Page 13 of Blade of the Nightking

“Please—please—” I sobbed.

“WHERE IS HE?” Rìan snapped, rage tearing through his voice. He seized Aedric’s shoulder and shoved him flat to the ground. Aedric’s head struck the earth with a sickening thud. His face—gods, his face—was purple now, his eyes bulging, veins standing out across his throat, his temples.

Something inside me broke. My magic, thinned and dim, lashed out wildly and seized upon the only thing it could still reach: Rìan’s presence inside my mind.

I grabbed onto it with everything I had left—and pulled.

Rìan stiffened. His concentration stuttered.

I pulled harder.

His magic flooded into me—ancient, furious, delicious—the moan escaping me uncontrollably. I felt it all—swirling in my blood, forbidden, shattering, ecstatic. A gasp tore from his chest as he felt it too, felt me taking him into myself, swallowing more and more of him. He snarled, but his voice sounded distant beneath the rushing filling my ears.

I dragged him deeper.

And deeper.

And deeper.

A sudden flash in my mind⁠—

A little boy—dark-haired, wide-eyed. Blood smeared down the side of his small face. Terrified. Familiar.

Familiar?

The image vanished before I could place him.

My pain evaporated.

Pleasure surged in its stead.

Power—his power—poured into me, filling every hollow space inside my bones. The world sharpened, colors brightening. My left side, burned to ruin moments ago, tingled pleasantly with the magic I greedily consumed.

Rìan ripped free of the connection, severing his magic—and Aedric sucked in a ragged breath beside me. Relief flooded me, fierce and dizzying; he was alive.

But almost instantly, that relief twisted, flaring into unbridled rage. Anger surged through me, hot and blinding, rising like a wave to smother the dark thrill I’d felt only a heartbeat before.

Rìan whirled on me, the pallor of his cheeks flushed, the silver of his eyes shining almost painfully bright. A thin ribbon of blood traced from one nostril.

“How predictable. Love—the most powerful motivator of all,” he mocked, his voice all silk and menace. “Feeling better, Eidra?”

He lunged at me, drawing a knife from his belt. Faster—so much faster—I tore Aedric’s blade from its sheath and surged upright. The strength in my limbs startled me, but I embraced it, stepping between Rìan and Aedric as I leveled the iron at him. He stopped short, snarling as he recognized the dark metal.

We faced each other, chests heaving, waiting for the slightest shift.

Then I saw the blade in his hand.

My blade.

The bone knife my father had given me.

A howl of fury ripped through me at the sight, hot and vicious.

I held out my left hand—a demand for my knife. My breath caught.

My arm, burned to a crisp only moments before, was whole again. Smooth and unblemished, not even a scar remained. My skin shimmered faintly in the darkness, as though moonlight had been trapped beneath its surface.

His jaw tightened as his gaze slid over me, over my flawless skin. His nostrils flared.