Chapter 8
B lackreach is a bloodbath.
The streets paint my boots crimson, the stench of death and decay permeating the city as I step over corpse after corpse. A few are still alive, death a plea upon their lips as my boots clack against the scarlet smeared cobblestone.
Their prayers are a harbinger for my blade.
They all die the same way. A clean swipe across the throat, a macabre waterfall cascading down their necks... It is beautiful, in a way. Watching them die alongside the quest they refused to abandon. I admire their resolve, if nothing else.
I almost feel bad for Torin’s men. If we hadn’t shown up when we did, it is likely they would have taken Castle Scarwood. Their army grossly outnumbers that of a small isle kingdom, and their heavy plated armor doesn’t pierce easily. If there was any lingering doubt about Sterling allying with Dusaro, it was promptly squashed when we arrived and took in the grotesque scene of Sin’s army being slaughtered by Torin and Langston’s troops.
Something Dusaro clearly hadn’t planned for. Or perhaps he did—what difference would it have made either way? As far as we know, it was the Langstons that attacked the Vale, merely using weaponry outsourced from Baelliarah. If Torin hadn’t sent that note, penned on Langston letterhead, we would have never known about the alliance at all. And given Torin clearly knew of the Vale’s separation from kingdom rule, it would have been an easy inference for him to assume Dusaro would have known nothing more than what his scouts reported back to him: that Langston troops went rogue and were attacking the Vale, and therefore, the Black Art. Not that Dusaro would likely care about the latter, given his own public condemnation of his son, but attacking the Vale would be a tell-tale sign to our hostile neighbor that the isle was in a state of civil unrest.
Dusaro was prepared to meet the Langston resistance.
He was sorely unprepared to meet a foreign ambush.
I skip down the street, the spilled blood and decay a marbled feast for my creature. Wiping the back of my hand across my face, I admire the cardinal smudge it dons as I hold it in front of me.
I haven’t drank from any of them, and my throat tightens with that ever-present reminder, but I swallow the want down. Spoiled wine shall never know the pleasure of being sipped between my lips and relishing in my mouthfeel.
I step out from the alley, now made narrower from the heap of bodies strewn across it like grotesque garland, and into the belly of the city. Battle thunders in my ears. Steel clashes against steel, leather splits and tears, cries of vengeance perforate the capital, and a familiar tang wafts through my nose and settles deep into my lungs.
Magic.
Elven magic.
While the combat-forward elves battle with a mix of swords, shields, hammers, and maces, the others unleash the full might of Source.
Elven magic is elemental, rooted in the earth itself, and a wonderment to witness. A wonder to us , anyway.
An eldritch nightmare to them.
A furious wind rips through the city. Shop-side tables go careening down roads, sending soldiers leaping out of the way, while others are struck with the impact of objects whipping through the city on the elven wind. To my left, a large clay flower pot collides with a fleeing soldier, and a head rolls lazily to my feet a moment later. I kick it out of the way, licking my lips at the cardinal geyser erupting from the corpse’s neck hole. Power claws through my gut, shredding my innards with the need to wield, dominate, consume.
Not now . There will be a time and place to satiate my thirst, when I can lap the syrup from their fissured skulls, but for now, my beast must parch.
I don’t know if it’s one elf controlling the violent gust, or all of them, working like a collective consciousness. The magic seems too powerful, too controlled, to be wielded by an individual alone, because despite its ferocity, the wind sweeps over me without so much as blowing a hair loose from my braid. Elven magic is sentient almost—aware of whom it is to protect, and whom it is to ruin.
The ground groans beneath my feet, and my knees buckle as I walk my legs farther out to regain my footing. There is no shielding that magic from affecting all of us as the elves split the earth along the entrance to another alley before the wave of soldiers rushing towards us can clear the side street. I chuckle to myself. So eager to rush to their demise, loyal to a king that?—
Movement snags my periphery, and I spring a ward around me a second before pain spears the side of my face as something heavy and blunt strikes it. The force spins me around as I fall forward, my hands and knees absorbing most of the impact.
