Chapter 6
DAEMON
For the first few moments after we crossed the threshold, I thought we were safe.
The wards hummed around us, a barrier of crystallized magic that had protected this tower since before we were born. The wraith-hounds prowled the perimeter, their burning eyes fixed on us with predatory hunger, but they couldn’t cross the invisible line separating sanctuary from slaughter.
Then one of them stepped closer to the barrier.
Not to cross, just to test.
Its snout brushed against the ward, and instead of being repelled, sparks flew where spectral flesh met ancient magic. The wolf pulled back, tilted its massive head, and tried again.
This time, the sparks burned brighter.
“They’re learning,” Seris breathed beside me.
I felt the first hairline fracture splinter through the ward’s structure, a crack so fine it was nearly imperceptible, yet widening with each calculated test. The wolves took turns now, pressing at different points along the barrier.
Methodical. Intelligent.
Nothing like the mindless predators I had assumed them to be.
“These aren’t ordinary Wraith-hounds,” I muttered, dread coiling low in my stomach. The Veil-storm had changed them, made them stronger, hungrier, more focused than anything that should exist.
“The magic is failing,” Seris said, her bound hands braced against the tower’s stone wall. She could feel it too, the ancient protections unraveling like cloth pulled apart thread by thread.
“I noticed.”
I drew both daggers, testing their balance. The blades, honed to perfection, would cut through them easily enough. The problem was their numbers.
And Seris.
Alone, I could have fought them off.
Protecting her would make that infinitely more complicated.
The largest wolf pressed its snout against the barrier again, and sparks erupted where its breath met the ward. Strengthened by Veil energy or not, they shouldn’t have been able to touch the barrier without suffering significant damage. The wards had been designed to repel Veil corruption.
“There’s something wrong with them,” I realized, dread sharpening into certainty. “Something’s feeding them. Enhancing them.”
“With what?”
“Veil magic.” The realization settled with sickening clarity. “Your awakening didn’t just stir whatever’s beneath the Hollow Throne. It sent ripples through everything caught between realms. They’re drawn to you like moths to flame.”
She paled. “You’re saying this is my fault?”
“I’m saying this is the reality we’re facing.”
The ward shattered.
It didn’t crack or fade, it detonated inward like glass struck by a hammer, shards of crystallized magic spinning through the air. The wolves surged through the breach before the debris settled, their forms solidifying as they crossed the threshold.
I intercepted the first, shadows lashing from my hands to coil around its throat. It twisted violently, snapping at the darkness with teeth that could shear through steel, but my shadows held. I wrenched hard to the side.
Its neck broke with a sound like splitting ice.
One down.
Fourteen to go.
The second wolf lunged low, aiming for my legs. I dropped into a crouch and drove my dagger upward through its jaw, the blade piercing whatever passed for a brain in its spectral skull. It went limp with a shriek that made the tower stones ring like struck bells.
But while I dispatched the first two, three more flanked toward Seris.
She pressed herself against the tower wall, terror blazing in her eyes. The wolves advanced with deliberate patience, savoring her fear like fine wine. Spectral creatures fed on emotion as much as flesh, terror, rage, despair. They would drain her dry before granting death.
“Daemon!” she cried.
Something fractured in her voice.
Not just fear.
Panic.
The kind that bypassed reason.
I threw myself between her and the nearest wolf just as it lunged, taking its claws across my ribs instead of letting them reach her throat.
Pain tore through my side, hot, immediate, but the wounds were clean.
I would live.
If we survived the next few minutes.
My shadows lashed out in every direction, trying to form a perimeter around us, but there were too many wolves, and they'd learned to work together.
They split into coordinated groups, some attacked from the front to hold my attention, others circled to strike from behind.
Pack tactics enhanced by whatever intelligence was driving them.
A wolf materialized beside me, passing through solid stone as if it were mist. I spun to face it and felt its teeth sink into my shoulder.
I drove my dagger deep into its chest, but before its lifeless body hit the ground, another wolf capitalized on my momentary distraction.
Blood ran down my spine, warm and sticky, but I couldn’t afford to acknowledge the pain.
"I can't hold them all," I shouted to Seris. The wolf took advantage of that moment and slipped past my shadows. It latched its teeth into my ankle. It pulled my leg out from beneath me. I sank both blades into its ears.
While my blades were still embedded in the wolf beneath me, three more surged at once. I grabbed two by the throats with my free hands, pumping shadow-magic directly into their brains, and kicked the third before it hit solid ground. The creature convulsed and retreated, but the damage was done.
I was starting to feel the effects of my wounds, my left arm hanging limp as I pulled myself up and erected a barrier between the wolves and Seris.
