Chapter 16 Death’s Touch
Death's Touch
Raisa
The castle is a familiar, jagged scar across the landscape as we approach, the gray stone and crooked towers jutting into the sky like a scream. From out here, it looks exactly like the prison it always was for me—cold and unwelcoming.
Shade walks at my side, all tension and focus, like a blade barely sheathed. The others fan out behind us, every step a measured threat, every face locked in grim determination.
I stare at the castle instead of looking back at them. If I do, if I see them, I’ll falter. My heart’s already hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingers, each pulse like a warning.
The bridge is slick with frost, the cobbles black and silver in the inky dawn light. The high walls press in, ancient and pitted, older than any of us. Our breath steams in the air, curling and dissipating before it reaches the sky.
There are no banners, no sentries, nothing but the waiting dark.
We know it’s a trap.
We walk into it anyway.
The courtyard door creaks as we push it open, the sound loud enough to raise the dead. Shade goes first, his hand on my lower back, steering me inside.
I want to shake him off, to stride in like I own the place, but I don’t. I let him touch me. I need it, even if I’d never admit it. This place scares me just as much now as it ever has. I’ll never admit that, either.
Inside, the courtyard is emptier than I’ve ever seen it. Even the animals are gone, nothing but eerie silence and the cold waiting for us.
My steps threaten to falter, but I force myself to keep moving forward. I brought them here. This was my idea. I can’t lose my courage now.
I want to run, though. I want to run and never look back, pretend this place and my father don’t exist.
We reach the center of the courtyard before the silence shatters. Doors along the perimeter burst open—first one, then three, then all of them.
Guards pour out, swords drawn, shields raised, their faces hidden behind visors and black cloth. There are dozens—no, more. More than I’ve ever seen in one place, more than I thought the castle could hold.
They don’t shout. They don’t bluster. They just fan out, forming a wall of steel and spite. The only sound is the scrape of metal on stone, the hush of boots on the ice.
Sir Edmond stands at their front. His armor gleams, every plate polished to a mirror, his face the same sneer I remember from the last time he dragged me through the halls. It feels like two lifetimes ago, now. He holds his sword at an angle, the tip pointed at my throat.
“Princess Raisa.” He spits the words, making them an insult. “Your father sends his regards. Surrender yourself, and I’ll spare these animals the fate they deserve.”
I feel my brothers tense behind me. Sable’s laughter is a dry, broken cough. Bran mutters something under his breath. Grim’s fingers flex on the hilt of his knife.
Shade steps forward, planting himself between me and Edmond. His voice is low, almost gentle, but it carries across the ice like a crack of thunder.
“Come take her if you think you can.”
Edmond’s eyes narrow. The guards shift, a ripple of anticipation running through their ranks.
I reach for my magic, feeling it pool in my hands, hot and alive. I want to burn him. I want to burn all of them, cover the courtyard in a hot spray of blood and death. But I wait for the signal, the first move, the moment when everything turns red.
For a second, nothing happens. The world holds its breath again.
Then Edmond smiles. “Very well,” he says. “Have it your way.”
The guards raise their swords in perfect unison. The brothers square off, shoulders brushing and teeth bared.
Shade’s body vibrates with fury, his hand curled into a fist.
I lock eyes with Edmond and smile, trying to prove that I’m not afraid. I am, though. More afraid than I’ve ever been.
The first sword comes at Shade all at once.
He sidesteps, grabs the guard’s arm, and shatters it at the elbow with a single twist. The man screams, dropping his blade.
Shade finishes him with a headbutt that cracks visor and skull alike. Before the man’s body even hits the ground, Shade is already on to the next, moving like a viper.
To my right, Grim is my favorite kind of nightmare. He doesn’t waste motion, doesn’t show mercy. He’s a wild black wind, snarling and monstrous. He slides past a spear, rips it from the guard’s grip, and stabs the man through the throat with his own weapon.
The next guard charges.
Grim catches him by the wrist, turns the sword against its owner, and carves a smile across the man’s belly. Blood splatters the ice, hot and steaming, before Grim is moving again, carving a row of death and destruction right through the middle of my father’s guards.
