Page 220 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

But more kept coming. Dozens of them pouring from hidden positions across the battlefield. Auremar had held them in reserve, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

They dare challenge us? Show them their folly.

My vision began to blur at the edges, darkness creeping in. Not the darkness of my magic, but something older, hungrier. Memories that weren’t quite mine flickered through my mind—images of battles long past, of armies kneeling before a figure wreathed in shadow.

I shook my head. This wasn’t the time to lose focus. Arabella needed me to maintain the distraction, to keep Auremar’s forces occupied while she completed her mission.

Arabella.

The thought of her anchored me, pushing back the encroaching darkness. I could feel her through our bond, distant but safe, her determination a bright flame against the shadows trying to consume me.

“My lord!” One of my commanders approached, his armor splattered with blood. “The array is ready.”

I nodded, raising my hand. “Activate it.”

The soldiers in position began to chant, their voices rising in unison. The ground beneath us started to glow with purple light, runes appearing as if burned into the earth itself. The spell I’d designed was simple in concept but devastating in execution—it would turn the corrupted magic in the Guild members’ blood against them.

The first screams started within seconds. Guild members clutched their heads, falling to their knees as the substance that gave them strength became poison. Some tried to flee, but the array’s influence extended across the entire battlefield.

“Did you think I wouldn’t prepare for you?” I called out, my voice carrying over the sounds of agony. “Did you think Auremar’s pet project would save you?”

The Bone Behemoth continued its rampage, now facing less resistance as the Guild members writhed in pain. It grabbed one of the white-robed mages, crushing him in its massive fist before hurling the body into a cluster of soldiers.

Victory was close. I could taste it.

Then she appeared.

I’d been waiting for her. Of course she would come—Amaryska never could resist watching while other people did her work. The moment she materialized from a fold in space, every muscle in my body tensed, but this time I was ready. This time, I wouldn’t freeze like a child counting footsteps on the stairs.

Her gray and red robes remained pristine despite the carnage, the red stitching like veins of blood against storm-cloud fabric. My mother looked exactly as she had in Kheldvar—sharp cheekbones, dark hair pulled back severely, those gray eyes that had watched impassively as she carved runes into my bones.

The vertebrae in my spine burned. Phantom pain. Memory. I pushed it down.

Not this time.

“Hello, my son,” she said, her voice silk over steel.

The rage I’d been holding back since Kheldvar erupted, but controlled now—channeled into purpose rather than paralysis. The voice in my head roared its approval.

Kill her. Make her suffer as she made us suffer.

My hands weren’t shaking. I’d made sure of that, practicing the encounter in my mind a hundred times since that rooftop. I’d prepared words, strategies, contingencies. But seeing her again still made something foul curl in my chest—not fear this time, but a darker cocktail of fury and old pain that the Shadow King’s whispers eagerly fed upon.

“Mother.” The word tasted sour on my tongue. I kept my voice steady, the Dark Lord’s mask firmly in place even as that seven-year-old child inside me wanted to scream. “Come to watch your creation in action?”

She tilted her head, studying me with that clinical detachment I remembered so well. “You’ve grown strong.”

“No thanks to you.” I stalked toward her, shadows writhing around me. “Tell me, was selling me to that demon part of your grand plan? Or just a happy accident?”

“Everything I did was necessary,” she replied, not moving as I approached. “You needed to be forged in darkness to fulfill your purpose.”

I barked a laugh. “The only purpose I have is the one I chose. And right now, that purpose involves removing your head from your shoulders.”

I struck without warning, shadows lashing out with lethal intent. But Amaryska was already moving, her form blurring as she dodged. She reappeared twenty feet away, a small smile playing at her lips.

“Still so direct,” she said. “I taught you better than that.”

“You taught me pain,” I snarled, pursuing her. “Let me return the lesson.”