I forced all that magic, all that power, out into the cuts, bruises, and burns on my body, using Victor’s own power to repair all the damage he’d done to me with his lightning strikes.

In an instant, my skin smoothed out, my muscles quit twitching, and my breath came easier. So I kept going, channeling the magic through my whole body until I was completely healed, as if I’d never even been injured to start with.

But I was even better than that now—I was even stronger.

I didn’t duck or hide or run from the lightning. Not anymore. Instead, I embraced it in a way that I had never fully embraced my transference power before. I had always kept my Talent hidden for fear that someone would try to take it away from me, would try to cut it out of me, but not anymore, not now. Instead, I became like the black blade in my hand—hungry for magic, eager for every single scrap of power I could soak up.

Slowly, I began to walk toward Victor.

It wasn’t easy—far from it—especially not with the lightning still crackling around my body, trying to drive me back and rip the sword from my hand at every turn. But I channeled the magic in my veins, pushing it out into my hands, arms, and legs, making them rock steady and stronger than ever before, and I held on to my sword and crept toward Victor, one small step at a time. All the while, the black blade in my hand grew colder and colder, and its midnight glow blacker and blacker until it seemed to snuff out Victor’s magic before it even left his hands.

Victor finally realized that I wasn’t burned to a crisp, that I had found a way to endure his magic, and that I was still coming for him. His golden eyes widened and his mouth fell open in surprise.

And he actually stopped.

He dropped his hands to his sides, although the lightning continued to crackle on his fingertips.

“You,” he sputtered. “You’re—you’re not dead yet. You’re not even close to being dead.”

“Now you’re catching on,” I rasped.

His eyes widened again, more shock swirling through his gaze, but the emotion was quickly replaced by cold calculation. He took a step back, looked over his shoulder, and made a sharp motion with his hand.

“Attack!” Victor screamed. “Attack! Kill the Sterling girl! Now!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Even though Victor and I were supposed to be the only ones participating in the duel, the other Draconis stepped onto the bridge, with Blake leading the charge, just like always. All the magic coursing through my veins heightened my senses and I could hear every single harsh, raspy slide of their swords leaving their scabbards and every single one of their footsteps on the bridge.

And the answering sounds behind me.

I didn’t have to turn around to know that my friends had stepped onto the bridge behind me. Even as the Draconis crept closer to me, I spotted Devon and Deah out of the corner of my eye, leading the Sinclairs. My friends eased up beside me, careful to stay away from my sword, which was still glowing that eerie, midnight black.

Victor realized that his guards weren’t rushing to attack me like he wanted, and he glared over his shoulder at Blake. “You fool!” he yelled. “What are you waiting for? Kill her! Now!”

Blake hesitated a moment longer, then sprinted toward me. My gaze flicked back and forth between him and his dad. Victor wasn’t able to kill me outright with his magic, so he was once again ordering someone else to do his dirty work for him.

“That’s it!” Victor said, urging his son on. “Kill her! Now!”

Blake let out a loud roar and quickened his steps, an evil grin stretching across his face at the thought of finally cutting me down. I gritted my teeth, trying to figure out how I was going to channel all the magic roaring through my black blade and body right now and fight him off at the same time.

But I didn’t have to worry because his sword never touched me.

In an instant, Deah was by my side, using her sword to block her brother’s.

“Leave her alone!” Deah hissed.

“Stay out of this!” Blake screamed back at her.

He tried to charge past her to get to me, but Deah whipped around, stuck her foot out, and tripped him, making Blake topple to the cobblestones. He snarled and scrambled right back up onto his feet, lashing out with his sword at her this time.

“Come on! Come on! Come on!” Blake screamed at the guards who were still hanging back. “Do you want to win or not?”

And with that, the fight was on. With an angry roar, the Draconi guards stormed ahead, and the Sinclairs rushed forward to meet them.

For a moment, there was just noise.

Swords clanging together, people yelling, boots scraping against the cobblestones. Maybe it was all the magic pulsing through my sword and body, but I thought I could hear the hiss of every single blade as it sliced into someone’s skin and the resulting spatter of the blood on the cobblestones.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted my friends. Devon fighting two Draconi guards, Felix and Angelo taking on two more, Mo and Claudia standing back to back, him using his tall, strong body to throw the guards around while she used her cold touch magic to freeze any that came near. I even spotted Oscar zipping through the air, the Sinclair pixies following him like a swarm of bees as they dive-bombed first one Draconi guard, then the next, stabbing the men and women with their poison-tipped, needle-size swords. It was a full-out mob war, in every sense of the word.

Except for Victor and me.

Even though we were still standing in the center of the bridge, no one dared to approach the two of us. Not with the white lightning still crackling around his hands and the black blade still glowing in mine.

“How are you doing this?” he demanded. “What power, what Talent, do you have that lets you withstand raw magic?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I growled back at him.

“Oh, soon I will,” he promised. “You might have siphoned off some of my magic, but I can cut it right back out of you again, one slice at a time.”

“Never!” I hissed back.

Victor stepped forward, once again calling up his lightning and throwing it at me, and I shrieked as a fresh wave of his power rolled over me. It was all I could do to stand upright, much less withstand and channel another brutal assault of magic. But I gritted my teeth and forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, creeping closer and closer to him. The black blade was soaking up as much of his power as it could, but all the magic crackling through the air around me was overloading my system, just like the copper crusher venom had. I had to do something to get rid of the excess power or the magic would burn me to a crisp from the inside out, in a way worse than Victor’s lightning had.