Page 89 of Shade of Ruin

I glare at it as it hovers over its brethren, hate in those unseeing pupil-less eyes. The cuts on my back where the harpy had sunk those talons in are burning. It was a long day of training, and while a lot of my wounds have healed, my muscles are still far beyond exhausted.

I brandish the knife in front of me and wish that I had a good spear. That’d make this whole affair simple. And then I hear, “Of course,” from behind me.

I turn to see Cole stepping out from the bakery door just as I had, except that he’s not in any rush. He glances at me and grins, and then he looks at the harpy in front of me, and the grin turns into seriousness.

The look he gives me isn’t one of concern he’d have given me when I first met him. Even when we were in Aerwyn, he wouldn’t have trusted me to fight harpies. But now? Now he knows that I’m capable of defending myself.

“It’s too bad you killed one,” he says. For the first time, I see murder in his eyes. It’s not the hate he has for his father. No, this is more than that. This is a desire to cause pain. To belikehis father.

A sadist’s smile spreads across his face. He leaps toward the one that’s flying. His sword moves so fast that I can’t keep up. A handful of blows, and the harpy falls to the ground. The one that had fallen before is trying to get up, and he’s not fast this time. No, with agonizing slowness, he makes two deep cuts down her back where her wings connect, ripping the muscle apart.

She still gets up, her talons scratching the paving stones, and she shrieks as loud as she can at Cole. Her wings hang limp as if she can’t raise them. He just reaches out a hand, and her feathers begin burning. Starting at the tips, the tiny individual fires feed on the feathers until they’re singeing her skin. She shrieks again, and then the fires go out.

He steps toward the standing harpy, the other still laying on the ground in pain, and he holds up a hand. “You will never fly again. You will live the rest of your miserable existence like this. No feathers. No wings. A harpy that cannot take to the skies.”

His skin turns shiny like stone, and he reaches out to her, wrapping his hand around her neck. I expect him to kill her, to turn her to ash as he did the one in Blackgrove. Instead… he heals her. All the scorch marks on her skin fade. Her skin heals where he’d cut her. Cole permanently heals the cauterized feathers and the sliced tendons and ligaments in her back. Immortals can heal incredible wounds so fast, but once those wounds have healed and scarred over, there’s no fixing it, just like Cole’s scars.

She scratches at him, screeching over and over, but it does nothing. His skin is far too hard to be wounded by her talons. He just stares into those pupil-less eyes and smiles at her as she finally gives up and her arms hang limp at her side, just like her wings. Then he shoves her and steps next to the harpy I’d knocked over and hadn’t gotten up. Without hesitation, he brings his sword down on its neck, decapitating her.

“You’ll be alone and unable to fly. No sisters and no access to the sky. This is what you get for attacking my betrothed. Now leave, or I’ll give you eternally broken legs as well.” She looks at us, glances down at the dead harpies that lay on the ground, and there are no shrieks of defiance. There’s no fight left in her.

And then she walks away, her wings dragging along the ground behind her, catching on everything they touch, and I feel nothing but sadness for the creature.

Cole looks at the two harpies lying on the ground, and when he raises his hand, they burst into flame, burning white hot, and seconds later, the fire is extinguished, and nothing but ash is left. In the meantime, I go to Mari, who’s laying on the ground bleeding from a hundred cuts. It’s exactly what I’d have looked like if Cole hadn’t broken down my door in the Tilted Mug.

“What do we do for her?” I ask.

“She’s a Wyrdling. She’ll heal,” Lee says from behind us.

I turn to Cole. “You healed the harpy. Why couldn’t you heal Mari?”

He grits his teeth and shakes his head. “Because no one can know about that. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so angry… No, Mari will be fine with a couple of days of rest.” All of us look down at her. Blood runs from her face and arms and hands where the harpies slashed her repeatedly.

He’ll let her deal with pain for two days to keep a secret. One that I don’t even understand. And, I don’t argue at all. “Then let’sclear everyone out and help clean her wounds up. She may heal, but she doesn’t need to wake up covered in blood.”

Cole goes back to the patio to send everyone home, and Darian and Lee go inside to get rags and basins. I stay by her side in case she wakes up.

Tonight had been so carefree. I’d felt like this could be home, but then all this happened. Death and destruction. The first Wyrdling I’ve met nearly died because I was here. She’d almost died because of my connection to Cole.

I think I finally understand what he meant when he said Darian and Lee were his weaknesses. How I was one of them now.

Now I know that anyone that matters to me is likely to be hurt, too. I’ve fallen into this conflict, and unless I do something soon, I’m going to have a target painted on my back just as much as Cole does. These aren’t the last assassins I’ll meet, and the next time, it won’t just be harpies.

The smallest grin imaginable crosses my lips. They’ll need to send more than harpies next time because harpies are no match for me, even if all I have is a bread knife. If I’d had my spear, they’d never have touched me.

Chapter 38

The prince let Brenna escape. I know he did it on purpose. She was the reason we attacked the House of Shadows in the first place. Now she is in the wind, and I must wait for Casimir to pass the Crown before I can return him to the darkness. I hate that I must do this, but there aren’t any other options. The Thrones are failing,

and I am the only one who can fix this.

~King Gethin, personal journals

After the assassination attempt,training becomes the focus of Cole and my lives. Darian and Lee flit in and out of our days, but I can tell that they’re trying not to interfere. Every moment from sunrise until sunset seems filled with Cole trying to teach me how to succeed in some new environment that I’m unprepared for.

We start each day by flying far into the forest and training with spear and shadow against his sword and flames and body reshaping skills. Immolation still seems to be the bane of my existence, but Cole explains that simply surviving long enough for it to exhaust my opponent is one of the best ways to deal with it. Most House of Flame members can only hold on to immolation for a few minutes.

And always, I’m reminded that regardless of how much more powerful I am now compared to when I started, I’m not nearly strong enough yet. I can’t relax. I can’t waste even a single moment of practice.

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