Page 105 of Forged By Malice (Beasts of the Briar #3)

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Ezryn

I don’t even bother to look how far the fissure stretches before I leap. I will make it, or I will die.

I will kill my brother, or I will die.

My bones rattle as I land on the other side. Kairyn steps back, shocked I would attempt the jump. Then he raises his hammer. “Let us end this, then.”

He swings, but not at me. The war hammer collides with one of the stone pillars. Cracks shoot up the side. He yells, swinging his hammer again. The pillar groans, falling forward, crashing across the fissure. A bridge. He waves a hand toward Kel and Rose. “Kill them!”

His knights do not hesitate. They vault on to the fallen pillar and carefully traverse to the other end.

Rage like I’ve never known surges through my body. Kairyn has taken everything from me. I have been humiliated, disgraced, disregarded by my own people. My name has been marred in history.

Because I trusted him.

Trusted my family .

And worse than all of that, his actions nearly killed Rosalina. I won’t let him hurt anyone ever again.

I will cover myself with blood so he cannot shed another drop.

He blocks my first swing with his hammer. I swirl around him, going for his back. I’m too quick for him to block this, but his armor is made of finest metal. My sword pings against it. My own body feels too buoyant in nothing but fabric rags. But I must use it to my advantage.

Kairyn yells, swinging the hammer in a great arc. I throw myself forward, rolling across rubble, then leap up. I drive the point of my mother’s sword into the gap between his shoulder and breastplate. He roars and staggers back. It is not a killing blow, but that hammer cannot be light to wield.

Kairyn runs a gloved hand along the wound, pulls his fingers back bloody. “There it is. Took long enough to come out. Must have been hard to hide all this time.”

“Is this what you wanted?” I roar. “To corrupt me?”

“You did that yourself.”

No, no. He did this to me. He made me this way…

Kairyn paces, dragging the hammer behind him. “It’s always been inside you. The rage. The jealousy. The hatred. You were the one who removed your helmet. You were the one who desecrated the grove. You killed our mother.”

“No!” I lunge, barreling the sword down. He blocks it with a gauntlet, grunting.

“No? Look at you. You don’t care what it takes, what you have to sacrifice, as long as you can kill me.” The owl helm twitches. “You’d even sacrifice your mate.”

Across the fissure, Rose and Kel are back-to-back, pinned against the side of the throne by the two members of the Penta Conclave. Kel’s holding them off with ice shields, but each one he creates is weaker than the last. Rose has her bow drawn, but she can’t use it so close. Fear is etched across her face.

I stumble away from Kairyn. I left them alone … Those I love most in this world.

“We’re not so different, brother,” Kairyn says. “Maybe we both never reached our true potential. There’s a world outside of this one. A place where men like us do not need to hide our natures. Where we do not need to be ashamed.” He holds out his hand. “Come with me. Be my steward. You and I possess the power to rule more than Spring. We can take down my new masters. Then the entire Vale will be at our control.”

Slowly, I turn to look at him. “I’m nothing like you.”

His breathing grows ragged. “You’ll see it soon enough. We are both forsaken.”

Using all the power left within me, I dodge around Kairyn and leap to the pillar. My steps are steady as I race across the narrow beam, landing on solid ground before the throne.

With a yell, I raise my sword, about to charge the knights—

When my feet whip out from under me.

“How dare you turn against me when you are faced with death?” The roar sounds from all around. I’m flung up in the air, a mossy green vine holding my leg. Kairyn moves beneath me, swampy tendrils of earth encircling his body and floating him over the fissure.

Magic crackles. Spring’s Blessing.

“You have always hated me. Admit it! Tell the truth!” he booms. The vines snap, and I’m slammed down to the stone. The wind rushes from my chest.

I try to hack at the vine holding my leg, but I’m whipped up before I can make a move. Another snap, and I’m blasted against a different pillar. Something cracks in my ribs. I’m not sure I’ll get my breath back this time.

“What did I ever do but admire you? Were you so desperate for Mother and Father’s love you could not bear if they gave any to me? Did you stop them from loving me?”

Crash . I’m hurtled against the ground. My sword flies out of my grip and clatters away.

Images and light swirl before my eyes. The throne room fades, replaced by green. Then Kairyn’s standing above me.

Mossy plants coil one over another, growing underneath my back, then arching up, forming a dome around the two of us. He’s barricaded us in our own chamber of mulch and moss.

