Chapter 66
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Swirls of shadow decorated in grain-like silver rose from the ground. The dark bands cascaded over the valley in shimmering waves. Against the darkness those shadows shone like nothing Callum had ever seen in his centuries of existing.
He watched them curl up around Benon’s ankles like twin vipers.
“What is this?” Benon held Aaron firm as he tried kicking the shadows away.
They refused to relinquish their hold.
The shadows wrapped around his legs, then his chest, and soon his neck. They squeezed and constricted. The royal-blue iron of his armor creaked as the shadows wrapped tighter and tighter.
“stop! make it stop!” The brute was shrieking like a child. Behind him, Helaina Ironblood let a feline grin stretch across her face.
“Hello, Benon,” she crooned.
Callum saw his opportunity and shifted to the syren hounds that had neared his brethren.
He sank his daggers in and sliced, draining their necks and tossing their bodies onto the pyre.
When the immediate threat was diminished, he looked again to his savior.
He barely recognized her. Although wearing the same skin . . . she was forever changed.
Her shadows swirled overhead, lighting up the valley. The silver in her irises now bled black tar. There was madness in her expression as the rain soaked through her hair and clothes.
Snarls sounded from behind. Helaina looked his way. She kept one hand pointed toward a struggling Benon as she lifted the other into the sky, drawing in more shadows.
She flicked her wrist toward the tree wall. Her glimmering power soared over his head, surrounding a half dozen demon dogs descending through the burning trees. Glittering blackness enveloped their necks as a cacophony of bones crunching and ripping muscle resonated in the valley.
They fell in unison, stopping dead in that blaze of trees. The second their spines separated, they burned.
She turned her attention back to Benon. His screams turned frenzied. His armor clenched and groaned around his arms. He dropped the knife, collapsing to his knees, attempting to shed the iron, but it was too late. It was too tight and malformed to remove.
“you fucking whore. stop! stop this! or—” Blood oozed from the crevices of his iron. Bone crunched, followed by spurts of crimson.
Her shadows squeezed tighter and tighter. He fell on his back, facing the stars. His body contorted. Screams turned to muffled gurgles as the armor crushed his chest.
Helaina lowered herself to straddle the undead man, those savage eyes drinking in his suffering. She leaned down, bringing her chest to his, getting close so she could hear his strangled breaths. She peered down at those malicious red orbs staring back at her with pure abhorrence.
She tilted her head to the side, savoring his agony.
“Tell your brother I say hello,” she whispered.
His eyes bulged from their sockets as dread consumed him. He managed to sound out one last gurgled choke.
She placed her hands upon him as her shadows rallied to her. They swallowed Benon whole in a blanket of black, silencing his pathetic cries forever. When she lifted her hands, the armor was flat and flush with the ground, blood and entrails and pieces of bone spattered upon the grass.
Callum was above her now. “You have to burn him.” He felt silly saying it. What was there left to burn?
She smiled up at Callum. “No, we don’t.”
Syren hounds assembled atop that flaming barricade that only now was starting to go out. The fire smoked and fought to stay alight, but the rain was winning.
Helaina placed her palms to the grass, sinking them deep in Benon’s remains.
Her shadows spread, coating the ground. Soon they flooded the entire valley, covering the feet of every soldier, reaching all the way to the battleground where Theo still fought alone.
They spread like a plague all the way to the top of that mountain where Dolion held Manos hostage.
As soon as those clouds of black touched him, his power dimmed. His hold on Manos weakened as the mind reader dropped to his knees, gasping.
Callum felt his own power source drain as her shadows kissed his feet.
Powerless.
Everyone who touched her shadows was powerless, as if they were turned back to their mortal forms.
Callum scanned the fog of shadows as his jaw dropped.
She was letting her darkness free, granting it permission to roam every inch of this mountain.
The shadows crept through the ranks, surrounding the boots of every soldier in the valley.
In unison, as if called by name, each member of the Divine Allura blinked, and their minds returned to them.