“Kell,” someone whispered in his ear.
Only it wasn’t Asana, but Delilah Bard. She did that, crept into his thoughts and robbed him of focus, like a thief. Which was exactly what she was. What she’d been, before he let her out of her world, and into his. Saints knew what—or where—she was these days, but in his mind she would always be the thief, stealing through at the most inopportune moments. Get out, he thought, his grip tightening on the girl’s dress. Asana kissed him again, but he was being dragged somewhere else, outside, on the path in the cool October night, and another set of lips was pressing against his, there and then gone, a ghost of a kiss.
“What was that for?”
A knife’s edge smile. “For luck.”
He groaned in frustration, and pulled Asana against him, kissing her deeply, desperately, trying to smother Lila’s intrusion as Asana’s lips brushed his throat.
“Mas vares,” she breathed against his skin.
“I’m not …” he began, but then her mouth was on his again, stealing the argument along with his air. His hand had vanished somewhere in her mane of hair. There it was now, at the nape of her neck. Her own hand splayed against his chest, and then her fingers were running down over his stomach and—
Pain.
It glanced across jaw, sudden and bright.
“What is it?” asked Asana. “What’s wrong?”
Kell ground his teeth. “Nothing.” I am going to kill my brother.
He turned his thoughts from Rhy to Asana, but just as his mouth found hers again, the pain returned, raking over his hip.
For a single, hazy moment, Kell wondered if Rhy had simply found himself another enthusiastic conquest. But then the pain came a third time, this time against his ribs, sharp enough to knock his breath away, and the possibility withered.
“Sanct,” he swore, dragging himself from Asana’s embrace and out of the booth with murmured apologies. The room swayed as he stood too fast, and he braced himself against the booth and searched the room, wondering what kind of trouble Rhy had gotten himself into now.
And then he saw the table near the bar, where the three men had sat talking. They were gone. Two doors to the Blessed Waters: the front and the back. He chose the second set, and guessed right, bursting out into the night with a speed that quite frankly surprised him, given how much he—and Rhy—had had to drink. But pain and cold were sobering things, and as he skidded to a stop in an alley dusted with snow, he could feel the magic already rushing hotly through his veins, ready for the fight.
The first thing Kell saw was the blood.
Then the prince’s knife on the cobblestones.
The three men had Rhy cornered at the end of the alley. One of them had a gash on his forearm. Another along his cheek. Rhy must have gotten in a few slashes before he’d lost the weapon, but now he was doubled over, one arm wrapped around his ribs and blood running from his nose. The men obviously didn’t know who he was. It was one thing to speak ill of a royal, but to lay hands on him….
“Teach you to cut up my face,” growled one.
“An improvement,” grumbled Rhy through gritted teeth. Kell couldn’t believe it: Rhy was goading them on.
“… looking for trouble.”
“Sure to find it.”
“Wouldn’t … be so sure …” The prince coughed.
His head drifted up past the men to Kell. He smiled thinly and said through bloody teeth, “Well, hello there,” as if they’d just chanced upon one another. As if he weren’t getting the shit kicked out of him behind the Blessed Waters. And as if, at this moment, Kell didn’t have the urge to let the men have at Rhy for being stupid and self-destructive enough to pick this fight in the first place (because Kell had no doubt that the prince had started it). The urge was compounded by the fact that, though the thugs didn’t know it, they couldn’t actually kill him. That was the thing about the spell scorched into their skin. Nothing could kill Rhy. Because it wasn’t Rhy’s life that held him together anymore. It was Kell’s. And as long as Kell lived, so would the prince.
But they could hurt him, and Kell wasn’t angry enough to let that happen.
“Hello, Brother,” he said, crossing his arms.
Two of the men turned toward Kell.
“Kers la?” taunted one. “A pet dog, come to nip at our heels?”
“Don’t look like he’s got much bite,” said the other.
The third didn’t even bother turning around. Rhy had said something to insult him—Kell didn’t catch the words—and now he angled a kick at the prince’s stomach. It never connected. Kell clenched his teeth and the man’s boot froze in midair, the bones in his leg willed still.
“What the—”
Kell wrenched with his mind, and the man went flying sideways into the nearest wall. He collapsed to the ground, groaning, and the other two looked on with surprise and horror.
“You can’t—” one grumbled, though the fact that Kell could was less shocking than the fact that he had. Bone magic was a rare and dangerous skill, forbidden because it broke the cardinal law: that none shall use magic, mental or physical, to control another person. Those who showed an affinity were strongly encouraged to unlearn it. Anyone caught doing it was rewarded with a full set of limiters.
An ordinary magician would never risk the punishment.
Kell wasn’t an ordinary magician.
He tipped his chin up so the men could see his eyes, and took a measure of grim satisfaction as the color bled from their faces. And then footsteps sounded, and Kell turned to find more men pouring into the alley. Drunk and angry and armed. Something stirred in him.
His heart raced, and magic surged through his veins. He felt something on his face, and it took him a moment to realize that he was smiling.
He drew his dagger from the hidden sheath against his arm and with a single fluid motion cut his palm. Blood fell to the street in heavy red drops.
“As Isera,” he said, the words taking shape in his blood and on the air at the same time. They vibrated through the alley.
And then, the ground began to freeze.
It started at the drops of blood and spread out fast like frost over the stones and underfoot until a moment later everyone in the alley was standing atop a single solid pane of ice. One man took a step, and his feet went out from under him, arms flailing for balance even as he fell. Another must have had better boots on, because he took a sure step forward. But Kell was already moving. He crouched, pressed his bloody palm to the street stones, and said, “As steno.”
Break.
A cracking sound split the night, the quiet shattering with the pane of glassy ice. Cracks shot out from Kell’s hand, fissuring the ground to every side, and as he stood, the shards came with him. Every piece not pinned by boot or body rose into the air and hung there, knifelike edges facing out from Kell like wicked rays of light.
Suddenly everyone in the alley grew still, not because he was willing the bones in their bodies, but because they were afraid. As they should be. He didn’t feel drunk now. Didn’t feel cold.
“Hey now,” said one, his hands drifting up. “You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s not fair,” growled another softly, a blade of ice against his throat.
“Fair?” asked Kell, surprised by the steadiness in his voice. “Is three against one fair?”
“He started it!”
“Is eight against two fair?” continued Kell. “Looks to me like the odds are in your favor.”