The muck was heavy now, squeezing my ribs like a vise.
From within my palm the sword began to thrum, reminding me of something vital.
Use what you were given, and conquer all that you face.
I looked in newfound horror upon the demon. I sincerely doubted Somnus meant conqueringthat. It didn’t seem conquerable in the slightest, but it was the only danger here—and I was the only one with any power to stop it.
“Maker help us,” I muttered, pulling the blade from my palm.
As soon as the blade met the air, three things happened: The demon positioned itself to jump, its cloudlike maw parting to reveal black teeth; Elliot started running; and the ground below me solidified, spitting me out. Instinct told me to raise the weapon high, focusing every ounce of my willpower into making it do whatever it was supposed to do. The metal, reflecting a glorious night sky within its body, began to glow, and snow circled in a pattern around it, swirling rapidly like a blizzard might.
“Help!” Elliot screamed, stumbling to kneel behind me. I spared a hand to hold him to my side. “I-it’scold, Esmer. I w-want to go home.”
“I do, too, Elliot. But first I need to defeat this demon.”
Ice coated Elliot’s eyelashes and clung to my hair in clumps. I blinked back tears, focusing, trying my hardest to see beyond the swirling wall of snow. The demon was out there somewhere, lumbering its way toward us, but the snow obscured it.
Boom.
“It hates the light,” Elliot warbled.
My breath hitched. “How do you know that? You’ve seen this demon before?”
Elliot nodded, hiccuping.
Without warning, the demon attacked.
It barreled at us from the vortex of wind and snow, its body so massive that parts were still obscured in gray, milky mist. I swung the sword up, willing it to make contact, begging it to burst with a light so bright, it would force the creature back—and the blade began to glow, gleaming with the force of a million stars. It parted the snow and ice, lifted parts of the fog. The demon hesitated, leaning back into the mist. It was working; the light truly was warding it off. I grinned in utter disbelief.
It’s working.
But suddenly, just as quickly as it had ignited, the sword went dark. It faded into a regular blade, something that one might find forged at a village blacksmith’s. Elliot and I looked at each other, horrified. The demon lurched forward, lowering its depthless face to meet my own. It didn’t speak, exactly, but I could feel its raw hunger, its boiling rage. A primal, all-consumingwantto devour me whole. This creature was unlike anything I had encountered before. It dwarfed every demon in the Bringer’s castle. It made them seem insignificant and small.
And it was about to consume Elliot and me alive.
I shrieked as it reached for us, unable to keep a sound of horror from escaping my lips. It pinned us to the ground with a press of its claw, nearly forcing the sword from my hands. Elliot howled miserably, squirming against the thing’s charred flesh, but the effort was useless; its claw was the size of a carriage, easily crushing our bodies.
“You are mine, dreamer,” the demon thundered, its words more akin to a storm than true syllables. It loomed over me, commanding my attention with its smoking red eyes. I couldn’t make myself look away. “Eons I have waited for this moment. It shall not be taken from me.”
Tears leaked from my eyes, stinging my frozen cheeks with theirwarmth. Somnus had sent me to this dream for a purpose, but I had failed him—failed my brother, too.
“You are but a shadow; I shall be the sun,” the demon roared.
I ground my teeth in frustration, throwing my weight up into the demon’s claws. If Elliot had battled Corruption when he was at his sickest, he would have died. Quickly. Fever had already wasted away his body for months; the physical deterioration in deadly combination with the psychological deterioration that came from Corruption would have been unthinkable. An unwanted image of the Shadow Bringer danced in my peripheral vision, taunting me. He was strong where I wasn’t. He had power and command over his surroundings in ways I only borrowed. Enemy or otherwise, had he been here, he would have been able to do something.
This is his fault. All of it—
“You claim to know a man’s guilt without first knowing his soul?”Somnus’s voice rang, piercing sharp and clear through my mind.“This reality is beyond that of your Shadow Bringer’s. Use what you were given; see the light within the darkness and let it sing.”
At Somnus’s direction, I began to see something within the demon: a small vein of light, trickling out from a crack in its armor. The light was no larger than a wisp of hair or the stem of a flower; still, it was there. Waiting. Watching. Yearning to escape the confines of the demon’s thick armor and rotting heart. It reacted to my sword immediately, glowing brighter and brighter as the blade absorbed the shadows around it.
The demon made a miserable, furious sound, its teeth flashing once before disappearing into its clouded face. It drew its claws up as it roared, shaking its crown of horns. Elliot and I scrambled away, tripping over ourselves as I fought to hold the sword upright. Shadows were pouring into the sword now, gushing from the demon in a river of darkness.
“It’s shrinking!” Elliot exclaimed, looking on in wonder as the demon folded into itself. And as the demon shrank, Elliot’s skin cleared;his eyes became bright and luminous, his hair gleaming with shiny curls. No longer was he clothed in rags, either. He wore garb suitable for a young prince. Even the snow had stopped, replaced by a shower of light.
Within seconds, the demon was reduced to the height and stature of a goat.
Its horns were brambles, its stormy face a mere puff of smoke. I stood over it, slamming my sword into the exposed flesh of its stomach. It made a squealing, whistling sound, falling to the ground in a fit as it tried to back away, but I held on, cutting straight through flesh, blood, and bone. Only the back of the demon’s chest plate, still cupping its skin despite its reduced size, stopped me from piercing all the way through.