I barely have time to strengthen my shield before the soldier swings his weapon again. My ward deflects it, and it's then I take in the club he’s wielding. It’s a mace with a long metal shaft and a round, coppered head, a set of vertical spikes spanning one side.
He fucking hit me with that.
Dizziness swims through me, and my vision blurs, now peppered with black spots. The ward I managed in that split second before he struck me was weak, but it at least lessened the impact of the blow. Fortunately, his aim was shit, and he didn’t catch me with one of those godsdamned spikes. Something he’s going to regret very soon because as soon as my brain stops rattling in my skull, I’m putting one through his fucking eye socket.
I go to stand, but the ground quakes again, my palms flattening against the cobblestones made smooth with wear. Pain lances behind my right eye, the hurt made worse with the elves’ magic now vibrating my blood and bones.
I reach for my magic, flames birthed in my palms, and take a few steadying breaths, ensuring I am recovered enough to drop my shield so I can wield my destruction.
The soldier is hammering his mace against my ward, the part of his face visible through the small opening in his helmet beaded in glistening sweat. I’m beginning to suspect I have bad luck with blue-eyed men. First Cathal, then Bennett, and now this traitorous Langston cunt who just struck me with his godsdamned death stick.
My lips part, and I lick my teeth, delighting in the fact he’s meeting my stare through the hazy blue-gray smoke of my ward. Good . I always do prefer when they watch.
I snap my shield and drive my arms forward, lunging to my feet in the same movement, and send a surge of fire magic directed towards that opening in his helmet. My flames snake through that crevice, and my beast hums contentedly, like a cat purring in my chest, as they scorch and feast and take. His cries are there and gone in a second, and I feel a pout take form on my lips. My magic is too efficient in this state, too ravenous. It denies me the satisfaction of listening to their morbid lullabies as they sing their final, labored breaths.
I bend down and snatch the mace from the ground, giving it a few lazy, pendulum-like swings. Up ahead, the ground has fractured, splitting the street into two, and effectively cutting off the horde of soldiers that were storming this way. Several transcendents take off, already shifted into their second skins, and leap across the fissure. The men scatter backwards, some turning and retreating down the alley while others raise their weapons, prepared to stand their ground against the army of beasts.
A symphony of howls rends the air, the sound chilling and unusual in this late morning hour. I stalk towards Castle Scarwood, swinging the mace lazily in front of me, a laugh falling from my lips. Bones crunch beneath my boots, again, and again, and again, and the laughter falls harder.
We will need to delegate a full recovery team to collect the remains as soon as the battle concludes. Burn their corpses black, and dump their ashes into the sea where all trace of their lives will be swiftly forgotten.
I will not have bodies littering the streets of my betrothed’s dominion.
Our home.
Our plan to split into three groups was simple and effective. Vox’s group consists of a small army of elves, shifters, and myself, and we immediately took to the city streets, fighting our way through the capital and baiting Langston and Torin’s joined army away from Castle Scarwood. Sin led the second group towards the heart of Blackreach, working his way towards the keep, towards his throne.
Towards his father.
The third group is solely elves, prioritizing stealth as they slink around the back of the city while others slip through the gates and infiltrate Scarwood from the front. I have no doubt Sin breached the castle gates within minutes with half the elven army at his rear. As much as I wanted to be fighting alongside Sin, I couldn’t argue with his reasoning to send me with Vox. I have the sole privilege of being wanted by both kingdoms. The white-haired witch , the one they blame for the massacre in the receiving center, and the one at the bridge when we snuck into the city to meet Ileana. Both products of Alistair, but given neither kingdom knew of his existence, their blood is on my name, and mine alone.
‘Give us the white-haired witch, and we will offer you clemency in return. Safeguard her, and we will offer only ruin.’
