Page 36

RIVEN

“You want me to be cold?” I growl, raising my sword. “Fine. But don’t mistake it for weakness.”

“There it is,” my father sneers. “The ice beneath the rage. The callous monster you pretend you aren’t.”

I launch an attack, but he controls the battlefield with sheer precision, moving as if the laws of motion bend to his will. Frost swirls around him, shards of ice forming and melting at his command.

“I know every move you’ll make,” he taunts, sending a wave of frost that catches me off guard, throwing me against the barrier.

Shards of ice crack against my back, scraping through my shirt and biting into my skin.

“I created you,” he continues. “I forged you.”

I force myself upright, my vision blurring with pain. Blood drips from a cut above my eye, freezing on my skin.

The crowd’s silence has given way to murmurs, no doubt already speculating on the outcome of this increasingly one-sided battle.

But I won’t let myself fall. I won’t let him win.

“You forged nothing.” I unleash a torrent of ice daggers, followed by a wave of frost.

My attack connects, slicing into his side and forcing him back a step. A rush of triumph flares in my chest—until he straightens, his eyes hollow and cruel, merciless in their intent.

“No,” he agrees. “I failed. You failed. And because of that, you are nothing to me.”

The arena floor cracks beneath us, groaning as ice spikes erupt from every surface, cutting off my escape routes. I try to counter, my magic surging as I attempt to neutralize his, but it’s like trying to stop an avalanche already in motion.

He hurtles forward with his blade again, every blow landing with crushing force against mine, driving me backward.

Eventually, a particularly vicious strike knocks my sword from my hand.

The weapon skids across the ice, coming to rest far beyond my reach.

Frostbite, I think the sword’s name that I gave it in childhood. One whispered in secret, a name I shared only with Ghost. It’s a name I haven’t thought about in years. Now, it tugs at something deep in me, making me yearn for the innocence I lost long ago, when swords were toys and enemies were shadows.

My father’s next attack knocks the air from my lungs, sending me to my knees.

Blood spatters the ice. The crowd takes a collective intake of breath, and Sapphire’s terror rushes through our bond.

My father stands over me, victorious, frost swirling around him.

His blade rests at my throat, the edge sharp enough to draw a thin line of blood without him applying any pressure at all.

“You never deserved to be my son,” he says through clenched teeth. “I gave you every chance to harness your power. Every lesson and scar were for your own good. And yet you remain soft. Weak.” He lifts his chin. “I deserved someone ruthless. Someone who understood that power is all that matters. Someone who would defend our court with an iron fist and never flinch from necessary cruelty. Someone who would savor the taste of blood on his lips and smile when his enemies begged for mercy. Someone who took what he wanted and owned it instead of opening his heart and loving it.”

I swallow past the blade at my throat, already well-aware of how my father wants me to be. Cruel and cold, caring for nothing but power, matching the chaotic madness that consumes him.

“Yield,” he commands, pressing the blade closer. “Admit your weakness and beg for the mercy you don’t deserve.”

Blood drips from a half-healed cut on my cheek as I lift my head to meet his gaze.

I could surrender. I could avoid becoming the Lonely King, consumed by ice, sitting on a throne I never wanted.

But… I don’t. Because her voice cuts through the silence, clear and steady.

“You don’t have to be like him,” Sapphire calls across the arena, and I don’t dare to look at her—not with my father’s blade at my throat. “You don’t have to fight the way he wants you to fight and win the way he wants you to win.”

My father’s eyes narrow. “This Trial is between father and son alone,” he says, and then he’s creating a spear of ice in his hand and hurling it at her heart.

Sapphire dodges—barely—the spear embedding itself in the arena wall behind her.

The crowd screams.

Queen Lysandra will likely want to burn down this court in retaliation for my father’s attack on her daughter, but that’s a problem for later. Because Sapphire’s words spark a recognition in me, clearing my mind like a gust of wintry air.

Since we stepped foot in this arena, I’ve been fighting this battle on my father’s terms, matching his cold precision and his merciless calculation. I’ve been trying to beat him at a game he’s been playing for centuries—a game he taught me how to play since I was a child.

But that’s not who I am anymore. That’s not the man who fell in love with a star touched summer princess, who gave his last drops of life so she could live, and whose soul she called back from death. It’s not the one who learned that vulnerability can be a strength, and that love is more powerful than fear.

It’s not the one who gained magic from her—magic I’ve been too blinded by my childhood traumas to remember.

“Well?” my father demands, pressing the blade harder against my throat. “What will it be, boy? Surrender, or death?”

I look up at him, seeing him clearly for perhaps the first time in my life. Not as the terrifying king who shaped my childhood, but as a broken man consumed by fear and grief. Who lost his mind to it.

And in that moment, I let go.

Not of my will to fight, but of the need to win on his terms. I stop trying to be the warrior he molded me into, and instead, I let myself feel everything.

The pain of my wounds, even as they heal. The fear of unleashing too much of my strength in this battle, killing him, and becoming the Lonely King, lost in an icy wasteland. I feel my love for Sapphire, fierce and terrifying in its intensity. The grief for my mother, the longing for what could have been if she’d been patient and waited to drink that potion until it was finished instead of believing she could overcome the missing ingredient because she simply wanted it badly enough. I even feel compassion for my father, trapped in his own frozen hell, unable to escape.

I let it rise, and it consumes me.

The ice beneath me shimmers, responding not just to my magic, but to the water flowing through me from Sapphire. Water that doesn’t freeze at my touch, but that twines with my frost, creating a brilliant, sparkling display throughout the arena.

The crowd gasps, their anticipation rising.

“What are you doing?” My father presses the blade harder against my throat, drawing another line of blood.

I open my palm.

Frostbite trembles where he lies on the ice, and then he shoots across the arena into my waiting hand, my fingers curling around his hilt.

My father stumbles back, his eyes wide. “Impossible.”

A tremor ripples through the crowd, and I rise to my feet as water, ice, and air swirl around me in a storm of harmonized power.

“You were right about one thing,” I tell him, my voice cutting through the chattering in the stands. “You did create me.”

Water droplets rise around me, freezing into razor-sharp fractals that catch the light and glitter with deadly promise.

“Every punishment taught me pain,” I continue, advancing on him with measured steps. “Every harsh lesson taught me precision. Every time you made me believe I wasn’t enough—“ I bring my sword up in a swift, merciless arc, “—taught me how to prove you wrong.”

My father’s face contorts with rage. “You ungrateful?—”

He hurls ice spears at me, but I don’t dodge. Instead, I raise my hand, and the air around me heats, melting his attack and shaping it into a tidal wave that I send crashing back at him.

My father roars, charging at me with his blade raised high. “You’ve been corrupted! You’ve been turned!”

His accusation rings hollow against my ears, more desperate than triumphant, and I parry his blow with brutal efficiency, our swords meeting with a clash that sends frost spiraling outward.

“I’ve been neither,” I counter, forcing him back with a warm gust of air. “I’ve evolved.”

And then, with swift precision, I use my combined air and water magic to create a slick path of slush beneath his feet.

He slips, and I lunge for the opening, disarming him with a strike so fast my blade becomes a blur.

“You don’t control me anymore,” I say quietly, and then I call his sword into my other palm, force him to his knees with a blast of air, and hold him down with the tips of both blades to his throat.