Page 127 of Blood and Reign

I whip around, searching for him when something slams into me from behind.

“Kiarra!”

Rion moves for me as I’m thrown backward, but I quickly wrap my shadows around me, becoming part of them. Reaching out with my senses, I search for King. Once I find him, I step out of the shadows and right beside him. My dark tendrils lashing out and throwing him backward.

Just like me, he catches himself landing on his feet. His eyes narrow on me before he disappears once more.

Feeling movement from behind, instinctively I duck, narrowly avoiding a shadowed blade to the head. I twist around, avoiding another shadowed weapon when King appears right in front of me, a smirk on his face as he grabs my head.

His fingers turn to claws and slice into my skull just as his shadows coil and tighten around my body. My eyes blur as sharp needles splinter through every nerve, the pain growing more intense with each second that passes.

I clench my jaw shut, not willing to show him a moment of weakness. Instead of crying out, I use that pain. I let it fill me up and burn through me until it’s the only thing I see and feel.

Slowly, my shadows seep out around me releasing me from King’s grip, but I don’t stop. I surrender to them, becoming part of the darkness once more.

But instead of stepping out onto the expanse, I’m in complete darkness. It’s pitch black, but unlike the last time I was here, I can see everything around me, including King as he appears across from me.

He tilts his head as he looks at me, a glint of interest in his eyes, as if he’s seeing me in a new light.

“I underestimated you.”

I give him a wicked smirk. “You always have.”

His grin twists into something cruel. “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”

Dark tendrils lash out toward me, but I quickly move into the shadows. Focusing on King, I travel through them until I’m behind him. Just before he gets a chance to react, I wrap my tendrils around him, making them sharper and using them like blades to slash through him.

Once the blade hits his body, he turns to smoke and disappears.

Damn it.

I hear a low chuckle. It grows from somewhere behind me…no, in front of me…

It sounds out around me until it’s everywhere. I reach out with my senses, trying to find him, but it’s likehe’severywhere now, too. I try again when I feel a pulling sensation from somewhere deep inside me.

The pull quickly grows, drawing upon any energy I have with force. Tendrils of shadows appear, wrapping around my neck and body, dragging me upwards.

I claw at the shadows choking me, but my fingers pass through them. My vision starts to darken just as I hear a low chuckle once more.

King appears below me. “I have to say I’m a little disappointed. I thought you’d at least make it…interesting.”

There’s no way in hell I was giving up yet.

I reach down inside me and drag up my power. I pull up everything that I can and draw it to the surface. But as soon as I do, that pulling sensation comes back with a vengeance, and my energy quickly weakens.

My powers turn from a flame to a flicker in a matter of seconds. I try to pull the energy back, drawing it to me when something inside me snaps and energy floods me all at once.

I gasp, finally able to take a deep breath as the clawed shadows around my neck loosen. I pull harder to draw the energy back to me and King’s tendrils loosen from my body. The more I focus, the more my own strength grows stronger.

“How are you…”

I don’t know how it’s possible, but I think I’m absorbing his powers and making them mine. And I think I just figured out how I need to take the core’s power back.

King’s eyes widen slightly as I drop to the ground, his shadows around me completely disappearing.

“I thought I’d keep itinteresting.” I give him a smug smirk.

King sneers as he tries to lash out at me again, his shadows long and sharp. I focus on catching one before it touches me and draws it into me.

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