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“And you noticed he didn’t answer about sharing power with you? Doesn’t that make you nervous? And the way he spoke, it’s like he’s already decided he’ll kill you.”
Phantom pushes away from the table. “Whatever my king desires. Now, it’s time to go back in your room.”
It isn’t my room, but I don’t correct him. For some reason, I’m exhausted, and I want to save my strength for more than just arguing. Perhaps even escaping, if I find the right opportunity. Because who the hell knows how many chances I’ll get to leave that room?
We take a different route back to the stairs. It isn’t dark or as dank as the last one, but it’s long and out footsteps echo off the walls. I don’t know why he’s taking me this way, maybe to confuse me, maybe because it’s more convenient and he doesn’t give two shits about whether it’s a longer walk for me, but I don’t care. Because I’m busy trying to remember everything I see, trying to figure out where I am, and trying to see if there’s any opportunity for escape.
I glance to my side as we pass another hall. There’s a door. It’s big and probably heavy by the looks of it, definitely larger than what I’d expect to be used for another door inside. As I move slowly, peering down the dark hall, I realize it’s opened a crack, and I think I can see the light from a torch from the wall outside. Which means it could lead to an escape.IfI’m right.
This is my chance. Phantom is right ahead of me, not looking back, probably not expecting me to try anything. We’re about to pass the hall, and then my chance to get back to Onyx, Rayne, and Dusk will be over.
Not giving it another thought, I take two steps and run. Harder than I’ve ever run before. So hard that it feels like my heart is instantly pumping as fast as my legs are, and the sound of my footfalls fill my ears.
When I get to the door, it is open wide enough I can squeeze through. Immediately, darkness surrounds me other than the light in the distance. I give my eyes one second to adjust because I don’t want to fall into the moat, and then I keep running. Feeling relieved when I feel wood beneath my feet and realize I’m crossing the moat, heading for the other side.
When I reach the other side, I look in both directions frantically looking for an escape, and see the torches lining the massive stone fence on both sides of me. But more than that… I see a hoard of shadow beasts moving toward me from each direction. My instinct is to run, but there’s nowhere to go. The moat. The fence I couldn’t climb if I had all day. The castle behind me and the shadow beasts to both sides.
No wonder Phantom didn’t try to stop me.
My heart pounds in my ears and my feet are rooted to the ground.This was pointless.Even if I use my light, one of them will make it to me, and then it’s over.
Growls rise up from all around me, and I know it, I know I’m about to be torn to shreds. Heart hammering, I move back toward the door. Half-crouching, ready to fight, even though I’m hoping it won’t come to that. Maybe, just maybe, I can go back the way I came and find a less well-guarded exit.
Unlikely, but possible.
When I turn, Phantom is standing with his hands in his pockets, shoulder leaned against the doorframe.Was he going to just stand there and watch them feast on me?It’s how it looks anyway. Although, I was brought here for a purpose, so maybe he would’ve called off his creatures.
But I’ll never know because when I get close enough, he yanks me inside and shuts the door behind us, trapping me in the shadowy castle once more.
TWELVE
Onyx
We’d barely had time to sleep and heal, at least to the point where every moment wasn’t pure agony, when they came. The rot monkeys. They’d poured out of the Void in a miles long stream, suggesting that whatever final play the Shadow King planned, it was coming for us. I cut down as many as I could from one side. Dusk did the same beside me. But there were so many. Too many of them. And as the hours passed, we tired.
The night is long and full of death and darkness. Endless. Overwhelming.The thoughts haunted me as I fought until at last the monkeys slowed.
But if I thought that was the end of this night of fighting, I was wrong.
I’m engaged in battle with an aggressive grave troll right now. He’s slower than the rot monkeys, which is usually my main advantage against their larger size, but tonight I’m slow too. Standing on a leg that moved past the aching stage and into sharp pain a few hours ago.
Trying to adjust my weight from my leg, I look away from the troll for the briefest moment. He attacks faster than I thought possible, slicing my arm from shoulder to elbow. Blood pours out, running down my arm and painting the ground.
The pain is unbearable, but when the troll tries to severe my head from my shoulders with his sword. I manage to slip to the side, and slice off his head before stumbling back, nearly crumbing to the ground.
My gaze catches Dusk’s and his eyes widen. He finishes off the troll in front of him with a reckless move that was either going to kill the troll, or get him killed, but he’s making his way toward me. Concern in his expression as he moves away from the Void. Knowing what I’ve already come to accept.
We’re losing. We can’t keep going.
The smell of my blood attracts more of the damn rot monkeys, for some fucking reason. Probably hunger, the disgusting creatures, and I have to steady myself, to ignore the way the world tilts around me if I don’t want them feeding on me. I fight off as many as I can, with my sword swinging wildly around me with my good arm, before I have to retreat because for every one I beat back, two come from the Void at me.
Dusk is suddenly there, stomping on the last few rot monkeys near me. Then, he takes something, lights it on fire, a fire that grows rapidly, and throws it toward the Void. It explodes into a sea of light, embers, and ash, and the rot monkeys race toward it.
“It’s over,” Dusk signs to me, then grabs my good arm and starts to run away with me. I think he’s guiding me at first, but then I’m leaning harder and harder on him until he’s almost carrying me. My sword drops, he stops and picks it up, then keeps going. And the world around me is dark, darker than the night.
We make it into a cave, but my head is spinning so hard I don’t recognize it. Dusk helps me around the corner, into the darkness, and then we’re going down, clumsily. He stops and pushes me against the wall, before he leaves me. Unexpectedly, I fall and then just lie on the dirt, feeling lost and confused.
Then, light blazes to life and Dusk is standing over me. I watch him as he rolls a stone over the entrance, and then he puts down the torch beside me and signs, “you’re going to be okay.”
