestimated his love for you. Nor was I certain that you felt the same,” Bram said. “It’s my duty to be certain he’s the best mate for you—”
“Excuses!” she hissed at him. “And you know it. Ever since you awakened from that black cloud of Mathias’s you’ve been calculating and scheming. Unfeeling. You cared only that my mating allied you with someone advantageous. After you rescued me from my selfish mother … you became just like her.”
“Sabelle—”
“I don’t care whether you disclaim me or not, Ice will be my mate. You can go to hell.”
She leapt up from her chair, relief and anxiety both pouring out of her. It was done; she was free of her brother’s expectations. Whether Ice won or lost, she would mate with the man she loved.
If he survived this battle.
Ice growled. Inside the ring, something pinged. A flash of light bounced off one wall of the force field, then another.
“Missed me.” Mathias laughed, finally shaking his hand free of the paralysis spell.
Clawing at his eyes, Ice dropped to one knee. Sabelle wrung her hands, willing him to concede this challenge. Somehow, they’d oust Mathias from the Council, expose him for what he was, but this challenge wasn’t worth Ice’s life. Their future together. Not to her.
“It’s not over, prick.” Ice grabbed a handful of the snow remaining on the floor and wiped it over his face, grinding it into his eyes. He came up gasping, blinking, his eyes wide open. “Not by half.”
Ice flicked his wand at Mathias. A whirling wind funnel appeared at his feet. He flung it toward the evil wizard with an angry roar. Then he scooped up more snow, crushed it in one big fist and tossed it at the tornado. The snow entered, then emerged on the other side as little projectiles of ice, headed directly for Mathias.
“Clever,” he praised.
Mathias leapt above them, then levitated until all of the pellets ricocheted off the clear force field surrounding the ring and fell to the floor, harmless.
“But not clever enough. You’ll have to try a bit harder.”
Just then, Mathias raised his arms wide, bringing them down in a scooping motion near his hips. They were filled with something … little bodies that squirmed and wriggled. The evil wizard tossed them in Ice’s direction. They seemed to multiply in midair, a few dozen becoming hundreds in the blink of an eye.
“My friends are hungry. Feed them.”
Sabelle jerked her gaze from Mathias’s dark glower to the little pale crawling creatures. They hit Ice like a wall, and he screamed, twisting and writhing, trying to fling them away.
Every one he dislodged left behind a bleeding little wound. Another quickly tried to take its place.
“Flesh-eating maggots?” Tynan reared back in disgust beside her.
They were. Oh, God … Dark magic, indeed. She’d read once they could eat a man alive in minutes.
Ice!
As if Ice heard her plea, he focused his energy, eyes closed. She ran closer to the force field, until scarcely more than a few meters and a clear wall separated them. Around Ice, more snow melted, slowly filling up the ring. Ice ducked, removing the last of the creatures from his shoulders and neck, and they floated away from him, unable to swim back for their meal.
When he came up for air, he froze the water with the flick of his wrist. It immobilized them instantly.
But the effort cost him. He looked pale and drained now, his green eyes dim beacons in a white face. No doubt, Ice needed her at that break—if he made it that long. Then she would go to him, assure him this challenge wasn’t necessary, at least as far as her love was concerned.
Mathias nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. “I grow tired of toying with you. Your friend Rion enjoyed this one.”
An evil smile settled over Mathias’s features as he banged his wand in Ice’s direction. A moment later, Sabelle’s worst nightmare emerged.
The black cloud!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SABELLE CLASPED HER HAND over her mouth to contain her clawing fear. Bram appeared at her side, and took her shoulders in hand, comforting her as she watched that deadly black cloud wisp its way toward Ice.
Behind her, Bram tensed, his breathing harsh. She wanted to turn to her brother, plead for help, but couldn’t look away.
“What can we do?”
“Nothing. I don’t know what the damnable thing is, but it will find him. Whatever his worst instincts, they will rise up and overwhelm him. Choke him.”
In Bram’s case, his ambition. She bit her lip. “It’s painful?”
“Like your soul is being split in half.”
Sagging against Bram, she looked for strength, refusing to let hopelessness defeat her.
Oh God. Ice would be a different man, if he came back to her. If he lived.
“How much longer until the break?” Maybe she could reach him quickly, somehow heal him before it did too much damage.
“Less than five minutes.”
Please, Ice, hold out that long.
The black cloud drew closer. Ice watched it, taut shoulders rising up and down with harsh breaths. He was so bloody tired. Levitating to avoid the mass nearly took more effort than he had. Though Ice lowered himself to the ground again, the cloud followed him, closing in on him. Next, he conjured a bottle. Perhaps he could contain the black cloud … somehow. Still, he would likely have to touch it, be affected by whatever disaster it promised.
His hand trembled as he held the bottle, its wide mouth open and directed at the cloud. The black vapor flowed into the bottle, and Ice threw the stopper over it, hoping he’d captured it all.
Instead, it leaked out the bottom, quickly re-forming inches from his face—then heading straight for him.
Think, think, think!
Ice abandoned the bottle and leapt away. He blinked hard, formed fists, focusing when every nerve in his head throbbed with the need for energy. He could not give out, could not give in. The Council needed him. Gailene needed to rest in peace. He needed Sabelle for his own.
Finally, he summoned a mirror. It quickly appeared in his hand, and he flipped it toward the cloud, praying the glass would deflect the mass back to Mathias. Instead, it passed around the little looking glass, re-formed, then went straight for his chest.
Now what? Ice wondered as he stepped back, back until he hit the force field. Nowhere else to go. He didn’t dare look at Sabelle, at the fear he felt beating off her.
Suddenly, Mathias laughed, a screeching parody of joy. The sound dripped menace and scorn. “You can’t outrun the spell. It will take you.”
With his back against the force field, the black cloud began to surround Ice. He gritted his teeth, bracing himself to stay strong against whatever agony it brought. He would not show weakness or fear. If this was the end, if he never left this challenge ring alive, Ice wanted to die certain that Mathias knew exactly how he felt.
“Fuck off.”
“So you’ve said before. Now . . .” Mathias smiled as the cloud smothered Ice, swallowed him, taking his vision, his ability to breathe—his hope. He choked, clutched his throat, needing air. There was none. Sabelle screamed, though it sounded far away. For a moment, he was glad she had never Bound to him. No need to mourn him once he’d gone.