Page 80 of The Courting of Bristol Keats
“Rose!” Bristol screamed. Her lifeless body remained still. Sick heat flashed over Bristol’s skin.Rose.This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be—
Braegor roared and yanked the stick out, throwing it aside. He held the side of his face, alternating his focus between Bristol and Rose with his remaining eye, the ghastly ooze escaping between his twisted fingers.
Bristol stared back, ready to run, her head throbbing with rage and fear, but she wanted him to come after her, not Rose. “Do you know my name?” she screamed. “Do you know it?It’s Bristol Keats! And I’m guessing after today, you’ll never forget it either!”
But there was no time to run. In a single leap he was on her, his momentum throwing her back several feet. He landed on top of her chest, his weight crushing the air from her lungs. His hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing—but slowly—like he was drawing energy from her death and wanted to make it last.
Ara cantu mai yuroneis. Tera ohm anasie te elufarra. . . .She couldn’t speak, but she repeated her memorized incantations in her head, hoping maybe this final time, her effort might work. It didn’t. Instead, the edges of her world turned gray. The thin smile of the creature blurred.Ara cantu—
But then she saw something behind him. Movement. A flash of color. Someone. The world was bobbing, fading.
The creature laughed, thinking it another trick.
He didn’t turn to see what Bristol saw.
CHAPTER 55
Braegor!” Tyghan yelled.
The creature was quick, turning as he sprung to his feet. In the same instant, he drew his sword, and the point now rested on Bristol’s throat.
“How fast is your magic, Tyghan?” Braegor asked. “Fast enough?”
Tyghan froze, fearing that the slightest movement or expression from him would send the sword plunging downward.No, Tyghan thought, staring at the tip of the blade grazing the soft hollow of Bristol’s throat,not fast enough. Braegor had nothing to lose, while Tyghan had everything. A word, a flinch, anything that hinted of invoking magic could be disastrous. There were some wounds even he and a whole kingdom of sorcerers couldn’t heal.
Braegor laughed. “Ah, look at you now, young Tyghan. Where did all your swagger and strength go? It seems I found your weakness. You look like a young buck with his antlers stuck between two trees. Those sharp antlers you love to show off are worthless to you now, aren’t they?”
Braegor had never had the upper hand in their encounters, and it was obvious he was relishing the rare moment, seizing a fraction of his power back. He’d once been a feared and powerful mage, commanding armies and kings. His name was revered in history books simply for his cunning and sway, but death made a servant of him like all the other restless dead, and no amount of knowledge or infamy could make him more than he was now—a creature let out of his prison to serve the will of another.
Tyghan tried not to look at Bristol, to stay focused only on the mage. “How many times have I killed that putrid body of yours, Braegor?” he asked. “Four? Five? Go ahead, kill her. She’s nothing to me. Only a novice, and not a useful one at that. Her death will make the news of me killing you that much more noble. Kingdoms will sing ballads about me—especially Greymarch.”
At the mention of the wordnoble, the muscles in Braegor’s neck writhed like snakes beneath his skin, but then his single eye gleamed with amusement and swiveled downward at Bristol. “What do you say,Bris-tull Keats?” His tongue flicked out as he enunciated her name, mocking every syllable. “Are you nothing to this great god of Danu?”
Bristol’s throat throbbed where he had crushed it. It was hard to speak, her lungs empty. Her head swam, but she was conscious enough to hear Tyghan’s words, and to see the gleam of a sword over her neck and feel its prick.
“Answer me!” Braegor demanded.
“Nothing,” she rasped. “I am nothing to him.”
Tyghan remained frozen. He knew Braegor’s attention was divided, the wordnoblestill seething in him. It was probably the one piece of truth Tyghan spoke that would bite deep, a word that Braegor would never get past. A blacksmith’s apprentice from the kingdom of Greymarch was the one who had exposed the mage’s treachery, resulting in Braegor’s subsequent beheading. That apprentice was honored with the title Noble, which in Greymarch was the highest title that could be granted, just below Sovereign, a title that even Braegor had never achieved.
“Noble!” Braegor bellowed. “It means nothing in the end! A title that crumbles with the ages like the paper it’s written on.” He glanced at the tall hedges surrounding them. “And this? Another useless contrivance,” he snarled. “What need do you have of a training ground?”
“Knights are always in need of training. So many of you to kill. And we’re so good at it.”
Tyghan had two thoughts in his head—keep his eyes off Bristol and keep Braegor’s ego inflamed long enough to find a way to disarm him, or long enough for Kasta or Quin to come along and spear him. Braegor’s inflated self-regard was his weakness, and talking about his bygone power was his passion. Tyghan guessed it made him feel like his former greatness was still within his reach. Maybe that was what made the restless dead so restless, always reaching for their innate magics that were now as dead as they were. All they could draw on was the spellwork they had mastered in their former lives. Only the power of words was able to transcend death.
Usually in battle, Tyghan couldn’t be bothered with Braegor’s pointless chatter, but now he tried to draw it out. There was nothing else of value he could offer Braegor. No deals for the restless dead. The mage was bound to the Darkland monster, and her commands were bound to Kormick. Braegor was a mere—
Tyghan glimpsed a shimmer of bright green advancing behind Braegor—emerald green. His lungs constricted.Cosette.What did she think she was doing? She crept along as silent as a fish in water, but even with a single eye, if Braegor looked down, he would see her bright reflection in his sword. She was going to get Bristol killed.
“Have you not learned?” Braegor asked. “So many of us—that is exactly why we will win. An unlimited army is the strongest one.”
Cosette lifted her finger to her pursed lips.
Tyghan’s mind reeled, quickly trying to revise his plan. He was desperate to keep Braegor’s eyes fixed on him now, but he forced his tone to remain slow and insulting. It was a game Braegor thrived on and had spent decades perfecting.
“Win what, Braegor?” he said. “You can’t win back your former glory. You’ll always be less than half the man you once were, and you’ll always—Oh, excuse me. I stand corrected. You’re not even a man anymore, are you? You’re only an ugly creature who stitches together bodies so you can jump at a monster’s commands. What a life you have.”
