CoS34

## Chapter 34

**Chapter 34** of **City of Spells** follows **Karam**.

## **Full Version**

“SHALL WE MAKE THIS QUICK?” Ashwood asked, as he and Zekia ascendend onto the bridge. “Or slow?”

Karam stepped closer to Tavia, keeping her eye on Zekia.

“It will be quick,” Karam said. “Just like the quickness with which our armies are slaughtering yours.”

“Ah yes,” Ashwood said.

He did not look afraid, or surprised by what Karam had thought would be a revelation.

“I have to admit, using magic to freeze my forces in Creije was a smart move. I imagine your treacherous little army is making its way through the city now?”

“Not just in Creije,” Wesley said. “Fenna Schulze is crossing over to Yejlath with half of our forces. They’re not going to let the government city fall.”

Ashwood flinched a little upon hearing the Doyen’s name, as though that, rather than all Wesley had done before to bring him down, was the true betrayal. The Kingpin recovered quickly, though, and replaced his slight frown with a wicked smile.

And then he clapped.

Not slow and tense, but loud and erratic, bubbling with laughter as he did so. His shoulders shook with glee.

“Bravo, Wesley,” Ashwood said, delighted. “You really are a wonder. So many great plans inside of that head. It’s a shame that you waste it all.”

“He has a lot of potential,” Zekia agreed.

Karam didn’t like the way she stared between Wesley and Tavia.

“Your armies will fall,” Karam said.

When she spoke, Zekia’s eyes shot to her, taking her attention from Tavia.

Ashwood shook his head. “Every soldier I have can be replaced,” he said. “Can you say the same?”

Karam couldn’t.

Each loss she had felt was a blow, and Asees’s death had nearly been the thing to kill her spirit. If she lost someone else—if she lost Tavia to that awful future she had seen—then Karam would never forgive herself for it.

“I don’t need an army to deal with you four,” Ashwood said. “You’re just children who must be disciplined.”

“Why don’t you quit talking and try to kill us?” Wesley asked. “And then I can take back my sister.”

Karam could see Zekia’s lips shaking and how her hand flinched to move forward, as though to reach out, maybe, and grab on to Wesley, like a child clinging to her favorite toy. Or, Karam supposed, a little girl clinging to her big brother.

But it was too late for that now. It was too late for Zekia.

Ashwood inclined to face Wesley, his shadows shifting to reveal the point of a smile on his narrow face.

“She was never yours,” he said. “She was always mine.”

Zekia brought a hand to the back of her neck, like she was rubbing away old strings.

“Don’t forget, kid. You get to choose,” Wesley said to her. “I trust you.”

Zekia sighed.

At him. At herself.

She looked at him with those same graveyard eyes that Wesley had, took in a breath, and said—

“That’s dangerous.”

No sooner did the words float from her lips than a burst of lightning exploded from the sky and snapped at Tavia’s feet. Without thinking, Karam shoved her out of the way and the two of them toppled to the ground in a heap.

Ashwood clapped his hands again, applauding Tavia’s near death.

Karam scrambled to her feet and pulled Tavia up with her, but Zekia was already sending another shot of lightning her way. Karam pushed Tavia again, but the busker’s ankle caught and when she crashed to the ground for a second time, Tavia’s head bounced against the pavement.

There was blood in her mouth.

*She’s going to kill her*, Karam thought.

This was the moment she and Arjun had seen in that vision.

This was the bridge that Tavia was going to die on.

“Yes,” Ashwood cheered. “My little warrior, you are a wonder.”

Karam half-expected Saxony’s sister to be laughing maniacally beside him, but Zekia stood still, with an odd crease in the center of her tiny brows. She did not look happy to see Tavia’s blood painted across the bridge.

Wesley and Saxony ran over and while Wesley lifted Tavia from the ground, Saxony cast a wall of protection in front of them.

Karam pulled out her knives.

She wouldn’t let this happen.

“Don’t do this,” Wesley said. “Don’t turn your back on your family.”

“I’m not,” Zekia said. “I know who my real family is.”

Whatever side Zekia was on, she would have family. Ashwood had plagued her thoughts and twisted her mind so that she saw him as a father she would gladly choose over her sister and her brother.

“Gods damn it, kid,” Wesley said. “Don’t be an idiot!”

“Wesley,” Ashwood said.

His voice filled with something close to love.

“Don’t be rude. You’re standing in the way of our new world.”

“A new world,” Zekia repeated.

Her voice was smaller than Karam remembered.

“I’ve seen the world and—”

“I have seen things too,” Karam said. “And unlike you, I will not let them come to pass.”

She threw her knife at Zekia.

It sailed past Ashwood, nearly clipping his shadow ear as it twisted into the air and landed straight in Zekia’s shoulder.

She fell back and Ashwood yelled with such force that the beams of the bridge clanged and shook.

Saxony started to run toward her sister, and Karam realized at the last minute that it wasn’t to help Zekia to her feet, but to keep her perpetually on her ass.

Magic against magic.

Tavia fell into Karam, who just barely held her footing, as the bridge shook with Ashwood’s anger. But Wesley seemed unmoved, unfazed, as though even the possibility of the bridge crumbling could not shake him.

Karam twisted her extra knives in her hands.

“You two take Ashwood,” she said. “Saxony and I will handle Zekia.”

Anything she could do to keep the girl occupied.

“Karam,” Tavia said.

She could see the fear on her friend’s face.

“I will handle it,” Karam told her. *I will keep you safe*, she thought. “Just finish what we started.”

Wesley and Tavia nodded, and Karam wasted no time in running toward Saxony and her sister, who were flinging magic at each other.

“Saxony!” Karam called out in warning.

Zekia lifted up a hand and a cable from the bridge snapped, flicking toward Saxony in a whip. It missed her somehow, but the bridge teetered with the force of it, dropping closer to the waters below.

Karam gritted her teeth and tackled Zekia to the ground.

She pressed a knife to the young girl’s throat.

Saxony would never forgive her if she did this.

Tavia wouldn’t survive if she didn’t.

“You can’t do that!” Zekia said.

She flung her hand out and Karam was lifted off of her and thrown backward.

“You don’t understand,” Zekia said, pushing herself up. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

She tried to walk toward them, but Saxony thrust her hand out, her entire palm engulfed in bright yellow flame.

“Get back!” she said. “I mean it, Zekia. Don’t make me do this.”

Saxony’s voice splintered on her plea and it broke Karam’s heart to hear it.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Zekia said. “We’re not going to do this.”

“Yes, we are,” Karam told her.

She stood and adopted her fighting stance, steadying any doubt in her bones.

“I’m doing what I have to,” Zekia said.

“So am I,” Karam said.

Karam was supposed to be a protector, she was supposed to be honoring her family’s legacy.

And she couldn’t do that if Zekia lived.