His upper lip curled in disgust. “I don’t think you understand. The castle doors only started to open when my hand wasn’t forcing yours. If you agree to come willingly, I will save you.”
“I said no, demon.”
“Then I have no further use for you,” he said, pinning me with dead, empty eyes. “But perhaps the demons do.”
He turned without another word, cape billowing out from behind him, and left the cavern. The demon, still clawing my discarded boot, broke through the surface behind me, along with several more of its kind. All humanlike but marked by horrific, deformed additions. Additions that made them other.
At that moment, something snapped within me.
A tautness behind my eyes, connecting me to something outside the cavern—connecting me to the Shadow Bringer. A rush of power interwoven with pain, anguish, and a few final, pathetic shreds of courage poured through me, raging in my mind like a feral sea. It felt familiar and yet unfamiliar. It felt overwhelming and yetnot enough. It felt like a blanket of soft silk. It felt like a squeezing cage of iron. It felt uncomfortable.
It feltglorious.
For a moment, the rush made me forget my bleeding, injured ankle. It made me forget my grief—grief at Eden’s death and Elliot’s despair. Grief at seeing Mother and Father, shadow marked and hated. Grief at seeing Corrupt Norhavellians fighting and dying. Grief at imagining my future—mylackof future. Grief because of my weakness. Grief because of my world.
Then the shadows burst in.
They churned around me, spinning and rotating as a furious whirlwind, flashing and sparking like daggers of obsidian. The shadows were more powerful, more demanding, than the languid pile that had draped itself over the Shadow Bringer’s shoulders.
The shadows fell upon the demons in a fury.
I could scarcely see, scarcelybreatheas the dark ripped skin, forced itself down throats, wrenched heads into the water—until it finally moved into a towering cage of impenetrable black, pinning the demons to the grotto’s glistening walls. The demons—or what few left that could move—prodded weakly against the smothering shadows. One by one the monsters stilled, and the roaring power faded like smoke forced away by the wind.
Feeling equal parts horrified and delirious, I wanted to cry.
I wanted to laugh.
Of course I’d have some sort of demented, evil power in the Dream Realm. I’d tried to be the dutiful daughter after Eden’s death, but duty couldn’t mask what had been festering within me.
A crashing noise echoed from somewhere behind me.
The Shadow Bringer had returned.
He swept into the room as if he was death embodied, blood leaking from his mouth and marring his pale skin. It slid down the column of what was exposed of his throat, pooling at the top of his armor. His blood was identical to mine: filled with shadows that rose like smoke and stained like ink.
“How dare you?” the Shadow Bringer gasped, materializing a darkblade from his palm and charging into the water after me. “Howdareyou?”
I staggered backward, now immune to the pain in my ankle. I tried to fling up shadows over and around me for protection, but the darkness fluttered, sputtering, and was extinguished entirely, releasing the demons into the water.
“You think you’re entitled to my power?” He grabbed the cloth at the front of my collarbone, roughly twisting it in a taloned hand. He jutted his blade under my chin as the cold water swirled around us, pooling at our hips. “You think you can control it—controlme?”
I pulled at his hand, trying to weaken his grip, but the metal on his gauntlets was impossibly sharp. Touching him was like grabbing a rose by its thorns or a snake by its fangs. My gaze dropped to his mouth. His lips, ever so slightly, were trembling. My chest heaved against our hands, feeling close to bursting.
“This wretched power belongs to me alone. I havealwaysbeen the only one.”
For a moment, we just stared at each other. The Shadow Bringer’s tone and stance were filled with hatred, but his eyes, a dim shade of gray, appeared hopeless. Miserable and without any light or soul.
“Enough of this,” he said.
And then he made to separate my head from my body.
Deep in the Shadow Bringer’s dungeon, I leaned against my cell’s bed, trying to ignore how revolting it felt against my skin.
Earlier, I hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near the bed, let alone actually touch the thing. It was a skeletal, flimsy monstrosity draped with blankets and pillows that felt more like cobweb than cloth. Still, a paltry frame with thin bedding was far better than the ground. I learned that lesson quickly enough, finding that the crack at the bottom of my door was just large enough to watch slinking, shadowy things pass by. Things that paused at the door. Scratched at it. Whispered fragments of sentences in hollow voices.
“Let us out,” one had pleaded.
I’d ignored it and turned away from the door, shivering.
