Page 182 of Blade of the Nightking

"That's why," he said hoarsely. "That's why you won't touch the bow."

I couldn’t speak. Couldn't do anything except fight to keep myself together as the memory threatened to pull me under all over again. It felt as though every part of me had been torn open and left exposed, my most carefully buried memory dragged into the light for him—my enemy—to see.

Before I could gather enough air to answer, a roar ripped from Rìan's throat—furious and so filled with pain that it nearly mirrored the storm raging inside my own chest.

He spun away and drove his fist into the nearest wall.

Stone exploded outward beneath the force of the blow, fragments spraying across the chamber as cracks raced through the crumbling masonry like lightning through a storm-dark sky. The entire wall shuddered beneath the strike, sending dust cascading down from the arches overhead.

He pulled his hand away and staggered back, breathing heavily. The skin across his knuckles was split open, blood smearing the stone where his fist had buried itself, but if he felt the injury he gave no sign of it. His broad shoulders rose and fell with each breath, his shoulders drawn tight beneath his shirt, his hand half-clenched, fingers curled like claws.

For a moment he simply stood there with his head lowered amidst the drifting dust, blood pattering steadily to the floor. His sudden stillness was somehow more alarming than the outburst itself.

He glanced up suddenly, as though wrenched from some deep and unpleasant thought. His gaze snagged on the fading daylight spilling through the broken ceiling of the temple. Something hardened across his features.

"Drink." The word cracked through the silence.

I stared at him, startled. "What?"

His eyes snapped back to mine, flecks of silver flashing through the dark, as though something savage inside him strained to break free.

"We drink," he said. "Now."

Before I could react he rounded the side of the well and seized my arm, steering me toward the rim with a single-minded urgency that left no room for protest. I caught myself against the weathered edge, wincing as my bleeding palms scraped the stone, my balance pitching forward. My gaze dropped into the abyss below.

The darkness seemed deeper than before. Bottomless. Waiting.

Rìan seized the bucket and shoved it into the void. Several long seconds passed before the distant splash echoed upward, and then the pulley began to groan beneath the strain as he yanked fiercely on the rope, dragging the filled bucket steadily back toward the surface. The dangerous look on his face was almost a relief to see, because this Rìan I understood.

This was the Dark Prince.

The male who had cut out the tongues of his servants. Who’d sliced open my attacker's cheeks without hesitation. Who’d very nearly destroyed Aedric.

He worked the rope one-handed while the other remained braced tightly against his side. The swelling in his fist was impossible to miss. It had been badly damaged, one knuckle already misshapen beneath angry flesh. He’d broken it—of that I had no doubt.

Yet I said nothing. Made no move to help him.

The bucket finally emerged from the shaft. Rìan reached down and caught the handle, pulling it onto the lip. Then he stilled, and so did I, both of us staring down at its contents.

"That looks like⁠—"

"Blood," he growled.

And indeed it was. Not water. Not muck dredged from the depths of a forgotten well.

Blood.

Dark and thick and unnaturally viscous, it sloshed heavily against the sides of the bucket, moving with a sluggish weight that made my stomach turn.

The air within the temple thickened, as though every broken stone and shattered pillar were watching—waiting to see what we would do next.

Rìan stared into the bucket for a long moment, a muscle jumping in his jaw. Then, he plunged his hand into the blood. His nostrils flared slightly as he cupped the liquid in his palm, crimson droplets slipping between his fingers and rolling thickly down his wrist to his elbow as he raised it to his lips. His eyes found mine—and held them—before he tipped the blood into his mouth.

He drank.

When he straightened again, blood stained his lips.

Without speaking, he jerked his chin forward.