So I surged forward, drew back my left fist, and punched him in the face, putting as much strength into the blow as I could, both physical and magical.

I screamed as my hand passed through the lightning still crackling around his body, and I screamed again as my fist slammed into his face. For a moment, there was just a bright blaze of magic, hotter and whiter than any that had come before it. The burst of power was so intense that it stunned everyone on the bridge, and they all threw their hands up over their eyes and staggered back, just trying to get away from the two of us.

Victor staggered back as well, and his lightning magic was snuffed out completely. He brought his hand up to his lip, then stared at the bit of blood glistening on his fingertips. His eyes widened, as though it had been so long since he had seen his own blood that he couldn’t even remember what it looked like anymore. Then he glared at me, his eyes narrowing to slits. But instead of summoning up more magic, Victor raised his fists and came right back at me.

His lightning hadn’t burned me to death, so Victor decided to change tactics and use his Talents in a different way. This time, he used all that power to make himself impossibly fast and strong, slamming his fists into my face and stomach over and over again, like a boxer working a heavy bag, his movements almost too fast for me to follow, much less defend against.

Pain exploded in my body, blood filled my mouth, and the force of the hard, repeated blows made me double over. But once again, I channeled the magic still running through my veins and my black blade and sent all that cold, cold power shooting outward, healing the areas of my body that Victor had damaged.

He snarled and charged at me again, but I used his own trick against him, sending the magic down into my legs and forcing myself to move quicker than he did. I managed to sidestep him, and we both whirled around, facing each other again.

Instead of attacking me, Victor actually smiled, as if he were happy that I’d taken his punches and was still standing.

“You . . . you have transference magic,” he said in a high, giddy voice. “That’s why you aren’t dead yet. You’re absorbing all of my power and taking it for your own, and your black blade is helping you do it.”

His eyes narrowed again and I could see the hunger in his golden gaze, even more intense than that of the copper crushers who’d tried to eat me. “And now, your power is going to be mine.”

I thought he might try to blast me with his lightning again, but instead, Victor whipped around, waded into a group of guards, and grabbed a sword from one of them. He pushed that guard aside, his strength still so great that he made the other man fly back ten feet, hit the side of the bridge, and flip over into the empty air. The guard screamed as he plummeted toward the river below, but Victor didn’t give him a second thought.

Instead, he raised his sword and attacked me.

Victor was using his speed magic again and I barely managed to raise my own sword in time to stop him from splitting my skull open. Once they realized that the two of us were finally fighting sword to sword, the rest of the Sinclairs and Draconis raised their own weapons and went at it again, with even more screams, shrieks, and shouts tearing through the night air.

But I only had eyes for Victor, and he for me. Back and forth we fought on the bridge, our swords crashing together time and time again. High, low, side to side to side. We whipped our blades back and forth, and back and forth, both of us using magic to make ourselves as fast and strong as possible, and both of us evenly matched in that regard.

Victor was a good fighter, one of the best I’d ever been up against, cold, calculating, and ruthless, but I was just a smidge better, and he knew it. So he did what anyone would do in this situation—he decided to fight dirty.

While our swords were locked together, he snapped up his hand and slammed his fist into my jaw. He put the full force of his lightning magic into the blow, making me scream and white stars flash in front of my eyes again. I stumbled back, but for once, my sight magic deserted me and I could barely see Victor standing in front of me, much less actually fend off his blows.

And that’s when he stabbed me.

Victor slipped past my defenses and rammed his sword into my side, making me scream with pain. The stars finally faded enough to let me see his gaze locked onto his sword in my side and all the blood pouring out of the deep wound.

“Mine,” he whispered. “Your magic is going to be mine.”

Despite the pain pulsing through my body, I managed to snarl back at him. “Never!”

I shoved him away and Victor stumbled back, tearing his sword out of my body as brutally as he could and making me scream again. Before I even had time to catch my breath, he came right back at me, swinging his sword, wanting to cut me again and rip my magic out of me, one bloody slice at a time. All around us the fight raged on, but I blocked out the shouts, screams, and everything else, knowing that this was the most important battle of my life.

Victor and I kept fighting. Well, really, he fought. I just parried his blows, clutching one hand to my side to try to slow the blood loss. With every blow, I grew weaker and weaker, and he pressed his advantage, concentrating his strikes on my sword hand. I knew what he was trying to do—knock my weapon away so he could stab me through the heart and take my magic for himself.

But I wasn’t about to let that happen so I tightened my grip on my sword, channeling the magic still pulsing in my black blade into my hands, arms, and legs so that I could keep on fighting. But I was still losing, and it was only a matter of time before Victor snuck through my defenses again and gutted me. He lashed out with a particularly hard blow and I staggered back, almost flipping over the side of the bridge.

“If you give up now, I will make your death relatively painless,” Victor said, slowly approaching me. “One blow to your heart and it will all be over.”

I let out a harsh, bitter laugh, realizing it for the trick it was. “You’re such a liar.”

He shrugged. “Certainly. I’m going to enjoy cutting you to ribbons, just as I did your mother.”

Once again, white stars flashed in front of my eyes, but they weren’t caused by any lightning or other magic. No, these stars were part of my soulsight, letting me look back into the past and see my mom’s body, bloody, beaten, and broken on the floor of our small apartment.

White-hot rage roared through me, more rage than I had ever felt before. This time, the cold burn in my veins had nothing to do with magic, but everything to do with my desire to stop Victor, to finally hurt him the same way he had hurt my mom.