Yet another blinding pulse of red made her stumble against the battlements. She rolled to one side and stopped, her mind whirring. She played at defeat, raising a weak hand to her head as if recovering from a blow.

“No!” Lena cried, starting forward, but with a flick of his fingers the Justice sent her barreling into the opposite crenellations.

He sneered as he drew closer to Constance, his heavy boots rapping on the stone until he stood at her feet. “No last words?”

She waited until he was leaning over her in triumph—and then she kicked out savagely at his kneecaps. The Justice cried out, doubled over.

The crowd roared, and Constance realized the storm cloud had moved aside; the people below could see the duel on the battlements. She kicked again, a boot in the Justice’s face, pushed herself up, and swung her cane in a huge arc she hoped would crack his traitorous skull.

But his gauntleted hand rose, caught the cane. His face was streaked with blood—her boot had made a mess of his nose—and his icy eyes were murderous.

Down below, an enormous thump signaled an assault on the portcullis. A battering ram. The iron bars screamed in protest.

Constance struggled with all her strength to free her cane from the Justice’s grasp. Her eyes widened, and her pulse slowed. Time stuttered, and she noticed a microscopic change in the Justice’s expression—from determination to triumph.

Thump. The second assault on the portcullis felt like a heartbeat in Constance’s ears. The crowd roared.

A surge of red power flowed through the cane and into her arm. She was flung backward several feet—landing, dazed, on her left arm with a clang. Her head beat the wall—this time for real—and her mask loosened and dropped to the stone battlements with a clatter. Her ears were ringing, a shrill, bright sound like the call of a carrion bird.

Dimly, she heard the Justice fling her cane onto the floor and approach her a second time with heavy footsteps. She turned slowly toward him, trying to force her body into action—but it felt like she was suspended in thick, cloying water. Hatred burned on his face, a kind of hunger in his steel-blue eyes. He said nothing as he lowered his gauntleted hand toward her neck. She tried to bat him away, but her vision was blurred and her head throbbed, and her hand barely lifted before cold metal closed around her throat, pulling her onto her knees and jerking her head toward the crowd below.

Thump. In the clarity between two drifting storm clouds, Constance watched the people guiding the huge battering ram against the portcullis.

“I will kill them, each and every one,” the Justice whispered, a clear glint of fanaticism in his eyes. “In betraying me, they have betrayed the Ancestors.”