His face was drawn in lines of fury. “You think you killed her. You think you’re stronger than her?”

“Cassava?” I snorted. “She is nothing without the emerald stone.”

“Do not push me, Lark. I could kill you where you stand,” he snarled. Lies, they filtered through the air to me. He couldn’t reach the earth’s power here where the land was dead. I could. And I held the sapphire stone still. I had three elements to his four.

“Then why don’t you?” I took a step toward him and he moved back. “That’s what I thought. Even with all that power, you are a coward at heart. Every time we’ve faced each other, you’ve run. Any time you’ve been hurt, you flee with your tail tucked between your legs like the incestuous cur you are.” I stalked him with every word.

“I will rule the Rim, Lark. I will be named as the heir. Even now Father is writing a new will. Not this piece of dog shit.” He shook a piece of paper at me.

The note I’d seen my father writing in his memory. Blackbird truly was a fool to still be carrying it around. Or maybe . . . maybe he couldn’t believe what it said. That I was the one Father had loved the best.

“I have no desire to rule, Blackbird, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you take the throne.”

He held out his hand and red lines of power raced up his arm. With a snap of his fingers, fire burst up in a full circle around us.

“Then let us see who is truly stronger once and for all. Does your promise still stand? That you would never hurt me? Or are you a liar now too?”

My jaw ticked as I struggled for words. “A promise predicated on a lie is no promise. We end this now.”

A flickering figure to the right of us walked through the flames. The mother goddess glowed with power, her dark hair floating on an unseen and unfelt breeze.

“You are both my chosen ones. I forbid you to fight.”

I raised my eyebrows but did not take my eyes off Blackbird. “You are the reason he ran from the other fights, aren’t you?”

Blackbird sneered. “I am no coward. I am obedient. To both my mothers.” He gave her a bow from the waist.

I took a step back and drew in a breath. “I suppose that makes one of us, then.”

His eyes snapped to mine, glittering with a perverse pleasure. “You would fight me still?”

I twitched the fingers on my right hand and the trees pulled back around us. The fool didn’t notice. “I would do more than fight you. I will kill you.”

CHAPTER 26

The trees at the edge of the blasted land shot forward, whistling through the air with the velocity of a hurricane. Blackbird dodged the first two, but got caught on one I’d pulled from behind him. I didn’t wait to see if he would get up. Bolting forward, I yanked my spear from my side and whipped it around.

“No, Larkspur, I forbid this!” the mother goddess yelled.

I didn’t pause. “Then you should never have chosen us both.”

I thrust the spear forward and I was jerked backward, vines wrapping around my waist. They tightened and began to heat, bursting into flames.

I threw my head back and screamed, even as I shattered the remaining vines, breaking apart the molecules into tiny droplets.

Blackbird was on his knees and his blue eyes were wild with fury. There were no words between us. We’d said all we’d needed to say.

Back and forth we fought, flexing our power through the world around us.

Like a game of chess, we were careful in our choices.

I used the sapphire, drawing on its power without knowing what I was doing. I held my hands out and water condensed in front of me into a rolling ball. With a twist, I threw it at Blackbird, changing the molecules, hardening them into a ball of ice. It clipped him on the shoulder, spinning him around. He held a hand up and pointed a single finger at me.

A bolt of lightning snapped out of the sky and shot through my body. The electricity arched my back and sparkling lights danced before me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think past the pain cascading through me. Blackbird’s laughter rolled around me and I fought to find my connection to the earth through the pain. There at the edge of my consciousness it hovered. I reached for it and pulled it to me.

Held to it while Blackbird poured everything he had into me. The lightning stopped, but I was on my knees and his hands were on my head. “This is a battle I did not want, Lark. I do love you.”

His words were meaningless as he used Spirit to hammer my mind, as if he were trying to crack a nut.

It felt like he had his fingers inside my brain and was pulling it apart section by section. The screaming started and I couldn’t stop it as I scrabbled to get away from him.

He was stronger than me.

I couldn’t stop him.

Were the words mine, or his? A tiny flicker of darkness spun in my mind and black eyes blinked up at me. Good thing I made sure you kept a piece of me, Elemental.

Astrid. The darkness swam between Blackbird and me, popping the connection between us like a bubble being burst. I fell back and Blackbird was thrown away from me to the far edge of the blasted field.

My whole body shook, convulsions shuddering through me from head to toe. I wasn’t sure I could even stand. I stayed on the ground, my hands buried in the soft, dead earth.

Blackbird stared at me as he stalked forward, his blue eyes full of curiosity. Seeing him jump from one extreme to the other told me all I needed. He was as unstable as Cassava.

“How?”