Onyx is a force of nature. He catches a sword swing on his forearm, barely flinching as it scores a shallow line.
With his free hand, he grabs the guard by the breastplate and lifts him clear off the ground.
The man kicks and yells, but Onyx just hurls him like a sack of grain into a knot of three more.
They fall in a tangle, and Onyx wades in after, his boots crunching bone and armor as if it’s nothing.
I don’t wait for the guards to come to me.
My magic is a living thing, hungry and impatient to destroy.
I raise my hands and let it flow, blue-black wisps arcing from my fingertips.
It strikes the nearest shield wall, blowing three men backward.
Their armor smokes, the metal burned too hot to touch.
I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I do it anyway, guided by instinct, desperation, rage, and sheer determination to ensure the seven men at my side survive.
One of the guards is just a boy, Simon. He’s only a year older than me, still soft around the eyes, still wearing the hand-me-downs of his father’s post. His sword trembles in his grip.
“Don’t,” I warn him, my voice soft. “Don’t make me kill you.”
He charges anyway.
I flick my wrist.
His sword flies from his hand, clattering across the ice. He stumbles, slips, and lands hard. I want to help him. The magic wants to kill him. But there’s no time for either.
Another guard is already swinging at my head.
I duck, then blast him in the stomach with raw power. He folds, vomiting blood, and drops.
Bran is beside me, his glasses fogged and bloody, a wild grin on his face. He’s usually gentle, but not now. He fights with savage joy, swinging a stolen mace with both hands. He cracks a helmet, then an arm, then a knee, every strike precise and efficient.
When a guard tries to flank us, Bran just pivots and plants the mace in his groin. The man goes down, wheezing.
Rune is everywhere and nowhere. He darts behind Shade, then to my left, then vanishes into the swirl of capes and bodies. He whispers something, and the air grows thick. Three guards freeze, their limbs locked in place, eyes wide with terror.
Rune walks up, plucks a dagger from his belt, and slits each one’s throat, quick and neat.
Sable is poetry in motion. He never stands still, never lets a guard get a bead on him.
He darts between legs, under arms, leaping and twisting, always smiling, always taunting.
He kills as easily as he laughs. More often, he disarms and disables, leaving a trail of men clutching broken fingers and shattered pride.
Talon is pure violence. His knives are extensions of his will, killing with dizzying speed.
He grabs a guard by the face, digs his thumbs into the man’s eyes, and uses the leverage to snap his neck.
He drops him and then spins and buries a knife in another’s thigh.
The guard howls, but Talon’s already moved on.
I taste blood, but I don’t know if it’s mine or theirs.
Someone grabs my hair, yanking me back. I twist, trying to break free, but their grip is iron. The man hauls me off my feet, dragging me toward Edmond.
My magic sparks, but it’s hard to focus with my scalp on fire.
Edmond smiles as I’m pulled in front of him. “You’ve made quite a mess, Princess. Your father will be disappointed.”
I spit in his face. The glob of blood and saliva lands on his cheek, trailing down the perfect polish of his plate. He doesn’t flinch.
Shade sees what’s happening. He roars—an inhuman, animal sound—and barrels through the guards between us. He rips a sword from the nearest hand and drives it through a man’s chest, then kicks his body away. Blood sprays in an arc, painting the frost.
Edmond raises his sword, pressing the tip to my throat. “Come any closer,” he says, “and I’ll–”
Shade doesn’t stop. He launches himself at Edmond, taking the sword through his own arm rather than risk me.
The blade punches out the back of his tricep, but Shade doesn’t even slow down.
He grabs Edmond and throws him down, slamming his head against the ice again and again until his helmet dents and his sneer vanishes.
The guard behind me tries to run, but Bran tackles him from behind, choking him with a length of chain. The man thrashes, then goes limp.
I collapse, my knees too weak to hold me. Shade is there, blood pouring down his arm, but he cups my face, checking for injuries.
“I’m fine,” I say, lying through my teeth.
“You’re bleeding,” he growls.
“So are you.”
He laughs, wild and reckless, then kisses me, hard and fast. His mouth is coppery, full of blood and victory.
The battle is chaos, but it’s our chaos.