Warm wetness drips down my face. I start to pull myself up—

Kairyn stands over me, then drops the hammer on to my chest. What breath I had left flies out in a gasp. Pain staggers through my ribcage, my spine. The crushing pressure is like no agony I’ve ever known.

“And now we have come to this.” The owl helm quirks to the side. “The end.”

I want to tell him it doesn’t have to be like this. But it’s not only the weight on my chest that stops me.

It’s also because I know the Ezryn that would offer him forgiveness died.

The Ezryn who believed in mercy died.

So it does have to be like this. Me. Or him.

Then Kairyn moves strangely. He puts his hands on either side of his helm and lifts.

My brother shakes his head, his long black hair falling free. Dark eyes peer back at me.

I remember them.

I remember them, lit up as he ran through Meadowmere, chasing fireflies. I remember them looking up at me as we flipped through picture books in our shared bedroom. I remember them staring at me with both fear and admiration as I donned my first helm and never saw his face with my naked eyes again.

Until now.

Kairyn’s lip trembles and his voice cracks. “You would choose death rather than stand by my side?”

I fight against the breathlessness in my chest, the great weight. “It would not be to stand by you, brother, but to kneel before you. And that is something I cannot do, not with what you have done.”

A hardness falls across his features. “Then you will die.”

I close my eyes. For some reason, it brings me peace to have seen my brother’s face one last time. I only hope Kel and Rose can find a way out of this. That there will be peace for them.

My Petal. I’m so sorry.

Kairyn grips the hilt of the hammer. Even the smallest bit of extra pressure on my chest sends me gasping. “Look at me as I end your life.”

He pushes down.

My first rib breaks with a snap . I can’t even scream, all the wind ripped from my lungs. Kairyn’s face is soft as he pushes down and down. “It’s okay,” he murmurs as he kills me. “Look at me. Shush, shush. Look at me. It’s okay.”

My chest is caving in. Agony ripples out from my ribs to my fingertips, my legs, my skull. Kairyn’s face fades in bursts of blackness.

I know it now for good.

I’m going to die.

And I hope she knows … I hope she knows how much I loved her.

There’s the sound of plant fibers shredding, and something flashes in my peripheral vision. I fight through the darkness to see it.

Another similar sound and flash occur on my opposite side. I turn my head.

A thorn. Dark purple.

Another thorned vine erupts out of the ground, then another, tearing open the dome. Kairyn releases the hammer and quickly puts his helm back on, looking around. “What’s going on?”

I recognize these thorns. They feel like home.

A huge briar spurts up, cracking through the stone ground, and slams into Kairyn. He flies backward, hitting the floor hard. Then it’s as if a whole briar appears, tearing down Kairyn’s dome. One of the thorned vines wraps around the hilt of the hammer and pulls.

I gasp in a rattling breath, relief flooding through me at the release of pressure. I force myself up. At least one rib is broken, maybe two, a couple more bruised.

I turn to the huge bramble bush. And floating above it, held aloft by thorned vines, is Caspian.

His arms are crossed, a smirk on his face.

He looks horrible. His skin is ghastly pale. A black goo oozes out from his nose and mouth. And though his eyes are bruised and lined with dark circles, there’s a defiant look there that I’ve never seen him without.

Caspian. The Prince of Thorns. My enemy.

Saved my life.

The thorned vines float Caspian to the ground. He walks over to me, hips swaying side to side as if he were attending the fanciest dinner party. “Why, Ezryn, I adore the new look. You’re certainly not hideous. What a treat.”

I look from him to my brother, lying in a pile of rubble, to Kel and Rose still fending off the knights.

Then a gurgled cry emits from the throne. My father falls, tumbling down the steps.

I turn my back to Caspian without a second thought, racing to my father as fast as my injured body will carry me. He lies face down at the base of the stairs, convulsing.

I fall to my knees beside him and look back at Caspian. “I don’t understand why you did what you did, but … Thank you. Can you get us out of here?”

Caspian isn’t looking at me, or even Kel or Rosalina. He’s looking at my father.

“Caspian!” I cry.

“Ezryn,” he says, voice low and gravelly. “You need to step away—”

I shake my head, turning back to my father. His whole body seizes. He needs help. He needs a healer. He needs—

A thorned vine shoots out from Caspian’s hand.

And stabs straight into my father’s heart.