52. KAINE
The Shadow Realm was his home now. Kaine’s lungs had taken to the hot and humid climate with ease and he no longer longed for the sun. It was all darkness here, just the way he liked it.
It’d been weeks since he opened the portal to the Shadow Realm. Weeks spent gaining Terr’s trust, weeks in commanding his hellhounds and soon enough, his army of the undead. He was so close now. Close to reaching the Godlands and saving his Sophie.
He just had one last thing to do before all hell broke loose.
Kaine breathed in the stale Soxis air, just outside the portal he’d created. The dirt was blackened and the once thick, lively trees were sullen and grey. The sunlight, however, was bright enough to make him hiss. He stalked toward Asteria Hold, a pack of hellhounds behind his back. They listened to his every command and because he’d starved them for a few days, they were foaming at the mouth for fresh flesh.
The streets of Soxis’s town were emptier and dirtier than he’d last seen it. Once teeming with Fae from Wrenntia, Fyllera and Soxis, it was now a shell. Debris flitted through the town on a soft wind. It was too empty.
Kaine stopped in his tracks, focusing on his hearing to find any signs of life. The barks and yips of the twenty hellhounds behind him became too overbearing. “Quiet!” Kaine demanded. The hounds whimpered but quietened immediately.
What was going on? Where was everyone?
Kaine let out a sharp whistle. All the hounds stood at attention, their ears perked up, waiting for a command. “Search the town. Kill anyone you find. Go.” The hounds bounded in hunger and anger, casting a wide net to capture any loose ends.
Kaine had come here to collect. Collect what he needed to open another portal, one that led to the Godlands. With Terr’s dark power on his side, he could open something devastating. And all he needed was more blood. Children’s blood.
No screams or shouts sounded in the air, just the growls of his hellhounds. Anger built up in Kaine’s chest like a hot fire and these days, he never held it back. Kaine splintered the broken-down wooden stalls that sat idly. He ground his teeth. No one was here. The people of Faery, the rebels and sympathisers had moved camp, but to where?
Kaine stormed through the streets of Soxis, his hounds returning to his side as they too came up empty. He looked for traces of movement and disturbances in the dirt, any sign that would clue him in on where they had disappeared to.
But nothing. The dirt was undisturbed. Only the paw prints of his hounds showed. No residual scents of magic hung in the air. It was like they’d just vanished.
Kaine ground his teeth. Terr would be angry, that much was certain. And what it meant was that his timelines would be pushed back and now more than ever he wanted to kill the damning angel that shared his face. Kaine imagined all the depraved things he was doing to Sophie. His Sophie.
With a growl so deadly, Kaine let out a burst of his mana, pushing his hounds out of his personal space. He was going to kill that blasted angel, and he would kill him dead.
The heat of the Shadow Realm caressed Kaine’s skin, a welcome warmth. He stormed down the path he’d walked hundreds of times now. The path leading to the deadly mountain Terr had called home for centuries. Desperation’s Maw.
The blackened mountain loomed over everything in the Shadow Realm. Its mouth lay open, glowing with molten lava. Inside was a latticework of caves and cages that housed Terr’s terrors. It was a place of torture, experimentation and nightmares Terr planned on releasing into realms beyond his own; to conquer with fear.
Kaine walked through the main hall. Each wall was lined with cages, some bolted to the ground while others hung high in the air. Creatures, winged and webbed, skittered and screeched as he walked by. The first time he ever walked through the halls of Desperation’s Maw, chills ran rampant down his spine. He’d never been equally disgusted and intrigued at the same time. Now, he walked through the halls without so much as blinking.
He halted before the room Terr liked to call his experimentation room, knocking twice before entering.
The smell of fresh blood assaulted his nostrils.
Terr, with his bouldering muscles and unorthodox blue skin stood in front of a being strapped to a chair. Kaine couldn’t see past Terr, but he knew whatever creature the Shadow King had captured was the one bleeding.
The room was dark except for the bright downlight Terr had centred upon his experiment. Terr turned to face Kaine with a sickly smile filled with razor-sharp teeth. “I have sssomething for youuu,” he breathed. Terr wiped down a blade covered in blood across the front of his apron; an excited grin swept across his demon face.
