Chapter 52 #2
A wall of black-armoured Nyxarian warriors appeared ahead.
Brynelle skidded to a stop. Sword up. Teeth bared. Shaelith turned on her heel, blade raised, but the corridor was closing in. Guards poured from every direction.
We were surrounded. But we didn’t stop. Didn’t hesitate.
We turned on them. Blades, fury, blood.
I drove my dagger into the throat of one soldier, twisting hard, the cartilage giving with a wet snap beneath my grip. I yanked it free, pivoting to block another strike.
Shaelith and Brynelle caught my eye as I moved.
They didn’t fight side by side.
They moved as one.
Not just in sync—interwoven.
A storm with two minds. A purpose shared like breath.
Shaelith struck first. Her blade carved through the air in a vicious arc that caught a Nyxarian warrior across the throat.
Blood sprayed hot and bright, painting the stone walls in crimson.
She didn’t pause, didn’t even register the kill—just spun, her white hair whipping like a banner as she dropped low, sweeping the legs out from under another.
Brynelle was already there.
Already moving before Shaelith’s target hit the ground. Her stolen blade drove into the fallen warrior’s chest, the wet crunch of breaking ribs audible even over the chaos. She yanked it free, twisting to block a blow that would have taken Shaelith’s head off from behind.
They didn’t speak.
Didn’t need to.
Shaelith pivoted left. Brynelle mirrored right. A perfect rotation that put them back-to-back for half a heartbeat before they exploded outward again, blades flashing in tandem like the hands of some deadly clock.
A warrior lunged at Brynelle. Shaelith’s dagger left her hand before I could even track the movement, burying itself in his eye socket with a wet thunk. He dropped like a severed marionette.
Brynelle didn’t look. Didn’t thank her. Just kept moving, kept killing, because she knew. Knew Shaelith would be there. Knew that space, that angle, that breath—all of it was covered.
Another guard closed in on Shaelith from the left. Brynelle’s blade found his hamstring before he could complete the strike. He screamed, collapsed. And Shaelith’s blade opened his throat before the sound could finish leaving his lips.
Efficient. Brutal. Beautiful.
I couldn’t look away.
The way Shaelith moved high while Brynelle struck low. The way they created openings for each other without hesitation, without doubt. Every step was a conversation. Every strike was trust made manifest in steel and blood.
A warrior came at me. I barely registered him before my blade was in his gut, twisting, tearing. Hot blood spilled over my hands as I yanked it free and kept moving.
But my eyes kept finding them.
Shaelith ducked beneath a wild swing, and Brynelle was already there.
Her blade driving up through the attacker’s chin with such force his feet left the ground.
Shaelith caught him before he fell, shoving the body into another guard and using the momentum to drive her blade through both their hearts in one vicious thrust.
Brynelle laughed. Breathless and absolutely feral as she spun to disembowel another soldier who’d made the mistake of thinking she was distracted.
It was terrible.
It was glorious.
I’d never seen war look like music until now.
The way Shaelith’s blade sang counterpoint to Brynelle’s. The way their bodies moved in rhythm—advance, retreat, strike, parry—like they were dancing to a song only they could hear. Death set to a tempo only lovers could follow.
A guard grabbed my wrist. I drove my elbow into his face, felt cartilage shatter beneath the impact. Ripped free. My blade found his kidney, then his throat. He gurgled, clutching at the wound as if he could hold his life inside his body through will alone.
He couldn’t.
They never could.
Across the corridor, Shaelith vaulted over a falling body, using the momentum to drive her boot into another warrior’s chest. He flew backward into the wall with bone-breaking force. Brynelle was already there, blade descending in a silver arc that painted the stones red.
How?
How did they make slaughter look like devotion?
Another warrior rushed me. I sidestepped, let his momentum carry him past, and opened his spine from shoulder to hip. The scream died in his throat as he crumpled.
My chest heaved. Blood slicked my hands, my arms, probably my face.
But I was ready for more.
We were winning.
The three of us were bathed in red, our bodies moving as one, a seamless rhythm of death and destruction. We cut them down—quick, brutal, merciless. We had come this far, we had made it out of the fucking cell, and we weren’t stopping.
A ripple went through the air, a wrongness so deep my body screamed with it before my mind even caught up.
The corridor dimmed. The torches flickered.
Ashterion stepped through the blackness.
We stopped moving.
Not by choice.
A force like ice-cold hands wrapped around my throat. My body seized, locked in place, unable to even struggle. My breath stuttered, choked, gone.
