It soared out of the wound like a ribbon of black smoke. It danced over their heads,twirling and twisting as it rose higher, fully alight in the rays of sunlight shining down from the diamond ceiling.
Jira’s grip went slack. His eyes widened as he whispered,“Shadowblood.”
A story thought to be untrue.
A curse deserving of death.
The word echoed outwards, circling around the throne room as everyone below registered the sight. It was one that had not been seen for centuries. It was whispered about around roaring campfires and echoed on long, desert rides, a story dealt as a warning to tricky children before they were tucked away into their beds at night.
Careful, or you’ll be haunted by a Shadowblood.
“Seize them both!” Jira growled.“Alive.”
Sonara felt the seams of her outer skirt split.
A flicker of white shot past her gaze, so fast it was merely a blur. She heard the sickeningsquelchas Jaxon’s magic sent the sharpened bird bone soaring home.
Right into Jira’s eye.
Sonara didn’t waste a breath. Screams rang out across the throne room as she moved, lunging for the only weapon in sight as Jaxon’s curse continued to call upon the bones in her skirts, and Jira’s guards poured up the dais.
Blood,Sonara’s own curse sang.
The metallic aura in the air came from Jira’s eye as he roared and tried to pry the bird bone out.But it was also coming from the massive golden sword at his hip.
Sonara had failed once already in losing her prize. And at this rate, death was imminent. Jaxon only had so many bird bones to go around. They’d left their real weapons beyond the city gates with Markam and their mounts.
But Gutrender… it was now, or it was never, for there were no prizes on the other side of death.
She would not become a prisoner today.
It felt like a dream as Sonara reached for the sword. Somehow, the king saw her coming, but a bird bone drove itself into the back of his hand, shooting a clean hole out the other side. Jira roared as Jaxon’s power commanded another bone to fire, and suddenly Sonara’s hand was around Gutrender’s cold pommel.
She gripped with all her might andpulled.
It sang sweetly as it tore from the king’s iron belt.
“Sonara,now!” Jaxon yelled.
She turned, the heavy weight of Gutrender so unlike her own weapon as she tested the balance, distorting her view of the ladies sprinting to safety or tripping over their own skirts as they cleared out of the throne room, abandoning their gifts to the king.
The sounds of chaos took over; a chorus of screams, shouts of guards commanding a calm that would not come; the stomping of boots and clinking of heavy golden armor as Jira’s guards thundered up the steps of the towering dais.
The first guard reached the top.
Sonara felt the satisfyingsnickas the blade cut through the unprotected flesh between helmet and chestplate. She felt it flay bone,sever head from neck as blood sprayed.Regularblood, the kind that wasn’t deemed unwanted or unworthy.
Sonara spat it from her lips, but the aura of it got to her all the same.
Bitter, like the hot venom of a desert snake.
All of Jira’s guards had the same vile taste, that same soul-deep aura that Sonara’s curse latched onto, even when she willed it not to be so.
The crack of the guard’s head hitting the stones resounded around the throne room, the screams of the ladies gone now as the room cleared, replaced by the shouts of guards.
Sonara’s curse tugged at her senses.
Left!
