Page 120 of Shadows so Cruel

I immediately raised my sword to intercept a descending blade. The force of the blow reverberated up my arm, but I held firm, my eyes scanning the chaos for Brisden.Where is he?

“Behind!” Asker’s voice broke through again.

I pivoted just in time to sidestep a lunging spear, slashing across the soldier’s chest as my eyes locked onto that familiar shade of brown hair.There you are!

Pure, unadulterated rage surged through me, guiding my sword with a deadly focus. It became an extension of my fury, every stroke fueled by years of torment. One slash to sever a man’s arm, another to pierce a lung. Bodies fell in my wake as I carved a blood-soaked path, each step bringing me closer to the reckoning that had been years in the making. I was almost there.

“Brisden,” I growled, my heart beating wildly in my chest.

He widened his stance, his chest heaving, his forehead glistening with the sweat of too many easy years and too little training. “Ah, the young Raven boy came to end me.”

“End you?” A laugh echoed in my empty chest, deeper and more freeing than ever before. “No. No…”

With one swift swipe, I clashed my sword against his. And again. And again. His blade wavered, barely parrying my strikes, each one delivered with a decade’s worth of shame. Like that, I drove him back into a corner.

He grunted, tried to counter, but his blows were slow, clumsy, his breaths coming in ragged heaves. “This is hardly an honorable fight. I’m old…”

“And I was young.” Not a child anymore, but not yet a man, stripped of all honor, decency, and anything that had been good about me. “Innocent.” Another swing of my blade. “Pure.” I kicked his chest, sending him reeling back before he fell onto his back with a groan. “Helpless.”

I booted his sword out of his grip, sending it with sparks across the stone before. Then I knelt on his chest and pressed my bloodied blade to his mouth, watching how it sank into the corners, creeks of blood running down his cheeks. Oh, and how he gargled, his choking sounds making bubbles pop at the back of his throat as I slowly cut through his face.

But no… I would not end him.

Not yet, not like this

Where was the fun in that?

I jumped off him, running behind Sebian toward the corridor where Brisden had emerged from. “Tie him up with shadows! Whoever lets him die will die with him!”

He would feel my hatred later.

Right now, love took precedence.

ChapterForty-Seven

Galantia

Present Day, the royal keep

Ears ringing, I stared down at the rubble and shadows that piled upon the dungeon stairs from which I’d emerged. A hand that had tried to grab me only moments ago now jutted out from the debris, its fingers frantically scratching at the rock as it blackened. Its knuckles contorted, curling into a grotesque, gouty freeze.

The sight should have been vile, repugnant even, but the shadows inside my chest writhed in savage delight, demanding more death. And I might just comply if I couldn’t find my way to Malyr and Sebian, adding my own right to it. A deathweaver I might be, but still very much mortal, obviously lacking the finesse with this gift. I’d merely wanted to push him back, not cause… whatever it was that I’d done here.

Coughing the dust from my lungs, I followed along a corridor, glass crunching beneath my steps. The wind cut itself on those strange metal webbings that clung to the broken windows to my right and howled, mixing with the…

Was that… a bell?

The weight of dread lifted from my chest. Were the Ravens attacking? Where was the main gate? How long until they would breach it?

Chaos echoed from nearby rooms and corridors, thethudsof boots andclanksof armor driving up my pulse. More soldiers?

Shadows throbbed between the fingers of my right hand as if matching the gallop of my heart, spinning inky tendrils toward my left palm where they absorbed back into me. They swirled in my core—scratching, scraping—clawing along my ribcage like a beast determined to crack through my bones. And to think that Malyr had carried this with him for years…

Something moved in my periphery.

I froze.

Two maids scurried toward me, one holding a silver platter to her chest, their faces flushed and terror-stricken. They clutched white bonnets to their heads, glancing back over their shoulders, as if expecting a demon to be in pursuit.

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