Torin thinks I killed his father. It doesn’t matter that his suspicion is incorrect. I intend to send him a message all the same.
Hair stands pin straight on my neck, and I pivot on instinct. I swing the mace around my body, the spikes smashing through a silver chest plate. I try to wrench the weapon back, but the prongs are embedded in the metal, and I stumble as the soldier sidesteps, knocking me off-kilter.
A groan falls from my lips, and I bare my teeth at the turncoat Langston soldier. “Fucking traitor.” A helmet covers most of this one’s face too, but the corners of his eyes crease, indicative of a treasonous smile lurking under that face plate.
His eyes flick upward.
His gaze is there and back in less than a second, but it’s all the warning I need. My magic is already blistering in my hands before I turn, and the guard charging at my rear lurches backwards as my flames latch onto him like a fire-breathing fiend. My magic claims his face first, once again denying me his mercy-seeking hymn. A song I am eager to hear only so I may deny it.
They know who I am now. As soon as their men caught sight of the fair-haired woman wielding destruction as languidly as one of my own limbs, they came for me. First in the alleyways, now nearly untraversable from the heaps of tangled bodies, and here in this final stretch separating me from Scarwood. Such dedication to usurp the throne, a kingdom that was never theirs for the taking. They clung to their honor when they refused a surrender, and now they will die with none.
I spin on my heels and duck in the same maneuver, narrowly avoiding the violent swing of his mace as it arcs over my head. My flames leap towards the soldier, but he throws his shield up, sending the magic splitting off it in either direction. Their armor and shields are partially forged from iron, something we learned immediately. Torin prepared them to take on foes that heavily rely on magic. A mundane king of a mundane nation—of course he would prepare his and Langston’s army to combat magic users.
I call my power back, not wanting the flames to ricochet off the shield and hit one of our own.
Our own.
A strange concept, to consider the elves and us allies after everything that transpired. After they offered us up to their Source like an afternoon snack to unlock the vault that kept their magic sealed up tight. But we’re not exactly in the position to barter for better allies when the very kingdom we’re about to take from these invaders has been conditioned to fear us. To fear Sin—the Black Art whose magic is as wild as his shifter heart.
We have no choice but to ally with the elves now. A temporary truce. How temporary depends on if they are willing to give Sin the dagger and return the magic they stole from him. If they don’t agree… that is something yet to be discussed. With the goddess’s blessing, Sin is still one person against an entire army of elves that, courtesy of our sacrifice, now have full access to their ancient magic. And without the goddess’s blessing…
We are royally fucked.
The guard charges, and I sidestep, expelling my magic instinctively. He blocks it with his iron cover again, and I skirt around him to— fuck! Something hard connects with the back of my legs, and I lurch forward.
My chin collides with the hard cobblestone, and blood sweetens my mouth as my teeth sink into my tongue. Biting back the hurt, I scurry to my knees, preparing to whip around and bury my knife into the crevice of his leg plate.
Pain lances through my scalp.
I’m jerked to my feet, my braid gripped in one of his iron gauntlets. I plant my feet and snap forward, trying to dislodge myself, but it only elicits a sharper sting. The roar of battle envelops us, but I swear there’s a low, dark chuckle beneath that helmet.
My blood simmers to a raging boil as chaos bubbles in my veins, threatening to burst through my flesh. I hate my hair being pulled. My birth mother was always quite fond of the action.
Before I can release the magic, he presses the front of his shield to my chest, the iron burning straight through my leather cuirass. A scream tears through my lips, but I quickly swallow it down, refusing to allow him to hear how badly it hurts. That chuckle grows louder, more maniacal, and he tugs my hair harder as he digs the shield into my vest.
Gritting my teeth, my eyes flit down as I reach for the dagger strapped to my hip, and I spot his mace now lying on the ground. He must have dropped it when he grabbed my braid.
“Not so ferocious now, are you?” comes a graveled voice.
