Page 15 of Bound By Darkness

Lord Haville chuckled as he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “You may try spewing a curse, but for your kind, it will only fester like mud until the rain eventually washes it away.”

“I won’t… stop fighting,” I bit out as the tonic closed my throat.

“Oh, I hope you don’t.”

Lord Haville continued his speech as my eyes drifted to his staff, hoping focusing on one item would keep me awake. My freedom depended on it.

A loud thud shuddered through the carriage as it rolled to a complete stop.

His face swelled to a lovely shade matching the fabric walls as he spewed curses. “Incompetent fools. Move!” he bellowed as he banged his staff against the plush cloth.

The carriage did not budge.

His beady eyes widened as he shoved his staff to the side. “What is this nonsense?”

Another thud sounded on the roof, the upholstered fabric swaying along the windows.

Lord Haville stirred in his seat as he reached for the handle, curses flowing from his lips. His brows furrowed as he shoved the door open. “How dare you?—”

Lord Haville said nothing more.

His back stiffened as a wet cough escaped from his swollen lips. His body smackedinto the floor, blood covering the purple detailing as it oozed from the stab wound directly through the heart.

Lord Haville was dead.

My mouth opened, but nothing came out as the tonic seeped deeper into my bones. I had to stay awake. I had to fight it.

The door lazily swung with the breeze as screams filled the surrounding carriage. No one stood outside the door as if a ghost had struck the sword through him and disappeared instantly.

I grunted, but my arms and legs did not listen. They refused to move, the tonic overpowering my senses as I stared out into the trees. If I couldn’t move, death would find me. My fingers twitched as I yelled at my muscles, but again and again, nothing happened. The tonic’s potency thrummed in my blood.

The screaming stopped as quickly as it had started, leaving me alone with Lord Haville’s dead body.

If I managed to keep my mind active, I could escape once the medicine wore off into the forest and figure out a plan to rescue Moria.

Sleep ebbed deeply into the corners of my mind, its claws wrenching me further back.

If I fell?—

A man dressed entirely in solid black appeared in the door frame. A cloth mask covered his face except for his gray eyes that peered into the carriage like silver flames.

My eyelids fluttered as he entered, his leather-gloved hands carefully avoiding the bandaged portions as he readjusted me on the velvet cushions.

Faelight glimmered in the carriage, but stopped short as his blades swallowed the remaining rays. Twin sheaths rested across his back in a crisscross fashion as he hauled the dead body out with ease.

The man retrieved his blade, wiping it along the grass before returning it next to the other. Staring into the carriage, his eyes met mine. “Sleep,” he muttered, his voice warbled by the mask.

The door shut once again, trapping in a pungent smell of burning wood.

Sleep, a voice echoed in my head.

Whether the tonic or that soothing voice lulled me to sleep, I succumbed to its effects as the carriage rolled into motion.

Chapter 6

The Messenger

MORIA

---