Alistair no longer looked at any of them, only at his brother.
“I’ve made my choice,” he spoke. “If breaking the tournament means losing Hendry, then I’d rather fight.”
The wind wailed as it blew through the courtyard, whisking blood-tipped leaves into the air and scattering them aside.
None of the champions moved. Only their gazes darted between one another, assessing who was friend and who was foe.
Alistair attacked first.
He held nothing back. One, two, three curses fired across the courtyard, forcing Briony and Finley to throw up shield spells in less than a heartbeat. The power of the curses collided with her Mirror Image in moments, but it was too powerful for the spell to absorb. Instead, they splintered her protective magic and left deep craters beside their feet. Briony didn’t have any option but to return fire.
Then another spell struck Briony hard in the side. She gasped. Ice seeped up the cracks between her fingers, and her breath fogged the air around her. For a moment, she couldn’t move. Then the ice shattered, the spell failing, and she whipped to the right where Isobel stood.
“Why are you cursing me?” Briony demanded.
“I won’t hurt you. Either of you,” Isobel snapped. “But you both need to stop before someone else dies.”
“Tell that to your boyfriend,” Briony said.
At that, another ice-blue spell shot in Briony’s direction, but before it could reach her, it sputtered out and struck the cobblestones. Isobel swore and shrugged off her Cloak. Then she cast the same spell again, this time at Alistair. It was stronger without the Cloak draining her offensive magick, but Alistair still deflected it.
Hendry, armed with spellstones Alistair had given him, cast a haphazard flurry of defensive barriers, all of which either Briony or Finley blew through with each new curse they cast. Only Gavin had staggered out of the range of battle, clutching his arm as though wounded, with a look in his eyes like he didn’t know which side he would even fight for.
Something flashed in the corner of Briony’s vision, and she whirled, ready to throw up a shield. But it wasn’t a curse.
It was a camera.
Horror crept through her as she made out a crowd of paparazzi, crouched eagerly at the edge of the courtyard. In the rush of everything, Briony had forgotten the most dangerous part of breaking the tournament rules: this wasn’t private anymore. The lightening of the Blood Veil had surely drawn attention, and now this fight would be splashed on the front page of tomorrow’s tabloids.
“Hey,” Briony croaked out, trying to gesture to the other champions. “We’re being watched—”
A curse hit the ground, and roots burst from the earth at Finley’s feet. Finley lunged out of the way before they could reach for him, then rushed over to her side.
“Look,” Briony breathed, gesturing to the cameras.
“Shit,” Finley muttered. “We have to take this fight back behind the Blood Veil.”
Another curse whizzed past them, so close it singed a piece of her hair.
Briony grimaced. “I’m not sure we have a choice.”
So this was Alistair’s notorious strength. This was who Briony had gained as an enemy and lost as a potential ally, a potential friend.
But Briony had made the right decision, she was certain. She was fighting for a real cause, not a lost one. Her gaze turned to Isobel, who was blocking Alistair’s latest bout of cursefire with polished precision.
“You can still stop this!” Isobel called. “You—”
“Isobel Macaslan!” one of the paparazzi called. They’d drawn closer now, emboldened despite the cursefire. “Look over here! Let us get your good side!”
Isobel turned, shock on her face as she beheld the row of cameras.
“No,” she moaned, looking haunted. “Not now.”
Her shields faltered, just for a moment. But that was all it took.
A curse struck Isobel in the center of the chest, right above her rib cage. Magick seeped through the fabric of her dress, lighter and more sinister than blood.
Briony watched, horrified, as Isobel gasped and reached a trembling hand toward the wound—and then collapsed onto the mossy ground beneath her. Her eyes were still open. Her hand clutched at the dirt.
Across from her, Alistair looked utterly shocked.
“No,” he gasped. “I wasn’t firing at…”
But Briony had no time to listen to him.
The cameras were still flashing, the paparazzi crawling toward them like a swarm of maggots. All Briony could think about was Isobel’s body as tomorrow’s headline news. She’d already forced her friend in front of those cameras once. She wouldn’t let it happen again.