Set himfree?
He urged the snakes backward, dragging me toward the castle doors.
“Open them,” he commanded, his voice an icy tempest of barely contained rage. “Let me out.”
Impatiently, he grabbed my wrist from the snare of snakes and closed my fingers around the handle. With his hand over mine, the doors would not budge. He growled in frustration, trying again. Still nothing. The doors would not move.
“These doors must be the answer,” he said angrily, dropping my hand. He paced back and forth, cursing and muttering to himself. “The balcony, the windows, the cracks in the walls—they all lead not to freedom but intolerable pain. What am Imissing? If she can’t free me, then what else—”
“Why do you need me to free you?” I choked out, scarcely believing what was happening. By some miracle, this beast was imprisoned in his own castle. The Weaver histories said nothing of the sort. “What’s stopping you from leaving of your own accord?”
“Again with the mockery,” he snapped, mouth curling in rage. It was clear he wanted to hurt me, but something was holding him back. “You know the Weavers imprisoned me here for five centuries. Unlock this Maker-forsaken door, and I willmercifullygive you a sixty-second lead to crawl back to them. Then I will tear each Weaver apart limb by limb.”
I shuddered in disgust, wondering why the Weavers had imprisoned the Shadow Bringer but not killed him. His imprisonment hadn’t helped anything; Corruption still tore across Noctis. Perhaps he couldn’t be killed. Or perhaps the Shadow Bringer’s demon army had chased the Weavers away before they could.
He urged me to try again, this time without his hand over mine. Slowly, the doors shifted open.
He made a hoarse, surprised sound—
And then I released my grip on the doors, letting them shut with a loud, satisfyingbang.
“Never,demon,” I spat. My voice shook in terror. I’d never forgive myself if I let him out, even if it meant I had to forfeit my life. “If theWeavers trapped you here for five centuries, then I hope you rot for one hundred more.”
“You’re all the same,” he said, yanking my chin up and forcing me to look at him. Blood slipped from my lips, trickling from my injured tongue. “To you, I’m just a monster unworthy of living. A monster who isn’t any different from the demons that roam this land.”
“Youaren’tany different,” I insisted, meeting his hate-filled stare with my own. His clawed hand felt cold, biting into my neck and making me forget the snakes at my ribs. “You’re everything the Light Bringer teaches us to hate and fear.”
The great hall went completely still, save for the flickering candlelight and my erratic breathing.
“You follow the Light Bringer.” A statement. Not a question.
“He is my holy sovereign.” The snakes loosened, slipping off my shoulders. “Of course I do.”
He brought his caged mouth close to mine. His breath was cool, his eyes now devoid of feeling as he pulled my hands into his. “If you follow Mithras,” he began darkly, bringing my fingers up to touch the blood dripping from my chin, “then why do you bleed shadow instead of light?”
I glanced down at my fingers, shivering as I noted a hazy smear of black. The inkiness lingered on my skin, smokelike, before disappearing into the air. I wiped my mouth again, only for a new smudge to appear.
A thread tugged at my rib cage, calling me back to consciousness.
The pain clawed, burned,demanded, muffling the Shadow Bringer’s voice and dimming his features.
I don’t understand. Help me understand—
Then the shadows exploded, bursting outward in a riot of all-consuming black.
I woke up to someone shaking my shoulders. Fingers, small and desperate, digging, digging—
“Get up, Esmer!” Elliot screamed, eyes wild and face contorted with anguish. Tears slid down his cheeks, running into his mouth. “Please get up,please!”
For a moment, I was unable to comprehend.Refusedto comprehend. Then the shouts—the shrieks—rose in a hellish chorus, giving me no other option but to face reality straight in its horrible face.
“They’re trying to kill us. We need to hide,” Elliot insisted, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me up.
As my feet found the floor, I faintly registered a numbness shifting over my limbs. I wanted to hide. I wanted to do nothingbuthide. But it was too late for that. Whether Eden heard me or not, I’d made a promise to her: to protect Elliot with all I had left. To keep him safe no matter the cost—even if I’d just dreamed of the Shadow Bringer himself.
“Elliot, who is trying to kill us? The Light Legion?”
“No, the village,” he wailed. “The entirevillage.”