He’s older than I expected. This isn’t some young man trying to earn honor and respect for his family through military servitude. This is a grown adult—someone who has been around long enough to know the consequences of what they’re doing. Old enough to know that this fight is rooted in prejudices against shifter-kind and my own.
My hand wraps around the hilt, and I slide the dagger free from its sheath. Maneuvering it through my fingers, I reverse my grip with muscle memory alone as my chin is forced upward.
“A little bit of iron and you’re nothin’ more than a useless ol’ wench, just like the rest of ‘em. I was expecting more of a fight from someone with your reputation, bloodwitch. ” He spits the slur, a reminder that the term I’ve grown accustomed to is, in fact, derogatory. It wasn’t until the elves began addressing me as blood mage that I became aware of how desensitized to the title I had become.
If possible, he buries the shield into my chest harder still, and I bare my teeth in silence, refusing to let the faintest whimper escape. “Seems to me, you just never had someone capable of reminding you of your place before.”
I throw my arm backwards, blindly plunging the blade to where his armpit should be. The immediate release of my hair confirms my aim is true, and I push out of his grip, his shield clattering to the ground. The mace is in my hand a second later, and I spin to face him, a grin far too big for my face stretching my lips.
He reaches for my dagger that’s now embedded between the plates of his upper arm and chest, and the tangy scent of his blood seasons my tongue. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he spits. Eyeing the club now clenched in both my hands, he takes a few slow steps to the side, closer to where his shield lays abandoned.
“Unh-unh-unh,” I say, matching his steps as we circle around the one thing he naively thinks will protect him from me. He dives for the shield.
I swing. Hard .
The coppered head connects with the side of his helmet, and unlike him, I don’t miss. The metal spikes punch through the plating, and he collapses sideways. And like a resilient bastard, he reaches for the shield now only about a foot out of reach. Through the dented helmet, I catch a glimpse of the determined set of his eyes and bridge line as he grasps for his shield. I wait until it’s finally within his reach before I whisk it away with magic, sending it hurtling down the street.
He looks back to me, and everything reduces to this moment. The shrill cries of battle, the tang of magic and blood, the howls of the shifters tearing through the last of the defense—it might as well be nonexistent. Because right now, it’s just me and him.
This guard, this one guard, isn’t the sole cause of the danger my loved ones now find themselves in. But he sure as hell contributes to it.
“What’s the matter, wench? Go on, then!” Part of his face is still covered by the damaged helmet, but more of him is visible now. His jaw is covered in heavy scruff, his cheeks tinted a deep pink beneath thick, dark eyebrows, and ribbons of blood stream down his face. He looks to be around fifty, and it’s evident he’s never spent a single one of those years doing anything decent for someone that wasn’t himself. This fucker wears hate and prejudice on his sleeve like it’s his own personal cologne.
A sharp howl tears my attention away, and I look up to see the shifters now hurrying down the alley on the other side of the fractured street. A street now overrun with shredded bodies, their suffering dressing the air in a mouthwatering aroma. They’re not in good shape though.
Patches of fur have been singed away, and their pink flesh is blistered and bruised beneath. Without the advantage of long swords, the transcendents had no choice but to accept their devastation and tear through the iron armor with their claws and teeth. Something that would have been near impossible without the elves splitting the streets to isolate the enemy into smaller, more easily picked-off groups.
Something warm spiderwebs across my chest. I didn’t think I’d ever see the day where elves and transcendents used their strengths to fight side-by-side, and certainly not when that side was headed by the Black Art.
Something grabs my calf, and I’m thrown backwards, my legs ripped out in front of me. I don’t have time to react before he’s on top of me and wrenches the mace from my hands, his iron gloves wrapping around my throat.
