Chapter 12
When I opened my eyes, I expected to be greeted by swaying treetops and the smell of breakfast at our camp.
Instead, I woke in a sprawling room layered with ancient tapestries, dusty bookshelves, and the barest hint of candlelight.
It smelled of night, rain, and old things.
Of dust and objects left in obscurity for far too long.
And that’s when I saw him.
The Shadow Bringer was sleeping in a canopied bed, cloaked in shadow, obsidian armor, and his typical draconic mask with its caged jaw.
Silvery fabric curtained the frame around him, floating loosely in the cold, dusty air.
He appeared frozen in sleep, silver-white hair pooling on the pillows below him.
I was in his room.
I was in the Shadow Bringer’s room.
Creeping backward, I felt for a weapon while keeping my gaze locked on him.
I was unsettled by his silence and lack of movement.
Was he dead? I considered testing this theory, perhaps feeling for a pulse or a sign of breath, but quickly decided against it.
Something told me that he was very much alive—just depleted from using whatever power it was that stemmed from him.
I found a steel fire poker leaning next to a cold fireplace, weighty and sharp despite the dust it left behind, then carefully slid within arm’s reach of the Shadow Bringer’s massive, lavish bed.
Strange, that such extravagance could be found consorting with an equal amount of rot.
The mix of luxury and decay was uncomfortable. Intolerable, even.
I drew up the fire poker, holding it over the Bringer’s exposed throat.
Demon. Monster. Killer.
Hate surged through my veins, nearly choking me.
This man, the horrid origin of Corruption, damned my sister, cursed my parents, ruined Elliot’s future, and wrecked any chances I had at normalcy.
If I killed the Shadow Bringer now, perhaps Corruption would end, the demons would be destroyed, and all captured souls would finally rise to meet the Maker’s holy light.
The poker hovered over the smooth stretch of skin just below his jawline. One swift thrust, and it would all be over.
Grrrrssschk. Rrrssschk. Rrrssschk.
I froze, listening intently. The wind, perhaps.
“Let us out,” a demon suddenly howled, snarling and groaning from just beyond his bedchamber door. “Set us free.”
Something heavy slammed against the door, causing me to flinch and lose my balance. The fire poker slipped from my hands, sliding off the bed and crashing to the floor.
The Shadow Bringer’s eyes opened, depthless and aching.
“You,” he rasped, caged lips close to my ear. He put his gauntleted hands over mine, cold and sharp, and my traitorous heart stuttered. “You don’t need to panic—I can manage them. I always have.”
He rose to his elbows as I felt myself slipping back into consciousness.
His hands were iron.
Then clay.
Then dust.
The demons repeated their chant as they threw themselves against his door. The screams layered together, rising and echoing in a hellish chorus.
“Let us out.”
“Set us free.”
“Let us out, let us out, let us out!”
The last scream yanked me back into the dream.
I was in the Shadow Bringer’s bed, straddling his legs.
I must have grabbed for him while I was falling out of the dream; his hands were firmly clutching mine.
He let out a slow breath, fixing me with cold silver eyes that began to change from aching and depthless to something sharper and more aware.
My breath hitched, and a horrific blush crept up my neck as I felt his armored hips shift under my thighs.
We looked down at the same time, realizing just how close our bodies were.
Too close.
We scrambled backward as shadows roiled around us, tangling in their eagerness to obey each of our panicked wills. This was a mistake—a shadow looped around the Bringer’s wrist, and my will must have called it forward, for it curled around my wrist, too, and pulled itself taut.
He cursed.
I cursed.
And the demons roared louder, bending the door to his bedchamber.
“The demons aren’t usually this persistent.” The Bringer shoved himself off the bed, cursing again when the movement yanked me sideways into his shoulder.
“I thought the mighty Shadow Bringer would have more control over his monsters,” I said angrily, putting a step between us.
We were near the door now—too near for my liking—and the Shadow Bringer was assessing its current condition.
It seemed sturdy enough, but the demons were relentless, slamming their bodies into the wood.
Two horns suddenly broke through, piercing the door.
When the demon tried to retreat, the horns stuck, rattling the frame.
“Or do they hate you so much that you can’t control them? ”
He glanced back at me, mouth slanting into a scowl. “I’ve never been their master—merely their keeper. So yes, they hate me. Perhaps you’re familiar with the feeling.”
