“Die! Die you bastard! I want you to rot,” I scream at the top of my lungs, attacking the remaining eye.
I hate that he’s made me do this. That he’s turned me into this vengeful banshee.
But I can’t deny the relief pooling in my heart as I watch him still.
I kneel over him, sobbing, when darkness passes over Gloombane’s bloodstained face. A shadowy eel slithers out through the hole where his eye used to be, and onto my hand. I flinch and fall back on my ass in panic, but it’s too late, and it crawls up my arm.
I expect pain, my tormentor’s revenge, for the eel to wrap itself around my neck and choke me to death, but once it settles on my chest, it stills like a faded tattoo.
Empty holes watch me from Gloombane’s eyesockets. His face might have been handsome but I learned to associate it only with cruelty.
He’s gone.
He’s really gone, and he will never again lay his hand nor shadow on me. He will never lash me with his words. Never bleed me, beat me, starve me, drown me, thrust me into nightmares.
Is my ordeal… truly over?
The knife clatters to the floor, and I sob, letting the tears of the past weeks run free.
Chapter 17
Tristan
I’m heaving, pain radiating up my broken arm, but all I can focus on is the carnage in front of me. No longer needing to fight Gloombane, I sit back and take it all in.
I pull the spikes back into my shadow as I turn my gaze from the wreckage of the captain’s face to the sobbing pile of misery, skin, and bones that is Nate. Blood still drips from the open wound in his arm, and that gets me moving.
I can’t believe anyone could have done this to him.
On shaky legs, I get up and take off my cloak. At some point, I won’t be able to ignore my arm anymore, but for now, Nate needs my attention far more.
I cover his shaking form with the warm cloak.
“I’m here. I’ll take care of everything,” I say, wondering whether I’m hiding his body from myself. Seeing him this emaciated cuts me deeper than a blade through the heart could have, becauseIleft him here. Assured him how all would be fine. Convinced him to not make a fuss.
And look at him now. Look at the sunken cheeks, hollowed-out eyes, and ribs poking through the skin. I might as well have done this to him myself.
Even his eyes look different. Gone is the playful glint hiding beneath the softness. They’ve become two holes of grief.
“Where were you? You left me with this monster for so many weeks,” he cries, as tears once again roll down his face.
His voice is like razors and will leave scars. I’m still so shocked by all of this I’m struggling to catch up with reality. I pull the cloak closed around him, unsure what to make of the dead shadow eel on his chest. That’s something to think about later.
I kneel next to him and stroke his shaved head. “I… I didn’t know. He sent letters—”
What a pathetic excuse. I should have come sooner, investigated. But my self-pity isn’t his problem. I deserve his wrath.
“H-he made me write them. I thought… I thought you’d see something’s wrong,” Nate mumbles. “But you didn’t, because you don’t actually know me. I was such an idiot. You let your prince die, why would you be any more careful with me?”
It’s bitterness speaking—and pain, so so much pain—but his words still hurt. They’re meant to be cruel.
My heart sinks, and I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes.
There’s only one thing I can think of to even begin making amends for his ordeal.
“I vow to never fail you again,” I whisper, and reach for his shadow. It’s so vulnerable now and leans my way even as Nate recoils.
I do what I should have done two months ago. I pick a thread off his shadow and let it sit in my palm as my own extends to it. I close both in my hand, sealing our fate forever.
