Chapter 50 #2
I had no voice, but my mouth was open in a silent cry. My body shook. Distantly, I thought I could hear Thane’s shout of my name. Pain lashed across my scar. Frost lined my veins. Craft roared like a thousand battle cries in my head. I thought my skin might shred off my bones.
In the moments when I thought my bones might flip inside out, a burst of shadows erupted from my scar, my pores, my damn soul.
I stumbled to my knees, surrounded by walls of inky shadows. Mists of frost and night curled over me like a storm rolling over the sea.
I drew in a rough breath through my nose, again and again.
The viciousness I kept beneath my skin was free.
One half of my mouth twisted in a wretched sort of grin. Take them. Take them all.
Swift as the strike of a blade, rivers of inky black shot across the battlefield. The dark skeins of my soul wove in and out of warriors, hunting for those who stood against our melder, our wife.
“Roark!” Thane skidded to a halt, nearly falling off his feet when he reached me. “Are you all right? By the gods, you look frightening. The red is still in your eyes.”
My grin widened into more or less a snarl. Because I am he and we are we. In this moment, we are united in the same purpose. I am nothing but wickedness until they’re all dead.
Thane kept a hand on my shoulder, but his eyes tracked the battlefield. “Well, then, I’d say your twisted soul is making good on that.”
True enough, across the field, Stav Guard toppled over, confused when the strike of Skul Drek stole their souls. Dark Watch warriors were there to meet them with their blades.
Gunter whooped nearby and sliced at a fallen Stav whose eyes had gone bleary. Auki, Keela, and Yanson took down the guards the moment I left them as nothing more than shells.
“Roark!” Brynn shouted. “Virki!”
Near the trees, my uncle battled the queen. My mother was two heads shorter than Virki, but she fought with the pain of a broken heart. Virki slashed and cut at the queen, clearly trying to escape into the woods rather than engage.
Elisabet would not let him go.
She struck and jabbed and parried. Virki backpedaled, then slashed at my mother’s middle. The point caught the queen across her side. She cried out her agony but struck again.
I scrambled to my feet. Thane close behind.
Virki struck my mother’s shoulder. I quickened my pace. For what he’d done to my brother, to my cousin, and to Lyra, Virki would meet the hells.
Fifty paces, twenty. I drew nearer.
My mother made another strike. Virki dodged swiftly enough that she stumbled. My blood froze. Before Elisabet gained her footing, my uncle gripped her hair and plunged his sword into her chest.
No.
“Shit!” Thane’s curse near my side rattled in my skull.
Virki ripped the blade from my mother’s heart.
Ten paces at his back, I let my ax fly. A wave of violent delight rushed through my veins when the edge buried into the blade of his shoulder. Virki fell forward. He groaned and tried to crawl away, the head of my ax in his flesh.
I stepped onto his spine. Shadows closed in. My uncle let out a sob when coils of black wrapped around his throat. The form of my depravity took hold of Virki’s throat and heaved him off the ground. Copper rage met gold hate when the deledan spun my uncle, dangling in his grip, to face me.
I gripped his jaw and mouthed, Beg me.
Virki trembled. The ropes of darkness tightened around his throat. His skin turned a sickly shade of blue. His veins popped in his forehead. “P-please.”
I flashed my teeth. No.
I buried my sword through his stomach. His body spasmed, tethered by my darker soul and impaled by my hand. He coughed and bloody spittle struck my face. Too soon, his suffering ended and Virki went limp.
I unfurled one fist and the shadows released him. Wolves whimpered nearby as the bond to their keeper faded.
I had no time to care and rushed to where Thane cradled my mother’s head. Gunter and Yanson knelt beside her. I slid by her side, inspecting the wound. Too deep. Too much blood.
“Roark.” Her voice was rough, broken.
Soul bone. We can make you a soul bone. I spoke frantically; Thane did his best to help relay the words.
“No.” She smiled. Blood stained her teeth. “No, I…I miss…miss my king.”
I shook my head, one palm on her face. I don’t want to bid farewell again.
A tear fell from the corner of her eye. “We never will. Remember…live. Be…be free. I will greet you in…Salur, son.”
The queen died with a smile.
Yanson pressed a palm to her face. “Save us a curved horn, my queen.”
Thane gripped one of my shoulders. The prince said nothing, merely stayed there, a steadiness in the storm.
“Roark.” Gunter drew my attention. “This isn’t over. Look.”
Blood froze. Jordis and Lyra fought beside each other, but through the lines of Stav and Dark Watch, a figure cut through, aiming at Lyra.
He kept a hood over his head, but I’d traveled with Baldur for seasons and I knew his stride, his movements. Fadey moved as Baldur did.
Each breath burned as if torn from my lungs. She lives, I gestured in a rush. Burn it all as long as she lives.
“Go to the melder! We fight for her now!” Yanson raised his blade. Nearby, Dark Watch roared their agreement.
Possessive shadows cut through the dying battle, searching for my heart. He would not touch her. Smoke from fires at camps, mists from an approaching storm, and shadows from a vengeful soul blotted out everything.
I could not see Lyra. I lost sight of Fadey.
She lives. I repeated the same thought in my head as I led the warriors forward.
Ingir was dead. Virki was dead. Fadey was the last to fall.
And he would. I would not accept anything less.