Inexplicably, his baiting words made me blush.
The fire poker was too far away, but maybe I could manipulate the shadows to my advantage. I concentrated, willing them to slip under the Shadow Bringer’s armor and grasp his throat like a constricting snake, but they merely wavered in place, useless and without form. It was wishful thinking, then.
Of course the shadows won’t harm him.
“Tell me: When you woke in his presence, did your Light Bringer accept you without hate or fear? Were Mithras and his followers not condemning you to a monster’s fate?
” At my silence, he turned his attention back to the door, running a hand over one of the smooth alabaster horns that pierced it.
The demon flinched at the Bringer’s touch, splintering more of the wood.
He added quietly, “If you hadn’t interfered when I tried to fight Mithras, you would have avoided all of this.
I don’t know why the shadows listen to you. ”
“Maybe your hold on them is weakening,” I guessed, trying to sound confident.
As I said this, the shadows that followed him moved to trail behind me, lapping at my ankles.
I tried not to shiver in disgust; if I could use them to my advantage without the Light Bringer seeing, I would.
Anything to keep me alive. But I’d need to rid myself of them—and the Shadow Bringer—soon.
“Perhaps they’d rather align with me than with a hateful villain like yourself. ”
“Would they, now?” the Shadow Bringer mused. “Interesting. If only you could wield them with any consistent effect.”
“Then you’re forgetting what happened in the water chamber,” I remarked, another flush making me scowl in irritation.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but the shadow tether between us seemed tighter.
He was too close, too tall, too attentive.
No one had ever looked at me like this before, and I didn’t know what to make of it.
“Maybe I’ll try that again on the demons outside your door. ”
“You will not try that again.”
“Of course you don’t want me to hurt your precious demons. You’re their keeper, after all.”
“You are vexing,” the Bringer bit out, touching the top of his throat.
I wondered if he was remembering the swell of shadowed blood that had pooled there, leaking from his mouth.
“The demons in the hall are much older and far more powerful than the fledglings in the water. What you accomplished in the previous dream won’t work on them. ”
The horned demon began to twist, throwing itself into the door with a renewed fervor.
“You really should try to wake up. This won’t be pleasant.”
“It can’t be any less pleasant than what I’d wake up to. I’m being marched to my death.”
His pale eyes narrowed. “What do you mean—”
I cut him off, willing the shadows at my feet to rise. I didn’t know what I was doing, not really; I’d intended for them to form a wall, sealing us off from the demons, but they rushed forward and cracked the door wide open. The shadows disintegrated at the contact, sinking back to the floor.
Demons—dozens of hideous demons—stood in the hall, gaping at us.
“Like I said,” the Shadow Bringer sighed, yanking on our shadow tether so that I stood behind him, “you are very, very vexing.”
The shadows rose at a twitch of his fingers, churning in front of us like a condensed thundercloud.
A blink later and the cloud surged forward, pouring over the demons like a midnight tempest. The creatures tensed as the shadows washed over their broken bodies.
They weren’t being attacked, exactly, but it seemed they were being purged of something terrible.
Shadows crawled from their noses and eyes, joining the dark around them, and their mouths remained frozen in silent screams. When the cloud finally settled, the demons were sated.
Their rage and panic had cooled; the fight had left their hollow eyes.
Eventually they slunk back down the hall, seeking solace elsewhere.
The Bringer’s shoulders sagged. His shadows were now mere wisps, settling under furniture and sliding beneath rugs. Even the tether that had bound us had disintegrated, retreating inside a nearby vase.
“Wretched creatures,” the Bringer muttered, crossing the room in a few quick strides. He made it to his bed—as if forgetting I was there, too—and quickly turned around, instead choosing a book-covered desk to lean against.
His room was opulent but uncared for. A tomb left untouched for centuries. I examined a vase overflowing with dead flowers. “How can you live like this?” I found myself asking. “You’re the lord of nothing but dust and demons.”
“It wasn’t always this way. But it’s difficult to be lord of anything when you’re cursed to rot in a castle that no longer feels like yours, unable to leave and unable to purge this place of its shadows. Many would say it is a fate most fitting, but I vehemently disagree.”