I know you do, my love.You are too good. Too pure not to care.We will free these people, come back for him. But for now,I just need you. His tone is sincere, but I can’t trust sincerity. Trust shattered with every cut of the blade of nightmares.
No!I scream to Kael, and I pool my magic at my fingertips, ready to become death made flesh.
Do not let him win, Duskae. Come back to me. I love you,he says, and my fury falters.
I hate myself for wanting to hear it.But I do.
The words stop me. Pulling me back to memories of his arms, his bed, his heart. My vengeance shatters—annihilated in an instant.
A frustrated, wrangled scream tears from my throat, and I gather my magic back within the confines of my chest. I storm towards Maldrak, still clutching his eye and charred hand, and writhing on the floor. I unsheathe the dagger at his hip, and drag the tip of the blade along his cheek, my mouth twisted in a vicious snarl.
He screams an ungodly sound, but I relish it. I drink in the sight of spilling his blood, feeding off it. “So you never forget that it isyouwho bows tome,” I spit.
Then I plunge the blade into the flesh of his thigh so he can’t follow.
I run for the door, leaving Maldrak injured but alive. A mercy I’m sure to regret.
I burst through the doors into the hallways of Kryntar Castle.They’re empty.The silence isn’t relief—it’s a trap laid bare. Too still. Too quiet. And I know what it means—there’s a bigger fight that I need to find.
I don’t know my way around the castle. I’ve known only the dungeons and the dining hall, but regardless, I run. With only Maldrak’s small dagger in my hand, I run through corridors I don’t know—dungeons, halls, stairwells—all empty save for servants trembling in alcoves.
Then, I hear it?—
The clang of steel, the clash of bodies, the clatter of armor.
Head for the causeway,Kael urges down the tether, and I run, wild and breathless. Broken and unyielding, both.
But I don’t head for the causeway. I follow what calls to me—battle.
I burst through the castle’s doors, stumbling into the crisp, cutting air of the night. I suck in long, rasping breaths, and for a heartbeat, I tilt my head up to the starless night sky that peeks through the rip in The Decay. I never thought I’d see it again. I never thought I’d feel the wind lay kisses across my face.
I let the moon bathe me in her light, just for a heartbeat. I open my eyes, taking in my surroundings, and that’s when I see it?—
The maids.My maids.
Fern. Tura. Hilda.
Their severed heads stare from the iron spikes along the causeway—eyes wide, mouths parted mid-plea.
My stomach lurches. I retch a dry, heaving sound. But nothing spills.I did this. I led them to their deaths. And I know who put them there—Vessira. I saw the way she looked at me when I emerged from the dressing chamber. There was fear, but there was also disgust. A wrath she’s satisfied with the deaths of innocents.
But I have no time to mourn. Only time to relieve Vessira of her head.
Fury flares again, and the clang of steel calls me like a war drum.
I palm Maldrak’s dagger, ready for violence. I crouch low, following the sound of battle, and as I round the corner, an army of Marked soldiers advance on my friends.
One hundred. Maybe two.
Ronyn. Seren. Merrik. Jax. Daelen. Rubi. Therion. And Kael. My Starbound. My salvation. My destroyer.My ruin.
I want to run to him. To fall into his arms like none of this happened. Like he can be mine and I can be his. But his cruelties had other plans, and the wounds of betrayal cut deep.
And then I notice another figure. Fightingwithmy friends, keeping the Marked at bay with choking shadows of destruction.A Shadowweave?
It takes me a moment, but I know I’ve seen him before. In the visions granted to me by the Obsidian Crown.Morrathys. This is Death himself.They awakened him.
I run, kicking off the impractical shoes from dinner, and hitch up the dress so my legs can stride freely.
