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One face burned in my mind. A single heartbeat beckoned my rage and called my darkness.
Sabain.
Coils of night hunted him until I found him near the stairs of the courtyard that would lead to the boathouse. I set my jaw, every muscle throbbed, and I balled my fists.
Half a heartbeat was all it took to entangle the Benevolent in my shadows. Sabain crashed forward, his forehead struck the stones on the ground. With a groan, he rolled over onto his back, eyes spinning wildly in his head. Part of me believed he did not see me. It didn’t matter. His fate was sealed whether he saw my face or lived a horrible nightmare of an unseen force.
The whirlwind still raged, but I stretched out my hand through the storm. My palm gripped his face. My mesmer latched onto his thoughts in an instant. The Benevolent’s screams were a sweet song.
Darkness cut into every crevice of his skull. Ears, nose, mouth, my shadows slid into Sabain’s mind. I inhaled to the point my chest couldn’t expand. At least a dozen more times, I breathed in until smoke and memories were ripped from his mind and placed into mine.
Ghostly shapes gathered in my head. The moments of Kase falling under Sabain’s sword spilled into my mind in reverse. Heat blossomed beneath my palm. The images sharpened. Kase was back on his feet, in shock as Sabain rammed his sword through his middle. Then, the sword was yanked free of Kase’s stomach, and Sabain took a few back paces. Smoke wrapped around the moments of Kase before Sabain attacked.
Sabain’s fearful gaze found mine, and at last, I knew he saw my face. “No!” He screamed. “Leave me.”
“He did not kill you as a boy,” I snarled. “But I will kill you as a man.”
The ring hummed in mesmer, but I never let up. I drew more breath; more shadows suffocated the bastard. Memories pulled from his past, his childhood. The moments where the Benevolent might’ve had a chance to be decent, but instead he chose to be the sniveling weakling he was added hot rage to my heart.
His screams weakened. His body went slack. The blurred moments of his infancy were mine, until I came to the precipice, the earliest thoughts, the earliest reflexes of the man. Once more the spectral was there, silent and ominous in the storm of darkness.
I locked my gaze on the misty shape, then ripped my palm away from the Benevolent. I’d taken his beginning, his existence. He was nothing but bones and flesh. When I pulled back my hands, a coil of gold, the same fiery red as the runes on the queen’s ring, danced over my palm.
By the hells, I didn’t understand what I’d just done, but a strange confidence kept me reeling through every step. As if my mesmer knew how to finish this.
“Here is your life. Forget the other.” I reeled back and tossed the ball of light at the ghostly woman. The instant it touched the shadows, a blast of heat and power knocked me backward.
My hair whipped my face, darkness burst into the lanterns and scents of the courtyard. Blood and ale, death and sugar. A sickly collision of revelry and war. When the storm faded, I was once more sprawled out over Kase’s chest.
All around me folk had gathered. They stared at us with a mixture of awe and terror. Let them stare, I leaned over Kase’s body and clutched his face, desperately searching for warmth in his skin, for breath in his lungs.
Kase’s chest lifted in a rough gasp. Then another. Deep, living breaths.
His eyes fluttered open. They were glassy at first, but when they locked on mine, he lifted his hand to my cheek. His voice cracked as he whispered, “To the Otherworld and back, Mallie.”
I collapsed on his chest, my arms squeezing his neck, and sobbed.
Exhaustion and adrenaline seeped out of my pores, but I refused to loosen my grip. I let my tears soak his tunic. Kase made no attempt to move, keeping me locked in his arms. Gods, I didn’t know if the battle still waged, but we were defended by a circle of Kryv and warriors.
“Kase. Malin.” When we both looked up, Luca was only a few paces away. Blood soaked his face, smoke and ash darkened his clothes, but he was alive. His hand was clasped tightly in Dagny’s. He grinned at the both of us. “It’s over.”
CHAPTERFIFTY
THE NIGHTRENDER
I was alive.Death had tried to claim me, and for a moment I’d been certain it had. But somewhere in the dark, Malin’s voice broke into my senses. She’d screamed and raged. She’d battled with her words with someone unseen. Then, breath filled my lungs. My wound closed as if it had not existed, and I was returned to the heat of the battlefield.
“Kase. Malin.” Luca shoved through the crowd, Dagny beside him. “It’s over.”
Malin and I shared a look with each other. Her eyes were puffy, and tear tracks carved salty scars through the blood and sweat on her cheeks. I tugged on her bottom lip with my thumb. “It’s over.”
She released my neck, not saying a word. Together we stood. Everyone stared at us like we might burst into flames.
I had plans to work through what had happened here today, but later. We had to finish this. For good.
“Kase,” Raum called, waving his hand to bring us closer. “Get over here.”
At the staircase leading to the river, I choked on my own breath. Sabain was sprawled out on his back. Dead. Burned into his forehead was a simmering rune mark. The edges still burned red as if it were freshly made.
