Page 185 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Assembly or battlemages.

No matter which, I was destined for a confrontation.

I welcomed it. As a man born to the darkness, I felt a peculiar sense of ease sink over me the deeper into the tunnels I went. My hand brushed the cool, damp tunnel wall as I moved, nearly blind now, toward the sounds. I silenced my footsteps by habit, erected a magical barrier around my mind, and breathed shallowly. Muffin followed without a sound; I didn't need to check on him to know he was navigating the dark safely.

The guttering orange torchlight creeping around the bend signaled my quarry lay just ahead. Now able to make out voices, I pressed myself to the wall and took the risk of looking.

Three score men packed the passage ahead. They didn’t have any inkling that their comrades had already laid their weapons down. Unfortunately, with how dark it was, it would be impossible to replicate the strategy of targeting only the leaders like I had above.

Two figures in Assembly robes stood slightly apart from the soldiers, speaking in low voices to another of Coryanthus’s captains. And there, hovering at the edge of the light in his distinctive white healer’s robes, was Thibault.

Anger flared hot within me. He can die last.

How long had he walked our halls, eaten at our tables, sat at Berian’s bedside—all while slowly killing him, while plotting my downfall? With effort, I breathed all of it back down. There would be a reckoning for Thibault, but I had to be patient.

They were speaking:

“—not without direct orders,” a man I assumed was the captain was saying, his voice stubbornly resolute. “We’re to hold here to escort our Lord and his prize out.”

Prize?

“Your orders,” one of the Assembly mages said, “were to support this operation.”

“I am supporting it.” He gestured up the passage. “When you bring her down.”

Lunette.

The captain’s eyes moved between the three mages, and I thought something sharpened in his expression. “I’m not sending men up there blind into whatever you couldn’t handle yourselves without orders.”

From above, I heard a faint familiar male voice. “…kill you for this.”

Then distinctly Lunette’s. “Maybe, but you won’t be alive to see it.”

Keep fighting, moonlight.

She was still there, but they wanted to take her away from me. My pulse stuttered then began to pound with an alarming, erratic tempo.

Certainty that I had to act now settled into place next to the tightening bond. Every thread pulled in the same direction until instinct and intention became indistinguishable. Protecting her had never been a thought I had to reach for. It lived in my body as something constant and absolute, as natural as the beat of my heart. I hadn’t known how starved I was for living until she gave my life back to me a second time.

“Do you require an edict,” the second mage hissed, voice now strained, “to rescue your lord from her?”

The captain turned and barked a terse order. “First squad, belay orders. Force can be used on the prize.”

The soldier already climbing up the ladder let out a snort. “Lord said she’s meant for breeding anyway,” he said to no one in particular. “Parts of her can be broken for that.”

Every thought I’d been carefully maintaining—strategy, silence, the tactical patience I’d spent years honing—crumbled in an instant. I’d already chosen patience once.

I didn’t—couldn’t—this time. I thought I’d lost my mind while suffering through our separation. But this was rising madness. Violent, bloodthirsty madness.

The potent, untamed force of magic that flooded up from my chest and into my hands overtook everything. I could feel it clawing up my throat, demanding release. My vision sharpened with the shadows that flooded my eyes before every battle, but this time my focus turned the soldiers into nothing more than obstacles to be overcome.

Parts of her can be broken played back through my skull on a loop until rational thought stopped being a choice. The words warped and stretched until they meant nothing and everything.

Break them.

The waiting darkness poured from me, devouring the sparse torchlight as it flew unnoticed over the soldiers’ heads. The men on the ladder above stumbled as the light of the torches blinked out, their organization dissolving before my magic touched them.

They had just enough time to realize what was happening—not enough to stop it.