The man surveyed Cedric with a sneer. “You ask the wrong questions, boy. And you ask them of the wrong people.” He waved his blade in the air as if trying to illustrate a point. “You’re on the wrong side of this war, but it’s not too late to come back to the light.”
Cedric scoffed. “There is no more war. Both sides want peace. And there is nothing but darkness on the path you walk. I’ll have no part of it.”
The man laughed, a maniacal, twisted sound. “One way or another, you will.”
Elyria’s heart clenched as he lunged again, feinting to the right then darting to the left in another attempt to get past Cedric, get behind him.
But her knight was faster. Better.
Cedric twisted in place, using his elbow to knock the man off-balance before spinning behind him. In one smooth motion—almost elegant in its execution—Cedric hooked a boot around the man’s leg, pulled him backward, and drove Ashrender through his spine.
The man crumpled without a sound, folding in on himself like a piece of paper.
“No,” Cedric said, something dark and dangerous shimmering down the thread that had warmth pooling in Elyria’s core, “I won’t.”
His gaze locked with hers, and he immediately moved toward her—just as a strangled scream came from behind them. Like it was synchronized, they both spun in time to see Ollie pull his icy spear from the chest of the finalsanguinagi, who collapsed with a pitiful cry.
Nearby, Young Shep sank back on his ankles, looking like himself again. The green hue of his skin had returned, his ears sharpened back into pointed tips, ginger hair swapped for forest green. Even if his faltering glamour hadn’t been a clear enough sign, his exhaustion was written all over his face. It was scrawled into the furrow of his brow and the bags under his eyes as he kept a loose hand on Sephone’s wrist, as if unwilling to stop counting the beats of her pulse. “She’ll be all right,” he whispered, and Elyria didn’t know if he was telling them...or tryingto convince himself.
Ollie sucked in a deep breath. “Is that all of them?”
“I thought there were more.” Elyria took in the bodies littering the ground around them, the stench of blood and death sour in the air. “Perhaps a few of them got smart and ran.”
Jocelyn braced her hands on her knees, as though she was trying to stave off the urge to vomit. “Did we slaughter an entire village tonight?”
“They signed their own fates in blood,” Cedric said, his words surging down the tether in Elyria’s chest as much as they cut across her ears.
“Lit’rally,” said Thraigg.
“And surely this wasn’t theentirevillage,” Ollie offered. “I’m sure plenty more people cower in their beds as we speak, just waiting for the bloodshed to be over.”
“Will they be relieved or disappointed when they find out exactly whose blood was shed tonight, do you think?” Elyria asked.
Nobody replied. They didn’t have to. For a moment, the world was nothing but breath and blood and silence.
Too much silence.
Elyria’s gaze darted from Thraigg to his hammer and back again. “When you ran back inside for that, did you see the others? Tristan? Thibault and Hargrave?”
Thraigg shook his head. “Place was empty. The arseholes must’ve?—”
A sudden shout echoed from around the side of the building, but that wasn’t what caught Elyria’s attention.
It was the whimper that followed—a pitiful, mewling sound.
Elyria ran.
She didn’t wait to see if anyone followed, didn’t listen for footsteps or hissed words of caution. Her vision narrowed to a single point as she rounded the corner of the inn, taking in the sight of one final cultist standing near the stable entrance—a desperate and wild-eyed man. Moonlight reflected off the crystal dagger he held by his face, painting his features a sickly shade of red.
Sid whimpered again, cowering against the stable door, shadows gushing from one of her legs like blood from a wound.
“Unnatural creature,” thesanguinagirasped, raising the dagger.
Rage snapped through Elyria’s bones.
She barely registered Cedric running up behind her as she threw out her hand. “Leave my fucking cat alone, you son of a bitch.”
Shadows and wild magic combined in Elyria’s veins, weaving together. A massive spike erupted from the earth, the color of night, slamming through the cultist’s chest and pinning him to the stable door—an insect on a pinboard.
