Page 30

He’s watching my eyes, waiting for me to fade. But it seems like he wants me to sleep, not to kill me. So he can cage me, just like the king wants done to me.

With a desperate twist, I wrench one arm free from beneath the weight of his legs. My fingers fumble blindly for the small dagger strapped to my thigh. Lungs burning, every second without breath stretches into an eternity.

Summoning the last of my strength, I drive the blade into his side. Silas, too focused on watching the light drain from my eyes, doesn’t notice the dagger until it’s too late.

He grunts, shock ripping through him. His grip falters just enough for me to drag in a ragged gasp. I tear the dagger free, plunging it down again, this time into his thigh. He howls and collapses, blood spilling across the stone as he hits the floor.

I roll out from under him and shove myself upright, chest heaving, throat raw. Air finally floods my lungs.

“Just so you know,” I rasp, struggling to force air out, “you don’t own me.” I drag Maddoc’s dagger against my sleeve, wiping his blood from my blade, and plant my feet. “Knowing my habits doesn’t make you my master,” I add. “It makes you obsessed. A fan, really. I'm honored.” I place the hand that holds my dagger across my heart.

He snarls as he hauls himself upright, fingers slick with blood slipping on the hilt of his sword. “Give up now, Neressa,” he growls. “This isn’t a fight you survive. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

I laugh, low, broken, but fearless, and let my gaze drop pointedly to the wounds in his side and leg. “I like my chances.” I straighten, shoulders back, chest open. Unafraid. Untouchable. “You still think you know me,” I say. “That’s your mistake.” My wrist snaps.

The dagger leaves my hand in a clean, deadly arc, slicing across his forearm. He hisses, his sword clattering to the floor.

“You want to know how I crossed the ocean?” I murmur. He’s weak. I’ve won this fight and, greedily, I want to reveal my secret just to prove to him how wrong he is.

Something ancient stirs beneath my skin. It pulls like a tide dragging itself up my spine, salt burning my tongue, power clawing at my bones. My muscles twitch, trembling on the edge of transformation. Begging.

I clamp down on the power. Not yet. Instead, I move, fast. A single, precise cut slices across his other wrist as he lunges for his dropped sword. He stumbles back, swearing. The balance of the fight has finally tipped.

I hold my breath, magic buzzing beneath my skin like lightning, humming, aching.

He grins through the blood, feral. “Well,” he says, voice rough, “now it’s your turn to humor me.” He steps forward.

I step back. And I let go. The world detonates. Sound and light rupture the chamber as bone cracks and flesh tears, the transformation ripping through me in a violent, sacred fury. Feathers burst from skin. A primal scream fractures out of me as my body turns to talon and wing and wrath.

I am the Morrígan’s raven. Nightshade-violet wings explode outward, massive and gleaming, their tips catching the firelight. I rise into the air, towering over him at double his size, shadow swallowing the room whole.

The ground trembles beneath my talons. Silas stares up at me, finally understanding. His eyes go wide, caught somewhere between horror and awe.

It's too late for him.

I tilt my head, studying him with a predator’s patience, letting the moment stretch just long enough for him to understand what he’s facing. Then I unleash a shriek that rips through the night.

The sound echoes through the air like the thunder outside, sharp enough to rupture flesh, to shatter thought itself. He staggers, clutching his head, blood trickling from his ears as the noise flays him from the inside out.

The man who once towered over me, who broke me, who owned me, now looks small. Fragile.

I spread my wings wider. Seven feet of shadow and vengeance blot out the firelight as I dive. My talons tear through him like he’s made of parchment.

Blood erupts, hot and violent, splattering the stone as his body jerks beneath the force of the strike. His gasp is swallowed by the night as I tear free and rise again, wings beating hard and fanning the flames higher. Lightning strikes as I strike him down.

The monster Silas made looks down at what remains of him. I dive again. And again. Each strike faster. Crueler. Less human.

Flesh shreds beneath my talons, bone cracking wetly as his body is reduced to ruin. Blood pools and spreads across the floor, thick and black in the firelight.

When there is nothing left but torn flesh and silence, I hover above it all, wings beating slow and steady, surveying the devastation I’ve wrought. He’s not dead yet. I want to have the last words.

His sword lies inches from his trembling hand. I land, one talon nudging it out of reach.

The shift back hits like a collapse. Feathers melt into skin. Bones snap and realign with sickening finality. One moment I am talon and wing and wrath and the next, I’m human again. Bloody, shaking, breath tearing from my chest in ragged pulls. Exhaustion crashes over me, heavy and merciless. Usually, the raven takes everything. I’d need hours—days, maybe—of sleep just to stand again.

But not tonight. I won’t stop until he’s dead. I step closer, boots slipping in blood, my voice raw and jagged when I speak. “You see, Silas, you never knew everything.”

I crouch beside him, forcing him to look at me, to see the storm still churning behind my eyes, still awake and hungry.