Page 325 of Blade of the Nightking

Tharnyx the Bone-Wrought.

I swallowed a silent scream.

Rìan started toward him. Every head in the horde turned as one to follow his passage.

Terror tore through me.

No!

He stopped before Tharnyx.

The difference in their height was grotesque. The Bone-Wrought loomed over him, his terrible face angled downward as Rìan lifted his own in defiance. Rìan spoke. Tharnyx listened without interruption, those fathomless black eyes never leaving his face.

I gripped the edge of the battlement until the stone bit into my slashed palm.

What could Rìan possibly have to say to such a monster? What language could exist between the Dark Prince and the thing that possessed the bodies of the dead?

Tharnyx’s mouth began to stretch. Slowly, horribly, the skin pulled taut across his skull until the full length of his teeth was exposed.

A smile.

Tharnyx stepped aside.

Rìan hesitated. Then he looked back at me.

I had never needed the bond more than I did then, never wanted so desperately to reach inside him and know what he was feeling. But there was only his face across the distance, beautiful and unreadable, and the terrible silence inside me.

He turned away.

Tharnyx followed him into the trees, and together they disappeared into the forest.

“No…”

Something inside me reached after him. Nothing reached back.

As one, the heads of thousands of Infected turned. The motion rippled through the horde like wind across a field of grain until every ruined face was fixed upon me.

I tore myself from the parapet and ran.

Every stride jarred through me, the battlements pitching beneath my feet as I stumbled toward the stairs. My legs barely seemed to belong to me. I caught myself against the stone and kept going.

Rìan had gone with Tharnyx.

I had to find him.

The thought consumed everything else—the horde, the screams, the terrible emptiness inside my chest. I had to get to him. Had to stop him. Had to bring him back.

I had to save him.

I raced toward the wall, leaping over the Infected I’d shot with the arrow. My boot landed in a pool of its blood, red splashing up my leg.

Something slammed into me from behind. I hit the ground hard, an Infected crashing down on top of me. Its weight crushed me against the earth, knocking the breath from my lungs as its hands clawed for my shoulders. I twisted beneath it, dragging one knee between us before kicking hard with the other leg. My heel caught it square in the face. Bone gave way with a wet crunch, and the creature rolled off me with a muffled grunt.

I reached for the knife at my belt.

Another Infected struck first. A fist slammed into my stomach, folding me around the impact. Air tore from my lungs, and before I could pull in another breath, hands closed around both my arms. Two creatures hauled me backward through the dirt as I kicked and thrashed, my heels gouging useless furrows into the ground.

They dragged me through an overgrown courtyard and past the blackened circle of an empty firepit. I knew where they were taking me the instant they hauled me across the threshold.