Page 85 of The Shadow Bride

But he only snarls, his eyes rolling as he lumbers closer.

Michal materializes instantly at my side. To the revenant, he says, “Stop trying to control your adrenaline.” If he sees my startled glance, he does not acknowledge it. “Allow it to flow freely through your body, and it might restart your transition. First your head,” he coaxes as the revenant hesitates, stumbling slightly with a high-pitched whine. “Then down your neck and through your shoulders to your chest.”

Even as he speaks, however, I realize any lingering scent of adrenaline upon the revenant is just that—lingering. His corpse can no longer produce it, which must be why he remains trapped between forms in the first place. Michal’s eyes meet mine then, holding them, because he knows the same.

Helplessly, I plunge onward, wracking my mind for another solution. “Perhaps Odessa can concoct some sort of stimulant—”

But it’s too late.

Roaring in anguish, the revenant rears up on his haunches in blind rage and splinters the branches overhead. When he hurls them at me, Michal spins us aside, and the full weight of reality crashes through the clearing like an avalanche.This isn’t going to work.

The revenant charges.

Michal seizes my waist, and I scream in blind panic—I flounder, Ishriek—as he launches me high over the revenant’s head.Though I land unexpectedly catlike in the boughs of the yew tree, I nearly lose my footing when I whirl on the ice, horrified, to watch him and the revenant collide below in a clash of teeth and limbs.Oh God.

Within seconds, my suspicions prove irrefutably true—this revenantisfaster than the Archbishop. Stronger too. He sinks his teeth into Michal’s shoulder with a bestial howl as I search frantically for a weapon.Anyweapon. At the sound of Michal’s groan, my grip on the nearest branch snaps it in two, and I fling the pieces aside impatiently. Because I have to do something. I cannot simplywatchas the revenant tears Michal into—

My heart leaps into my throat as an idea strikes. Because—the branches, they’re—

Wood.

With another crack, I tear a second branch from the tree, shredding the leaves and splitting it into two pieces, rubbing them together in a blur of brown and gray.Fire.Mathilde said we need fire, but this wood—it’s still cold and damp from the teardrops,toodamp, and a frustrated curse rises in my throat as Michal wrenches the revenant’s arm from its socket, kicking the creature aside and clutching his bleeding neck. His chest rises and falls in fury; his muscles clench in pain.

“Come on, comeon.” Craning my neck to see below, I rub the wood faster as the revenant rises, as foul liquid leaks from the hole where his arm should be. Licking his lips, he stalks a circle around Michal with hackles raised. Michal turns with him, stepping lightly and blocking his path to the tree. Tome. The revenant snarls.

Though the wood warms from the friction, no spark appears. Not yet. But when it does—

“Let him come to me, Michal.” Hissing the words, hoping the revenant cannot hear, I add, “Bring him right to the roots of the tree.”

Though I cannot see his face, Michal does not move, remaining staunchly between us, until—with a vicious curse—he nods once and takes a small step backward.

As if waiting for permission all along, the first flame sparks in my hand as the revenant mirrors his movement, but Michal spins in a blur, flashing to the point just below me. “Here!” He thrusts his hand upward for the kindled wood. The revenant moves faster, however; he leaps before Michal can seize the branch, trapping him against the tree. Horror curdles in the pit of my stomach. As if in slow motion, I watch as the revenant’s claws sink deep into Michal’s chest, as his teeth maul Michal’s cheek, hiseye—

Blood pours from the wound as Michal rears backward, temporarily blinded. He cannot see the branch as it plunges toward the ground. He cannot see anything.

I react without thinking.

With a strangled cry, I leap from the tree, snatching the branch midair and landing directly upon the revenant’s shoulders, falling backward to bear us both to the forest floor.Away from Michal.And the fire—at last it erupts, licking down the wood and searing my hands. I scarcely feel its heat, however, instead plunging the impromptu torch straight into the revenant’s chest. He arches with another howl of rage. He twists and jerks as first his ragged clothes catch fire, then his matted pelt. Still he claws at me, however—still he tries to bury his claws in my legs. I wrap them around his neck in a vise, hot tears burning my cheeks. And I hate them. Ihatethem because I do not deserve them—not as I seize each side ofhis face, twisting his head to sever his spine.

Michal.

More blood drips between his fingers as he clutches his eye. That scarlet liquid is all I can see. His name is all I can hear, pounding like the beat of a war drum in my ears—Michal, Michal,Michal—and I twist the revenant’s head farther in answer. I wrench it from his shoulders completely.

He continues to fight, however; he continues to whimper and snarl for Dimitri.

I do not release him until Michal pushes from the tree to join us. Though he staggers a bit, he makes short work of the rest, rending the revenant’s body into pieces and tossing each one into a hole between two roots, where they continue to smoke and burn. Except for the revenant’s head. I still clutch it between my hands, and its eyes roll wildly in fear as I choke on the sob building in my throat. Because I want to close them. Ishouldclose them.

Instead I hand his head to Michal without a word, and I watch as he drops it atop the fire.

The snow stops falling at once.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Even the Sun Must Sleep

Michal crouches in front of me a moment later, his expression impenetrable.

I stare back at him through tears, determined not to look toward the yew tree.Pull yourself together, I tell myself vehemently.Killing a revenant isn’t the worst you’ve ever done.Somehow, the admission only makes me feel worse. Perhaps because I’ve spent the last week imagining how my friends’ blood would taste, or perhaps because I tried to slaughter Jean Luc. Though I didn’t quite manage to rip out his heart, I did watch as both Frederic and Michal lost theirs. I reunited with my undead sister in the process, and met my fiendish husband, Death incarnate. Compared tohim, this revenant should not matter.

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