Onyx and Talon hold the main gate, fending off a second wave of guards. Talon moves like a cat, all instinct and muscle, his knives a blur. Onyx breaks bones, crushes windpipes, and tosses men aside like dolls.
Sable vaults a barrel, lands on a guard’s back, and rides him to the ground. He pulls the man’s helmet off and slams his head into the cobbles, then rolls off and flashes me a thumbs-up.
Rune crouches beside a wounded man, whispering a spell that fuses the guard’s hands together, trapping him. The man howls, but Rune just stands and moves on, his job done.
Every single one of them fights like they have something to lose and something to live for, as if they fully intend to leave here walking today.
None of them shifts. It’s as if the curse has lost its power over them, even in the thick of battle and the fog of bloodlust. They cling to their humanity with a fierce dignity my father would never understand.
He thought he tore it from them, stripped them of everything that made them real.
Instead, he gave them something to fight for.
I see it in every move they make, every breath they take. They’re death and poetry, vengeance and justice. Somehow, even covered in blood and the stink of death, they’re more man than monster, more beautiful and fearsome than they’ve ever been.
The ground is slick with blood. The air is thick with screams and the clang of steel. Every breath burns my lungs. Every heartbeat is a drum.
The guards keep coming.
I see Simon again, crawling away from the fighting. He looks up at me, his eyes full of terror and shame. I meet his gaze and nod, letting him go. He scrambles to his feet and disappears into the stables.
The ranks thin as the bodies pile up, and then more guards file in. For just a moment, as they do, a gap opens up. It’s tiny, more a crack than anything…but it’s enough.
For the first time, I see the kitchen doors, unguarded, a straight shot across the bloody stone.
I don’t think. I run.
Grim sees me move. Our eyes meet across the chaos, and something ancient and hot passes between us, like a lightning strike straight to my chest.
In that instant, I make a vow—to myself, to him, to all of them—They will make it out of here alive. No matter what.
He nods once, as if he understands. Then he turns and launches himself at the nearest pike wall, screaming as he tears through it, giving me cover.
I sprint. The world is a tunnel, narrowed to the sound of my boots, the cold slap of air, the taste of magic on my tongue. A spear whistles past, close enough to snag my sleeve.
I duck, skidding, and then keep going.
A guard tries to block me, but I raise my hand and let the magic loose. It’s little more than a flicker, but it’s enough to knock him aside like a toy.
The kitchen doors loom directly ahead.
I hit them at full speed and tumble into the warmth beyond.
Inside, the kitchens stand eerily empty, no cooks, no servants, no clatter of pots or hiss of steam. Only three guards flank the inner doorway, their faces expressionless beneath their helmets.
They watch me enter, bloodied and wild-eyed, but make no move to stop me. Instead, they step aside without a word.
The silence follows me as my feet pound the flagstones, hurtling through the abandoned corridors.
Every hallway is a memory…the place I hid from tutors, the window where I’d stand for hours, staring at the forest beyond the walls. The castle is alive with ghosts, but I’m not afraid of them anymore.
I expect a sea of guards. I expect an ambush.
But the halls are mostly empty.
The few guards I come across don’t try to stop me. They don’t even blink as I pass.
It’s as if he wants me to come to him.
The closer I get to the throne room, the harder my heart pounds. Magic crawls over my skin, desperate for release. I let it build, let it fill me until I’m buzzing.
I pass a row of windows. Outside, the courtyard is chaos, a battlefield of bodies and frost and men I love, fighting and bleeding and refusing to fall.
I see Sable climb the wall of a stable, launching himself onto a guard’s back.
I see Talon and Bran holding the gate, side by side, a perfect engine of violence.
I see Shade, battered and grinning as he murders and maims. I see Grim, alive and furious, and the promise of vengeance in his eyes burning brighter than any sun.
I run harder.
The throne room doors are huge, ancient oak banded with black iron. They’re closed, but not barred. Not even locked.
I stop in front of them, panting, my heart jackhammering against my ribs.
This is it.
Eighteen years of lies. Eighteen years of chains, of curses, of secrets and shame.
I square my shoulders and ball my fists, letting the magic crackle and spark.
I take a deep breath, the last I’ll ever take as my father’s creation.
And then I push the doors open and step inside.