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I just hope with him back, it’s enough.
I try not to think about the fact that it wasn’t enough to stop the king before, because those kinds of thoughts won’t help me now. Whatever end game this monstrous man has worked out, it’s about to happen, and the others need me. I’m their secret weapon. Their last chance to change the tide of this war.
No pressure, right?
Turning, peeking out just a little, my stomach drops. This army… it’s larger than I ever imagined. An unstoppable force of nightmarish beasts, and it’s like the very world knows it. Trembles beneath their power, holding its breath. I wonder if their myth about the Moon Goddess is real, because I swear the dirt beneath my body feels… sad…. upset.
The king speaks, his voice louder than before, meant to be heard by all his subjects, not just Phantom. He directs his army of beasts to cross out of the shadow realm, to attack anything that moves. But it isn’t the speech of a moving leader, it’s the command of a slave leader. Words that are simply meant to be heard and obeyed.
Howls from the shadow beasts fill the air. The grave trolls stomp and roar, and the rot monkeys squeal and race ahead of them all. Then, the army begins to move through the dark wall, disappearing from sight. It’d be a comfort if I didn’t know Dusk and Onyx were on the other side. Because as incredible as those two men are, there’s no way they can stop this army.
If they try, they’re dead.
The king speaks more quietly this time, but his words rise above the noise of the army moving. “Go with them. Command them.” He smiles at Phantom, and it makes my stomach turn. “Bring me the heads of your brother and the mute.”
I want to punch him for calling Onyx that, for enslaving his son, and commanding him to end the lives of people I care about. I want to tear his head off and throw it to the grave trolls to feast on, but I swallow down my anger and stare at the two men through narrowed eyes. They’re so damn close to me. Almost close enough to touch.
Should I try to take the king over now?I really fucking want to. I want to make this asshole pay.
Shaking my head, I will myself to be just a little more patient. My opportunity is coming, but not with Phantom staring right at the king. Not with his entire army surrounding him. I can’t choose the wrong moment just because I’m angry.
“Show no mercy,” the king says, then squeezes his son’s shoulder, eyes flashing with an emotion I can’t name.
Phantom nods like any mind he ever had of his own is gone. “I’ll do as you say, my king.”
As Phantom walks past me, I watch the king, and I find myself unimpressed. Yes, him standing in dark clothes, wearing a dark cloak, commanding nightmarish creatures gives him a frightening appearance. But when I actually look at the man himself, I see someone smaller than his son’s, thinner, and shorter. If he were wearing human clothes, I could picture him in a park feeding pigeons. Not that he’s old exactly, just that beneath all his evil, he’s just a man.
Or maybe I’m telling myself that because of what I’m about to do. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Whatever helps me.
The king waits until Phantom is out of sight, until his army has faded from sight to earth, then whistles like he’s calling forth a horse. I frown, feeling confused. Trying to peer around without moving too much and risking him seeing me.
To my shock, a woman appears. I don’t know if she melted out of thin air, or if I couldn’t see her approaching until she was there, but she’s terrifying in a way I never expected. Like for all my fears of the shadow beasts and the grave trolls, I never knew that this was the thing I should be fearing most here.
She’s dressed in a scraggly black dress that drags on the ground and moves like the tentacles of an octopus in the sea. I can almost believe she’s floating, but somehow, I don’t think she is. It feels more like she’s something so… wrong that she can’t even exist in this dark world.
When she reaches the king, she lifts her head, and I almost gasp. I’ve seen ugliness before but she’s a whole other level of hideous. She’s wrinkled with bulging eyes, thin lips, and a long skinny nose. It’s as if she were a human forced to live until she was two or three hundred years old, but her body continued to disintegrate.
It seems impossible that her skin is still holding her bones together. Impossible that she can walk, or think. She’s like a pumpkin left to rot in the son, and I can only imagine what she might smell like if the wind shifted.
I wait for them to speak. I wait… I don’t know for what, but she just stares at the king with cold eyes, not like Phantom who seemed emotionless. But like a dangerous creature forced into a cage. A shiver rolls down my back, and I find myself hoping that whatever figurative cage holds this woman, it stays there.
At last, the king speaks, looking down at her with an expression of pure intensity. “You saw my son?”
Her voice is thin and tinny as she says, “The one they call Phantom? Yes.”
The king’s smile grows as cold as her eyes. “I want you to use the shard in his chest and pin him to the Earth. It’s the last piece. The most important piece. With it there, with him there, I can use him to be my conduit, to funnel my power and destroy earth.” If ever there was a time that an evil laugh was fitting, it’s now. I half expect it, but he simply smiles.
What will that do to Phantom? And can it be undone?I hate that I don’t know, but what I do know is that if the king is right, that will be the end of earth, the end of life, and the end of everything and everyone I ever loved.
His smile expands as the witch turns away from him. “And when you’re finished, bring me my bride from my tower, with her hands bound behind her back. We’ll be wed immediately.”
“Your wish is my command,” she says, but there’s something dark in her voice. Maybe even a warning.
Maybe because this asshole can only wed a woman who’s tied up? My woman who could kick his ass, and he knows it?
The witch, and she can’t possibly be anything else, turns back and bows to him, then heads to the edge of the Void. That strange gown of hers floating around her. Somehow her stride powerful and sure until she disappears, following the army to earth.
Damn it.
