Page 37 of Crown of Wrath

More darkness sprays from my fingertips and moves toward the giant soldiers. I remember the villagers that these soldiers were planning to kill. The scent of revulsion fills the air. Death and decay. The dark tendrils move so much faster than they used to, each one of them finding its way to one of the Immortals beating at the wall at the same time.

Agonized screams fill the air as the House of Steel sees what it’s like to fight someone who isn’t afraid of them. Someone with enough power to fight back. The tendrils slip between the plates in their armor.

I think about the people that filled the villages that these soldiers and others have destroyed. They’d done nothing wrong.They’d simply lived in a village with a temple thatmighthave housed a magical artifact.

These soldiers had murdered them. There’s no need to spare any vengeance. The darkness twists inside their armor and crawls upward. Instead of clinging to the outside of their bodies where the steel is, the revulsion shadows crawlthroughtheir bodies where there is no steel to sap their strength.

Like worms feeding on their bones, they wriggle up through their legs, through their hips and spines.

The massive Steel soldiers fall, crashing to the ground, their screams filling the air nearly as loudly as the explosions from Cole. Still, those shadows crawl, sending more and more of the High Faes’ bodies into the void. Rivers of crimson form behind them in divots in the earth.

The pain is gone before their lungs stop working. They know they’re dead. Their bodies just haven’t been informed. For a moment, I hesitate. My anger and revulsion at what they’ve done almost fading as I realize that I’m about to end five lives.

Even with as much damage as I’ve done to their bodies, they are High Fae, and they are House of Steel. Given enough time, they could probably heal and survive.

But they would just kill again. They would just turn their King’s cold lust for power into more bloodshed from those that are weaker than them. I can’t allow the weapon of my enemy to survive.

When I force my shadows the rest of the way up their spines, it is truly forced because my emotions are not instinctual.

Next are the flying soldiers, the males and females that are soaring towards me, crossbow bolts flying through the air. I could keep hiding from them, but I don’t have time for that. I leap backward as a four-foot steel bolt sticks into the dirt right where I was standing.

They’re not the only ones who can use ranged weapons. I hurl my spear at the first one, and it slams into the armor over her chest, leaving a massive dent and making her shriek. She doesn’t fall, though. That will take a different kind of spear.

Just like I’d pulled stone from the ground to create walls or my armor, I draw it upward, and it flows into my hand, becoming a dark brown spear. It weighs five times as much as the normal spear, but that doesn’t matter nearly as much as it would to a human. I take aim and throw it as hard as I can at the same soldier who’s still trying to loosen her breastplate while her wings keep her aloft.

I see the other crossbow’s being pointed at me, and I hurl the spear at her. The tip connects with her face as it tears through her helmet. She falls to the ground without another sound.

I dance out of the way of the crossbow bolts and shadow walk away from the soldiers running at me. My spear takes down the other three flying soldiers in rapid succession.

A quick glance at Cole tells me he’s fighting against Rhion with his sword before I turn my attention to the soldiers barreling toward me. Cole’s fine. He just needs to give me another few minutes.

Then I see one of Rhion’s swords dig into Cole’s waist, and a sharp pain echoes on my side. I grit my teeth and refocus on my enemies. I need to kill them faster.

I don’t need to be clever. I know the weaknesses in that armor. I know how to kill Steel soldiers. I think about creating a stone spear and change my mind. Instead, I draw shadows into my hand and form the lightest spear possible. Made of nothing but shadows, yet it’s as solid as the stone spear I’d taken down those flying soldiers with. It’s the perfect weapon for what’s next.

I step into the void and reappear behind the soldiers. Quick stabs through the holes in their armor where their wings would grow have them falling breathlessly. I step back into the voidonly to leave again, appearing next to a different soldier. In and out. In and out.

This is why shadow walkers are so dangerous. You can’t hit something that can be anywhere. Each time I appear, it’s behind a soldier, and my spear strikes true each time. They try to put their backs to each other, to ward off my attacks, but even then, I appear too quickly for them to react.

Today, I am death. There were eleven highly trained House of Steel soldiers who’d thought they were prepared for me here only a few minutes ago. Now, they’re dead. Every one of them.

Then I’m off to fight with Rhion. I appear behind him just as I’d done to the other soldiers, my shadow spear thrusting with as much force as I can muster, but he dodges it. It’s almost like he could sense what I was doing, and he shifted his hips just enough that my spear skid across the steel instead of piercing it.

Cole comes down hard with this black-steel sword in a chop, and Rhion blocks it, wielding two swords himself, just as Darian had, except that he didn’t grow to become strong enough to use both of them at once. Rhion immediately counterattacks Cole with his other blade in a lunge, and Cole leaps back.

Flames explode around Rhion’s face, blinding him even though the power is absorbed by his helm. I swing my spear around for another stab. It should be an easy strike since Rhion is enormous and has his back toward me.

But a tail grows out of the same hole in his armor that all House of Steel soldiers have, and even without looking, that tail knocks the shadow spear off target. Then he pulls back far enough that I can’t reach him with the spear, putting both Cole and me in his view.

“Walk away, Rhion,” Cole says. “I don’t want to kill you.”

They’re the first words that I’ve heard this entire battle. Thirty soldiers lay dead on the ground, and just now is Cole trying to get Rhion to walk away. Why doesn’t he want to kill the son ofhis enemy? He should want to end the only genuine threat he’s come across, shouldn’t he?

“Aren’t you having fun, Prince Cole?” He says it with laughter in his voice. It’s almost as though this is all just a game, and the life and death aspect hadn’t occurred to him yet.

Cole growls. “You know, as well as I do, that fighting each other won’t fix anything. Your father has lost his mind, and you know it. The world is dying, Rhion, and we’re fighting each other instead of fixing it.”

Rhion’s laughter isn’t maniacal or insane. It’s simple, like a man laughing at a tavern when there’s absolutely nothing that can be done about a catastrophe. “Dear Prince Cole. He’s ever standing on his dais trying to prove that his way is better than the rest of ours. Even his father and King’s decisions don’t matter to the great Prince Cole. And yet, how many people around you have survived, old friend? How many people have you let fall to further your ambitions?”

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