Page 63 of Twisted Magic

Following on that tediously cliched declaration, Bogdan hit Jadren with raw power.

Jadren had himself warded, naturally, but a generalized ward as he hadn’t been sure what form the duel would take. Setting a ward to be thick and resist his late-mother’s horrible darts, to slow their relentless drilling, was different from a ward to resist the overwhelming heat and focused energy of a lightning bolt made of pure magic. For that was how it felt, the magic leaking through his wards to scour and scorch his skin, like lightning embodied in a sandstorm.

He adjusted, able to strengthen his defense against the incendiary blast, but that put him on the defensive. Bogdan smiled, knowing it, adjusting his outpour of magic to erode Jadren’s wards, forcing Jadren to scramble to alter his defense again, eyebrows, lashes, and beard singed from the inferno, the unpleasant smell of burning hair reminding him of all that was at stake. Meanwhile, Bogdan’s wards shone pristine and untouched. Jadren hadn’t even gotten off an attack yet.

Well, that was going to change. Ignoring the magical fire penetrating his inadequate warding for the moment, Jadren hurled his own lightning bolt at Bogdan’s head. Just enough to disrupt his brother’s concentration from funneling the seemingly endless streak of sand-fire drilling through Jadren’s shields. It worked—only for a blink—but that was enough time for Jadren to pull on his store of Seliah’s moon-iced water magic. Making his wards double-walled, he filled the interior with the cooling substance, mentally thanking Liat for her endless tutorials on wards and repetition, mentally apologizing to her that he’d ever questioned the usefulness of those drills.

Bogdan recovered fast, sneering at Jadren’s attack, though his exact words were drowned by the roar of his fire-blast. No big loss. Bogdan’s attack continued at unremitting full power, cycling through variations that tested Jadren’s new wards, to no avail.

Trusting the wards to hold for a while, feeling his burns tingle as they healed, Jadren took a moment to think. Bogdan was using power at a tremendous rate, clearly hoping to take Jadren out in the first few minutes of the duel with overwhelming force. It was already too late for that strategy to work, though Bogdan had yet to realize it, his face contorted in a rictus of determined aggression.

Maybe if Jadren had suffered less in his life, he might’ve been blown away in the first few moments of Bogdan’s attack, succumbing to the pain and shock—but if Jadren was good at nothing else, he could certainly endure suffering. He wouldn’t fail Seliah so easily.

And, unlike Bogdan, he could string two thoughts together and have them make sense.

Jadren changed his own bolt of lightning into a grappling hook, splayed claws of wizardry digging into his brother’s wards and tunneling through. As he’d hoped, Bogdan assumed Jadren was trying to drill his way through and thickened the wards. Jadren clawed a bit deeper… then yanked, simultaneously applying corrosive magic to the edges of the shield, where Bogdan had neglected to make it as strong, focusing primarily on protecting himself from attack from head on. Bogdan’s ward flexed, bowed, then broke apart all along the edges. Dropping the detached ward to shatter uselessly to the floor, Jadren hurled a lightning bolt at Bogdan’s face.

As Jadren had hoped, Bogdan poured magic into deflecting the attack and erecting a new ward. It happened fast, as Bogdan might be an ass, but he was also a proficient wizard. Jadren had counted on Bogdan concentrating on that effort, and on enjoying his moment of recovered triumph, grinning widely until his face went blank with shock as Jadren’s magic slapped him on the back of the head.

Bogdan reeled, dizzied from the blow, his hair briefly on fire and blood pouring down his face from the cracked skull. Jadren poured more metal-melting magic into reaching around, hopefully to deal a more devastating blow—Bogdan was already recovering, curse their family healing ability—but his attack bounced off. Bogdan had already wised up to that trick and encased himself in a full bubble of glassy ward. So much like glass, in truth, that Jadren’s lightning now flowed into it, fusing it into greater strength.

Cursing himself for being a fool and underestimating his opponent, Jadren extracted the claws of his now useless probe, having to work fast to get it away from the magic-sucking field of Bogdan’s ward. Nice trick, and one he wouldn’t mind learning if he had an option not to kill his brother.

While Jadren fought to get clear of the sticky stuff, Bogdan turned tables on him, funneling a surprise attack from below. Tiles burst up in a fountain beneath Jadren’s feet, peppering him with sharp-edged, ceramic shrapnel, temporarily blinding him and slicing him to ribbons. Worse, the pit hollowed out by the whirlwind of magic opened up beneath him and dropped him with painful jarring nearly to his chest. The tiles whirled down as fast as they’d exploded up, piling around him and melting with the heat of Bogdan’s magic, sealing Jadren into place and compressing his torso painfully. If he needed to breathe to stay alive, Jadren would be a goner soon. Unfortunately, he did need to breathe to stay conscious. As soon as he passed out from lack of air, his wards would collapse and Bogdan could waltz over and leisurely kick his head off. Bogdan always had been a kicker, not liking to bruise his pretty hands.

