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The scream that left me wasn’t human. It rang through the trees and shook them until no leaves remained. It was a force greater than any wind, a song of heartache and grief and rage. I screamed for my realm, for the lost sun, but I roared for Jude, for what he represented. For what I had just lost.
Shadows unfurled from me like giant wings, and with my arms outstretched, I welcomed them to consume my enemies. My hands tingled and my chest started to burn, and gold ringed my vision, touching Jude as he lay there motionless, Patrick’s dagger gleaming in my light.
Time didn’t flow; it stopped to stare at me.
Not a monster, but a creature touched by the darkness and given life by the sun.
The scorching warmth expanded, trailing to my arms, to the scars on my hands, and as my shadows spread, so did my flames. That piece of me I’d locked behind years of doubt and hurt.
Freak.
Monster.
Witch.
That’s what the villagers had called me. And perhaps I was all those things, but I was also Kiara Frey, and I was about to rip Patrick to shreds for the evil he had inflicted on my kingdom. On my friends. On Jude.
I commanded my gilded shadows to wrap around Patrick’s wrist, holding him in place. Jude didn’t move beneath him, and no more shuddering breaths left his lips.
Dead. Jude was dead.
My upper lip curled back as I stepped forward, and then so did time itself.
Patrick hissed, jerking back in shock, unable to go very far. He turned his pale-green eyes to me, a thousand questions clouding them.
“How?” he gritted out, struggling to shove down on the blade hovering above Jude’s chest, his heart. He had to carve out the divinity, and I was the only person preventing him from claiming unimaginable power. “You’ve been touched, tainted by evil. You can’t control both. It’s not possible.”
Sweat banded his brow, and I enjoyed his struggle. I stopped once I stood towering above, forcing him to crane his neck.
“You were once my friend, Patrick,” I said, my voice coming out strange and tinny. “You know the lengths I’d go to for them.”
I bent to my knees, my shadows surrounding him, holding his arms, twining about his neck like a black satin noose. I tipped my chin, and my shadows forced his head back. He sputtered, struggling for air.
A golden glow seeped from his pores as Patrick’s fire met my own.
It was a battle of flames and shadows, and he refused to bend. Even as he thrashed in my hold, his sliver of Raina’s power surged forth, delving beneath my flesh and trickling into my veins. I tasted the rottenness that he was, the bitterness and greed. Patrick had tainted Raina’s light after decades of fueling his wrath and his unquenchable need for revenge.
I gritted my teeth as scorching heat burnt my skin, my arms, my face. Even though the two pieces belonged together, under Patrick’s influence, they briefly battled, resisting one another. I felt them clash, the violent collision nearly sending me flying onto my back.
“Give. In,” Patrick snarled.
My shadows hissed in reproach.
I hadn’t realized I’d grabbed Jude’s hand, but it was cold in mine, no longer warm or comforting. My rage burned bright, and so did my shadows.
My eyes flicked back to Patrick, spit sliding past his lips as I choked him. His power hadn’t left me, and it raged inside my chest, scorching me from the inside out. I wasn’t breathing, but I didn’t need air. I needed revenge.
“You hadeverything,” I murmured. “A love that they once wrote poetry about. Someone to share a thousand lifetimes with. And yet…”
My shadows tightened on the hand holding the Godslayer. His fingers were turning a ghastly shade of purple. “You threw away something precious, all formore.Always more, right? Never satisfied by what was in front of you.”
I gritted my teeth as my fingers burned. Jude’s limp hand glowed, a pale yellow that highlighted the onyx and blue scars beside it, his beauty shedding light on my own. In that second, we were connected, our powers one. I drew from his motionless body, and his light became mine.
Patrick cursed, the foul word coated in decades worth of misery and hatred.
“You should have just loved her back, but you were never capable of such a selfless thing, were you?” My shadows jerked the blade free and I reached out, grasping it as it flew into my open and waiting hand.
Patrick sent a wave of fire at me, and I grimaced. He wasn’t going down easy.
