A lone soldier makes his way from the back of the crowd, he’s young. The way he holds his sword at his side reveals he’s a new recruit by the inexperience of holding a broad sword. It’s a pity.
Orlin turns to the man and claps him on the shoulder before grabbing hold of him so he can’t run away from the king's rage.
From my knees I can see the king carefully slide out a hidden throwing knife from his shirt sleeve.
What I don’t expect is for him to command my shadows to come forward, filling the courtyard once again with the inky veil. And with it, the daemons.
Their shadowy ethereal forms force their way from the thick shroud.
They stand, the edges of their corporeal bodies moving with the wind, waiting for a command.
The king is quick with his slash across the young man’s throat. Crimson spews in a spray that lands across my face.
Beads of blood pool thickly in my lashes as I blink away the gore and witness an even bigger monstrosity in the background.
The daemons attack the soldiers in the courtyard, shrieks and screams meld into a horrific chorus that whips with each gust in the wind. Orlin holds the man upright, as blood still trickles down and soaks the clothes of the dying soldier.
The sudden rush of death and the multitude of loss due to the mors finalem causes me to double over. Fear, not of my own, washes over me as every soul departs through my magic.
Dozens of men are dead in an instant. It’s too much for me to handle, even as a conduit of death.
My forehead thuds to the hard ground and my vision slips away.
I’ve experienced Orlin’s magic before, but this? This is crushing.
And this is only the beginning.
Kassiel.
Her last plea for me echoes in my mind.
It might as well be perdition, my very own depths of Haldir.
We were damned to orbit one another for eternity, forced to remain on the cusp of a salvation that was just out of reach.
Epilogue
Alora
Anguish, the kind that makes your marrow feel dried up from the loss of something so significant, scars my soul.
I didn’t realize in the beginning that emptiness could turn into another thing entirely, but eventually it did. Like a serpent, snaking along the edges of darkness, a malevolent desire began to slither within me.
Vengeance. Where I once desired justice for the atrocities inflicted by King Euron, now I just wanted to see him suffer like he’s caused me to do.
A chilled breath escapes my lips as I sigh, looking down the barren canyon.
We fled north, farther than even The Siltar Woods because River’s End wasn’t the fortress we had believed it to be.
The Hidden hadn’t been who I had hoped them to be.
Betrayal worms its way through my memories. They’re now stained from when the others had turned their back on me, unwilling to follow me to savehim.
I dare not speak his name even now for fear that it would sever me from this realm because of the aching in my bones that screams for him, even now.
Movement in the distance catches my eye as I watch a small group on horseback make the trek up the steep trail that’s dusted in white tears from the heavens.
Frost nips my fingers as I roll the leather of Dahla’s reins between my forefinger and thumb.
