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My shadows raked over Solok, hideous black veins exploded up over his face, his neck, crawling into his hair.
Yes, yes, yes, the magic sang, a symphony of darkness, wild and demanding and savage.This is what I was made for. Death and pain and viciousness.
Solok threw his hands out to shield himself and barbs sprouted from his fingertips, hideous, thorny growths, one hand curling into a skeletal husk, and the low, pained moan that slipped between his white lips…
I drank that down, too, and only wanted more.
“Stop this, Anaria.” Zor’s tone turned pleading. “If you continue, you’re no better than him. Either kill him or let him go.”
“He hurt Raz.” My voice warped and bent, a deep, booming, terrible thing, a voice that was not my own. “He was going to use us against each other. Turn our love into a weapon…I willdestroy him for that.”
The ground beneath me shook, as if the world itself feared me.
Good. I would consume its fear, too.
I’d become a god, and walk this…
Wait. No. That wasn’t right.
I drew my hands over my face, my palms came away soaked with blood and sweat and dirt.No, I didn’t want to be a god. I didn’t want…Solok writhed, enormous black thorns jutting from his shoulders and back, tearing through his armor, his mouth open wide in an unbroken scream.
I threw back my head and screamed along with him, howled to the sky in fury and victory and rage.
The magic-saturated air warped and groaned around me.
No—the airparted—as if a power mightier than mine shoved a deep ocean in half. Then held the waters there.
An arrow flew straight past my face, nicking the tip of my nose in a burst of red-hot agony, so close I saw the sharpened iron point, the fletch made from green hawk feathers spinning round and round as the bolt flew through the air.
Straight into Solok’s eye.
And punched out the back of his head.
The second the arrow drew my blood, my magic evaporated to nothing, a wisp carried away on the wind, clearing my head as I recognized who stepped from the trees, bow in his hands, a look of death on his face.
Tristan glowed with an inner light, tossed his bow to the side and pulled a sword, stepping close to Solok, still on his knees, still, impossibly, alive.
Zor limped to join him, blade in hand.
Raz lay crumpled on the ground, one hand still stretched toward me…his eyes closed, face white as death. Tavion was down, too, breathing heavy, though he’d stopped bleeding.
But Raz…
“Together.” Zorander murmured. He and Tristan raised their weapons, and for the first time, I did not look away.
“The king will take his magic back little thief.” Blood dribbled out of Solok’s mouth, his empty eye socket and didn’t stop. There’d be no miraculous healing this time.
“None of you will survive what’s coming.” He bared his red-stained teeth. “Your demise will be glorious.”
“And you will never see it.” I husked; my throat raw.
“Goodbye then, little thief.” Solok’s lips curved in a macabre smile. “You do amuse.”
I swayed when Solok’s dark, devouring gaze met mine one last time, filled with impotent rage and no small amount of fear as two blades waited to deal the final blow, his ruined body consumed by black, spiky vines and thorns.
A monster.
As hideous on the outside as he was on the inside.
