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Chapter 20
“Here.” I tossed the finished sword over to Sylas as he came through the forging room’s door. Willa and Quinn weren’t with him. I snarled. “Where are my friends?”
“Friends?” Sylas echoed as he inspected the nightsteel blade. It looked so small in his shadow demon hands that I had to force myself not to laugh. It wasn’t like he had specified the blade at to be fit for a shadow demon. “The women whose lives you put at stake with thesegamesare not friends.”
I pointed my gaze at the blade and then back at Sylas. “It’s a nightsteel sword, is it not? Allow me to work with the witch to enchant it to kill Mrak and I will have met all your stipulations.”
Sylas moved fast—so fast that I had no time to prepare myself for the clawed fist he slammed into my gut. Air whooshed from my lungs as I went flying backward, landing on the stone floor of my forging room with a hardthud. I tasted copper in my mouth, the blood cool on my lips considering every part of me was heated from the forge.
“You time for games is ending,” Sylas said.
“You said that,” I croaked as I wiped blood from my lips and nose. “You’ve got a hell of a way to treat the future vessel for this god you love so much.”
Sylas reached down and picked me up off the floor by the front of my shirt. I glared at him. “I could kill you now and replace you with the witch.”
“Go for it,” I spat. A few speckles of blood flicked on to his monstrous face. “She’s not a shadow demon, so solid chance that doesn’t go well for you. And Quinn, well…” I smiled slowly. “You need her to find Dakta in the first place, right? Wouldn’t want to risk her.”
Sylas seethed. “I should kill you now.”
“You really, really should,” I said, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Because I knew he wouldn’t. Not yet. Not if he could hurt Mrak one more time.
Sylas set me down hard. I stumbled, but managed to keep my footing. To the guards just outside the door, he said, “Chain her. We’ll bring them all to the great hall. Let our court see the enchanting of the weapon that will see the Exiled King’s end.”
A half-dozen guards swarmed into the forging room. I went without further fight. I needed Willa to complete my plan, which meant playing along with Sylas’s agenda for now. My only hope—and it was so small—was that Mrak was able to get a ward or something else from Leif. Anything that would help.
My hope died out the moment Sylas and his guards led me into the great hall of Sylas’s castle at the heart of the kingdom. When he’d said “court,” I’d imagined nobles or families or something, but every shadow demon in this room either wore armor or had become swirling masses of shadow poised for orders to attack.
No Mrak. No army.
Yet, my heart whispered. I hoped it was right.
Sylas shoved me forward with my hands still bound behind my back. I was still in the loose pants I’d worn yesterday and had never been given anything to change out of. I felt the blade I’d pressed between my thighs. It was strapped tightly, so I was sure it wouldn’t fall, but the looseness of my clothes worried me they might see it.
I pressed my thighs together as I walked, just in case. I even made it more of strut and raised my chin, hoping to fake confidence instead of my fast-fading hope.
Sylas brought me to the front of the room. To my right, Willa and Quinn were being held by one shadow demon each. Unbound and probably with their magic intact, but held captive by the sheer number of shadow demons present. I briefly met gazes with Willa. She nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Here is your future queen,” Sylas announced as he introduced me to the hall filled with his army. He held up the nightsteel blade I’d made for him and then swung it down. I flinched as it cut through the chains binding my wrists together. Sylas then shoved the sword into my own hands. “And here is the blade she will use to kill our Exiled King.”
A chorus of cheers resounded as Sylas strode toward his people. I stayed where I was and calculated the chances of getting away despite knowing they were slim to none.
“Our Exiled King walks Kithonia once more,” Sylas intoned loudly as he walked. “He kills your kin and prepares for war. Today, we move on the palace he now calls home, and we will remind him why we exiled him in the first place!”
Another round of cheers reverberated loud enough to shake the floor. My heart raced, my lungs heaving in time to match. I hated being the center of attention, and Sylas had purposely put me in it and walked away so I couldn’t get close to him. He knew I’d try to kill him.
Sylas turned and held his clawed hand out to me. “Although she is not one of us by birth, your future queen has pledged herself to me. I freed her from her tormentor, the Exiled King, and now she will join me in our quest to raise the Dread Lord Dakta.”
The sheer number of shadow demons cheering on Sylas and his agenda terrified me. Surely, they did not represent the sentiments of every shadow demon in this kingdom. They all knew the dangers of Dakta, didn’t they? Even if just in myth?
If they did, none seemed to care as they cheered and moved closer around Sylas and me, closing an already shortening distance between us.
My fingers stiffened around the sword hilt. But there was no point in attacking Sylas at this moment. At best, I’d kill his physical self, and this ethereal form would survive. If all it needed was a host and a pact, any of these shadow demons would undoubtedly volunteer.
No, Ineededa ward for Sylas. And then I needed two minutes with Willa on how to enchant that ward with enough power to end Sylas for good.
I glanced at Quinn. I wasn’t entirely sure how far a Seer’s magic could go—if they could see the future or just through planes and magic. But I wanted to know if Mrak was coming. If he had an army. If he’d talked to Leif.
For my entire adult life, I’d spent nearly every single day calculating the risk of actions I took to see if doing something was better than not acting at all. Standing up for another feeder. Saying no to a vampire. Eating too much lest I throw it up anyway when the vampire venom hit my system.
