And Khalaek wanted to Ascend. He wanted the Evant. It wouldn’t be enough to kill the Tamaell. He’d need to kill the Tamaell Presumptive as well.
Colin’s jaw clenched, and without even a nod in Aeren’s direction, he pushed.
The world slowed instantly, so fast Colin gasped. He’d shoved harder than he’d intended, but he didn’t pause to steady himself, didn’t even twitch at the sharp pain that shot through his side like a runner’s cramp. The mark on his arm flared with pain again as he spun, centering on Thaedoren, the Tamaell Presumptive frozen in mid-motion, sword drawn, rising to strike at one of the Legion, the man’s face twisted with rage, Thaedoren’s face cold. The Wraith stood directly behind Thaedoren. Even as Colin watched, it brought its sword around to strike. A pressure built, prickling along Colin’s skin, as the Wraith prepared to slip back into real time, the tip of its sword angled now toward Thaedoren’s back.
Colin reacted without thought. His staff swung in a wide arc, whirring through the tight confines of the tent and cracking into the Wraith’s neck.
The Wraith staggered, lurched to one side, then spun, sword flicking out to parry Colin’s second swing. Metal met wood with a solid thwack, and a chunk of Colin’s staff broke free. It slowed as it lost contact with the heartwood of the staff, froze in midair, returning to real time, but the Wraith didn’t give Colin enough time to recover. It lashed out, sword nothing but a blur, going for his stomach.
Colin sucked in a breath as he stumbled backward, his staff whipping around to shunt the Wraith’s blade aside. He cried out as he felt metal slicing through his clothing and into the skin at his side, but he ignored the flare of pain, bringing his staff up and around, trying to fling the sword from the Wraith’s grip so it would return to real time like the chunk torn from his staff, but the Wraith merely grunted and turned into the staff ’s motion. Shifting his grip, Colin brought the bottom down toward the Wraith’s feet.
Heartwood shuddered as it struck flesh, and the Wraith shouted in pain as its leg folded and it fell to one knee, half-turned away. Colin threw himself backward as it pivoted, swinging its entire body around with a low growl, sword flashing through where Colin had stood a moment before, its cloak flaring.
The two faced each other, both breathing heavily, Colin with the staff angled before him, the Wraith on one knee, sword leveled, the world stilled around them.
And then the Wraith chuckled. A deep sound, unpleasant, rumbling from its chest, laced with hatred and contempt.
“What’s the matter, Colin?” the Wraith sneered. “Don’t you recognize me?”
Colin frowned, but before he had a chance to think, the Wraith swept the cowl from its face.
It took Colin a moment. The thin forty-year-old face beneath the cowl was mottled with swirling blackness, like oil, the darkness beneath the man’s skin, like the mark that had slowly begun taking hold of Colin’s forearm. But this darkness, this shadow was more complete, had reached a point where there was more darkness than there was skin. The face was scarred because of that darkness, age lines marring the flesh, as if the man beneath had suffered for long years, had been forced to suffer. The hair was a dirty blond but streaked with gray-at the temples, on the sides-long and unruly, tangled and mussed, with leaves caught in it, small twigs. The mouth was twisted in a sardonic smile, edged with vicious anger. And the eyes…
The eyes were not those of a forty- year-old man. They were the eyes of someone much older, someone who had experienced far more… and yet they were the eyes of a younger man as well, one who didn’t know his place in the world, who desperately wanted a place but, however hard he tried, could not find it. Gray-green, those eyes regarded him with heated, deep-seated anger.
An anger Colin recognized.
The eyes, the face, the hair, the rage Colin sucked in a ragged breath. “Walter.”
Walter’s smile broadened even as his eyes narrowed, and Colin could see the fifteen-year-old boy who had beaten him in the back alleys of Portstown, could see the slightly older boy who had pissed on him while he was locked into the pillory and had choked him against the side of the wagon on the plains. “So good to know I haven’t been forgotten,” Walter murmured.
And now Colin recognized his voice, the younger Walter still hidden in the undertone, in the contempt. As all of the memories of his time in Portstown-the harassment and vicious bullying, the times that bullying had crossed over the line into something more deadly, more dangerous-as all of that and more returned, Colin found himself hardening. His chest tightened, the warmth of rage burning deep, sliding down into his gut, into his arms and legs. The coldness on seeing the Wraith vanished, subsumed by the anger, and he found himself slipping into a more solid stance, his jaw set in quiet resolve.
