AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The weapon struck true, impaling the magic user right through his chest and armor. For a moment, he stood there, still crackling with all that fire, until it faded into nothing. Limp and listless, his body turned gray before crumbling entirely into ash that scattered on the wind.
Yet another one down, but there were still so many to go.
Breathing hard, I turned back to the battle, wanting to see how much it’d progressed in the minute or two I’d been fighting. It was strange to think so little time had passed when in the moment, every single engagement felt like its own personal lifetime. Adrenaline did strange things that way.
I could see the line of defense had actually held fairly well. They had backed up slightly but hadn't quite reached the first line of buildings. I had no doubt they had traps waiting above or behind each window, too, but we wanted to diminish the Vekan forces as much as possible before relying on those.
The middle line of Blath fighters—the ones who’d been hidden by illusion—had scattered. They were no longer a unified force at the enemy’s backs and instead had been clustered into groups that were fighting for their lives. Some of those groups looked incredibly small too, which made my heart ache with how many we’d already lost.
The ships Darla had managed to scramble seemed to be getting themselves together, half of the ones left beginning to reform along the beach. I needed to deal with them and help the secondary line of my allies that’d been thoroughly scattered.
But despite all of that, I still felt quite capable. I was winded, yes, but only as if I’d been jogging for a while instead of fighting and throwing out all sorts of insane and new spells. If this kept up, I was going to be able to go for quite a while before having to sit back and recharge.
At least that was what I thought until a chill went up my back, the hair on my neck standing on end, and I swore, even the sun itself grew darker.
“What in the world…” I murmured before a roiling, gray shadow shot up from one of the artillery ships that Kai and the other shifters had disabled. It was like a pillar of malevolence that speared the sky, and my stomach nearly dropped right out of my body.
It couldn’t be…
But then the pillar, and the awful, choking smoke that erupted began to coalesce, forming into a shape that truly terrified me.
The Shrouded Shriek.
Chapter 23
Ayla
I only had a mere moment to gawk before that familiar, haunting figure let out that awful sound it was so known for, then shot forward. He moved impossibly fast—too fast to be a humanoid. One moment he was above the ships, then it felt like I blinked and suddenly he was crashing into me.
If I thought the temperature dropped when he first shot into the sky, that was nothing compared to the freezing horror that filled me when our bodies made contact. It was cloying, ravenous, and frigid, like it wanted to snuff out whatever life it touched. Except it was less like being hit by a physical force and more like being completely enveloped and thrown by pure evil. There was no flesh against my skin, no breath against my neck, no body for me to cling to. Even the clothing my enemy wore seemed more ephemeral than real—a suggestion to play into the illusion of humanity where there was none to be found.
Suddenly, my mind began connecting dots I never knew were disjointed in the first place. Thomas had said the Shrouded Shriek was more ancient than any other creature alive. It would make sense that such an eldritch beast would’ve lost their physical form long ago, corrupted by the vile quest for power that’d consumed them.
But how was I supposed to fight him, then? How did one defeat a shadow or kill a nightmare? Especially when I could feel my magic, which was just seconds ago so resplendent within me, trying to retreat from everywhere the Shrouded Shriek was touching?
I never got a chance before I was slammed into the side of a building. All the air left my body as an awful sound forced its way out of my throat. I swore I heard bones snap, and if I wasn’t a wolf shifter, I knew I would have been done.
My vision swam, and for a moment I couldn’t see anything but the stars exploding behind my eyelids, but when it did clear, I saw the snarling visage of my enemy for the first time in my life. Its face was more of a void than an actual face, with pointed, gnashing teeth that sat in multiple, jagged rows. Somewhere above that gash of a mouth, there were eyes that glowed like smoldering embers of blue flames, while its nose was more of a hole that led farther into nothingness and gray smoke.
It was nothing like a face at all, more like a negative of a photo, only foggily remembered years later. A suggestion of what once might have been human, but now was nothing but the endless hunger for more. More violence. More blood. More power.
For the first time since the Shrouded Shriek had landed on my radar, I understood what he was. He wasn't a man. He wasn't even a person. He was the darkness that lingered in the hearts of murderers. He was the vile shadow that lingered in the hearts of those who hurt others for gain. He was greed, he was famine, he was all that was wrong with the world, and so much more. If given the opportunity, he would consume every single living thing around him for his own gain.
And I knew, as I stared into those swirling vortex eyes, that I had to end him.
“Get off!” I cried, sending my magic out in an uncontrolled blast. For a split second, I worried it wouldn’t respond, that it would be chased into that same nullification by the Shriek’s touch as before. But though there was a slight delay, it did manage to rush from my center, knocking the Shriek back.
I collapsed to the ground, pain sharply coursing through me, as if to reaffirm that I had broken bones. I forced myself to breathe through it, using my own healing abilities to amplify my natural wolf healing.
The Shriek recovered quickly, rounding on me as it let out a truly terrifying sound. Not a roar. Not a yell. Just something entirely unto its own that grated against my entire being as unnatural.
The ancient spellcaster reached out, his skin gray and more like parchment than anything else, but every time I thought I got a solid lock on what that limb looked like, smoke would burst from parts of it and sections would lose form before coalescing, like the Shriek was so far removed from what he once had been, even maintaining the illusion of that shape was impossible for him.
What a cursed, wretched existence. I didn’t understand how he could want what’d happened to him. There was no power in the world that would make such self-mutilation worth it.
Suddenly, I felt that awful, cloying magic of his spear through me. Not like a weapon impaling my being, but like an invasion of my personhood. I felt its cold energy reach for something inside. Was he reaching for my curse?
That must have been it, because after several beats as he rooted around within my wellspring of energy, he paused and gave me the closest approximation to confusion someone in his condition could give.