"Daemon, behind you!"
I spun just in time to see a massive wolf, easily twice the size of the others, bearing down on me from my blind spot, jaws wide enough to take my head off. No time to dodge. No room to maneuver. I raised my dagger, preparing to take the creature with me.
Before I met my end, the world unmade itself in a storm.
Power erupted from Seris like a dam bursting, raw, wild, and furious. It washed over me in a wave of sensation that felt like drowning in starlight, every nerve in my body suddenly overloaded with magic that wasn’t mine but somehow felt familiar.
The massive wolf simply ceased to exist. Not killed, not wounded, erased.
Two more wolves tried to flee, making perhaps three steps before the magic reached them. They dissolved into component atoms, their forms unable to maintain cohesion against the assault of pure Veil-touched power.
But the magic didn’t stop there.
It kept expanding, building like wildfire, turning the very air into something bright and dangerous. I felt it wash over me, through me, burning pathways in my nervous system that had never been meant to carry that kind of load.
My shadows writhed, trying to hold back her power, to find some way to channel or contain the force threatening to tear reality apart.
Instead, they were swept up in the torrent, amplifying it, feeding it, making it stronger and more chaotic with every passing second.
Seris turned her back to me, attempting to control her powers and redirect them, but it was no use.
I was going to be disintegrated along with the wolves.
"Seris!" I lunged forward, wrapping my arms around her from behind, trying to ground her through physical contact. "You have to stop! You’re going to kill us both!"
She was beyond hearing. Her eyes had rolled back until only the whites showed. Power poured off her in visible waves, distorting the air, making the ancient stones of the tower groan under pressure they’d never been designed to withstand.
The remaining wolves tried to scatter, but her magic hunted them down like a living thing. It caught them one by one, unmaking them with surgical precision, revealing an intelligence behind the chaos. Not random destruction, but the targeted annihilation of everything she perceived as a threat.
To my growing horror, I realized I was next.
The power wrapped around my body like chains, testing my defenses, probing for weaknesses. My shadows rose to meet it, but they were overwhelmed almost instantly. She was too strong, too wild, too raw in her unleashed fury.
This was how I died. Not from the curse eating away at my life force, not from an assassin’s blade or a rival’s poison. Killed by the very person I’d risked everything to save, burned alive by magic that recognized me as just another predator to eliminate.
The irony was almost perfect, and I knew I deserved it.
As the power began to eat through my shields, I felt something else beneath the chaos: pain.
Fear. The desperate need to protect something precious.
She wasn’t trying to kill me, she was trying to save me.
The magic was responding to her terror at seeing me hurt, lashing out at anything that posed a threat.
I was collateral damage in her attempt at rescue.
"Seris," I said again, gentler this time. "I’m safe. You saved me. You can let go now."
The assault paused, the power fluctuating like a candle flame in the wind. She was listening, somewhere deep inside the maelstrom of unleashed magic.
"The wolves are dead," I continued, my voice steady despite the fact that her power was literally cooking me from the inside out. "All of them. You killed them all. I’m not in danger anymore."
The magic began to recede, slowly at first, then faster as she regained some measure of control. The pressure around my chest eased, allowing me to breathe properly for the first time in what felt like hours.
Seris collapsed.
I caught her before she could hit the ground, her body limp and unresponsive in my arms. She was unconscious but breathing, her skin fever-hot from magical exhaustion.
That’s when I felt the wounds in full force. Not just the bites and scratches from the wolves, but the curse itself. My hand shook again. I removed the glove and found it festering with black spots.
Her magic had accelerated the process. Whatever she’d done to save my life had also pushed me closer to the edge I’d been walking for twenty-eight years.
I looked down at her unconscious form, this girl who’d nearly killed me trying to protect me, who carried enough power to reshape the world or destroy it entirely. She was beautiful in the moonlight, peaceful in a way she never was while awake. Young. Innocent, despite everything she’d endured.
And she was going to be the death of me.
But not tonight. Tonight, we’d both survived something that should have killed us.
That was victory enough. I knew I would die sooner rather than later, but if I was going to die, I would make use of the time I had.
I would make amends for all the pain and suffering my family had caused over the centuries, as best as I could.
I lifted her carefully, mindful of her injuries, and carried her toward the tower’s entrance. Whatever was inside couldn’t be worse than what we’d left outside. Could it?
Blood decorated the steps as I climbed the ancient stairs, each drop a reminder that time was running out faster than I’d planned.
But the girl in my arms held the key to breaking the curse, if I could figure out how to use her power without letting it consume us both.
If I could keep her alive long enough to matter.
If I could keep myself alive long enough to see it through.
A lot of ifs. But they were still all I had.