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Cold light swept over the forest floor. The moon shone down on us like a cruel enemy. Like the forest knew a shift was coming, not even the wind rustled the leaves.
Valen winced and closed his eyes. Hells, it was striking me like a blow to the jaw that this was happening. The king’s breaths were sharp and labored. Disbelief, denial, a bit of my own fear clouded my mind. To think for turns and turns these three had done this sent a sick wave through my insides.
To think if we did not succeed, Valen’s curse would return every night.
Doubt had a way of inciting a deeper, fiercer fear. Perhaps we’d stepped wrong. For this felthorriblywrong. We should’ve fought harder, accepted our fate that if we attacked Felstad and were called to the Otherworld, so be it.
It was simple to say now that I was watching the Northern King groan in pain. His back and shoulders arched. His voice deepened.
The moonlight filtered through the clouds. In the instant the cold beams touched Valen’s skin, the king released a deep, guttural cry. His hands gripped his own hair, and he pressed his face into the ground.
The snap of a twig spurred my attention away from the sickly sight. Luca and Hob appeared from the deep trees.
Tor hissed at them to get back and hurry.
Hob’s eyes went wide as he watched Valen writhe on the ground. Each breath was more haggard.
Luca lifted his eyes to me, pain written across his face. For the king, for Dagny, for Von, all of it compounded into one shadowed look. He nodded. A silent signal that they’d done their part.
Telling Luca Grym he was forced to wait here until a signal that might never come when his lover and child were captured was worse than trying to feed a rabid dog and keep your fingers. Tor had been the brilliant one to give Luca a task, to feel included and keep his thoughts focused.
A beast of bloodlust needed blood.
Luca and Hob had spilled leather skins of rabbit blood across the forest leading to Felstad. Once there, it would be up to us to get Valen in the thick of it all.
Every aspect of this plan held risk and likely failure. But it was too late to look back. I rolled my shoulders, cracked my neck, and ceased my bleeding doubts. This was the move, and I damn well was going to see it through.
My confidence waned into horror when on Valen’s next cry, it came out as a deep, painful bellow. A roar that shattered the darkness and rattled our spirits. His bones looked elongated. His shoulders were more rigid, with more sharp points. Black veins slithered up the sides of his neck and wrists, like rotten blood flowed under his skin.
Tor and Halvar stepped behind their king, both stoic and silent.
Another roar ripped from Valen’s throat, then it fell into snorts and growls.
I held my breath as the king rose with jerky movements. Black, rotten claws had sprouted from his fingers. He lifted his face to the sky, the mask slipping to his chin as he drew a long inhale through his nose.
Three hells. His eyes were like blood, his lips blue and cracked. But curled over his lips were yellowed, jagged fangs.
My heart sank.
No mistake, we’d just damned Valen Ferus.
The creature in his place sniffed the air. It took little time before his head snapped in the direction of the bloodied forest. A wet, deep growl escaped his throat, then he sprinted off into the darkness.
“Keep up, keep us concealed, and do not lose him,” Halvar shouted at me.
I didn’t have time to reconsider another bleeding thought before I raced after them into the night.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
THE NIGHTRENDER
Cursed hells,he was fast.
My ribs seemed ready to crack against the deep expansion of my lungs when I skidded to a stop behind a thick spruce.
Tor held up a hand. Halvar had an arrow pointed into the clearing as we watched the king sniff the air. Blood splattered the velvet petals of wildflowers and the long branches of shrubs like a war had been fought where we stood. Bile burned my throat as I watched Valen on his knees, dragging his clawed fingers through the bloodied leaves and twigs, then swiped his tongue over the claws, lapping it up.
“Nearly there,” I whispered to Halvar. “We need to get him through the trees.”
