Chapter 48
Everything moved with unrelenting haste.
I countered, deflected, and pivoted, but Knox was fast—not as fast as Evandor, but far stronger. Colossal arms flexed in obedience to his strike. And, when our swords thrashed together, mine nearly fell from my grip with shaking hands.
Knox maneuvered without predictability, leaving me unable to foresee his next attacks. He stood as a fortress I could not break. A mass of muscle, sculpted around bones. Beyond the shroud of mist, the sun—pendent and pale—dangled at the prince’s back. As Knox’s silhouette cast thunderous arms to tear me down, he looked like another. In his stature, I did not see Knox. I saw my father.
Blood rushed to my scar, luring me back to days I wish were lost. Memories that’d crawled from the dark and staggered at the forefront of my mind.
“Come on, girl, you can do better than that!” Knox’s laughter was twisted and taunting.
He swung again, our blades crashing, my bones rattling.
Alistair yelled at Knox between the brawl’s collisions, though I could not draw out a single word. They were overshadowed by Knox’s laughter and the pounding in my ears.
“That damn Raven is going to have his tongue cut from his mouth,” Knox uttered.
His bloodlust stirred an aching in my heart knowing that, within the crypts, there were many others hoping for the same.
“Strike me, dammit!” Knox roared.
I stumbled to my side, no longer attempting to counter his blade, only avoid.
Evandor stayed at Knox’s back with flexing hands and feet situated to leap into battle. Alistair was fixed at my side near the edge of the clearing. They were prepared to intercede. To plead reason and perhaps take my place at the edge of Knox’s ruthlessness. Though I did not know if either the young prince or the lord could deliver me from the bringer of death that swung his blade again and again.
“Strike me!” Veins mapped the heir’s face, trailing all corners before vanishing into his golden hairline.
Like a butcher to the chopping block, Knox sent his blade downward to tear me in two. I fell into the sands, and his blade landed between my knees, slicing my gown.
He towered above me, concealed in the dark with the dead sun at his back.
But still, I did not see Knox—only the king.
A frigid touch lingered upon my shoulder, the cold leaching into my skin. I glanced at my shoulder—there was nothing but leaden skies and gardens of the same.
I scattered the grains of sand beneath me, scurrying to my feet.
“That is enough, Knox,” Evandor cried.
“Stop this before you kill someone.”
Alistair tucked his chin low, sending a lethal glare at the eldest prince. He reached for his belt, but his hand only wrapped around the ghost of his handle. He was unarmed. Unable to protect. His jaw tensed.
“I will say, little brother,” Knox spoke while staring me down.
“She puts up a good fight. By now, I’d have most women on their knees.” There was something sick in his eyes. Something that made my stomach turn.
“Right,” Evandor drowned his tongue in sarcasm.
“Because you’re always sparring against women.”
“I never said anything about sparring.” The high prince, my brother, lifted his blade and glanced at his conceited reflection. He then looked at me once again with those sick, pitiless eyes.
Knox peered down at where his blade had torn a slit into my dress, leaving my legs exposed to the cold air. My skin crawled.
The cold tremor swelled at my shoulder and trickled down my bones, molding my fingers around Alistair’s sword. In an instant, a power starved my weakness. My spine straightened.
“Shall we test our blades once more, Your Highness?” I said with unwarranted composure.
The god did not speak to me in tales of caution.
“Rhoswen, do not play his games.” Evandor scolded from over Knox’s shoulder.
“Fortune will not favor you here.”
I wanted to cut Knox’s eyes out of his socket. His damn, lustful eyes.
“Rhoswen,” Alistair hushed at my side.
“Give me the sword.”
I refused Alistair and twirled his blade. It was lighter, the steel in my hands. More conceding to my desires. Docile like a babe.
I, myself, marked Knox as I had been marked by men countless times.
“Unless you are weary, Your Highness.” Arrogance slipped out of my lips.
“I understand there are many responsibilities on your ever-hallowed shoulders.”
“Rhoswen,” Alistair hushed and took a half-step towards me.
Knox’s bottom lip disappeared in the bite of his teeth.
“You are a feisty one,” he said, spinning his blade. The jewels of his sword sparkled against the fire in his eyes.
“What a… pleasurable surprise.” His eyes scraped over me.
My lips coaxed a smile.
“I have been told lately that I am quite full of surprises.”
Evandor did not amuse me. He was pacing in a circle, pinching his nose with scuffing sighs.
“She’s going to get herself bloody killed,” he said to himself.
“Daft woman.”
“I will not be so forgiving this time.” Knox’s brows climbed with a grin.
“I would expect nothing less.” I raised my blade and swung for his stomach—swinging my sword as my father had all those years ago.
