Zane’s face crumbles, and Ifeelthat look fissure through me like hairline splits in my chest, my ribs, my lungs.
Deeper.
Time grinds to a halt as a crack weaves across my crystal dome, the sound so sharp and cataclysmic that I’m certain the world is fracturing.
An inky claw nudges through the gap, slathered in a stretch of goo that drapes between the honed tips of rose-thorn nails, gripping hold of the split’s whetted edge. A second claw follows, clamping down on the other side.
More of the splitting sound that threatens to pop my skull, and the gap widens.
Widens.
Something flaps beneath the surface, scratching, making me want to bunch down into a ball and scream.
Scrape.
Scrape.
Scrape.
More scuffling sounds as a web of fractures weaves across the crystal—
The domeexplodeswith a shattering blast, bits of it embedding in my organs, my bones, my muscle and my flesh. Leaving my insides in bloody tatters. Lumped amidst the macabre gloom, surrounded by shards of bone and crystal and shredded flesh, is a bony animal cloaked in more of that stretchy, gooey substance it shakes off—splattering the mess against my sides, unveiling more of the creature’s ghastly form:
It reminds me of a krah, except it has branches for wings, dead leaves for plumage, and black, fathomless eyes I’m certain I’ve seen the likes of before. Bits of it have rotted out, a third of its face surrendered to the vile decay, revealing rows of bramble teeth and pockets of gnarled carcass draped with withered vines of black.
Its slender tail curls up, the tip a tuft of singed leaves swaying from side to side as the creature tips its head andsqueals—a shrill sound that makes my bones ache, threatening to crumble from the pitch of it. Thick tears puddle in my eyes, and when they leak down my cheeks, I smell blood.
The creature flaps inside me, toiling a churn of crystal shards that shred my heart and my spongy lungs, stripping flesh from my bones. It flits high into my chest, nests in my throat, and screams to the sky as blind, icy rage paints my vision red.
Zane squirms and screams, the spear settling against his cheek drawing the faintest line of pink that jolts me from the inside out—like I just got touched by the spindly tip of lightning clawing across the sky.
I push to a stand and rip the sword from the sheath at my back. A thud hammers into my palm, ratchets up my arm, then ripples through my blood like the beat of a song so complex, I feel like it’s rewriting the fabric of my being.
A scream punches up my throat that tastes like blood, and I charge; teeth bared, that creature flapping inside me, screeching to the thunderstorm as I whip a man around and slash my blade through his carotid. His warm blood splashes my hand, and the beat drums louder.
Louder.
I toss him aside, snarling to the wind and the rain and the frantic churn of gold armor, like wasps buzzing around, threatening to sting what’smineto protect.
Mine.
My surroundings smudge, and I hack, dodge,stab—fueling that terminal song until it’s a thrum in my ears. Red plumes spray across the pier. Across my face and arms, drenching my hair.
I’m deaf to the rain. Deaf to anything bar the sword’s pounding song spurring me into a deadly dance of mass destruction. Gorging on every slashed artery. Every severed limb and head.
Every dying scream.
I’m a feasting beast, and no matter how many times I stab, hack,kill,I’m stillravenous.
I sever the taut ligaments across the back of somebody’s legs.
He staggers forward.
Descending upon him, I fist his hair, ripping his head back so far I bare his throat to the honed edge of Rhordyn’s sword. I begin to slash it sideways when a desperate sob comes to me through the murk of my rabid rage.
I look up past a litter of butchered bodies, most of which I don’t recall hacking apart. Stabbing through.
Gutting …
