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Why, then, was I so terrified in this moment to be on the front line for Mrak?
“But I’ve only just arrived.” Sylas studied the room at large, but didn’t remove his weapon from Mrak’s chest. “I’m happy to see survivors Ireyna in one place. It’ll make it easier to destroy them.”
Mrak reached up and tried to pull Sylas’s blade from in front of him. But a combination of Sylas’s inexplicable strength and the nightsteel material held it in place as Mrak’s darkened skin bled. He grunted in pain. Agony twisted his brows, but he held firm.
“Oh, fine, brother,” Sylas said as he rolled his eyes and swung the sword away from Mrak. “Have it your way.”
The sword passed right behind Sylas through the abdomens of three shadow demons. They cried out and doubled over, bleeding out quick.
I rushed forward to the youngest one—a woman of my height—but her eyes were already darkening as I helped her to the ground. My healing magic wasn’t enough to save her.
Sylas swung again, but Mrak’s shadow tendrils grasped on to Sylas’s sword arm and held it in place. Sylas chuckled and raised his hands. Every shadow in the room, including Mrak’s tendrils, pulled toward Sylas at his command.
“Stop this now!” I screamed as I stood with that woman’s blood covering my hands. A dark crimson that might’ve shattered my previously human mind with memories and trauma.
Sylas locked gazes with me and laughed. I lifted my hands and shot a pillar of fire into the air that lit the room even though my flames were shadowed. All the demons in the room—Sylas included—ducked and pulled away.
“Leave,” I ground out as I charged toward him.
Sylas’s jaw locked tight. He raised an eyebrow at me. I held my ground, waiting for him to act again. Then Sylas laughed once more. “You’d have a mortal fight your battles, brother?”
“I’m no mortal,” I spat. “Not anymore.”
Sylas’s red eyes studied me closely. “No, it would seem not.”
“Have you come to gloat?” Mrak asked. “You kill our people, take over lands that aren’t yours, and for what? Control? A title?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Sylas considered the room at large again. My fists clenched at my sides, ready to act when he next did. His hands fell at his sides, drawing a piece of cloth hanging from his armor to the side.
A cloth with Mrak’s symbol on it.
A ward.
I ground my teeth together. Mrak couldn’t fight Sylas here, which was what Sylas had wanted: to make a fool of Mrak again. To exile him.
But the symbol drew another memory to mind. Farther back now, tucked away through all the chaos of the last few days.
A diagram of a sword made from nightsteel with Mrak’s symbol forged on to it.
A sword, Leif had said, that would disperse shadows.
My breath caught in my throat. I swallowed hard.
“All I came here for was your surrender,” Sylas said as he began to move around the room. Mrak let him. Only now I could understand why. It wasn’t like Mrak could stop Sylas. Not without risking more innocents.
Mrak leveled Sylas with a glare while I continued to put together puzzle pieces I wasn’t even aware I’d gained.
“Your trip was wasted,” Mrak said.
Sylas clucked his tongue and readied another swing. “A shame your people will keep dying, then.Ourpeople. Anyone who stands in my way will perish.”
He swung, and Mrak caught the blade again, this time clear across his palm. Blood poured from the wound, but Mrak held fast even as his hands trembled.
“Stop. This.”
Sylas frowned. “You have the power to stop it. But will you take it?” He raised his hand in a flourish, and all the shadows in the room fell under his command once more.
The demons in the room reacted, starting to scatter and protect the young, but Sylas clenched his fist and the tendrils snapped them up. Brought them up into the air as they began to choke.
