Page 8 of Trial of Three
I open my mouth but shut it again without speaking, the need to protect my head outweighing all thought.
“Klarissa was right yesterday.” Coal spits the words, his muscles moving in smooth, deadly arcs.Clank. Clank. Clank.His eyes are dark. Merciless. “What we’ve been doing is child’s play that does no one any good. And I, for one, am done playing.”
I say nothing. I’ve no breath to waste on such frivolities.
Coal’s attack takes on a pattern, each blow making up in power for what it lacks in uniqueness. Low, middle, high. Low, middle, high.Clank, clank, clank.
My breath hitches, my muscles burning as I struggle to keep up with the dance. Each parry, each step, a desperate bid to forestall the inevitable impact. Sweat soaks my hair and drips down to sting my eyes, my boots’ purchase on the sand more precarious with each lunge. I sidestep, bringing my sword up to block a high blow that I can’t even see but guess is coming.
A harsh pain blossoms across my ribs instead. I gasp, the futility of it all cinching like a noose around my throat. Stars, Coal hasn’t done this to me since that first training day in the mortal world.My foot slips and I fall to one knee.
The warrior doesn’t even slow down.
Our blades crack above my head, pressing against each other. My lungs burn, my arms shaking with the effort of staving off his blade. “Stop it!”
Coal kicks me, his foot sinking deep into my solar plexus.
I fall back so hard that the world winks. The sword flies from my hand. With the next heartbeat, the male is atop me, his powerful thighs straddling my ribs, his weight an immovable stone atop my chest.
“Better?” Coal demands, showing me his teeth.
I buck, grasping mentally for my training, some part of me still aware that bridging to create space is my only route of escape. Except I can’t. Can’t lift my hips from the sand. Can’t shift Coal’s weight off me. Can’t move the wrists Coal now has pinned.
The world darkens around its edges until nothing but Coal’s perfect, chiseled face fills my sight. My pulse pounds as the male leans down, suffocatingly close. Stealing what little air remains to pull into my lungs. Coal’s metallic musk chokes me, his hands on my wrists so tight that my fingers go numb.
“Stop.” I mean to shout the word, but it comes out as a mere puff of air. My eyes sting, my body screams at its restraints. I long to go limp, to stop fighting in hopes that darkness might claim me, stopping the torment. Except I can’t even do that, for the promise Coal once extracted from me.Never stop fighting.
The male forces my wrists together above my head, transferring his hold until one of his large hands traps both of mine. Lifting off me for the briefest of moments, Coal forces me face-down on the sand. Just like...
Just like I was in the trial. The fight with Malikai.
Nausea and panic race through me as I follow the realization to its terrifying conclusion. If Coal is recreating my trial fight, then we are in act two of that horrid play. And the final act, the one still to come, is me drawing on Coal’s magic to save my life.
I twist my head, desperately searching out his face. My blood chills when I find it. Coal’s skin is ashen, his eyes a deep purple-blue, haunted with nightmares. I might be on the sand just now, flopping like a dying fish, but Coal—he is in a Mors dungeon, chained and tormented for the qoru’s amusement.
“Stop, Coal,” I scream. A demand this time, not a plea. “Stop. Now. For both our sakes.”
“Make me.” Coal pokes my ribs hard, each jab shooting bolts of pain through my body. “Fight back, mortal. With everything you have.” Coal gasps. “Fight with everythingIhave.”
The sound of Coal’s strangled gasp shatters something inside me, and like hawks flying through an open window, images invade my mind. A cold, gray room. Restraints. The smell of blood and pain that I know are Coal’s. A heartbeat later, power flows into me, spreading through my body. Waking it.
I twist with all my might, breaking my tormentor’s iron grip. Strength and fury pulse through my veins, dark and corrosive and determined to survive, even if the world cracks for it. I rear back, head-butting the male. Throwing him off me. Air and freedom brush my skin, and I twist about, ready to kill.
I am not ready, however, to find Coal on the ground two paces away, his nose dripping blood to the sand. I’ve...thrownCoal. Not just shaken him off, but forced him up and into the air. My magic—Coal’s magic—courses through me as I stalk toward the warrior.
The male brings up his hands, already finding his footing, ready to take whatever I throw at him. There is no smile on his face though. No spark of triumph, which I’m sure I’d feel if I wasn’t so damn furious.
Yes, it worked. Except that the magic burning inside me is still fueled by the nightmares shredding Coal’s soul.
“This was your damn plan?” I shout.
“You needed to echo my magic.” Coal’s words are labored, as if speaking each one is a battle. “Your staying alive is not negotiable. Not a matter of convenience.”
I punch him.
He shifts right and my blow meets nothing but air, his three centuries of combat training making themselves known. Swiping the practice blades off the ground, he tosses one to me. “If you’re still worried about me, mortal,” he pants, “then I’ve not worked you hard enough. As for what I do in my head—”
“Torture,” I say bluntly, throwing the damn practice blade across the ring. “I believe the word you are looking for is torture. And there is no bloody world in which breaking you apart is an acceptable way of granting me access to your magic.” Without waiting for Coal’s answer, I dust myself off and leave the sparring ring.
