The Shadow Bringer emerged from the flame and smoke, shadows rolling from his shoulders in powerful waves. Soot marked his skin under his mask, ringing his eyes and wrapping around the hollows of his exposed jaw. I expected the legionnaire to notice, especially since the Shadow Bringer was wielding his sword, but he continued walking, completely oblivious to the Shadow Bringer’s powerful, inhuman presence.
“Where are they?” he asked me.
“I don’t know,” I answered, miserable and aching. “I can’t find them.”
I looked toward the pile of burning bodies. If they were purging the Corrupt, then would Mother, Father, Elliot—?
He interrupted before I could finish that thought. “No, not your family. Who caused this? This is a warped dream, based on your current reality. There must be someone powerful at the root of it. Who deals with your Corrupt?”
“Lord Mithras,” I said absently. “Our holy Light Bringer.”
“Mithras?” he repeated, eyes flashing in revulsion.“He is no lord.”
Another explosion shook the ground around us, filling the air with wood, stone, and debris.
And then fire rained down.
The Shadow Bringer threw up his arms, letting his blade fall to the earth, and from his hands he summoned a protective shadow that loomed as high as a mountain and crashed with the force of a storm-battered sea. It wrapped around us, forming a shield before the fire hit.
For a few silent moments, we were alone in the void, listening to the muffled crashing of my world—my burning, ravaged world—falling against our shield of shadow.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” I finally managed. “I died in the fire, just as my family did. That’s why I’m stuck in your castle and can’t wake up.”
“No, not at all.” He looked past me, eyes cold, as if he could see beyond his wall of darkness. “What you just saw was merely a half-truth, as most dreams are. It held parts of your reality, but not the whole. This isn’t real.”
I peered at the shadows, trying to see what he could see.
“You’re lying,” I said.
“I’m not,” he said simply, shaking his head.
“This is exactly what I left behind before I fell asleep and dreamed of you.” I cursed, a familiar rush of sorrow and fear ripping through me. “They’re dead. I canfeelit. I can feel myself dying, too.”
Something snapped in me again, a familiar pulling of my ribs. Only this time, instead of connecting me to some power out of my reach, it connected directly to him. The Shadow Bringer turned to face me, eyes wild. Part of his neck was left exposed by his helm; his hair curled damply against it, melding with the soot that marred it. My attention drifted to his mouth. A smudge of ash was underneath his lower lip, all but enticing me to wipe it off. And hiseyes. Shadows swirled in them, eddying between darker and lighter variations with every breath. They reminded me of stars—depthless constellations I wanted to get lost in. And, Maker, he was sotall. Powerfully built and capable of great, terrible things.
He’s beautiful.
The thought surged up, unbidden, and nearly made me buckle.
“Again,” he asked, alarmed. “How are you able to call on my power? What are you?”
“I’m not a monster,” I snapped, finally releasing some of the pent-up emotion that I had been holding on to for days. “Don’t take me to be anything like you, demon.”
“Enough.” He held me by my shoulders, pinning me to a tree with a grip of iron. His sphere of shadow released its hold, falling back and blanketing the scorched, ruined land around us.
He wasn’t beautiful.
The Shadow Bringer would never be beautiful. There were his powers—the way he could control darkness and make it bend to his will. Then there were the demons that lived with him, haunting his castle with their screams. The tales had falsely professed his eyes to be red and his body fiendish, but he possessed many features that made him cold and cruel nonetheless.
“Enough,” he repeated, the color fading from his eyes, his lips. “Please.”
He looked at me with wild desperation.
But I couldn’t stop. The shadows roared.
“You’re a demon, a devil, amonster!” I screamed.
His expression forfeited what his silence could not.
