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His inability to gesture at me, finishing the ‘I love you’ had been the first giveaway. Cassial’s nervous energy was the next.

The sky broke with lightning. Everyone who looked skyward would’ve seen the countless outlines of winged figures illuminated against the glare. There were thousands of them, the Faithful hidden within storm clouds, waiting for the right moment to attack.

And that was when I heard it. The beat of wings sounded a moment before therealDuncan Rackley and his army of Nephilim exploded out from dark grey clouds.

I should’ve known that my Duncan was here, from the way charged air rippled over my skin. I didn’t notice it when Cassial first brought me out of the tent, but the more the storm built, the more the undeniable presence of Duncan’s magic called to me. I had put it down to the building of fey magic in the distance but hadn’t clocked onto the fact that it was Duncan calling to me all this time.

Like called to like, after all.

I wanted nothing more than to look up and find him –myDuncan, one final time. But I couldn’t. I had one more thing to do.

For Wychwood.

For Durmain.

For Seraphine and thetomorrowshe’d never get to experience.

Cassial jolted toward me, clasping the sides of my arms with firm hands. I let him. I needed him close after all. The second he touched me, the seed of Duwar inside of him began to war with the part which lingered inside of me.

But I wasn’t going to give it up so easily.

The Fallen around us jolted forwards, unknowing that their deaths would follow. I smiled, lips curling over teeth, flashing the glass vial. Cassial noticed, his eyes widening. I forged my ice to his skin, preventing him from pulling away from my touch. He was a fly, willingly entering my web, one he would not break free from. Then I clamped my teeth, shattering glass, releasing the noxious cloud of poison. But instead of spitting it out, I sealed my lips and swallowed it down.

Every last bit.

Be selfish, Robin.

“No,” Cassial gasped, feral eyes wide, as he attempted to skin his hold onto Duwar and wrench it back into himself.

Satisfised the gas had successfully threaded down my throat, infiltrating my lungs, I gathered the shards of glass and spat them directly into Cassial’s face. He pinched his eyes closed a second too late. Beneath the thundering war cry of the Faithful, and the keening screams of Cassial, my mind imagined the sound of his flesh slicing apart against the broken shards.

It was a pleasant thought. One I’d gladly take to my grave.

“It was your mistake not to understand the meaning behind Seraphine’s last command,” I said, blood running down past my sliced lips. Although I felt no pain, only the euphoria of Duwar. “Iamselfish. But not in the sense you first thought.”

I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers. As the poison spread throughout me, suffocating Duwar and my control over my body, I relished in my one final battle.

Taking as much of the power as I could from Cassial, so it would perish alongside me.

“You’ve doomed the realms,” Cassial spat, dark eyes flaring wide. Between the blood streaking down his face and the few shards of glass embedded in his cheek and nose which glittered every time lightning cut the sky, he looked the part of the monster he truly was.

“I have saved them,” I managed. “Fromyou. But I must first show them the real threat, so they never forget who started this game, and then who ended it.”

There was something delightful about controlling Duwar – even as my mind was failing alongside my body. I didn’t need to gesture with a hand or visualise what I desired. It simply did what I wanted. Using the shard of Duwar I had hold of, I stripped Cassial of his glamour. Before the fey, the humans and every soul who watched – they saw the truth he hid from the world. I showed them thetruemonster.

I revealed to them exactly who Cassial had become.

“No,” Cassial stammered as his horns grew larger, his skin cracked, the skeletal wings of a monster stretched wide at his back. Cassial tried to withdraw from me, but I refused.

We would both die today, one way or another.

Cassial took a jolting step back before thrusting his clawed hands out for my throat. He could kill me himself, but it would be wasted effort. The poison was already destroying me, taking Duwar’s power to the void. But I didn’t have it, not completely. Duwar stretched between us, pulling between two conflicting consciences. The good and the bad – and yet no one would win.

“I warned you not to go against me,” Cassial shouted as the winds began to roar and a force built up inside of me. It was the chaotic beat of war drums, and yet no instruments were being played. “I will destroy everything you love before letting this go to waste. There will be no peace in the void for you, Robin Icethorn.”

The world was so loud. Between the distant cries of battle and the clashing of magic, I only hoped that the humans had been spared. My eyes closed, growing heavier by the second. “Maybe not. But at least it will be quiet. It is…over, Cassial.”

“You are right, Robin Icethorn,” Cassial snarled, skin falling away like ash, revealing the monster which hid beneath his skin. “It is over, for you.”