“Fuck, woman,” Knox snarled. He searched the fresh incision on his gilded tunic and looked at his fingers. Bloodless.
I was sorely disappointed.
Like a whip to flesh, I swung again.
I did not have Knox’s strength, but I had my speed.
I moved with haste, sweat wetting my garments, but still—cold melted down from skin to bones as though I was bathing in icy waters. My hair had long come undone, following me as I flourished side to side, twisting into tangles. I leaped, evading Knox’s steel, then cut my blade through the air.
This is what I wanted. This is what I craved. As Knox stood before me with furrowing brows and rapid breaths, I was in control. As I lived under the spell of gods and man and Shadows, I savored this brief moment of control.
Shadows.
The single word evolved from the dark of my mind, gaining vigor in the echoes. Wrath vaulted from the resonance and swelled throughout my being.
Knox’s arms were thrown downward in his unsuccessful strike.
I seized my chance, my moment of fortune. Lunging forward, I raised my arms.
Knox’s neck was exposed as though he himself was at our father’s guillotine. My eyes were rapt by his throat alone, preparing for it to meet razor’s edge. Everything else drifted from existence, and I could practically hear the blood pump through his veins. Fresh blood. My sight fell darkened, and Knox’s eyes grew wide. He had only just begun to lift his steel. He was out of time. His crown would fall with his head.
My spine strained as I twisted my form, I thrust my blade to his throat, and—
Clank.
The bones of my arms nearly shattered as another sword halted mine.
I came to, cleaved out from death’s temptations, and looked at the blade that halted my strike. It was Evandor’s sword, but Evandor did not hold the handle.
“Rhoswen, lay down your sword.” The Lord of Ravens stood before me. There was no mercy in his voice for disobedience. As I looked at his black eyes, void of care, they pulled me in and left me hollow. There was no compassion, no kindness. There was only a lord protecting his prince.
He uttered again, gritting his teeth, articulating each word.
“Lay. Down. Your. Sword.”
This place—where Alistair and I stood in opposition—seemed inevitable. The gods’ chosen against a dark lord. Just as Alistair had said, he and I were destined to stand in a place we could not turn back from. One against the other.
A trembling breath struck my lungs. I traded glances between Alistair and Knox, both looking at me as though I were the evil of this realm. As though I were the darkness that plagued the light.
I released the steel and stumbled back, horrified by myself. Horrified of the blood I had yearned to spill. Crown or no, I was not to be Knox’s executioner. I was only the shadow in the dark, concealed behind faces.
“She has been marked by Shadows,” Knox rasped.
Marked by Shadows. The unfamiliar voice echoed Knox.
Ice crawled down my skin, and it was only then that I noticed the veins twisting on my arms. Black veins. My skin had curdled to pale, and each webbing of veins led to another path, entirely endless. My heart pelted against my sternum.
“The Shadow once sworn to Lord Eadric.” Evandor stepped to my side and guided me from Knox and Alistair and their glares that clung to me in judgment.
“A powerful Shadow, indeed,” he said. He clasped my arm and surveyed the markings.
“One of the strongest, and too, one of the most dangerous.”
I did not speak. I was merely trying to breathe the breaths that tremble down my throat in quick spirts.
“She almost killed me.” Knox brushed the dirt from his shirt.
“She will fall at the executions tonight.”
I hissed at the eldest prince.
“No. We will not kill her,” Evandor countered. He grabbed my jaw and forced me to look at him. His stare traded between my eyes.
“Deep breaths, Rhoswen. Everything is fine.”
Evandor’s comfort was lost on me. All was dark in my vision, but I still found my reflection in his gaze. My face was ashen. Black veins trailed to my eyes, drenching both whites and browns in ink.
“How can you be sure?” My voice was not my voice alone. A haunting key played beneath my pitch.
Evandor released me.
“The craving for rage is ravenous when a Shadow first chooses a host. As the host grows accustomed to its powers, they learn to control themselves. At least, if they try.”
Evandor turned to address Knox.
“She is marked by our father’s ally,” he stated.
“The matron is aware that one of her children has marked Rhoswen. Constantine had spoken of it in Tharen Crest.”
Mother, the voice said.
My veins danced rivers of ink.
Evandor continued.
“We will simply call this an unfortunate moment and leave it there.”
Knox grunted but did not argue.
As I recall, the king allowed Constantine’s work to surmount the princes’ decrees.
Evandor then hushed to me.
“You have truly made this life complicated for yourself, haven’t you?”
I wanted to understand what he meant, perhaps what he knew, but I was in no place to be asking questions.
Evandor stepped from my side and motioned towards Alistair.
“Alistair, take Rhoswen away. I think it is best she rest before tonight.”
“No,” I mumbled.
