Page 2 of Slaying the Shadow Prince
He fixed her with a lingering, longing stare. ‘Am I so repulsive to you?’ he asked, desperation ringing in his voice.
‘I’m not having this conversation again.’ Drue’s fist clenched around the grip of her cutlass, her knuckles threatening to split. Terrence’s claws tightened on her shoulder, as though he too couldn’t stand Coltan’s constant pestering.
‘Drue, please… Just talk to me.’
‘Ihavetalked to you,’ she snapped. ‘I have told you time and time again that you have my friendship and nothing more. I have nothing else to give you. You are not entitled to or owed anything more, nor will this constant barrage of pressure from you result in what you want.’
‘It truly meant nothing?’ he asked.
‘It was a night or two of comfort between friends,’ Drue replied. ‘I told you as much at the time and three dozen times since —’
In a rage, Coltan sent his shield flying. The steel disc clanged loudly as it struck a nearby boulder and bounced off, colliding with several smaller rocks before it rolled onto its face, the sound echoing across the expanse of an otherwise silent land.
Drue’s heart had seized, not for fear of Coltan, but for what the rattling noise might draw out from the shadows. She waited a beat, then two, straining to hear anything that might indicate that he’d disturbed something in hiding…
Sensing nothing, she rounded on him. ‘You fool,’ she hissed, fury bubbling to the surface as she suppressed the urge to swing her blade. Not only was he an entitled, fragile man-child, but he was a fucking idiot as well.
‘I didn’t —’
She raised a hand to silence him, her scalp prickling.
Something in the air had changed. An unnatural stillness settled over the abandoned, sprawling citadel below.
And as if in answer, the steel cuff warmed against her skin and Terrence let out a sharp cry of warning.
Darkness blocked out the horizon.
Suddenly, the shadow wraiths were upon them.
Membranous wings flared, talons already carving through the air as wisps of onyx power whipped around them, disorientating, alluring.
‘Fuck,’ Drue shouted, drawing her cutlass and her sword.
Terrence launched himself into the air, and she had to bite back her shriek of fear for him. He was a mighty bird of prey. He could handle himself. Coltan, on the other hand…
‘Draw your sword,’ she snapped, finding her flint and striking flame to life along her blades.
While she was no Warsword and couldn’t slay a shadow wraith to its bitter end, she could fight them off, and there was one thing they hated more than anything: fire.
With her back to Coltan, Drue braced herself for the first assault.
The monsters landed heavily, the earth trembling beneath their claw-like feet. There were seven of them – a bigger swarm than she was used to, but it mattered not, so long as her fire raged hot and her blades were sharp.
The wraiths advanced, their strange, sinewy frames dripping with cursed shadow, their skin almost leather-like, their eyes an eerie clouded blue.
They were not of this world – not anymore.
Magic lashed at her, but she sliced at it like she would a limb, severing it from its source with her fiery steel. She was from a family of blade wielders. Her brothers had trained her well, despite her skirts and jewels, and now… Now she was a force to be reckoned with all on her own.
One wraith screeched as she carved her cutlass across its wiry arm. The horrific smell of burnt hair singed her nostrils, for that was what these monsters reeked of as they shaped the darkness around them.
Behind her, Coltan shouted, but she couldn’t turn her back on the wraith in front of her. The beast towered above her, its body elongated and horrific, eight feet tall, wielding its claws like a puppet master, manipulating the ribbons of power around it, its form taking a familiar shape. The monster’s magic picked at the rotting trauma within her, shaping its curse of nightmares into those she had lost, manifesting warped versions of them before her.
‘Mother,’ Drue wheezed, hesitating just a second as she saw her – a crude imagining of the gentle woman who’d raised her, wrapped in shadow.
Drue lunged, the illusion shattering as she pierced the creature’s leathery flesh with the tip of her sword.
But it was not enough. She needed to get herself and Coltan out of there. There was no way they could take on the entire swarm. She couldn’t evade the lure of their horrors forever. Dodging another onslaught of lashing shadow, she rolled along the ground, slicing where she guessed the creature’s heel tendon would be —
