And the demons roared louder, bending the door to his bedchamber.
“The demons aren’t usually this persistent.” The Bringer shoved himself off the bed, cursing again when the movement yanked me sideways into his shoulder.
“I thought the mighty Shadow Bringer would have more control over his monsters,” I said angrily, putting a step between us. We were near the door now—too near for my liking—and the Shadow Bringer was assessing its current condition. It seemed sturdy enough, but the demons were relentless, slamming their bodies into the wood. Two horns suddenly broke through, piercing the door. When the demon tried to retreat, the horns stuck, rattling the frame. “Or do they hate you so much that youcan’tcontrol them?”
He glanced back at me, mouth slanting into a scowl. “I’ve never been their master—merely their keeper. So yes, they hate me. Perhaps you’re familiar with the feeling.”
Inexplicably, his baiting words made me blush.
The fire poker was too far away, but maybe I could manipulate the shadows to my advantage. I concentrated, willing them to slip under the Shadow Bringer’s armor and grasp his throat like a constricting snake, but they merely wavered in place, useless and without form. It was wishful thinking, then.
Of course the shadows won’t harm him.
“Tell me: When you woke in his presence, did your Light Bringer accept you without hate or fear? Were Mithras and his followers not condemning you to a monster’s fate?” At my silence, he turned his attention back to the door, running a hand over one of the smooth alabaster horns that pierced it. The demon flinched at the Bringer’s touch, splintering more of the wood. He added quietly, “If you hadn’t interfered when I tried to fight Mithras, you would have avoided all of this. I don’t know why the shadows listen to you.”
“Maybe your hold on them is weakening,” I guessed, trying to sound confident. As I said this, the shadows that followed him moved to trail behind me, lapping at my ankles. I tried not to shiver in disgust; if I could use them to my advantage without the Light Bringer seeing, I would. Anything to keep me alive. But I’d need to rid myself of them—and the Shadow Bringer—soon. “Perhaps they’d rather align with me than with a hateful villain like yourself.”
“Would they, now?” the Shadow Bringer mused. “Interesting. If only you could wield them with any consistent effect.”
“Then you’re forgetting what happened in the water chamber,” I remarked, another flush making me scowl in irritation. Maybe it was just my imagination, but the shadow tether between us seemed tighter. He was too close, too tall, tooattentive. No one had ever looked at me like this before, and I didn’t know what to make of it. “Maybe I’ll try that again on the demons outside your door.”
“You will not try that again.”
“Of course you don’t want me to hurt your precious demons. You’re theirkeeper, after all.”
“You are vexing,” the Bringer bit out, touching the top of his throat. I wondered if he was remembering the swell of shadowed blood that had pooled there, leaking from his mouth. “The demons in the hall are much older and far more powerful than the fledglings in the water. What you accomplished in the previous dream won’t work on them.”
The horned demon began to twist, throwing itself into the door with a renewed fervor.
“You really should try to wake up. This won’t be pleasant.”
“It can’t be any less pleasant than what I’d wake up to. I’m being marched to my death.”
His pale eyes narrowed. “What do you mean—”
I cut him off, willing the shadows at my feet to rise. I didn’t know what I was doing, not really; I’d intended for them to form a wall, sealing us off from the demons, but they rushed forward and cracked the door wide open. The shadows disintegrated at the contact, sinking back to the floor.
Demons—dozens of hideous demons—stood in the hall, gaping at us.
“Like I said,” the Shadow Bringer sighed, yanking on our shadow tether so that I stood behind him, “you are very,veryvexing.”
The shadows rose at a twitch of his fingers, churning in front of us like a condensed thundercloud. A blink later and the cloud surged forward, pouring over the demons like a midnight tempest. The creatures tensed as the shadows washed over their broken bodies. They weren’t being attacked, exactly, but it seemed they were being purged of something terrible. Shadows crawled from their noses and eyes, joining the dark around them, and their mouths remained frozen in silent screams. When the cloud finally settled, the demons were sated. Their rage and panic had cooled; the fight had left their hollow eyes. Eventually they slunk back down the hall, seeking solace elsewhere.
The Bringer’s shoulders sagged. His shadows were now mere wisps, settling under furniture and sliding beneath rugs. Even the tether that had bound us had disintegrated, retreating inside a nearby vase.
“Wretched creatures,” the Bringer muttered, crossing the room in a few quick strides. He made it to his bed—as if forgetting I was there, too—and quickly turned around, instead choosing a book-covered desk to lean against.
His room was opulent but uncared for. A tomb left untouched for centuries. I examined a vase overflowing with dead flowers. “How can you live like this?” I found myself asking. “You’re the lord of nothing but dust and demons.”
“It wasn’t always this way. But it’s difficult to be lord of anything when you’re cursed to rot in a castle that no longer feels like yours, unable to leave and unable to purge this place of its shadows. Many would say it is a fate most fitting, but I vehemently disagree.”
A dark laugh rose in the back of my throat. A monster wishing to absolve his own monstrosities was absurd. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have forced Corruption upon Noctis. You cursed an entire kingdom to live in fear and die in ruin. Your fateisfitting for such a crime.”
His hands squeezed the edge of the desk, cracking some of the wood into dusty splinters. “Myfatewas torn from me the moment I was banished here. Time was stolen from me, my life was stolen from me, and—” Shadows flashed in his eyes, but he did not move. “I did no harm to you or your kingdom. Believe what you wish, but that is the truth.”
My hands trembled with anger. He lamented his past and present, but what about Noctis’s future? What aboutmyfuture? There was nothing left for me. I should have had my entire life to look forward to—decades filled with purpose and joy. Perhaps even love. A family of my own, a house of my own, alifeof my own. The Shadow Bringer may have been rotting in his castle, but I was rotting, too. And I didn’t have a choice. I was inches from the Shadow Bringer now, glaring up into half-dead eyes spinning with whorls of silver and night. I hated him. He was the enemy of Noctis, the harbinger of Corruption, my family’s killer, and my future’s cruel thief. The tales made him out to be wicked, soulless, and cruel.
So why did he look so achingly sad?
