Page 14 of Night of Death and Flowers

Birds flock from the trees as my shadows descend upon the Phovus, binding his smoky-black wings. The creature squirms, my shadows crumpling the delicate skin under the swirling darkness coating his entire body.

“Tell me again how they destroyed my statue.”

Rage takes the reins as I watch the Phovus panic, my eyes narrowing as he screeches, squirming in the contours of my magic, attempting to shift from his humanoid image to serpentine, so he may slither from my bonds. My magic is a shield, and the harder he fights, the tighter it constricts.

The creature’s voice is an echo of distorted voices overlapping. Every word is an unbound offense as he speaks into my mind, like listening to a bow glide across broken strings.

I tried to stop them.

Ropes of darkness drag him to my feet, forcing him to his knees on the pebbly shore.

“Lies. You ran,” I growl, then lean over him. While he may appear deceivingly intangible, as if I could put my hand right through his air-like form, underneath the tenebrous outer body, is a physical form—one I can bend and break at will.

He speaks into my mind once again.

One of them, a witch, she holds your power. She killed the other Phovi with one touch, turning them to ash. She would have executed me, too.

“It is impossible.” With my eyes fixed on the stormy horizon, I crouch and seize a pebble, pulverizing it within my grasp as I envision it being the witch’s fragile bones. Only one strain of magic can kill by touch. Mine.

I wince, my lip twitching as the foreign feeling dips into my core. No one is supposed to hold our ethereal power. It is what makes us gods—it is what makes us who we are.

Realization washes over me. In underestimating Nyxara, I must have misinterpreted the double meaning in the prophecy. Doomed with death.

The witch isn’t only fated to die in The Harvest, so her death will undo the spell on them. She is doomed with my power—the power of death.

Slowly, I rise as the Phovus’s yellow eyes trail my movements.

“Where is she?”

When he doesn’t immediately answer, my shadows tighten around him, until he’s gasping for air.

I don’t know. I…I’ve told you…everything.

My anger releases from me in the form of my magic, slicing through my skin, leaving an ashen, singed tingling in my fingertips. Darkness pierces his wings in shadow thorns, carving through the thin membrane of his wings, coaxing a blood-curdling scream from his throat.

Clouds roll above us, thunder quaking through the Black Sea. My heart thumps erratically, like a monster trying to escape its cage.

“Do you fear the girl more than me?” I question, my eyes fixated on the Phovus, staring at my creation. What was once a mortal warlock, now a creature of little humanity, possessing my powers of fear induction and shadow manipulation, is supposed to be the strongest of monsters.

He shakes his head, but my nostrils flare when sensing his hesitation.

“She may have killed you,” I say, disgust curling my lips. “But I will obliterate you.”

Please…

His pleas echo in my head.

I can find her. I will bring her to you.

“Enough,” I command. “I will find the witch myself.”

Slowly, my shadows tear through him, one by one, each a release of the building anxiety in my chest. Emphatically, the daggers of darkness slash his body into ribbons, hacking at his wings until parts of him shred, then disintegrate.

His screams are a symphony in my mind, lingering on the fringes of every dark thought. Inky blood spills over the pebbles as his screams gurgle into silence, his soul fractured under the denseness of my powers.

Black waves lap hungrily at the shore, as if it can smell the blood of the creature. Piece by piece, the sea drags what’s left of him into the murky depths.

I stare blankly as shredded body parts are claimed by the waters, a stark reminder that even the most ferocious of monsters can be destroyed.

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