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Ames sighed. “It’s not that I doubt you, Tenah. It’s just that we’re running out of time.” He handed the envelope back. “Go ahead. Open it.”
Frowning, Tenah slipped a finger under the seal. She skimmed over the elegant writing, blood hammering in her veins.
Please beinformed that the Kingdom of Vozar shall be hosting a summer’s eve gathering at the Delemor manor on the night of the twenty-first. At this time, we shall discuss the questionable state of your affairs…
She crumpled the letter. “Tell him no.”
“I wish it worked like that, Tenah.”
“Okay. We run then. Find somewhere more remote to settle down until I figure this magic out.”
Last resort, there was always restricted magic to be explored…
“Tenah,” Ames said sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked exhausted. Had their time together been so terrible that he’d lost his faith? She supposed he’d sacrificed the most, giving up his life to care for his war friend and his heathen daughter. “We will host this gathering and prove to the king that there is nothing to hide here. Then we shall carry on with your training, if that is what you wish.”
But Ames didn’t wait for an answer as he walked away, leaving her to the whispers of dark magic coiling around her like venomous snakes.
Chapter2
Renton
Renton strode into the den of sin with a body draped over his shoulder.
After nearly a month out in the treacherous Boglands, he was near exhaustion. Muscles he didn’t know he had ached from overuse. His leather armor was caked in so much sludge and dried blood it was hard to tell what color it had been when he’d purchased it.
He scowled as clouds of amber filled the emerald hall, burning the inside of his nose. Remnants of topaz—a drug from Adra, the easternmost floating isle. It rivaled the metallic stench of the Corrupt he’d been hauling for miles.
Through the haze, hunters positioned around low, dimly lit tables smirked up at him. Some had shed their demon armor and blades to better immerse themselves in vice, gambling away their earnings and splurging on dancers and spirits. Others awaited their next orders, skull helms obscuring their scarred and weathered faces.
Renton’s knuckles popped as he tightened his hands into fists. How far the hunting clans had fallen. From protectors of the isles to criminals sworn under the sinister Councilman Boedworth. No matter how he steeled himself against this crushing disappointment, it never made his return to Cragnore any easier.
He delved further into the underground establishment, weaving through mahogany shelves bowed under the mass of rare artifacts he’d helped steal. As he approached his employer’s pretentious oak desk, fury bubbled in his gut. His fingers twitched, missing the worn leather hilts of his blades, confiscated the second he’d entered the den. Ignore the fact that he didn’t need them to kill.
Councilman Boedworth flashed his characteristic slimy grin. His gray suit was immaculate, polished gold cufflinks reflecting the murky green light from the orbs embedded in the pressed tin ceiling. Renton’s gaze flicked to the gaudy rings about to cut off circulation in his employer’s plump fingers, paid for by the blood of others. Paid for by his own family. Boedworth rapped them on the desk, aware of his focus on them.
“It’s almost as if the hunt has become too easy for you. That makes twelve Corrupt in five weeks, Mr. Murfell,” Boedworth said, unwilling to tear his gaze from his meticulous counting of gold and silver krotens.
The Corrupt’s ebony scales scraped against Renton’s hands as he dumped it on the ground. At the snap of Boedworth’s fingers, two armored hunters peeled off the velvety walls to drag the once-shadow’s body through a set of fortified black doors behind his desk.
Renton held back a scoff at the talisman embedded in their armor. A tiny bird skull over two semi-circles of jagged bone, inspired by the runes etched into Sakkren’s temples, the prime elemental of air. Sakkren would have been ashamed by the shadows bearing her mark. More so by the wasteland her isles had become, torn apart after the war at Roan’s Wake and choking on Chaos, the darkest known form of magic.
“I’d deduce the neutralizers are working,” Boedworth said.
Renton’s frown deepened. “Took two doses before the Corrupt stopped clawing and shrieking. Doesn’t seem humane.”
Witnessing how the infected shadow had writhed in pain as the injected fluid spread through its body had been a conflicting experience. He despised Corrupt for their choices, but he also wasn’t particularly fond of watching a living thing suffer. Not to mention how anticlimactic it was to end a hunt with a simple blow dart. He preferred a fight. It helped justify his purpose.
“Humane?” Boedworth laughed as he slid two stacks of krotens across his desk to join the mountain of others. “Says the machine bred to slaughter them. I hope you don’t plan on nurturing those morals, Mr. Murfell.”
Renton clamped his jaw tight, refusing to give the councilman more reason to inflict torture. His immediate focus was on shortening this meeting so he could rinse off and fill his stomach with something not charred over a makeshift fire.
Boedworth smirked, eager to prod at old wounds. “Your father often fell onto the wrong side of thinking too. How do you think your old man’s enjoying baking in his shallow grave?”
Renton ground his teeth together as he hardened his resolve. No one got to manipulate his emotions. Especially not this demon wearing the flesh of a shadow.
One day, when his younger brother was free from Boedworth’s clutches, Renton would sink their father’s cherished blade into Boedworth’s skull. For every hunter ordered on that suicide mission. For every hunting clan ordered before them, speared on the iron gates and spires of Nightfall like some sort of twisted nightmare.
Until then, he would bury his desire for revenge, right next to his troubling morals.