“I thought you’d died with all of the others in the wagon train, there at the edge of the forest,” he said, his voice like stone. “I thought the Shadows got you.”
Walter chuckled again. “Oh, the Shadows did. Only, unlike the rest, they didn’t kill me. They took me to the Well. They made me drink, and then they fed off of my soul. They made me into this. ”
Walter leaped forward. Colin hadn’t noticed him shifting his weight onto his bent leg, but he dodged to the left as Walter thrust upward. He brought the staff down hard toward Walter’s exposed back, but Walter rolled, the heartwood thudding into the earth. Colin bit out a curse, already moving, Walter doing the same. He swung at Walter’s retreating figure, the two dodging in and out among the static figures of the dwarren, the humans, and the Alvritshai. Blade met staff, both shoved aside as they parried, struck again, spun and twisted. Walter’s sword sliced through Colin’s shirt, nicked him in the arm, across the cheek, along the thigh, each cut stinging, blood flowing, soaking into his clothes, trailing down his leg. He hissed each time metal kissed flesh, but he struck back, using all the skills he’d mastered hunting the sukrael in the forests surrounding the Well, calling on everything he’d learned. The staff thudded into flesh with bruising force, catching Walter on the upper arm, the thigh, in a glancing blow across his back. Walter shouted with each touch, but he didn’t slow. His attacks grew less precise, more haphazard, as they both began to tire. Sweat ran down into Colin’s eyes, blurred his vision and stuck his clothes to his back, his sides. Weight settled into his arms, weariness and exhaustion setting in. He saw the same weariness lining Walter’s face with every swing, but Walter wasn’t tiring as fast. Colin thought about his time in the forest, fighting the sukrael, hunting the Wraiths, the Faelehgre at his side. He suddenly realized that nearly all the attacks he’d suffered from had come from one Wraith, from Walter. His hatred of Colin had never died, even after suffering at the hands of the Shadows. Walter had been the Wraith at the Well his last day in the forest, the bait for the trap that had lured him into the Shadows’ grasp. Walter had been the one to hunt him throughout the years, even as Colin hunted the Shadows.
Which meant Walter had more practice with the power of the Well.
Even as he thought it, Colin felt his grasp of time slipping, as it had when he’d dragged Moiran outside the reach of the occumaen. He realized Walter would win. The Wraith could hold himself suspended longer.
And then Walter stumbled, tripped over the rough, trampled grass, falling to his side, his free hand reaching out to catch himself. He cried out, began scrambling away, sword clutched tight, feet digging into the earth. Colin slammed the staff into his back and he collapsed to the ground, sword arm beneath him; Colin struck him again as he tried to rise, and this time Walter stayed down, heaving, face pressed into the earth.
Colin stood over him, rage burning in his chest, through his blood, pounding in his ears. He could hear it, a rush of wind that throbbed with every pulse, that filled his mind, that bled from his fingers and seeped from his skin like sweat. He trembled with it, felt the urge to strike Walter again and again and again, once for every kick that he’d landed in the alley of Portstown, for every blow he’d suffered, every time he’d been spat upon by the townspeople while in the pillory. He wanted to see Walter bleed-for his father, his mother, for Karen and all that they had suffered at the hands of Walter and his father. He wanted Walter to bleed for Benedine, for the Tamaell Fedorem and the shattered chance of peace, for all of those who’d died at the hands of the sukrael.
He’d raised his staff to strike again when Walter rolled, a growl rumbling from his throat. His sword arm came free and he swung, even as Colin reacted, his shoulders tensing, the staff descending.
Walter’s sword hit the staff between Colin’s hands, and with a sharp crack, the staff broke.
Pain shivered up into his hands, numbed them. Colin gasped as he felt the shock tremble up through his arms, as he felt the power of the staff, gifted to him by the forest, release, a pulse that shuddered through him in a wave. The staff tumbled from his grasp, the two pieces returning to real time.
And then Walter’s foot drove into his stomach, shoving him up and back.
He struck someone as he fell, tumbled over the immobile form, then struck the table where the Tamaell’s body lay. His breath exploded from him, and he felt his hold on time loosen. Gasping, he snatched at it, the world lurching for a moment with motion, a roar of sound swelling, then dropping as he firmed up his grip. He tasted
