Page 120 of A War Apart

Ignoring the crowd of guards, Borislav looked across the hall. “Mother. You’re looking well.”

The dowager tsarina didn’t respond.

“It’s over, Miroslav,” the tsar said. “You can give this up now.”

Miroslav sneered. “You come with a dozen men and some beasts to claim victory? I have five times your numbers.”

Despite the size of the throne room, neither man had to raise his voice. No one made a sound.

“I wish to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. You know you can’t win.” Borislav was confident, unbothered by the hundred men with weapons pointed in his direction. After everything I’d seen, I understood why. With a wave of his staff, he could wipe out the entire room. I shuddered, saying a silent prayer for protection. “Face me yourself,” he said. “Let’s end this.”

“Do I look like a fool?” Miroslav’s voice grew shrill, hysterical. “You’ve always been able to best me with the Blood Gifts.”

“Perhaps that’s because Otets favored me.” Borislav’s tone, calm and emotionless, sent a chill through my bones, though I couldn’t say why.

“You were favored, certainly, but I can’t speak to Otets’ favor.”

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, brother.”

“Enough!” Miroslav shrieked. “You won’t manipulate me. Guards, kill them!”

The first few guards stepped forward. I raised my sword, but Borislav lifted his staff and touched it to the ground. A rumbling grew beneath our feet, accompanied by a cracking sound, and I stumbled backward. A split appeared beneath the staff, spreading and widening toward the oncoming guards. With cries of terror, they fled as the crack became a yawning chasm, but it sped onward, consuming them all.

Still Borislav didn’t stop the magic. The chasm grew wider, cutting a path through the crowd of nobles. Most of them scrambled out of the way, but a stout, black-haired man let out a piercing scream as he fell in. A woman with splotches of white across her brown face grabbed the steel-clad arm of the man next to her. They both slipped toward the edge. He wrenched his arm free, grabbing a column for purchase, and the woman fell into the abyss below.

“Stop!” I screamed, but the tsar couldn’t or wouldn’t. He stared at his brother, his face like stone, as the steps of the dais began to crack. Miroslav flinched, and Borislav raised his staff.

The chasm stopped spreading.

Stunned, I looked at the chaos around us. My men wore wide-eyed, open-mouthed expressions that reflected my own horror.

“Face me,” Borislav said. His voice was like ice. “There’s no one left to defend you. Face me.”

Miroslav looked around at the nobles, and his gaze stopped on the man who had let the noblewoman fall. Large and red-faced, with a shock of orange hair, the man wore an expression of disdain as he looked up at Miroslav, who nodded.

The nobleman and his servant drew their swords and charged forward. I elbowed the tsar aside and stepped in front of him as my men joined me.

The nobleman reached me first, and our swords met, sending a jolt of pain through my arm. He came at me with a ferocity that seemed fueled by a personal hatred, though I’d never seen him before. I backed up, letting the other man take the offensive, searching for weaknesses.

There. As he raised his sword for a high strike, I spotted a chink in his armor. I jabbed my sword under his arm, into the gap.

He clutched at the wound, eyes wide, and stumbled backward. He was almost to the edge of the chasm—his foot slipped. He fell, and a scream tore from his lips, cutting off in the middle as he hit the bottom of the chasm with a sickening thud.

I looked around. The tsar was safe. The nobleman’s servant had been dispatched as well, not killed but disarmed. He lay on the ground, panting, with a sword at his neck.

“Face me,” Borislav insisted once more.

Miroslav’s defenders had all been defeated. His mother handed him a black staff, the twin to Borislav’s white one. He took it and lifted it into the air as Borislav touched his own to the ground again.

In an instant, the throne was gone.

It took a moment for my mind to process what I saw. The chasm, which had grown quickly but steadily before, had expanded in a flash as soon as Borislav touched his staff to the ground. With barely a movement, the tsar had killed his brother.

The screams of the dead, of Miroslav and his wife, mother, and daughters echoed far longer than I thought possible. The surviving nobles, what few there were, didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound.

He’d killed them. And not just that, he’d committed the greatest abomination. He’d turned the Gifts on the unSanctioned.

I dropped to my knees as the contents of my stomach splattered on the ruined palace floor.

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