Page 12 of Creatures that Breathe

She said my name. Purred my name, repeated it.

Ice water seeps into my shoes as I stride through a puddle of slush and hang right, sticking to shadows while I scan for Lev, and catalog her.

Eyes so light, they evoke images of death, the cold sterility of sliding trays in a morgue, framed with blue lashes, burning with life.

I can smell the echoes of her. Honeysuckle and vanilla. A stroll in a yellow and white garden under sunrays streaking from the heavens.

More useless information.

I don’t scrap any of it.

Instead, I change tactics. Analyze her like a target. Prepare a Devastation Report like I used to for the King. Clinical recall. The smallest detail has the potential to be your greatest weapon.

I comb back through our interaction, poking for holes, for pressure points.

Friendship bracelets.

I bite my lip against a laugh. The tattoos are … something like that.

Who am I to correct her? My brothers in the Blackguard have vowed never to reveal the truth of our curse.

New outlandish theories emerge every few years. Last I heard, the prevailing idea was that we’d died and Hades refused our entry at the River Styx. If only we were so lucky.

A wave of deep blue unease washes over me, causing my hands to tremble, and my heart to pound a violent thump I drown out with hard steps on the pavement.

Kingsguard.

It’s been decades since I’ve heard it aloud, longer since I heard it in that tone, clouded with awe and reverence. Admiration.

The title hasn’t deserved respect for longer than I’ve been in these chains.

Few realize we were the Blackguard even before the King fell. Too drunk on pride and power to remember our primary goal: protecting the King.

With his death, the Blackguard became who we were. A name delivered with a sneer. The Fallen Guard, the Cursed Guard. Sadistic, barbaric, pitiless.

We tried. For centuries we fought for good, for more, for better. We were ruthless in our goals.

I tried. Relentlessly.

I fought and battled and raged. I tried so hard it broke me, stole an entire life from me, stole all of our lives.

I still can’t stomach the sheer violence of our implosion, the brutal crash from heroes to traitors. For months we suffered in agony, the curse punishing us, whipping deeper than any cut, wrenching us apart, breaking us to shards and scattering the pieces.

We didn’t all survive it.

Most of us would flinch at the mere mention of the Kingsguard. And yet, she said it as if it were the most beautiful fragment of a fairytale. As if I rode in on a Pegasus shooting rainbows.

She wasn’t scared. She looked at me … and she saw him. The man I used to be.

I could kill her.

Should kill her.

For using that word in front of me, for stirring up these feelings, for following us, for countless condemnable reasons. But I’m tempted again, thrilled by the unknown, desperate to uncover and investigate.

Once I’m sure I’ve lost Leni, I backtrack to the market, smothering a strange disappointment that she’s not on my heels.

Forget her. Find Lev.

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