Shaelith’s blade flashed, slicing through the darkness, but it was useless. The shadows reformed around her wrists, her arms, crawling over her skin. She snarled, teeth bared, but the more she fought, the tighter they wound.
Brynelle let out a strangled sound, her body going rigid, her hands frozen mid-motion as the tendrils of shadow coiled around her ankles, her neck, her wrists.
A heartbeat of silence.
“That was foolish.”
Ashterion’s eyes raked over the bodies littering the corridor. Over us, drenched in blood, feral and unbroken even as his shadows pinned us.
And then he moved.
Straight to me.
My body collapsed onto my knees before he even touched me.
I gasped, but the air didn’t come.
His boots stopped in front of me, the hem of his dark cloak brushing my bloody fingers where they dug into the stone floor.
He crouched, his voice velvet and steel against my ear. “I expected better from you.”
Something white-hot flared in my chest—fury, loathing, the need to rip him apart.
His shadows loosened, but only enough to let the guards converge.
They didn’t hesitate. The first blow landed against my ribs.
Shaelith was wrenched sideways, her head snapping against the stone. Brynelle let out a cry, her body curling inward as fists connected with her gut, her face, her ribs.
I tried to rise. Tried.
A fist cracked against my jaw.
A boot slammed into my side.
Another crashed down onto my leg.
Bone snapped.
I screamed.
The world blurred, tilted, spun.
“Enough.”
Everything stilled.
Ashterion’s eyes were on me. On my bloodied face, my bruised ribs, the way my hands shook as I pushed them against the ground, trying to force myself up.
Broken—something was broken.
My breath came in ragged bursts.
My leg. Definitely my leg.
I forced myself not to react, not to curl in on myself despite the pain ripping through my body.
Instead, I lifted my chin, glaring up at Ashterion where he stood, his face twisted in fury.
I forced a smirk, though it was ruined by the blood trailing from my split lip.
“What’s the matter, High Lord?” I rasped, my voice jagged and raw.
“Upset we didn’t ask for permission before slaughtering your guards? ”
His shadows twitched. His fingers flexed at his sides, as though he wanted to strike something. Probably me.
But then his expression flattened, features smoothing into cold detachment. “Oh, fireling,” he said, speaking as if gently correcting a child. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve dealt with worse prisoners than you.”
A low snicker. One of the guards. A second later, his boot came down on my leg.
White-hot pain exploded through me.
I screamed, my body buckling, convulsing. My vision blurred. My mind blanked under the sheer force of it. I barely caught Shaelith’s curse, the way Brynelle lunged toward me, only to be wrenched back by another guard.
But I heard him.
The snarl ripped from Ashterion’s throat, dark and lethal, like thunder cracking through the corridor.
“I said enough.”
The room froze.
The guard stumbled back, the smirk wiped clean from his face.
Ashterion didn’t look at him. Didn’t acknowledge him at all.
“I want them alive,” he said, his words dangerous in their quietness. “Xyliria wants to play, not destroy them.” His shadows snapped menacingly at his feet.
Then, his gaze finally wrenched from mine, landing on the soldiers.
“Take them back to their cell.”
The guards hesitated, their fear so thick I could taste it.
Ashterion’s tone dropped even lower. “Now.”
They scrambled into action. Rough hands grabbed my arms, dragging me upright. Pain seared through my leg, but I refused to cry out again.
I made them earn every fucking step.
Ashterion didn’t look away. He just stood there, watching as I was hauled away.
The guards dragged us back, their grips bruising, their boots scraping against the stone as they hauled us.
I refused to make a sound. So did Shaelith and Brynelle.
Even as my leg throbbed like it had been shattered to dust. Even as my body screamed from the dozens of new injuries blooming across my skin. Even as blood dripped down my arms, my ribs, my lip.
We didn’t make a single gods-damned sound.
The cell door slammed open before we were tossed inside.
I hit the ground hard, agony splintering through my shattered leg.
I’d barely heard the door close when—
“What the fuck were you thinking?!”
Linc was in front of me, his entire body vibrated with rage, his tanzanite-coloured wings snapping open behind him, feathers ruffling as he rounded on me, on all of us.
Darian was right beside him, his expression twisted with rage. “Are you out of your gods-damned minds?” He paced erratically, his voice cutting through the room, low and fierce. “Tell me you weren’t stupid enough to think this would actually work.”
Shaelith huffed from where she was sprawled against the wall. “It almost worked.”
Fenric whirled, jaw tightening. “Almost got you killed.”