There’s a duel of screams. Revenge plunges through the smoke, past both of them. You do not celebrate the sight of Bravos spinning face-first into the sand because there’s no time to glory in his defeat. Not until you’ve claimed your victory. Only Revel and Adrian exist now.

You don’t have to look at the bracelet to see how small the world’s become. The finish line is one hundred paces ahead. Revel’s halfway there. Adrian’s riding twenty paces back.

Time flexes every muscle and you feel like you’re the center of the universe.

Chapter 42: The Storm

You are the lightning.

I am the thunder.

We are the storm.

She strikes, and it’s like the world’s ending. Bravos nearly finished her. I had a good view of their collision. He swung his phoenix over at the perfect time. It should have ended, but then the impossible happened. Pippa kept her horse upright, dodged his switch, and somehow landed a blow with her whip before he could outrange her. I watched as she sent him spinning into the flames, as the dust of his fall clouded my vision.

It was stunning. I wonder if that’s what happens to thunder, if that’s why it’s always a second late. Maybe it gets distracted thinking about how beautiful lightning is and forgets that its job is to make all the noise. The move is so stunning that I have to shake myself out of a trance.

I force myself to remember.

I’m the thunder, and thunder always follows lightning.

Pippa steadies her phoenix as I close the gap. I’m as far from her as she is from the finish line. Revel’s ahead, but he hears the storm that’s about to descend on him and turns. His expression is horrified. A man who knows he is going to lose at the very last second. Hesitation costs him everything. The finish line is too far for something with two legs to beat something with four. I’m riding up Pippa’s left side, the nose of my phoenix even with the back flank of hers, when Revel turns his desperation into action. He leaps at her. Pippa rolls a shoulder and her horse flinches, too, straying just enough to send them both slamming our way. My stallion’s too much of a monster to get put into the wall, so he stands his ground, but it leaves us tangled as we storm past Revel’s flailing body and on to the finish line.

There can’t be more than twenty strides left and our horses trade leads. It’s her and then it’s me and then it’s her and then it’s me. War and revolution wait with breathless anticipation.