Kaine stepped around Terr, a small smile working up on his own face. He saw the blood, dark yet glittering. Anticipation raced across his skin. They’d been talking about this for a while, ever since Kaine was taken under Terr’s wing.
Underneath the harsh spotlight sat an angel, her blonde hair mussed with blood as it stuck to her skull. Her head drooped as she murmured, in a state of delirium. A thrill of excitement shot through Kaine. This was his chance. A sure-fire way to make sure the angel that stole his Sophie would stay dead.
“Hereee,” Terr hissed, handing Kaine the blade he’d used to mutilate the angel before him. Terr moved to the stump of flesh that oozed from the angel’s back. Blood spurted as Terr pointed out the place where a dark red feathered wing used to be. “The ssshadow blade is the only thing that worksss.”
Kaine examined the blade Terr had handed to him. Its handle was carved of the blackest stone, moulded perfectly for anyone’s grip. The blade itself was onyx, and as he pulled it closer to his face for inspection, a magic hummed across its surface. Shadows laced the entire blade.
Kaine moved toward the angel, her breathing was shallow but even in her closeness to death, she tried to get away from him, no doubt sensing his intention.
With precision and patience, Kaine slowly dragged the tip of the shadow blade into the bleeding stump of a wing. It sliced perfectly, allowing another gush of ruby red, glittery blood to fall to the ground. The angel whimpered.
Kaine looked to the table beside him. Strewn across the top were different blades and weapons used for torture. He picked a blade that was plain-looking and made another incision across the bleeding stump. Her lightly tanned skin healed where he made the cut. And that was proof enough. The shadow blade would work.
“What isss an angel without its wingsss?” Terr hissed in his low voice. He wrenched the angel’s head back with a death grip on her hair. Small, shallow gasps left her throat as her honey-brown eyes watched him. Still, there was contempt in her eyes. Defiance.
The rage monster inside of Kaine surged. How dare she sit there, covered in her own blood and mess, on the brink of death and deign to laugh in the face of hell itself? The Tienthan were disgusting pigs. They’d taken everything good in his life away, yet arrogance even oozed out of her in this instance. She had no right. They had no right. Not when each waking moment of Kaine’s life was spent empty and alone. The only light in his life stolen from him.
Worthless. Spineless . . . wingless. As Kaine formed the words in his head, the angel spat a mouthful of blood into Terr’s face.
“Fuck you,” she hissed.
Terr stood tall, unfazed that he had vile angel blood running down his face. He tsked. “Worthlessss is the anssswer.” He smirked, his eyes narrowing onto the angel’s last standing wing. Without even blinking, he snapped the angel’s wing. It sagged unhappily on her back as bone protruded and blood oozed. She wailed in pain. “Clean thisss up and use it as a warninggg.” Terr snapped his blue fingers and disappeared from the room.
Kaine moved to the table that donned all the weapons and began cleaning the blades he’d used. Oiling them as he went so that they remained sharp.
“Why . . . why are you doing this? You’re Fae, aren’t you?” the angel rasped.
Kaine scoffed. “Do not assume to know me.” He continued cleaning the blades.
“He’s going to kill everyone in Faery. Anyone that doesn’t obey”—she breathed heavily—“aren’t Fae meant to create life, not destroy it?”
Kaine placed the blade down with deadly silence. He looked over his shoulder at the angel. She’d grown pale from the blood loss but still, there was defiance in her.
As their eyes met, recognition washed over her eyes.
“You . . . you look like someone I know,” she breathed.
Kaine knew who she was referring to and there was no one he hated more.
Kaine shot to the blonde angel in the room. “We may share the same face, but we are not the same person.” He wrenched her head back, looking deep into her honey brown eyes, with a snarl on his face. He inched closer and closer to her quivering lips. “I am the Breaker of Realms, and you just wasted your last breath.”
Kaine seized the air from her lungs with his mana and reached above her head. He grabbed the ill-shaped wing and hacked it off her body with a swift slice of the shadow blade. The force of his attack knocked her entire chair backward and she landed on the floor in a slump.