I watched until they had vanished into the darkness. I soaked in the silence again; I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, face upturned to the sky.

And that’s when I felt it. A tremble in the cobblestones beneath me.

A shift in the wind around me.

The rain eased, as if nature was retreating, hiding.

I opened my eyes and watched the knight appear.

He was unchanged. He walked his same steady, heavy-footed pace. His armor was still bloodstained. His helm still inspired a blaze of terror in me. He drew his sword and the tip of it rang on the stones alongside him, a warning for me to run from him.

I walked to meet him, shield ready on my arm.

I’m faster, I reminded myself. Stay out of his reach and if you stumble, remember the shield.

He took his first swing at me. I danced out of the sword’s path. I would wear him out, and I taunted him again, stepping close to provoke him, darting away from his reach. He swung, I evaded. I believed I could continue doing this until dawn, and I had every intention to until the knight feigned a move and I misread him. He turned and caught me by surprise, but my reflexes saved me.

I swung my shield around to block. His sword lodged within the wood and I expected my buckler to crack in two, but it held firm, suddenly illuminated as its enchantment stirred. I was drenched in golden light, and the knight bent to it, to me. I stumbled backward, and his sword came with me, embedded in my shield. I was amazed at the sight of him disarmed.

He seemed stunned as well.

And I claimed that moment of surprise, just as I had done with the demon. I swung my shield and the hilt of his sword at his chest, and the blow rocked him from his feet. He went down with a grunt on his back.

“Anna!” Phelan shouted from a distance, and I knew he was running to me. But I didn’t spare him a glance.

I let my shield slide from my tingling arm and stood over the knight, my foot on his chest. He was dazed. Frozen on the cobblestones. I knelt and removed his helm.

The streetlight spilled over his face. A face I knew alarmingly well.

It was my father.

29

I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t move. I hovered above the knight and stared at his face—familiar and yet hauntingly strange in the darkness of the new moon. A face that was beloved to me. And yet there was no recognition within him as he stared up at me. His eyes were unforgiving and sharp as flint; his auburn hair was lank in the rain. His mouth was pressed in a hard line, and vengeance burned within him like stars.

I recognized him, and yet part of me denied it.