“Nexus, your familiar,” Rune said with a half-smile, though no amusement reached his burning gaze. “He found Lord Zuma and your knight in the city and brought them to me when I couldn’t breach the castle alone. They came to your aid.”
His expression shifted, and she sensed his bitterness at not being able to save her himself. But underneath his anger was gratitude. Alora couldn’t help but hope this meant perhaps he and Caelum could one day be friends.
Rune’s mouth twitched.I admire your optimism.
Caelum cut down the last soldier as he turned to them. At the sight of her, relief and worry crossed his features. “Prince Eldrik and some of his retinue escaped,” he told Rune.
His stiffen, his grip tensing, but Rune’s resolute expression didn’t change.
“I will gather my herd to track him,” Zuma offered.
“No need,” Rune turned toward the Grand Hall. “He will not escape this land alive.”
Shadows surged around them again, pulling her into him. The entryway vanished. When her vision cleared, they were in a grand, candlelit chamber soaked in blood.
A wave of cold horror fell over her skin.
The throne room had become a feast of carnage.
Bodies of Calveron soldiers were splayed like grotesque decorations, some speared clean through the walls, their limbs twitching; others crumpled across the banquet table, heads severed and missing entirely. Red slicked the marble floors in rivers, pooling beneath slumped torsos and severed arms still clutching useless blades. A soldier lay bisected at the waist, his spine like a broken stem, while another was pinned to a pillar by his own spear driven through his throat.
Outside, the Calveron banners burned.
The stink of entrails and smoke hung thick in the air, as if the castle itself was choking on the violence.
Calla moved like a dancer through the ruin, blades singing. Hadeon jerked his hammer free from the back of a fae, bone-cracking with the force. Deimos was a silent phantom, appearing behind soldiers in poofs of smoke, severing throats with his claws and vanish again, leaving them choking on their blood on the floor. The three Harbingers were a storm of wrath and precision, each a different flavor of death.
And there was no mercy left to give.
Rune tilted his head, shadows licking up his arms like eager pets. “Murder and mayhem, my queen.”
She was frozen, staring at the carnage. She didn’t move. Couldn’t. She was equal parts horrified and … gratified. And the thought made her sick.
Rune’s shadows coiled tighter, then swept her off her feet. In the blink of an eye, they appeared on the throne with her seated on his lap.
Calla dragged the General of the Calveron army forward, forcing him down on his knees. Alora trembled, feeling like she had seen this before.
“Where is your prince going?” Rune asked.
The fae shook, his jaw tense. He was as white as a sheet, but brave enough to hold Rune’s gaze. “God of Shadows, forgive us. We should not have offended you. If we had known?—”
Black smoke lashed out and severed the head off a soldier’s neck behind the general.
“Do not speak lies to the founder of them.” Rune snarled, his voice dropping with an eerie resonance. Darkness swarmed across the floor. “The walls of this castle have been lined with spells to keep me out.”
Shadows slashed another soldier in half.
“Eldrik knew exactly who he took, and he thought his wards were enough to protect him from me.”
With a brutal snap, a spear of shadow pierced another Calveron soldier through the face, pinning him to the wall. The General shook, the front of his trousers growing wet. The torches went out one by one, darkness swallowing the room.
No light, but the red of demon eyes.
“Make no mistake, General.” Rune’s voice filled the chamber with a ruthless calm that made Alora shiver.“The Calveron line will end tonight. Your names will be forgotten in the ash, your bones consumed by the earth. I have no mercy to spare but this. Your answer will determine how quick and painless your deaths will be.”
The of Alora’s heart thundered in her ears.
She looked away once Rune got his answer.