It’s as if he dipped me in scalding water, and I don’t know which is the more immediate threat—the iron singeing my collar, or the fact that he’s squeezing . I reach for the dagger I planted in his armpit, but it’s not there—he must have pulled it out when I looked to the transcendents. His strength will ebb soon, very soon if I managed to hit the artery, but something tells me this monster survives on hate and adrenaline alone. Still, even the most ferocious of beasts will falter when they lose enough blood, and by the smell of it, he is losing it fast.
But not faster than my lungs will run out of air.
He grabs my hand as it reaches for the dagger, now using only one hand to choke me, and pins it to the ground above my head. He leans forward, his iron plate pressing into my chest, and his weight restricting my lungs even further. Pain spears through me as my marrow chars to dark, sticky tar.
His laugh is a vile thing. Enjoying every bit of stripping the last of my air with his hands while his iron sears away the last of my chaos. I close my eyes, focusing on my collective alone, coaxing it into my free hand. If I didn’t have blood magic stirring in my veins like a ferocious serpent, I wouldn’t be able to summon my power through the iron. But unfortunately for him, I just slaughtered an entire brigade.
I was expecting more of a fight from someone with your reputation , bloodwitch.
I slam my free hand into the hole the mace punched into his helmet, flames roaring from my fingertips and tearing into him like rabid hounds. His grip on me releases instantly, his hands flying to his face as if he could snuff out my magic with his bare flesh alone.
Air rushes back into my chest, and I climb to my feet. I withdraw my flames, and he sinks to his knees, his hands falling limply to his sides. I reach down and grab the mace, admiring the blood now dripping from the spikes like liquid sunset.
My eyes snag on his chest. He’s still breathing. Barely. Each faint rise of his chest a merciless taunt, each throb burying the slur deeper and deeper. “You wanted more fight from a bloodwitch ?” I repeat his words, my tongue darting out to slurp the drying blood on my lips. “Then let me introduce you to the fucking bloodwitch.”
I strike him in the head.
Again.
Again .
Each connection splinters his helmet further until the last of it breaks away in a heap of shattered metal. And then I swing some fucking more. He’s on his back now, and I step over him, heaving the mace over my shoulder and bringing it down into the sunken hollows where his eyes once were. Brain matter splatters my face, and I swing again, conducting my own symphony of crunching bones and squelching tissue.
For the discrimination my family has endured.
Swing.
For the identity I was taught to fear.
Swing.
For the insecurities my own mother embedded in me.
Swing. Swing. Swing.
Red seeps into my eyes, turning everything to a bloody dawn, and still I swing. My shoulders ache, exhausted past the point of exertion, and still I swing. My hands slip on the hilt, the blood loosening my grip, and still I swing.
Again, and again and again.
An arm wraps around my chest, tugging me back against a hard surface. I’m too tired to assess if their armor is iron, if it’s one of them , before I unleash a scream that is entirely savage.
Entirely bloodwitch .
“Enough!” comes his voice. I recognize the deep tone, the authority commanded into it, but I’m too far gone to place it. Not until I twist out of his grip, using magic to force him back, and I spin around.
Vox raises a hand in a placating gesture, but his expression holds no trace of appeasement. His brow line is scrunched forward, creating a single wrinkle in his otherwise flawless skin. His white hair is streaked with crimson, wispy strands now fraying out of his once perfectly plaited braids. “Rein it in, blood mage.”
It’s now I realize just how labored my breathing is, a dull ache thrumming in my chest from how fast it rises and falls. I wipe the mace handle on my leather pants, then bury my face in the crook of my elbow, smearing the guts from my eyes.
He drops his hand and approaches, seemingly trusting I’m still in control, but his eyes are firmly locked on mine. He’s presenting an offer of trust, extending me the benefit of the doubt, something very few have ever supplied me before. I nod once and suck in a deep breath, desperate to relieve the sting in my chest.
Vox’s gaze rakes over me, and a shadow of a smile appears on his lips before he molds them back into hard lines. I must be quite the sight. My hair is heavy with blood, my leather armor torn and mutilated, and I’m sure my neck is a ghastly shade of purple from the iron gloves that had just been gripping it. My eyes must be fully gilded now, a stark contrast to my blood-stained everything , as if the goddess of war herself threw up all over me.
