Chapter 6 #2
The Shadow Bringer.
Shadows sparked from his clawed gauntlets, rushing forward as a current of snakes. They swept around my body before I could react, enclosing my rib cage with their cold, slippery forms. Once I was fully bound, the Shadow Bringer strode down the stairs, leading with pointed, armored boots.
“You aren’t of the demons or the darkness,” he said, voice dripping with contempt. “Therefore, you must be of my enemy.”
I thrashed and bit my tongue, focusing on the pain.
“Wake up,” I cried out, biting down harder. “Wake up.” I flinched, surprised at how real the bite felt. The metallic tang of blood, warm as any human blood would be, pooled in my mouth.
As he loomed over me, the metal scales atop his shoulders—carved to look like feathers—gleamed. They cascaded down his back, settling atop the thick material of his cape, and jointed talons, made of the same carved metal, encased each of his fingers.
“Which Weaver sent you here to kill me?” he asked sharply.
When I didn’t respond, he clenched his fists. The snakes obeyed, squeezing my chest and binding my arms.
“Speak,” the Shadow Bringer snarled, materializing a light-eating black sword from his palm and ghosting it across my neck. “If you refuse to respond, I will draw the answer out in other ways.”
“Please let me go,” I whispered hoarsely, fear making my throat as dry as parchment. “No Weaver commands me.”
He scowled, and the snakes tightened in turn, constricting my lungs with their shrinking bodies.
“Lies won’t serve you here,” he warned, pressing the blade into the hollow of my throat. My skin buzzed where the metal touched me. “Especially pathetic ones.”
“I’m not lying,” I gasped.
“You reek of lies,” he spat, sneering down at me with utter disgust. “The Weavers and their pets never change.”
“Please,” I begged, desperate for absolution. He pressed harder, forcing a cry from my lips. Maker, it hurt. “Have mercy.”
“You take me for a fool, whimpering like you deserve my mercy.”
“I do deserve your mercy. You took everything from me.” Fear was beginning to ebb into despair. This monster stole Eden’s life. My mother and father, too. My future—my world. “You won’t have me, too.”
His eyes, resembling twin silver pools, flashed violently.
“I can—and will—have you. In this place, I can kill whatever and whomever I please. Particularly if you serve one of them.”
I gritted my teeth, thrashing hard against the snakes, but they did not relent.
“Every trespasser must pay the price,” he continued.
“The darkness will become you, just as it has done with me. It will consume you, drain you of your light, and leave you cold and empty.” He held his mouth over my ear, smiling cruelly.
The desire to bite him hard and make him bleed was overwhelming, but no skin was exposed for me to even try.
“But since I’m feeling charitable,” he added, this time with a stab of sarcasm, “perhaps we can strike a deal. If you want my mercy, you must first set me free.”
Set him free?
He urged the snakes backward, dragging me toward the castle doors.
“Open them,” he commanded, his voice an icy tempest of barely contained rage. “Let me out.”
Impatiently, he grabbed my wrist from the snare of snakes and closed my fingers around the handle. With his hand over mine, the doors would not budge. He growled in frustration, trying again. Still nothing. The doors would not move.
“These doors must be the answer,” he said angrily, dropping my hand. He paced back and forth, cursing and muttering to himself. “The balcony, the windows, the cracks in the walls—they all lead not to freedom but intolerable pain. What am I missing? If she can’t free me, then what else—”
“Why do you need me to free you?” I choked out, scarcely believing what was happening. By some miracle, this beast was imprisoned in his own castle. The Weaver histories said nothing of the sort. “What’s stopping you from leaving of your own accord?”
“Again with the mockery,” he snapped, mouth curling in rage.
It was clear he wanted to hurt me, but something was holding him back.
“You know the Weavers imprisoned me here for five centuries. Unlock this Maker-forsaken door, and I will mercifully give you a sixty-second lead to crawl back to them. Then I will tear each Weaver apart limb by limb.”
I shuddered in disgust, wondering why the Weavers had imprisoned the Shadow Bringer but not killed him.
His imprisonment hadn’t helped anything; Corruption still tore across Noctis.
Perhaps he couldn’t be killed. Or perhaps the Shadow Bringer’s demon army had chased the Weavers away before they could.
He urged me to try again, this time without his hand over mine. Slowly, the doors shifted open.
He made a hoarse, surprised sound—
And then I released my grip on the doors, letting them shut with a loud, satisfying bang.
“Never, demon,” I spat. My voice shook in terror. I’d never forgive myself if I let him out, even if it meant I had to forfeit my life. “If the Weavers trapped you here for five centuries, then I hope you rot for one hundred more.”
“You’re all the same,” he said, yanking my chin up and forcing me to look at him. Blood slipped from my lips, trickling from my injured tongue. “To you, I’m just a monster unworthy of living. A monster who isn’t any different from the demons that roam this land.”
“You aren’t any different,” I insisted, meeting his hate-filled stare with my own. His clawed hand felt cold, biting into my neck and making me forget the snakes at my ribs. “You’re everything the Light Bringer teaches us to hate and fear.”
The great hall went completely still, save for the flickering candlelight and my erratic breathing.
“You follow the Light Bringer.” A statement. Not a question.
“He is my holy sovereign.” The snakes loosened, slipping off my shoulders. “Of course I do.”
He brought his caged mouth close to mine. His breath was cool, his eyes now devoid of feeling as he pulled my hands into his. “If you follow Mithras,” he began darkly, bringing my fingers up to touch the blood dripping from my chin, “then why do you bleed shadow instead of light?”
I glanced down at my fingers, shivering as I noted a hazy smear of black. The inkiness lingered on my skin, smokelike, before disappearing into the air. I wiped my mouth again, only for a new smudge to appear.
A thread tugged at my rib cage, calling me back to consciousness.
The pain clawed, burned, demanded, muffling the Shadow Bringer’s voice and dimming his features.
I don’t understand. Help me understand—
Then the shadows exploded, bursting outward in a riot of all-consuming black.