Page 23 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

The knife bit deep, scraping against bone. I hadn’t screamed then. I’d learned early that screaming only made it last longer.

When she was finally finished, she wiped my blood from her hands onto her gray robes stitched in red.

“There,” she said, her voice flush with the satisfaction of a job well done. “The foundation is laid. When these heal, we can move on to the more advanced sigils.” As she unstrapped me, she whispered, “One day, you’ll see this as the greatest gift I ever gave you.”

I was on my hands and knees, my body slick with a cold sweat. My stomach heaved in a violent, gut-wrenching spasm. I managed to turn my head just in time to vomit a thin, bitter bile onto the stones. Weakness, absolute and terrifying, washed over me. My magic, my very essence, felt tattered. Violated. As if some celestial parasite had sunk its fangs into the core of my being and was attempting to drain me dry.

Fuck. Fuck. This was not part of the plan. Public displays of catastrophic, debilitating weakness were generally frowned upon in the Dark Lord business. Bad for morale. Terrible for my reputation.

Through the shrieking static in my skull, a single, anchoring presence cut through—Arabella.

She lay across me, her hands on my back. A wave of her clean, offensively bright magic washed over me. It felt like cool water on a burn, soothing the worst of the fire but not extinguishing it. Her touch was hesitant, her own shock crackling through our bond, but she was real.

And just as quickly as it had begun, the searing agony vanished, leaving behind a hollow, aching void and a weakness that made my limbs feel like they were filled with wet sand. The light from my runes dimmed, their glow fading back beneath my skin.

I lay there breathing hard. Arabella shifted so that she was beside me instead of on top of me, her hands trembling.

Shit. We were in the middle of a conquered enemy outpost, surrounded by my men, who were currently busy slitting the throats of the survivors. They couldn’t see this. They couldn’t see their invincible leader laid low, puking like a green recruit after his first battle.

Control. That was the first and only instinct. Seize it, wield it, fake it if you have to.

I forced myself to straighten. My head swam, and for a terrifying second, the world tilted sideways. I gritted my teeth, planting a hand on the ground to steady myself. Arabella’s hand stayed on my back.

Thorne hurried over, his face a mask of concern.

“My lord?” he ventured, his eyes flicking from me to Arabella and back again.

I drew a breath. It felt like inhaling shards of glass. “Secure the outpost,” I managed to rasp. “Hold this position. Send scouts south but engage no one. Await my orders.”

Thorne’s eyes widened slightly at the clipped, urgent commands, but he simply nodded, his jaw tight.

“And Thorne,” I added, channeling every scrap of menace I had left, “the official story is that I was overcome by the sheer brilliance of my own victory. Anyone who suggests an alternative version will be used for target practice.”

He swallowed. “Understood, my lord.” He turned and began barking orders.

Excellent. Now for the hard part.

Getting the hell out of here.

My only priority was removing Arabella from whatever this was. Back to Skyspire. Back to the controlled environment of my fortress where I could figure out what fuckery was afoot without an audience.

I turned to Arabella. “Skyspire.”

She nodded, her eyes full of questions. “Can you manage a portal?”

Usually, a portal was as simple as breathing for me, but now… “We’re about to find out.”

I closed my eyes, focusing my will, what was left of it. I reached for the familiar threads of spatial magic, the power to bend and tear the fabric of reality. I pictured the Inner Sanctum, the cold, dark stone of my private workroom. I pulled.

The air in front of us began to shimmer and fracture. A hairline crack of pure darkness appeared, as thin as a spider’s thread. But the portal wasn’t obeying. Instead of a smooth, silent tear, it shrieked—a high, keening wail like tortured metal. It flickered, spitting sparks of corrupted energy, unstable and malevolent. It felt like I was trying to open a door while a ten-ton behemoth was holding it shut on the other side.

Black spots danced in my vision. The weakness intensified, threatening to drag me back down to the unforgiving stone.

“Kazimir!”

Arabella’s voice was sharp, cutting through my faltering concentration. Her hand closed around my forearm, her grip strong.

And then she pushed.