“Are you alright?” There is no mistaking the muted sarcasm in his tone as he stares down at me from under porcelain lashes.
I flash him my blood-soaked teeth. “Never better, Commander.”
A rigid nod. “We move forth, then.”
And so we do. We clear the remaining path to Scarwood with ease. The transcendents scamper ahead, carving a path with their jowls. Some dart down side alleys to sneak along the backside of the city, leaping and tearing chunks into iron armor as they go, leaving the men vulnerable for our magic.
Vox stays close to me as we fight our way through, leaving a path of destruction in our wake. He has offered me his trust, for now anyway, but I don’t miss his sidelong glances, some that linger just a tad too long. The elf is wary of me, of my blood magic, and I don’t blame him. Controlling the power is still so new to me. Something I should have been practicing my entire life, but like Sin, I was forced to repress it. And now that I’ve slackened its leash, it is starving. Snapping its jaws at the nearest threat like a rabid hound. Sometimes I think I’m more animal than my transcendent family that actually shifts into beasts.
We find the castle gates already opened—the watchtowers now guarded by corpses. My magic stirs in my veins as we step out of the portcullis tunnel, the castle greeting me like an old friend. It’s exactly as I remember it, minus the shattered windows and the fire feasting on its turrets. Despite the violent storm tearing through the capital city, we were successful in keeping the worst of the destruction away from the castle. This is to be our new fortress after all. My betrothed’s home. My home.
Her Black Grace.
It seems the Langstons were of similar mind in trying to avoid unnecessary damage to the castle. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for most of the other structures. The rows upon rows of barracks are burning, and more smoke puffs into the sky from behind the castle’s towers, indicating the kitchens, stables, and armory are also caught in the conflagration.
Reconstruction will need to begin immediately. No longer will our home suffer the wounds torn open with prejudice. It will bear the scars of our past, but never again will they bleed.
We are the gods now.
The keep is eerily quiet, the only sounds the crackling of spitting fires and the low moans of the dying. Kingdom soldiers span across the northern courtyard in uniform rows, and more continue down either side of the castle. The sun catches on the arrows nocked on large bows, aimed down at what is seemingly a standoff.
The kingdom has always fought from their gates and pushed enemy lines backwards. Aside from when Sera infiltrated the kingdom the night I found Cosmina, never has there been a war fought so close to the fortress itself. Just as Scarwood has never been without a Black Art before.
Dusaro’s men remain in place, but I take note of a small group kneeling in the grass, the tips of their blades planted into the ground and their heads inclined, each of their chest plates brandishing Baelliarah’s emblem.
Yielders.
It seems Torin’s army has a few soldiers with a lick of sense after all. But it’s not the men kneeling for mercy that ensnares my attention so completely. It’s who they kneel before.
Sin towers above them, his shadow casting them in muted black. His dark hair has been worked free from its bun and now hangs long and streaked with scarlet. There is blood dried on his face, and more mars his neck and hands that are partially exposed from the leather gloves that don’t extend past his knuckles. His leather armor is torn around his waist, exposing some of the brown skin beneath.
The elves lack the steel for plated armor, but it’s not something they’ve ever needed. Not when so many of them are connected to Source, and the ones that aren’t more than make up for their lack of magic with their agility. I’m not close enough to gauge how badly Sin is wounded, to know how much of his own blood splatters his leathers, and the air is too tanged with rust for me to isolate his scent from this distance.
Without Adelphia’s magic bound to his own, Sin has been forced to resort to a more primal fight. This man before me is not the goddess-blessed. This is the warlord, the warrior whose reputation preceded him in battle, the one that thrust men into the throes of death without a second thought.
No—this man before me is not the goddess’s chosen at all.
This is the reaper.