Page 127 of What Lies Within Masks & Shadows

The magnitude of the force was so immense that it couldn’t even be fully observed from a cliff. An entire army, at an effortless, silent command, didn’t dare to move.

Ghost inched forward in a graceful, slow movement, almost menacing in the sheer magnificence of it. Her head dropped low, ears back, while the face of the Savage Prince rippled until his skin stretched. Revealing bones that seemed to be carved from marble and teeth as sharp as his unavailing sword.

Almost like a dragon passing for a faerie, ravenous hunger flickered in Garrik’s gaze. A promise of endless torment in the afterlife. “We were all getting along so civilly.” The beast underneath his skin rippled again, clawing to break free as he cocked his head with an animalistic perfection, and Alora wondered if he could truly transform into something …more.

“Your Highness.” Haiden trembled.

Behind Garrik, Thalon beamed in elation, every mark of ink glistening in the sunlight with his arms crossed. An eager smirksettled on his face. And she must have been dreaming it, but Jade’s disposition mirrored his all the same.

“Tell me who the High Prince is,general?” Garrik mused with a hint of toying barbarity in his tone.

The general took on the very picture he deemed aspathetic, and Alora stifled the amusement boiling in her chest. He cowered, dropped his head low, and said nothing.

“I did not realize that the decisions of your sovereign had ailed you so. Perhaps I can remedy that. If you wish to lead the army…” Through Garrik’s locks, an obsidian spiked crown manifested as if it were plucked from the air, reflecting the sunlight as he pulled it from his head, hovering it in the air by shadow. “Here is my crown.”

The challenge set.

But Haiden still didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare speak. His eyes cast down to the dirt below the closest soldier’s feet, and even his lids refrained from fluttering.

Alora didn’t blame him. If she were the subject at the High Prince’s bidding, she would have sunken too.

“No?” Garrik hummed. A coy twist of his lips, much like a cat playing with vermin, contorted his face. “I suggest you hold your tongue and remember that not so long ago, you were not welcome in my war tent. Or have you forgotten so easily?”

Still. Silence.

“I cannot hear you.” That toying calm shattered against Garrik’s razor-tipped teeth.

At last, Haiden wisely said, “No, Your Highness.”

The obsidian crown returned to Garrik’s head. He raked his eyes over Alora, that ravenous hunger razed into something like primal need when she lifted her chin and met his. Entirely unafraid of the beast who stared back at her.

Alora imagined the event was over now—hoped for it—as every eye turned to her, the subject causing their High Prince’s scolding.

But Garrik’s attention flickered back to his general before he offered another threat in one simple, cold word. “Beg.”

Every soldier, in one towering wave,flinchedat the word. At the cold death emanating from it.

Haiden’s complexion couldn’t deteriorate any greyer; a disgusting comparison to the phlegm those in Outcastle Alley coughed up in the deadest of winter. “Sire?”

Garrik said nothing. His eyes only darkened more, void of all light.

It was enough to have a sheen of sweat collect on the general’s forehead as he turned to Alora. “Forgive me.” The apology was nothing sincere—vindictive at best.

The fool.

Hardly anyone moved as Smokeshadows haunted the dirt, weaving between horse’s legs, and spiraling around Haiden’s until they brutally squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

Haiden surged forward in the saddle, tearing his fingers into the relentless shadows. He tried fleeing from his mount, but Garrik’s endless—bloodthirsty—power imprisoned him there.

Until he screamed, “Your Highness,please. I’m begging you?—”

“Are you?” Garrik snarled. His voicenothingof this world. LikeDarknesshimselftranscended the bounds of realms, the Celestial sovereign ruler of night emerging. “If you were truly begging, then you would be on your knees.”

Smokeshadows ripped the general from his mount, slamming him into the dirt in a burst of dust and darkness. Wisps of smoke settled on Haiden’s horse at the same time, a soothing hand that calmed it as its rider was dragged off. Tendrils shackled his wrists, forcing his hands to the grounduntil his back bent, head wrenched backward until he stared up at Alora.

She couldn’t decide if the fire in her nerves was complete satisfaction or from humiliation. Stopping an army … forthis? Forher? Over something as mundane as spoken word?—

Haiden choked on his breath, a worthless heap on the ground, when his lips finally opened, eyes tightly shut, and groveled, “I’m sorry! I spoke out of turn. I shouldn’t have questioned you, Alora.”

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