To my surprise, no one got involved as they watched me bolt through the market. Eyes burned into the back of my skull from all angles, but not a single hand intervened.
Behind me, the Luckmen roared with profanities, chasing fast.
Had Lochlainn lost his fucking mind? Having me hunted down like some criminal! I was going to tear him a new asshole for this!
Ducking between stalls, I weaved around startled shoppers, dodging racks of potions and pastries. My feet bounded down the cobblestone as I reached the edge of the square and turned down the quieter street.
I risked a quick glance over my shoulder. No sign of them yet.
How the hell was I supposed to hide? Lochlainn literallyowned this entire city. That gold-sucking, rainbow-humpingasshole!
Then—thud!
A body collided with mine, sweeping me off my feet and into a small, narrow alleyway. It was sudden. Forceful. But somehow painless.
Before I could react—a cloak of darkness fell upon me.
24
SKELLKING
HALLOW LAND
A blindingflash sliced through the throne room. The walls illuminated, revealing all the polished bones that decorated the room from ceiling to floor. A murderous boom followed, rippling across the dark tiles like thunder rolling through a grave with enough might to resurrect the dead.
Vertebrae from thousands of spines arched above the entrance like a gateway to damnation. What were once white had long since yellowed, stained by time and rotted by the nightmares they’d witnessed. Every bone in the room served a meticulous purpose. Not one victim wasted—their sacrifices now adorning the royal space.
Teeth arranged in elaborate patterns lined the walls like grim mosaics, depicting scenes from a decrepit past. Carpal bones hung from wrought-iron chandeliers, molded into elegant candelabras that rocked gently, as if the room were breathing. It wasn’t just a throne room, but a shrine of ruin. Where Death was not mourned but worshipped.
The Skell King sat motionless on a seat of skulls, his headbowed into his hands. To most, it looked like grief. But the Skell guards lining the chamber’s edge knew better.
The air around him thickened, something ancient and wicked brewing. It was a force that could crush lungs, stop hearts, even break the will of the strongest warriors.
He was not mourning. He wasenraged.
A Skell guard approached. Each step echoed like the beat of a drum in a tomb. Perhaps he wondered if it were a foreshadow of his own.
“They’re bringing him, my King,” he said in a deep, murderous voice.
The Skell King raised his head. Splintered pieces of the Dullahan’s whip laid in his hands, like a shattered memory he held dearly.
Around him, shadows shifted. No longer still, no longer silent, they’d begun to wake.
“Years of searching. Years of sending out beast after beast.” His pale, concave face tightened, darkness pulling inward. “The child’s alive. Myheiris alive.” Dread’s mirror image flashed over his features.
An arm drifted to the femur armrest. Long, putrid nails tapped bone in slow, deliberate thought.
His heir’s scent had vanished long ago, only to resurface. How had it been so gravely hidden from him?
“Betrayal,” he hissed. “Rot in my own blood!” The words dripped like venom. “Or perhaps, pathetic incompetence.”
They would pay. They wouldallpay in blood.
Like cracking ribs, the throne creaked beneath him as he abruptly leaned forward.
The Skell stood firm. Harsh whistling sounded from his nasal cavity, a nose long-devoured, only a gaping hollow hole left behind.
“We don’t know, my liege,” he rasped, as his monstrous face returned to a deadly calm.
