Page 22 of The Shadowbound and the False God

Kael’s body was left a mangled, unrecognizable heap. His shadows dissipated into the air as though inhaled by the altar before him. Raif fell to his knees when the darkness retracted, finally freeing him. His whole body trembled, and his eyes burned with unshed tears, but he didn’t look away from the carnage.

He’d failed him—his king. His oldest and closest friend. He’d failed him again.

Raif was still on his knees, shoulders heaving, when the scene before him began to dissolve slowly. It was only the sound of galloping hooves that brought him out of the twisted, false memory and back into focus. He was not in Wyldraíocht, he was not kneeling at the edge of The Cut. He was still in Elowas, and he was still being hunted.

The warrior wheeled around, rising to his feet and nocking an iron-tipped arrow on his bow as he spun. His movement was smooth, flawless—one he’d practiced in the training ring a thousand times. The transition from vulnerable to defensive.

The first arrow Raif loosed met its mark in the center of one hunter’s barrel chest. When he fell, the next beast behind him stumbled over his flailing legs. The fall, and the sight of his brother sucking in dying breaths where he lay, only angered the creature further. Raif’s second arrow hit the centaur’s hindquarters, but still he charged.

Swiftly, Raif drew his sword and dropped his back shoulder behind it, so that when the advancing centaur ran straight down the blade until the hilt was pressed against its stomach, the soldier scarcely moved an inch. The centaur snapped its jagged, broken teeth in Raif’s face just once before Raif heaved him onto the ground.

But his sword was stuck in the creature’s gut, and there was yet a third baring down on Raif’s position. He withdrew a rope from his satchel, long and pliable and woven through with iron thread. At the end of it hung a heavy ball of the same metal. He handled it quickly, ignoring the way it singed his palm as he hurled it towards the beast’s middle. The weighted end swung around once, then again, wrapping the rope around twice and pulling it taut.

The centaur roared in pain and fury as he fell to the ground, but Raif was already kneeling atop him with the tip of his dagger resting against the notch in the creature’s neck. His legs kickedand his hands clawed desperately at the earth. His movements only tightened the rope further, the iron scorching marks into his bare skin.

“Be still, beast,” Raif growled. The sharp end of his dagger sank slightly into the hollow of the centaur’s throat. The droplet of blood that bloomed from the tiny puncture was black.

The centaur’s breath came in hot, noisy pants as he gradually slowed his movements and instead shifted his body this way and that in an effort to escape the burning.

“You’ll only tighten the rope further.”

Finally, the centaur ceased fighting. His nostrils flared as he stared angrily up at his captor. “You—you’re no aneiydh.”

“No,” Raif confirmed. “I am not.”

“Then set me free,” the creature said angrily, writhing once more against the rope. “We are no threat to you. He has no use for the living.”

“You hunt for Him?” Raif demanded. He jerked the rope tighter when the beast refused to respond.

“Yes,” the centaur gritted out. “But not the living. Set me free.”

Raif studied him for a beat, searching the centaur’s feral, desperate eyes for deception. He smelt of dark magic, of rotting soil—and fear. Keeping the rope tight and his dagger lifted, Raif eased back off of the creature’s chest. The centaur rolled shakily to his feet. He grimaced as the rope tugged at his raw skin.

Still gripping the covered end of the line, Raif approached the fallen centaur to retrieve his sword from its stomach. He stopped when he drew closer, then fell back a step. His lips curled in disgust.

The hunter he’d slain was no centaur at all, but a monster crudely patched together from parts of other Fae. The torso of a male roughly stitched onto the body of a mare, the scar from where the two were fused together halfway healed into a thick, jagged line that glared an ugly shade of red.

Raif had seen a great many terrible things during his time as a foot soldier in the Unseelie army, but this—this was the first time he’d felt his stomach turn this way, the first time he’d ever had to force back bile. He could have vomited right there had he possessed any less willpower.

“What is this?” he demanded once he found his voice. No longer so forceful, it shook with every syllable.

“There were only two of us when I arrived,” the bound centaur said simply. He’d moved to stand beside Raif, forcing slack into the rope. “He wanted a herd.”

“He—the Low One?” Raif almost shuddered.Almost.He hid the reaction by pinning the poor beast’s body down with the heel of his boot and yanking his sword free. He did so blindly to avoid looking at the grotesque scar again.

The centaur glanced down at him strangely for the briefest moment before turning away. “We keep him fed, and he lets us do as we please.”

Raif tugged sharply on the rope to force the centaur back around. The hunter stood two heads taller and was almost twice as broad, but he was weakening under the grip of the iron. He swayed slightly on his hooves.

“What happens when there are no more aneiydh to hunt?” It was likely a foolish question, but Raif felt he needed to ask it. He needed to understand what he was facing now, whether or not it posed him a direct threat.

“As long as he is worshipped, there will always be aneiydh to hunt,” the centaur said. The way he said it so simply, with neither pleasure nor regret in his words, was somehow more chilling than if he’d appeared excited by the fact.

Raif wondered briefly whether Lyre knew this about their god—that He consumed the souls of the faithful. Though knowing the High Prelate, he’d likely be the first to volunteer to deliver those souls to the Low One himself.

“Have you no remorse?” Raif demanded finally.

The centaur continued to gaze down at him with the same blank, impassive expression. “We are all the same here. Why should I pity those which wouldn’t pity me? Here, it is hunt, be hunted, or hide. I will not be hunted, and I will not exist an eternity in hiding. So I hunt.”

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