Page 103 of Cursebreaker

My knee buckles as I lash out, and I barely manage to stay upright. Again and again, the Sylk taunts me, evading my blows with ease. Out of the corner of my eye, the Gore makes its way toward Orella’s lifeless corpse—toward Henry, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.

I can’t win this fight, can’t protect them. Not like this. And the Sylk knows it. It wants me to watch. It wants me to feel helpless, just as I did during all those sleepless nights at Bludgrave Manor.

Close by, the screams of the villagers rise above the roar of the flames as the fire draws near. And it’s too loud. The Gore laughter. The screaming. The blood.

The blood.

My mind narrows on the metallic scent, sharp and sickly sweet. It’s everywhere, buzzing with Manan, eager to be tapped. The leaves. The bodies. My hands.

I try to take hold of the Manan, grasping at the invisible threads of gold dust, but I can’t distinguish the Manan in the air and in the trees from the Manan in the blood.

The Gore reaches for Henry.

And I can’t control it. The anger. The fear. The bloodlust.

A blade of crimson slices through the Gore’s thick, leathery neck.

Drip.

Blood falls from a dark storm cloud above, formed by my power as a surge of Manan floods my veins. Drip. Drip. Drip.

The Sylk stumbles backward a step, and through the haze of my vision, I note the sunken forms of the corpses surrounding us. Stars, no. I tried to grab hold of the Manan in the air to form a rain cloud. Instead, have I drained them of their blood?

Henry—I find him in an instant, covered in crimson as it rains down on the clearing. He’s unharmed.

But Orella… she looks so small, her skin ashen. Bloodless, just like the others.

I did this.

I did this.

I—

The Sylk tries to run.

It doesn’t get far. I’m there in an instant, as if propelled by the wind, my dagger thrust into the rib cage of the Sylk’s lifeless host.

“You can’t kill me, daughter of the sea,” the Sylk hisses as shadows seep from the possessed corpse. “I will come back, again and again and—”

“No,” I growl, my voice hoarse. “You won’t.”

The power of the Lightbringer gives me dominion over all creation—the darkness and the light. That which is seen, and that which is unseen. Including the shadows. Including Sylks.

I feel the Sylk’s panic, as tangible as my own heartbeat, when it realizes it’s trapped. The corpse it had inhabited falls to the ground, but the shadow—banished by the Elysian Iron of my dagger—is still here.

Because I refuse to let it go free. Not this time.

I grit my teeth, my voice like venom. “You are bound to me.”

The Sylk howls, the unnatural sound piercing my ears, but I don’t stop.

Thread by thread, the shadow unspools and slips through my fingers, until there is nothing left, and the Sylk’s shriek is lost to the sound of the bloody downpour.

“Magnificent.”

I turn to see Will propped against a tree that, for an instant, reminds me of the old oak from the conservatory at Bludgrave. He smirks, his gilded eyes twinkling with amusement, as blood drips from his eyelashes, his chin, his nose. “If only you could control this power.”

He pushes off the tree, prowls toward me with slow, methodical steps. I point the dagger at him, keeping distance between us, but he presses his chest to the tip of my blade, his expression wild with delight.