Page 64 of Spark of the Everflame

The vicious blue eyes of a Descended.

More hazy, curling shadows leaked from his open palms. The sentient darkness formed an arc of floating onyx spikes around the woman and child.

My hand tightened on my dagger.

“Get out of the way,” he growled at the woman. “I’ll make it as quick and painless as I can.”

“This is yourchild!” Her tone wobbled between begging and sobbing. “How could you be so cruel to your own son?”

“That half-breed should never have been born,” he spat. “This is your fault—you should have ended the pregnancy when it began. You hid it from me for four years, and now that boy’s blood is on yourhands.”

She pleaded, tears plunging from her cheekbones. “Let me go to the King and beg for mercy. Or—or I can leave. I’ll take him to Umbros, and you’ll never hear from us again.”

“I can’t take that risk. My family has spent centuries building our position with the royals. We are finally among the Twenty Houses, and I will not have some mortal whore and her illegal spawn ruin everything we’ve worked for.”

The venom dripping from his voice seemed to infect the shadows at his control, making them darker and crueler. His fingers curved into hooks, and the sharp points tightened around them.

Thevoiceinside me roared to life. The pulsating of his magic reverberated like an echo of its restrained rage.

Fight.

“Get out of the way, or I’ll kill you both,” he ordered.

“Like hell you will,” I snapped, unsheathing my second dagger. “Step away from them.”

He barely acknowledged me, waving his hand with disinterest. “Leave here, mortal. You want no part of this.”

“Oh, but I do,” I growled back.

A smarter, more rational part of my brain clutched at my hem and dug in its heels, hissing at me to heed the man’s warning and turn away. This wasn’t like the belligerent louts or school bullies I was used to tangling with. This was aDescended. Other than the Prince’s display at the palace—which I couldn’t seem to get out of my head—I’d never even seen their magic up close.

But smart and rationalwere privileges of the lucky, the fortunate few who could afford to close their eyes to injustice and walk away.

The people of Mortal City—mypeople—had never been allowed to be lucky.

And I was not built to walk away.

Choose your battles and your enemies with care, my father had said.

Well, today I chosethisbattle. Today I chosethisenemy. I would not let one more innocent child perish at the hands of the Descended.

And if this is how I had to die, so be it.

Fight.

I dropped my chin and marched toward him.

He drew up his fist, and the shadows at my feet spiraled into steel-like bars to block my path. I swore, jerking back, my hand pausing in mid-air. Thevoiceswirled into the tips of my fingers and coaxed them forward, filling me with a terrifying urge to touch the strange dark matter.

“This is my last warning,” he barked at the mother.

She turned to me with red, watery eyes that had lost all hope. “Save my son,” she pleaded. “Let me die, but I beg of you, savehim.”

I froze as recognition smashed into me. The day of my mother’s disappearance, this woman had helped me, distracting the men chasing me so I could escape. She might very well have saved my life that day—and now her fate was in my hands.

The man roared, swinging his arms forward, and the ring of night-black spikes closed in as her scream of agony burned through my head. The dark bolts sank into her flesh, becoming a splatter of scarlet flecks across her body. The wounds grew and grew and grew, her blood trickling in a slew of tiny waterfalls to the ground below.

I shouted for him to stop and reached for the bars. They crackled as I grew near, tiny barbs spiking toward my hand and forcing me to pull back.

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