Page 45 of The Shadow Wand

Claws.

Claws that look like they could effortlessly eviscerate someone.

As she approaches, the inky color of his eyes spreads out to encompass the surrounding white, giving the impression of a bottomless abyss. Tierney pauses, the warmwhooshof her pulse sounding in her ears as her body stiffens with a mounting intimidation that she stubbornly ignores. She forces her feet back into motion, the world growing darker and darker as she approaches, the Death Fae now lit only by a faint silvery mist that’s enfolding them both.

She stills before him.

It’s as if the world has paused, only the two of them now in it, all sound muted to nothing, the terrace, the Wyvernguard mountain, and the river surrounding them plunged into darkened hues.

The Death Fae straightens slightly, his focus on Tierney seeming to sharpen with unsettling curiosity as hard obsidian horns emerge from his spiked black hair in spiraling arcs.

Holy gods his eyes are black,Tierney marvels, her breath tightening in her throat.

Black as the center of Erthia.

Black as the deepest reaches of the night sky.

Tierney swallows as onyx serpents slither out from under the hem of the Fae’s tunic to coil around his waist, his arms, his pale neck.

He waits as his serpents raise their heads in unison, their eyes intent on Tierney, purple tongues flickering. She has the sudden, vaguely amusing thought that if the Death Fae opened his mouth, he’d push out a forked purple tongue that would flicker too.

“Why are you watching me?” Tierney asks, no accusation in her tone, only curiosity.

He cocks his head, seeming to peer at a focal point inside her. “You have kindred Deathkin,” he answers, and a shiver passes through Tierney, his voice a subterranean lull that resonates in her bones. “Your kelpie kindreds are kindred to us, as well,” he says, mist-shrouded. “And the Gardnerian spoke of you.”

Tierney considers this as she recalls the looks of fear that came over the other Asrai when Tierney summoned her kelpies. It’s clear most Water Fae don’t like her vicious water horses, linked as they are to the killing power of water and known to drown anyone deemed a threat to waters they’ve claimed as their own.

Death rides with them.

But still, the kelpies’ ferocious loyalty to the waters of Erthia resonates deep in Tierney’s core, and she can’t help but love them for it.

She holds the Death Fae’s bottomless stare, feeling a spark of kinship based on their mutual appreciation for creatures that are both terrifying and wildly misunderstood.

She squares her shoulders against the Fae’s encroaching, palpable darkness. “I heard you were kind to Trystan Gardner, and I wanted to thank you for it. He’s my friend.”

The Death Fae’s brow tightens, his silvery mist writhing around Tierney.

A sudden flow of onyx spiders and scorpions appear over the Fae’s shoulders and around his sides, coalescing to swarm down his body onto the misty stone terrace and toward Tierney. She winces from the contact as the creatures scuttle up over her pants and around her form, along with two of the black snakes.

Poisonous river spiders, cave scorpions, and water snakes.

One bite a mark of death.

Rebellion rises in Tierney in response to what feels like an attempt to intimidate. She meets the Death Fae’s stare unflinchingly as the gleaming black insects and serpents encircle her, her water power rising with confrontational energy.

The Death Fae tilts his horned head, his black lips lifting, as he continues to study Tierney with those unnerving, unblinking void eyes of his.

Without warning, his dark eyes widen.

Tierney gasps, swept up in a sudden swell of vertigo, feeling as if the ground has upended to cast her straight into his bottomless eyes.

She shuts her own eyes tightly to stop from careening into his thrall, almost losing her footing as ire rises in her like a fierce tide. Struggling to regain her balance, she draws in a deep breath then opens her eyes to narrowed, livid slits and is instantly accosted, once more, by his relentless draw.

“Get your thrall off me,” she seethes as the sense of hurtling straight toward him overtakes her once again. Tensing every muscle, Tierney draws a storm, dark clouds bursting from her skin, blasting away the Fae’s silvery mist as her clouds whip around them both, spitting slim threads of white lightning.

The Death Fae blinks, as if surprised, and then his pull recedes.

Tierney takes a faltering step back to regain her balance, then forces herself straight as she glares at the Fae, her anger spilling over its banks. “I have an affinity for kelpies and for dark waters,” she snarls. “I’m drawn to the bottom of lakes. Hidden streams. Stormy weather. It’s not the clear, pretty water that I like—it’s deep water with many things living in its depths. Dangerous things.” Tierney flicks her eyes pointedly toward the insects still scuttling over her abdomen and the one serpent that’s twined around her arm as her fury mounts.

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