Page 113 of Of Fate So Dark

My vampires cowered in the shadows, the old steward Harran pinned between them. When I turned, the orcs possessed by the Voidborn stared.

I stared back. It wasn’t just the orcs with their glowing eyes I saw before me any longer. It was the Voidborn themselves, like the orcs were a shell and I could see through to the shadowy eels twisting inside. Their eyes burned from within those monsters, the colors glowing with the light of the realms they’d consumed and destroyed. A rustling whisper passed through my mind, echoing from farther away than merely the short distance between myself and the creatures here.

I could hear them. Not just the ones before me, but all of them, like the rush of a wave across the seashore.

No wonder Alaric had always known where the others like him were. When they were coming. What they had planned.

I chuckled. The Voidborn were connected to one another.

And now, they were mine too.

Rage surged across the orcs’ faces. I was not Alaric, and they knew it. With a roar, the closest one lunged at me.

My hand came up. My wrist twisted in a sharp, short motion.

The orc howled as his limbs suddenly bent in all the wrong directions. Like a broken doll, he fell, turning to dust before he hit the ground.

Wisps of smoke drifted up from his remains, evaporating into nothing as the Voidborn inside him died too.

Hissing-clicking noises came from the other Voidborn monsters as they recoiled.

Curses. Exclamations of horror. I understood them all.

“That’s enough from you,” I said. “You answer to me now.”

The creatures tensed.

But they didn’t say a word.

I smiled, turning my attention to my body. A silver sheen clung to my skin, and when I looked closer, infinitesimally small scales glinted in the torchlight. I drew the sword from where it hung at my waist—where it had hung since Alaric took it from the young soldier, though I’d never been aware of its weight on my hip before now—and carefully, I turned the flat of the blade toward myself, half-expecting no reflection to appear at all.

But my own image was there. The silvery cast to my skin darkened beneath my cheekbones like a cold, metallic blushing powder, and the yellow gleam to my pale eyes had become a twisting tangle of gold through the blue.

Interesting.

A flicker of motion caught the corner of my eye. On the hilt, at the center of where the blade met the cross-guard, the intricately shaped metal had been formed into the grotesque visage of a monster, its mouth open in a silent scream.

But just for a moment, I swore the metal countenance writhed.

My brow rose. How?—

A whimper came from behind me, choked and terrified, drawing my attention. I glanced over my shoulder. Harran remained on the ground, and even though he was pinned down by two vampires, the horror in his eyes belonged wholly to me.

“Release him,” I ordered.

The steward trembled as the vampires did as I ordered. “M-my queen? What?—”

“Enough.”

He clamped his mouth shut, clearly bracing for me to turn him to dust too.

And perhaps that time would come. But first…

I sheathed the sword, pushing my flight of fancy regarding its grotesque design aside. “I offer you a choice, steward. Run and you’ll be dead before you make it to the stairs. Serve me, and you’ll live… for now.”

Another whimper escaped him. “Wh-what would you have me do, my queen?”

I smiled. In the distance, I could feel the Voidborn spread throughout Aneira. They twisted through monsters and humans alike, destabilizing cities and towns, spreading fear and death.

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