“I…” I thought I might faint, but I could not stand beside Alistair. Not when, so soon, we were destined to stand against the other.
“I can find my own way.”
Alistair came to me all the same with eyes empty of care. It was as though he were looking at a monster, trying to decide whether I should be killed or studied. But there was still so much of myself I hadn’t shown him. Could he stomach the sight of my god’s deformities molding my skin? Would he look at me in the same way as this?
“I will walk you back,” Alistair said without a lick of emotion, and it caused my beating heart to crack.
I wiped a tear away from my cheek, the black veins twisting at the edge of my sight.
“No,” I said.
“I will find my own way back.” Before another tear could fall, my soles scraped the sands, and I twisted towards the castle.
Alistair clenched my shoulder and turned me to face him. He reached out to wipe a tear, but I pulled back. It fell down my cheek.
“Let me help you,” he hushed, his voice shifting between tender and coarse.
“Help me?” I asked with a tearful scoff.
“You mean for me to rely on you?” The Shadow sauntered in me, grabbed my sorrow, and crumpled it into anger, as though the tears yet to fall had been tainted by dark magic. With balled fists, I said unforgivingly.
“I do not rely on you, Lord Alistair, and I will ensure such remains.” I lifted my hands and smeared away the last tears.
Alistair’s eyes fell darker, and a shade of life left his skin.
He opened his mouth, but I bowed before he could speak.
“My lord,” I said, and showed him my back and looked onward at the castle.
My father’s damn house.
In tandem, the Shadow and I strode away, leaving Alistair where he stood.
Before long, I had wriggled my way past another bramble of ivy and dead flowers, treading the cusp outside the castle stones.
I did not speak within myself. I was terrified to.
It was a different weight that was housed in me. The god was heavy, wallowing in the dark, but the Shadow… Its weight covered my entirety, captivating me in darkness. My bones were cold, and I could feel them grind together as I stepped forward. My muscles were chilled, and the blood scratched over each of them like a quill upon parchment.
Every few steps, I would look down to see the inky veins beat beneath my pale skin. Though it did not feel like a plague, it did not feel like I was suffocating. It was powerful, just as it was when Constantine melded it to my bones in Tharen Crest.
Mother, it said to my thoughts. Mother of Shadows, Birther of Darkness, Lover of Death.
Shivers shot down my body.
The voice was airy—a quiet whisper, haunting beneath the haze.
Guided by my gait, I cut past another corner, following the outline of the castle walls. As I neared the eastern grounds, the old church came into view. Far before my father’s days, long before the light had suffered, cathedrals had ascended from dirt and clay throughout the realm. Places of worship had begun in purity, though man’s touch was seeped in sin. Worship turned to sacrifice, and the white tapestries were soon bathed red.
Man’s depravity was a tale as old as time.
Wedged between vines of thorns chomping at my gown, I yanked through, following the thin path outside the castle.
The Shadow within clenched my neck, turning my face towards the cathedral.
Behind my eyes, a glacial touch was like barbs of ice. The Shadow strained my vision, honing my attention on the church.
I could not deny—it was immaculate. The cathedral survived the ages, just as the deities it was once dedicated to. With blackened stones laced in ivy, the four spires crawled to the clouds. Arches were like distended ribs, joining together in the center and clenching one grand spire. Once in reverence to the gods, it now appeared a threat to the Everlaides. Thin windows were like slitted eyes, and the steeped roofs resembled a veil.
My soles knocked on wet stones.
It was not only the Shadow that harkened my interest, though, I could not deny, it led my steps. And, with each step closer to the cathedral, my strength grew. Dark magic stirred.
The spires towered above me—perhaps like gods, perhaps like Shadows. The distinction was unusually unknown to me as I stood with the dark lurking within.
Standing beneath the outer spire, my fingertips followed sweeping lines, carved into wooden posts. The breeze kicked my gown, but I could no longer feel the cold. Not while the essence of darkness sieved away my warmth.
I walked beneath the awning before the grand door.
I knew these carvings, I knew these designs. And I knew what they used to be. Gods and florals traded for thorns and wisps. I remembered the day men came, ripped out what remnants of piety remained of this place, and chiseled symbolism for the dark ages we occupied.
The door opened before me, hinges screeching in torture.
I did not touch the door. The handle was not in my grasp. And no one stood at the other side.
It waits for you, the Shadow beckoned.
My inner voice did not speak.
It knows you.
I felt known, as though a thousand eyes watched me in prophesied welcome.
Step within my mother’s house.
My legs conceded forward without my say.
Stand within the House of Tenebrous.
I stepped past the threshold, the hinges creaked at my back, and the door latched shut. All fell dark.
Come to the Shadows, Davina.