Page 93 of A Shattered Kingdom of Steel

Wheezing, I fall to the ground, hard, my knees taking most of the impact.

The crepulnai lets out a crazed, horrifying laugh before it vanishes into nothingness.

Bracing my palms to the earth below me, I steady myself on my hands and knees. Closing my eyes, I hang my head and inhale deeply, filling my lungs.

“Lymseia.” Asheros slides to his knees beside me and roughly grabs hold of my shoulders, pulling me onto his lap, his eyes wide and frantic. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

I shake my head. “I’m all right.” Pressing my palm to my chest, I inhale deeply. “I can breathe.”

Still gripping my shoulders, he leans back and scans my body for injuries. “Thank the gods,” he says. With one hand to the back of my head, he presses me to his chest, tightly enveloping me in his arms. Holding me, he sways back and forth, clutching onto me as if I’m going to disappear any moment.

“If anything happened to you—” His voice catches in his throat. He doesn’t dare finish that sentence. He just holds me tighter.

Hooves slow to a stop behind us.

Asheros doesn’t pay them any mind. He touches his mouth to my shoulder, taking a deep breath.

“What happened?” Savell demands roughly.

“A crepulnai attacked Lymseia,” Asheros murmurs. His voice is a shell of what it should be.

“A crepulnai?” Kheldryn echoes, fear bleeding through her voice.

I swallow, finding my voice. “Yes. The red-eyed male evoked it.”

“Fuck,” Ronan curses, wiping his mouth.

“It was both corporeal and… not. At the same time.” Furrowing my brow, I still try to make sense of what happened. “It could touch me, hurt me, but I couldn’t do the same to it. And it….” I try to suppress a shudder but judging by the concern pooling in Asheros’s pale gaze, I’m not successful. “It spoke to me.”

Savell’s brows shoot up. “It spoke to you?”

I nod. “It said that I would ‘only find death in Illnamoor.’”

“The demon knows of our plans?” Gryska asks.

“So it would seem,” Asheros says quietly. “This changes things.”

“No,” I counter, my voice sharp. “This changes nothing.”

Asheros opens his mouth to protest, but I don’t let him. “If death is in Illnamoor, then my mother’s life is threatened, just as we suspected. It’s imperative we get there before he does.”

“I agree.”

Wide-eyed, I turn to Savell. Out of all of us, he’s the one I’d least expect to agree with me.

Shifting his weight, Savell crosses his arms. “We now have evidence the red-eyed male plans to do something in Illnamoor, and we know he’s hell-bent on turning the Courts against each other.”

Scowling, Gryska balls her hands into fists. “I’m going to make that sorry excuse of a male regret the very day he sprang forth from the womb.”

“Make that two of us,” Ronan adds.

The firm edge to Kheldryn’s mouth tells me she shares Gryska and Ronan’s sentiments.

“Still,” Asheros says slowly, his voice sounding unsteady. “The crepulnai could have eliminated Lymseia right here. But it didn’t. It could have stopped her from going to Illnamoor, but instead, it merely warned her not to.”

He pauses, shifting closer to me. “I can’t help but wonder—”

I don’t even have time to take a breath before screams ring out from the town square behind us. What little light remains from the setting sun seems to be bent into submission, an unnatural darkness taking hold in the places where light should still live.

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