Chapter 42
Chapter Forty Two
The shadows erupted.
A wave of inky tendrils burst outward, flattening trees and soldiers alike. Armour crumpled as screams were swallowed whole. The sky dimmed and snow turned black like rivers of ink as I slowly rose to my feet. My hair fell in tangled strands of silver over my shoulders as I turned.
The battlefield fell silent.
The grief trickled in slow and steady, fueling the rage within me as I turned to face what awaited.
My body was not my own. Roan and Kairen faced six soldiers, and at least twelve lay dead, bodies scattered around the clearing.
Though none moved now, every eye fixed to my shadows as they slithered over the ground like silent hunters.
They leaked into every part of the surrounding wood, searching.
I saw them in my mind's eye as they slithered over root and rock, through the leaves and branches.
Little golden soldier,
you think the light will save you now?
Come out and play.
I saw when they found him, circling like a snake waiting to strike, to sink its fangs into the prey it hunted.
I felt nothing. It was a terrifying, yawning emptiness as my hand lifted, tugging the shadows towards me.
“Bring him,” I spoke, my gaze unfocused.
In a flash they tore him from the branches of the tree he hid within, his body scraping over the bark all the way down.
They drug him over root and ice, giving no heed to his screams, his pleas.
My legs were still shaking, but I could no longer feel the pain, though somehow I knew it remained.
Distant and untouchable as the shadows drew more and more from me.
I was darkness. I was ruin.
I was tired of forgiveness.
The shadows purred, circling around my ankles like a house cat.
Vengeance
Retribution.
A life for a life.
A death for a death.
He couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, his pale skin without the blessed-markings of a true soldier. His bow was clutched within his hand, broken and limp, but still he held tight to it. The shadows curved over his cheek and I could taste his fear.
“What is your name?” I murmured, but my voice was not my own. It was low and hissing, like a thousand different voices all blended to one and spilled from my lips.
He spat at my feet.
And the shadows lunged. It took only seconds, the darkness enveloping him whole. His screams were gagged as the shadows poured down his throat, through his eyes, his ears.
When they retreated nothing was left but bone, not even a drop of blood upon the snow.
The darkness exploded again, not at my command, spearing through the clearing and soon the few remaining Solerian soldiers were reduced to nothing but skeletons on the forest floor.
The battle ended in seconds.
Silence fell and my eyes drifted to where Roan and Kairen stood. Shock marred both their features. Roan took a hesitant step forward, “Syra…”
But Kairen’s hand found immediately his arm, voice low, but still it carried through the clearing. “Give her a minute… It's not—her eyes are black Roan. It’s not her right now. That’s not Syra.”
I saw the way the Prince of Sun and Flame stared at me, the uneasiness in his gaze, but I did not feel anything as I moved, quietly and slowly, back to kneel by his side. Bran.
“You’re Luanthian, shadow-blessed,” Rena spoke softly, though she did not move from her spot beside his body. It was not a question exactly, but uncertainty lingered in her words.
I didn’t answer. I simply sat in the snow and pressed my forehead to Bran’s chest. The shadows slithered over us—slower and weaker now, but still there. Always there.
I don't know how long we sat there, no one speaking despite the grief and shock that hung in the cold air. It felt like such a long time before Rena’s voice came again, my mind hazy as I tried to listen.
“Syra,” Rena whispered, my name uneasy on her lips. “Look.”
My head lifted, gaze narrowing as a group of horses broke through the trees, hooded figures sitting atop them.
Fear not.
The shadows crooned.
They are not adversaries,
but friends come to heed our call.
My back turned, gaze upon the boy who lay in the snow. He looked so cold, his body made of earth and fire. It wasn’t right, everything was wrong.
“Shadow-blessed,” I heard the voice call, old and rasping. “We have waited for you for such a long time.”
My shoulders shook, hands clutching his tunic, soaked in blood. The shadows spilled from me in rivers of black, twisting and writhing as they felt the grief slowly sink within me, deeper and deeper it went. Like a well with no bottom.
“Come, Miss Syra.”
A different voice. I knew that voice.
“I can’t leave him.”
My head turned, my eyes catching the kind, sad smile offered.
The hat clutched between fidgeting fingers as he held a hand out to me.
“We’ll take him with us so he can have a proper burial,” he soothed.
“Come now, Miss Syra. We need to go somewhere safe and get your magic under control before it takes too much of you.”
But it had already taken too much. It had taken everything.
“Fenrir,” I whispered back, eyes growing heavy. I so badly wished I could close them, that when I opened them again I would wake from this terrible nightmare. “How are you here?”
His voice was soft and lilting, far away. “I was saved, taken in by a group that hides within these mountains. A place for people like you and I. We felt the shadows call and came to help. Come now.”
My head shook, clutching tighter to the man I refused to let go of. Tears welled as tremors shook my body, pain—sharp and breathtaking—tore through my chest as I laid my head over his still heart.
I tried to swallow the sobs, the heaving gasps that tore free from deep in my belly and up through my throat. The shadows circled us, brushing and hissing. They blanketed us in darkness, my brother and I, hiding us from prying eyes, reflecting my sorrow, my grief.
And when the tears dried and the exhaustion had consumed everything I had left in me, the shadows lulled me into the dark and pulled me under.
A floating expanse of nothing and nowhere.
A dreamless sleep, but deep within, I felt the burn.
The deep pain that remained after the blessed magic stole everything, taking far too much.