Page 23 of Lich's Bride

MALACHAR

The air in the castle archives is thick with the scent of ancient parchment and the musty aroma of long-undisturbed knowledge. The only sound is the soft rasp of vellum on vellum as I carefully turn the pages of the crumbling tome before me, my eyes tracing the spidery script, searching for the secrets I know lie hidden within.

I've been down here for hours, perhaps days, lost in the labyrinthine maze of shelves and the even more twisting corridors of the half-forgotten lore they contain. Somewhere in these moldering pages lies the key to a branch of necromancy so dark, so esoteric, that even I only know of it as a whispered legend.

If I can just piece together the fragments, decipher the riddling references and coded allusions...

But then, like a blade between the ribs, it hits me.

A sudden, lancing dread that shatters my focus, my hand freezing mid-motion above the fragile pages. For a moment I'm utterly still, barely breathing, every sense straining as I reach out with my arcane perceptions, trying to pinpoint the source of this crawling unease.

I hardly know what I'm doing, operating on blind instinct as I tear through the winding halls of the Blanchmire, phasing through walls and vaulting up staircases in a blink. All I know is that Kira is in danger, that something has dared to threaten what is mine, and that thought ignites a fury in me so white-hot, so all-consuming, that it borders on madness.

In what feels like both an eternity and no time at all, I burst out onto the ramparts, the scene unfolding before me like a living nightmare. Kira, my heart, my everything, huddled against the crenelated stone, her power flickering around her in fading wisps. And arrayed against her, a seething mass of abominations, various hedge beasts twisted into parodies of nature that gibber and snarl as they press in for the kill.

For a heartbeat that stretches into infinity, I'm frozen, paralyzed by a terror more profound than any I've ever known. In that endless moment, I see the future unspool before me in all its horrid inevitability - Kira, torn asunder by pustulent claws and gnashing teeth, her light extinguished forever while I watch, helpless. The yawning void of an eternity without her, an endless, howling darkness from which there could be no return.

And then the moment shatters, and I am fury incarnate.

My rage is a living thing, a seething miasma of shadow and black flame that pours from me in a tidal wave of annihilating force. I throw my head back and roar, a sound to shake the foundations of the earth, as I unleash the full terrible majesty of my power.

Necromantic energies crackle and spit from my outflung hands. They shriek and writhe, caught in the teeth of an eldritch maelstrom beyond their darkest imaginings. Rotted flesh sloughs from crumbling bone, ichor boils and turns to ash on the wind.

They crumple and wither, disintegrating into nothingness under the relentless onslaught of my wrath. And through it all I stride forward, implacable, inexorable, my eyes twin pits of hellfire.

The very air around me throbs with the force of my fury, my magic an almost tangible pressure beating against the skin. What few of the creatures remain scatter before me like leaves before a gale, fleeing back to whatever nightmare realm spawned them.

In moments, it's over. The ramparts stand empty, scoured clean by the unholy firestorm of my rage. All that remains is Kira, crumpled against the stone, her eyes wide and haunted in a face gone bone-pale with shock and strain.

I'm at her side in an instant, falling to my knees as I gather her into my arms.

She clings to me, trembling like a leaf in a storm, and I feel the scalding heat of her tears soaking through my robes. My anger gutters out like a snuffed candle, replaced by a vast, yawning relief, so intense it borders on pain.

"I'm here," I murmur into her hair, my voice rough and ragged. "I've got you. You're safe now, my love. I swear it."

She just nods, her face still pressed tight against my chest, her slim frame shaking with the force of her silent sobs. I hold her like that for a long moment, my arms banded tight around her, my magic swirling over us both in a glimmering aegis.

Slowly, infinitesimally, I feel the tension begin to leach from her muscles, her breathing evening out from jagged gasps to a deeper, steadier rhythm.

When she finally pulls back to look at me, her eyes are red-rimmed but clearer, her expression a mingled tapestry of lingering fear, exhaustion, and a tentative, fragile relief. "You came," she whispers, her voice cracking on the words. "I called, and you... you heard me."

"Always," I vow, fierce and low. "In this world and any other, I will always come for you, Kira. No matter what stands in my way."

She gives me a wavering smile, a pale echo of her usual radiance, but it warms me nonetheless. Carefully, tenderly, I help her to her feet, steadying her when she sways. My gaze rakes over her slight form, searching for injury, for any sign that those filthy abominations laid so much as a claw on her. But I find none, and the knot of tension in my chest loosens a fraction.

"What were those... those things?" she asks, a shudder rippling through her. "I've never seen anything like them, not in any of the bestiaries or compendiums..."

"Pray you never do again," I reply grimly. "They were phantasms, mockeries of life given form by the darkest sorceries. Born of pain and madness and a twisted sort of hunger that can never be sated. Unfortunately a scourge across the Autumn court." I tighten my arm around her waist, drawing her close against my side. "But you need not fear them now. I made quite certain of that."

Kira shivers, pressing herself more firmly into the shelter of my embrace. For a moment we simply stand there, drinking in the quiet, the stillness, letting the adrenaline and terror slowly bleed away. I know I should be pressing her for details, trying to determine how those horrors breached our defenses, what weakness they exploited.

But at this moment, none of that seems to matter. All that matters is the warm weight of her in my arms, the soft susurration of her breath, the jasmine-and-juniper scent of her hair. All that matters is that she's here, whole and unharmed, and that whatever comes, we will face it together.

"Thank you," she breathes at last, tipping her head back to meet my gaze. "For saving me. For... for everything."

I brush a gentle thumb over the curve of her cheek, marveling anew at the silken softness of her skin. "You never need to thank me for that," I murmur. "Not now, not ever. You are my heart, Kira. My soul. Without you... there is no me."

Her breath catches, her eyes going wide and liquid. For a dizzy instant I think she might argue, might try to downplay her own worth, her own centrality to my very being. But then she surges up on her toes and seals her mouth to mine, and the world falls away.

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