Then Gareth felt pressure against his wrist, and watched in shock as his hand was pulled away in the grip of Cesare's claws. The younger prince laughed as he stared at his own remarkable feat. He was besting Gareth in strength, something that would've been unthinkable before. Gareth knew with desperation that this was no fluke. Cesare had calculated it. The young king-to-be would never have allowed himself to fall into combat with Gareth if he didn't know he could beat his battered older brother. Cesare kicked Gareth in the stomach and threw him across the room.
Gareth struggled to his knees and started to rise, but he felt Cesare fall on him like a terrier, plunging claws into his head.
Cesare's triumphant voice came close to Gareth's ear. “I've dreamed of this moment so long I almost don't want it to come. But it must. Now there will be nothing to stop me from becoming the greatest ruler our kind has ever seen. No Dmitri. No Gareth. No Greyfriar. No Adele.”
Gareth tried to hold himself up. His arms trembled with effort. His legs quivered. He saw a stream of his blood striking the floor and pooling beneath him.
“Stop struggling,” Cesare crowed. “It's all over, Greyfriar.”
Gareth's mind drifted away to thoughts of Dmitri as a young father, so brave and wise. The sounds of the wind across the Highlands and the smell of heather. The pure pleasure of battle. Watching Adele make tea in a bronze helmet in the British Museum, her delicate fingers moving together in ways he could never master. Her contrary eyebrow raised. The vision of her dancing in the colored sunlight of this very room. Her laughter. Her distant touch as he lay wounded. Her welcoming smile before the fire.
Cesare's voice wafted into his visions. “Never fear. I'll tell Adele how you died.”
Gareth now felt the claws in his back. His gaze slipped around the great hall. He heard the wind howling outside. His right hand inched forward through his own blood until his fingers touched a blunt shape and curled around it.
With a desperate heave, Gareth pushed up, catching Cesare by surprise and throwing him back. The Scottish prince whirled with steel flashing, and Greyfriar's rapier sliced clean across his brother's throat. Cesare started to mock, then realized with alarm that he couldn't speak. His hands went to the deep gash under his chin.
Cesare staggered back a few steps before he bared his sharp teeth and flashed his bloody claws. He gurgled the pronouncement, “I'm the king.”
“I'm the Greyfriar.” Gareth drove home the rapier through his brother's heart and twisted the blade.
The younger prince's eyes went blank.
“And now, I am the king.” Gareth released the pommel of the sword and watched it topple back with Cesare's body.
He staggered to a seat and collapsed. For a long time, he stared at his motionless brother, soaked in blood. After so long, it was finally over. He whispered, “Damn you, Cesare.”
Now to find Adele. She had to be alive. Perhaps she had gone off with her soldiers when Baudoin came to London. He felt a pang at the thought of his lifelong friend lying cold. Baudoin deserved better for his sacrifices.
Gareth felt a buzzing in his head. He blinked and doubled over. He was weak and needed to feed, but there were probably no humans left in Edinburgh. He had to keep moving. If he stopped, he might never rise. He pushed himself to his feet, and the throbbing behind his eyes grew worse. Suddenly a wall of heat slammed him to one knee. He smelled silvery fire in the air, and a bubbling heat rolled beneath his feet.
“Adele,” he moaned.
Gareth crawled to Cesare's inert body. He needed the witchfinder's talisman; something that might weaken the brutal energy surging around him. He pulled back Cesare's blood-soaked shirt. Nothing. Gareth ran his shaking hands over the inert body with his brother's dead eyes staring at him. Finally he felt something sharp in the pocket of Cesare's once-immaculate coat and reached inside. The minute he touched it, a wave of cool air washed over him and he was able to draw a deep breath.
Gareth stepped over his brother and used the wall to keep himself upright. He reached the door and stumbled out into the blustery courtyard. The air shimmered around him. He dragged himself up the stone wall to reach the roof of the great hall. He squinted his eyes.
A geyser of argent fire blasted up from the trees south of Castle Hill. Gareth knew it was Adele's doing, but there was something different about it. It tasted odd in his mouth. It was wild and unrestrained.
He concentrated on standing. When he tried to lift into the air, the cyclonic fire slammed him off the northern edge of the castle mount. He crawled up the wall back onto the ramparts and took flight, shuddering as new waves of heat cascaded over him.
He tacked back, sliding along the gales, using the fiery waves to push him. Even with the talisman the brewing energies crushed him. He struggled forward, taking punishment for every foot he gained. He could only imagine how bad it would be without the talisman. The energies slipped across his flesh and burned his lungs with every breath. Gareth didn't stop. Adele was at the center of the eruption.