It was different from the war song. Quieter. More gentle.
Frenzied movement followed.
The dragon burst through the veil, bloodied wings spreading as it took flight, diving into the shadowlands to escape Reese. A horde of monsters followed.
Fleeing from Gwynford.
They acted as animals should: eyes alive and aware, movement erratic and unordered.
Ferris had been right. These scádes controlled them all: commanding them to attack, and to flee.
Dropping Cierthine, I slumped to my knees. Raising my hands, I stared at my palms.
Where had those shadows come from?
I was Stormborn. Lightning and wind should have answered my call.
No one had ever cast shadows before. No one.
Unless this was the black tide, and I was its harbinger.
Shaking, I looked back at the scáde's corpse. Shadows rose from its severed neck, merging with the sky. Black lines danced across my palms and faded away.
A drake swooped overhead, and shardwolves frantically fled past me, returning to their dark devoured home. Even in retreat, they avoided stepping on me, harming me.
Golden light infected the shadowlands, and I heard someone call my name.
"Mare!"
Reese ran to my side and dropped to his knees before me. Fear tore through my throat and paralyzed my limbs when his golden eyes met mine.
"Are you alright?" He grabbed both sides of my face, checking me for injury.
I couldn't speak. Reese's right hand burned my cheek. The hand he'd refused to show at the inn. The hand that had seared my skin during training.
The light from his eyes, from his rapier . . . They no longer felt comforting.
Reese wore the white of Forlaith. Of the Solhearts. Of those sworn to Solathair, god of the lost sun, who vowed to destroy the shadows and everything within them.
If Reese learned what I'd done . . . What I was . . .
"Mare?" His thumb stroked my cheek, his eyes searched my face.
They both burned.
I managed a slight nod, for I could not find my voice.
"God, that was stupid," Reese said, exasperated. "What were you thinking?"
I stared at him blankly. Unable to move, or think, or speak.
His face changed, softening. Grabbing Cierthine, he placed its hilt into my hand. "Hey, it's okay. You did it." He curled my fingers around the hilt.
Cierthine hummed in my grip, but it did little to comfort me.
Wrapping his arms around me, Reese pulled me into a hug.
Leaning on his shoulder, I stared past him, at the dead scáde. At the beast I'd murdered in cold blood.
