Her blade sunk in deep, right beneath the shoulder, the edge raking across muscle and bone in a diagonal scream of heat and blood. I staggered forward, vision swimming. But I used the momentum, dragging my body through the arc of pain.
And struck.
My dagger tore across her ribs, carving a vicious diagonal from hip to sternum. Cloth shredded. Flesh parted. Bloodgushed,black-red and hot, splashing down the front of her silver-stitched gown.
She recoiled.
Her fingers curled against her side, pressing into the wetness. When she pulled them back, they dripped crimson, the tips trembling. She stared at them, stunned.
Not accustomed to bleeding.
“You’re afraid,” I rasped.
Her gaze snapped to mine, eyes burning with fury. But I could see it. The fear that whispered beneath the rage.
Xyliria snarled. And her sabre ignited in her grip, runed crimson flaring across the blade’s length. The very air around us seemed to hold its breath.
She struck.
A two-handed slice, a final act of fury meant toendme—meant to take my head and crown herself with the wreckage.
But I had already moved.
Shadows surged up my spine, and I dropped low—sliding beneath her swing, the heat of it searing inches above my skull. My back screamed, muscles torn and bleeding, but Imovedanyway, teeth gritted.
I came up under her guard like a blade through water.
My shoulder slammed into her ribs?—
She staggered.
A second blow, elbow to the gut. Her breath left her in a gasp that was morebetrayalthan pain.
One foot hooked behind her ankle. My hand gripped her wrist. I twisted. Dropped. Dragged.
She hit the ground hard, her sabre clattering away into the blood-slick stone. Her body pinned beneath mine, my knees braced on either side of her hips, one dagger pressed to her throat, the other at her chest, above her rotted heart. Both blades hummed with shadow and fury.
Her fingers twitched, reaching for her blade.
No. Not this time.
My shadows struck.
Theylashed, snapping hungrily, wrapping around her throat, wrists, ankles, pinningher to the stone.
Shegasped, struggling, but the more she did, thetighterthey wound. Darknesscrawledover her, creeping into the cracks of her magic, devouring the power she had wielded so cruelly for so long. Shechokedas the shadows constricted, her body thrashing desperately.
A war was unfolding around me.
The others had risen.
Shaelith moved like vengeance incarnate. Not the controlled, elegant killer I’d known, this was something else entirely. Her white hair was soaked crimson now, plastered to her skull with blood that wasn’t hers. Her pale violet eyes had gone completely flat—not empty, but focused with the terrible clarity that came from having nothing left to lose. She looked like a wraith, like something that had crawled out of the deepest circle of hell with one singular purpose.
To make them all pay for what they’d taken from her.
Varyth,gods, Varyth was a force ofdestruction, his rage soferalit sent shockwaves through the chamber with every brutal strike. He wastearing soldiers apart with his bare hands, a High Lord reborn invengeance and fury.
Darian was wild, a storm of unpredictability as he carved a path of death through the enemy. And Cindrissian cut down guards with adeadly gracethat sent them collapsing before they could evenblink.
