We move quickly through the castle, taking a direct route across the inner courtyards. “They're using the riders as a diversion,” I explain, my words coming in short bursts as I match his long strides. “The servants showed me at least a dozen more moving through the forest, heading for the grove.”
Shadow servants swirl around us, their forms more coherent than I've ever seen them, as if my understanding gives them strength to manifest more fully.
“They're already harvesting,” Kiakoa says, his voice a low growl. His pace quickens.
We emergeinto the grove just as the attack begins.
The bone-white trees stretch toward the sky, their intertwining branches creating a canopy of clicking, hollow sounds. The fruit hangs heavy from twistedstems—heart-shaped pods pulsing with faint red light, each one containing decades of concentrated pain.
And moving between the trees, dark figures in nondescript leather.
There are more of them than I expected. At least a dozen thieves work quickly between the bone trees, using curved knives to cut fruit from the stems.
Kiakoa freezes beside me, his entire body going rigid as he processes what he's seeing. His breathing changes, becoming slower and deeper. The temperature around us drops several degrees.
“They're stealing decades of growth,” he says, and his voice has changed. Lower, rougher, carrying undertones that make my spine tingle with warning. “Generations of cultivation.”
The man near the closest tree looks up from his work, alerted by the sound of voices. His eyes widen when he sees us standing at the grove's edge. He draws a breath to shout a warning to his companions.
But the sight of Kiakoa stops the words in his throat.
The lord I've grown accustomed to—controlled, diplomatic, careful—is gone. In his place stands something else entirely. Something that makes the thief's hand shake so violently he drops his curved blade.
The other thieves notice their companion's terror. One by one, they stop their harvesting to stare at the figure standing motionless between the trees.
Kiakoa's golden eyes burn brighter than I've ever seen them. His hands curl at his sides, fingers positioned more like claws than human appendages. When he takes a step toward the nearest thief, his movement carries a predatory quality that makes every instinct I possess scream warnings.
The first thief tries to back away, stumbling over the gnarled roots that snake across the grove floor. His breathing comes in short, panicked gasps as Kiakoa approaches with deliberate, unhurried steps.
“You,” Kiakoa says, his voice carrying clearly through the grove, “have made a mistake.”
The words hang in the air, heavy with promise of violence. The other thieves begin reaching for their weapons—short swords, fighting daggers, tools designed for close combat in confined spaces.
But they're too slow.
The first thief opens his mouth—to call a warning, to surrender, to beg. He never gets the chance.
Kiakoa moves.
KIAKOA
The distance between myself and the first thief disappears in three strides. My hand closes around his throat before he can draw breath to scream. I lift him from the ground with one arm, his feet kicking uselessly at empty air.
“You steal from me,” I say, each word punctuated by the pressure of my fingers around his windpipe.
His face turns purple. His hands claw at my grip, nails scraping uselessly against skin that might as well be stone. Behind him, the other thieves finally process what they face.
I drop the first man. He hits the ground gasping, alive but broken. Conscious enough to carry a message, if he survives what comes next.
The nearest attacker lurches at me with his curved blade raised. I catch his wrist mid-swing. The bones snap with a sound that echoes between the bone-white trees. His sword drops from nerveless fingers as he screams.
The sound awakens something in my chest that I had forgotten existed. Not just hunger, but joy. The pure satisfaction of being exactly what I was created to be.
My free hand closes around his shoulder. I pull, and his arm comes free from its socket with a wet tearing sound. Blood sprays across the pale bark of the nearest tree, marking my territory in the oldest way possible.
The thief collapses, shock stealing his voice. He curls around his ruined limb, eyes wide and staring, no longer capable of coherent thought.
Seven thieves remain. They spread out between the trees, trying to use the grove's layout to their advantage. Professional killers adapting to unexpected circumstances.
