Page 236 of Starside

He grins as my eyes find his belt. And one of the many swords hanging there.

“No,” I breathe.

Purple. The stone is purple. I know that carving, the flowers, the vines.

Kira’s blade. Which only means one thing.

“No.” My voice breaks on a sob.

“I want you to know that she almost made it,” Cadoc says, taking a step forward. “And with an injured leg, no less.” He clicks his tongue. “Very impressive. She was just short of the gates when my friends caught her. She fought hard … kept mentioning, apparently … a sister?” Rage explodes behind my eyes. I bare my teeth, but that only seems to please him more. “They dragged her to me, keeping her just barely alive …” He smooths a finger down the metal. “So I could claim this.” He shakes his belt, and the dozen swords clang together. “It was so fun … so fun to break her.”

“You’re—you’re lying,” I say, trembling. The world is slipping away, but I use anger as a tether.

“Am I?”

Fury gathers in my bones as I step forward. My voice is pain and purpose woven together. “Then it looks like I’m about to have too many blades to carry.”

At that, Cadoc smiles. “Or I’m about to add a new one to my collection.”

He takes his stance. He holds up a weapon he must have claimed here, one of sparkling immortal metals.

I unleash everything this side has taught me, bellowing with bone-deep fury.

My arms might have trembled the first time I lifted this blade.

They do not shake now.

His sparkling metal meets mine and cracks. Sometime during this journey, through all the dangers, through the training, through the lessons, I got better. I see it now. Every inch of that skill, magnified by my rage. I grip my sword using both hands, slamming over and over and over until the blade completely shatters.

I lift my weapon one last time, to finally slay him, but he’s fast. He pulls another blade from his belt, and his new metal clashes against mine. It seems I wasn’t the only one who improved during this quest. Or changed. I see the jagged mark of a wound down the side of his throat. The skin is raised. Twisted.

He tries to go for my leg, but I pounce away, then swing for his sword-wielding arm. He barely deflects in time, but my blow is hard. The gold splinters. One more hit, and it’s in pieces at his feet.

“Aris.”

The word, the distant voice, distracts me.

The clash of metal must have awakened him. Raker is coming, any moment now.

Cadoc seems to know it too. He lunges for the dagger behind me. Stellan’s dagger. I go after him, but he turns, blocking me with a new sword from his belt. He pockets the dagger, then fixes both hands on the hilt of his weapon.

“Aris.” Raker’s getting closer. I can hear the clanging of his armor. He’s running.

Cadoc bellows a name I don’t recognize, and then a sky-splitting roar rattles my bones. I turn, and my vision is wholly blocked by a monstrous shadow. His dragon is rushing right at us. It isn’t stopping.

There’s no time to move. Before I can take a single step, we’re both knocked off our feet, and onto the dragon’s back.

My head hits its jagged ridges, pain exploding behind my eyelids as my body skips down its spine. I barely manage to grip one of its many spikes, before it turns skyward, my feet kicking nothing as it spirals toward the clouds. I scream. My nails splinter as I fight to hold on.

Wind nearly rips me off its side, then the dragon steadies. My body slams down against its hard scales. My bones scream beneath my skin. Bile rushes up my throat. But there’s no time to retch. I claw my way up to a more stable position. Cadoc is yards away, on his stomach. Staring at me with unflinching focus.

He stands. Slowly, I do too, on the other end of the creature’s spine as it continues its flight through the fiery dawn. My head is pulsing, ears bursting with the rapid ascent. I swallow the pain and panic down, until only rage remains. I take a deep breath. Then, with a growl, I race forward, and not even the wind can smother the sound of our blades meeting.

Our duel continues on his dragon’s back, in the air, and Cadoc’s fighting might have improved—but his stamina did not. Of course. He had this dragon to take him across Starside. I made much of the trek on foot. I learned not to tire. I trained for this. As his movements get lazier, mine get more precise. One after another, his lesser blades shatter against my metal, and he replaces them with the others he’s collected, slower each time. I advance, fury fueling me. I block each of his clumsy movements.

Stellan taught me everything he knew.

Now, I’m going to use every bit of that training to fulfill my promise to him. I’m going to kill the person responsible for his death.