Page 82 of Blade of the Nightking

Rìan’s face didn’t change, but his eyes did. The silver there brightened, almost blinding in the dark. His gaze slid to Aedric’s empty face, then back to me. “That is your doing. Not mine.”

A cold dread swept through me. “What do you mean?” I lowered the knife a fraction without meaning to. A mistake.

Veylan’s shadow struck at once, whipping outward and slamming into my wrist hard enough to send the blade flying. It clattered across the stone, skidding to the wall, where Layne stopped it with a boot. Rìan snarled, and before I could even draw breath he was in front of me.

His face angled down toward mine, luminous eyes fixed on me, unblinking, leaving nowhere to look but back at him. This close, I could see the thin scar cutting across his cheekbone, missing his eye by the narrowest margin, the hard line of his mouth, the brutal perfection of features made harsher still by whatever darkness lived inside him. He smelled faintly of wind and leather, something dark and charged beneath it, like a storm given skin.

The bond twisted in my chest, hot and wrong. I hated him—hated the closeness, hated the pull that tethered me to him, hated the way my magic stirred in response even as every other part of me recoiled.

“That piece you took from me,” he leaned closer, so near I felt the warmth of his breath against my mouth. I fought the urge to turn my head away. “Is lodged inside his mind.”

I froze. The words didn’t make sense.

“That day you siphoned from me, Eidra—you stole a kernel of my power. It’s that kernel—the one you drove into him—that’s wrapped there now. Sealing him far from reach.”

A low whine filled my ears.

No. It couldn’t be true.

I reached deeper for our bond.

It was there—barely. Faint. Slack. A ghost of what it had been.

The realization tore through me, my heart splintering into a thousand jagged pieces. Horror detonated inside me, so violent it felt as though my soul were coming apart. What I’d done—what I’d done…

Rìan shifted in front of me, a half-step back, a hand lifting briefly to his chest. I didn’t register it. I didn’t care. Something flickered in his expression.

Aedric…

Close enough to touch. Still there, still beside me. Still kneeling. Still breathing, but—gone.

“Take it back,” I pleaded. “Please.”

His silence lasted only a moment, but it stretched on, unbearable.

“It’s sunk too deep, bound too tightly.” His teeth ground together. “Our bond is tangled through it.”

I dragged in a breath, trying to steady myself—trying to think, to find something, anything that could fix this.

But the sight of Aedric made something inside me lurch. His face was slack in a way that looked horribly wrong, stripped of all expression, his gaze utterly empty.

“Dannis…” Levinica whimpered, despair breaking through the word. Then she began to sob. “Dannis…” She grew more panicked, more disoriented, confusion clouding her expression once more.

Through the bond, it hit me suddenly—pain.

My head snapped to Aedric, something wild and desperate surging up—he was there, he had to be⁠—

It vanished as suddenly as I’d felt it.

The magic in Rìan’s eyes wavered as he beckoned. “Segolayne.”

Layne pushed off from the wall at once and crossed to Levinica, taking her gently by the arm, murmuring low, steady reassurances as she guided her from the chamber. He watched her go until the door swung shut behind them.

“Well, Eidra,” Rìan said, every line of his face drawn tight with burning hatred, “the magic inside him can be freed in one of two ways—death, or the breaking of our bond. And seeing as there are other High Lords and Ladies whose minds I can pry open to find what I need…” He beckoned with two fingers. “Veylan.”

Veylan smirked as he strode forward, unhurried, as if there were nothing in the room that could threaten him, his shadows trailing behind him like a long black train.

Rìan turned toward the terrace doors, already dismissing the matter with a careless wave of his hand. “Kill him.”