Page 88 of Forged By Heart and Claws
“You can’t kill me, Vad,” he croaked with red staining his teeth. “And youreallyshouldn’t take me prisoner.” He tapped his silver claw tips together, the metallic clicks echoing through the ravaged room. “This was your mistake. You’ve already lost.”
He turned his gaze toward Briar. “If you all surrender now, I’ll give you a mercy none of you deserve. A swift death. Even for your wretched littlemutated mate.”
“You do not speak of her that way. Don’t evenlookat her.” A growl rumbled from deep within my chest as I pressed the flat of my blade against his shoulder, the edge aligned with his throat. I pushed just enough to break skin, sting, and make a mark. His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t protest or flinch… just stared.
I spat out, “Thalen, get rope. Veralt, check the door.”
Colm’s smile never faltered. “While you’re scuttling about, go ahead and take this off my hands.”
He flung the fractured shadow beast sculpture toward Veralt with a flick of his wrist. “It’s as worthless as everything else in this place.”
The back of my neck burned as fury surged through me. My grip tightened, blade ready to drive straight through him if this was an attempt at escape or distraction.
Veralt’s eye widened in surprise. He lurched to the side, catching the two broken pieces just before they could strike the floor. His thigh slammed into the table, sending everything atop it into motion. Crushed gems and fractured lenses clinked and jostled. The oil lamp rocked precariously, its red liquid sloshing just shy of spilling over the rim. The beam of reflected light fractured and disappeared.
Nothing had fallen, but it had come damn close.
“Fecking void.” Veralt's shoulders slumped. He cradled the pieces for a moment, then carefully placed them on a clear stretch of the table. Adjusting his eyepatch, he shot Colm a glare. “Destructive sort, aren’t you?”
Thalen let out a low whistle. “Clutter’s never been my style, but this?” He gestured to the chaos. “You’ve taken junkyard chic to a whole new level. You prefer trash dens over actual research?”
Briar’s breath eased slightly, but her sword never lowered. Her upper lip curled. “You’re the most vile man I’ve ever met. And I’ve met murderers. I won’t let you hurt any of those children.”
Colm turned toward her and smirked.
A snarl ripped from my throat, and I used the flat of my blade to force his face back toward me. The edge sliced a shallow line into his cheek. “Try that again, and Iwillsilence you. Your guards won’t save you. Don’t even think about screaming for help.”
He rolled his eyes. “Please. The guards are stationed at the front of the royal quarters, not here. And even if theydidhear something, they’d assume it was me dismantling more of your precious trinkets.”
He gestured vaguely at the destruction around him. “It’s been exhausting, sorting through your family’s pretty little secrets, peeling back the layers of enchantment. Most of themdon’t even hum anymore. Magic long since faded. Some were crafted well, I’ll admit. But everything breaks eventually.”
“As will you.” My voice dropped into a lethal rasp.
He grinned through the blood trailing down his chin. “You don’t have enough time left to break me.”
Veralt reached out and steadied one of the large glass lenses still rocking on the table. “That was almost a disaster,” he muttered, then winced as he realized he’d stepped on a pile of scattered books. “Sorry. He’s flung everything everywhere! I can’t take a step without messing something up.” Another spine split beneath his heel, the sound sharp in the tense silence.
Colm watched us like he was watching a comedy, not bleeding and pinned at swordpoint. That smug, patient calm chilled me deeper than any threat. He wasn’t worried at all.
There were no visible traps and no warning alarms activated. The door itself wasn’t especially secure, but it would take a few blows to bring it down. Still, that didn’t mean he didn’t have other means of protection. I narrowed my eyes. “Take off the claw tips and remove every weapon you have.”
Thalen moved through the mess of the observatory carefully, using his boots to nudge aside books without stepping on them directly. Pages rustled underfoot, whispering reminders of what had been lost.
Across from him, Colm removed the claw tips from his fingers, one at a time. Each metallic click echoed too loudly. “You’re wasting your time. None of this will play out the way you think. At best, you’ll tie me up and go skittering off into the ruins of your former life, hoping to delay the inevitable.”
“You keep talking like we can’t just kill you.” Thalen snapped the rope taut between his hands with a drycrack. Dust plumed upward. “Honestly, I’m still not clear on why we shouldn’t.”
“Veralt, search him,” I ordered, keeping my blade steady at Colm’s shoulder. “Make sure he doesn’t have any other weapons.”
Colm slid off the final claw tip and dropped it with a delicateclink. “Go ahead. Kill me or take me prisoner. Pretend you have control, but if I fail to give an order to a specific individual in a specified location within a specified time, things will unravel quickly.”
He shrugged off the black silk robe, revealing bare arms laced with scars. Some were fine as spiderwebs, while others were thick and jagged, like shattered glass was hidden beneath the skin. The raised lines crisscrossed his forearms and disappeared beneath the sleeves of a gray tunic riddled with reinforced seams and narrow pockets. His trousers matched in utilitarian dullness, both shades able to vanish in shadow.
“Even without magic, pain is a remarkably easy thing to create. And poisons…” He smiled thinly. “Poisons do not discriminate, especially the choking kind.” He folded the robe with unsettling precision.”
Briar went rigid beside me.
Colm’s voice lowered, almost reverent. “Your dungeons were brimming with delightful relics such as war room blueprints and all sorts of torture implements. It didn’t take much effort to rig them up and establish crude mechanisms for their delivery into the water supply, and it doesn’t take much time to create that choking gas. If I vanish or fail to check in, my men will release it.”