Jadren hadn’t yet had to survive decapitation. Maybe he’d grow a new head—or a new body from the old head—but he doubted Bogdan would give him the opportunity. He’d be a headless pile of ash very soon if he didn’t get his shit together. Stupid not to have warded beneath his feet.

Frantically, he hurled bolts at Bogdan, who indeed strolled nearer, smiling in anticipation, enjoying himself now that he stood poised to defeat Jadren. Already the edges of Jadren’s vision faded to gray, black curling over like smoke to take him under to final oblivion. Seliah roared in the distance, a protest and a spur for him to fight back. But he couldn’t break through Bogdan’s wards, couldn’t penetrate the fused-glass bubble of his brother’s shielding. Including under Bogdan’s feet. Jadren checked.

In a last ditch attempt to escape his fate, Jadren did possibly the stupidest thing he’d ever done in a long life of making exceptionally stupid decisions. He let his head fall limply to the side, as if he’d lost consciousness, and collapsed his wards.

Silence reigned, punctuated by Seliah’s mournful roaring. With his eyes closed, he couldn’t see Bogdan’s approach, but he used his passive wizard’s senses to track as his brother’s magic drew near. Bogdan would have to drop his own wards to deal the killing blow, if he indeed decided on a physical attack rather than magical. It would be wiser of him to go with magical attack to at least disable Jadren for the necessary total dismemberment, but Bogdan had never demonstrated much wisdom. Must run in the family.

“You always were weak,” Bogdan hissed as he drew near. “But thanks for clearing the way for me by disposing of Maman. In gratitude, I’ll make this quick.” Drawing his foot back, Bogdan loosened his wards.

Thank you, Mr. Predictable. Jadren took the first blow, letting it snap his head back. Painful, but worth it as Bogdan chuckled and, in his renewed confidence, dropped his wards entirely.

Unable to resist witnessing the moment, Jadren opened his eyes and hit Bogdan with almost everything he had left. No widget to point, alas, but he knew how the inversion of the restoration magic felt now. Shaping it in his mind, he willed Bogdan’s flesh to come apart, to return to an earlier state of being, when it was all separate cells. Bogdan staggered, blood blooming all over his body, immediately soaking his clothing, as his skin dissolved.

The crowd gasped and, in some cases, shrieked. Some cheered. But, though Bogdan fell to hands and knees, shaking his head like a dog desperate to rid himself of something foul, he didn’t discorporate. While he was distracted, Jadren used his little remaining reserved magic to extract himself from the tile trap, looking to Seliah—still on her chair, but standing up and coiled to leap to him. He shook his head at her in warning, hoping she’d see and take heed.

Meanwhile, he climbed out of the pit, every bone aching as his body struggled to restore itself and Jadren prevented it, glad to have that much skill. If he survived this, he could access Seliah’s magic to heal himself. Saving what little he had kept in reserve was more important. He thought wildly about how to end this. Bogdan was visibly recovering, and Jadren had just enough magic to deal a killing blow, but only barely, and it would have to be perfectly targeted. Fortunately, Bogan was out of magic, too, his potency diminishing as he healed himself. He was weak, defenseless, and Jadren was so tired of killing.

“Do you yield?” he asked, standing over Bogdan, surprising them both.

“Never,” Bogdan ground out, sending a lick of lightning toward Jadren that flickered out and died before even reaching him.

Jadren refrained from mocking him, not wanting to goad the wizard further, and extended a hand. “Come on, Brother,” he said quietly. “Let’s end the El-Adrel family infighting. Enough already.”

“Maman should never have sent you to Phel.” Bogdan groaned, bit down on it. “Finish this.”

“It’s stupid and wasteful,” Jadren argued. “We’re stronger together, curse it.” If Seliah could hear them, he hoped she was enjoying the told-you-so moment.

Bogdan raised his head. “Correction: I’m stronger than you. And smarter. Helen!”

It took Jadren far too long to catch on, staring stupidly at Helen—in human form—bursting from an envelope of concealment, Elal magic like his mother had used having cloaked her presence. She wrapped arms around Bogdan’s waist, and he practically glowed with the magic he pulled from her. Feeling as dense as the lead lining of the arcanium, Jadren looked to the falcon still roosting on the banner.

“Anita leant me her familiar,” Bogdan explained, getting to his feet, dried blood flaking away as his skin regenerated. “Careless of you not to verify.”

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