Chapter 16 Find What You’ve Lost #3
My boots made soft sucking sounds in the mud as I approached him. The fear scenting the air was thick and intoxicating. I could see it in the whites of his eyes, could feel his panic as a frantic, hammering drumbeat against my own senses. I had been right—this wasn’t a fight at all.
But that didn’t stop me from savoring every second of this. This was control. This was power. This was everything I’d never had in that tower.
No more helpless girl. No more locked doors. No more waiting for someone else to decide my fate.
“You look unwell, Commander.” Sheer terror contorted his features. I glanced over at my father, who was trying to melt into the bark of a nearby tree. This performance was for him, too. A clear, final lesson on who was in charge now.
“Is it the withdrawal?” I continued, circling Lightbringer. “Does it hurt? That gnawing emptiness where Auremar’s little gift used to be?”
“Go to hell, witch,” he spat, though it lacked conviction.
“Your insults aren’t very clever.” I stopped in front of him and created a new toy—a delicate, razor-sharp stiletto. “Auremar promised you strength. He promised you power. But the truth is, he just made you a better slave.”
Lightbringer mustered another glare, and the lie he still clung to—that his mission was righteous—pricked behind my eyes.
“You’re going to die here,” I told him, tracing his jaw with the stiletto, not quite touching his skin.
“I can make it a clean cut. Or”—I let the blade dip, and a single drop of his blood welled up where it touched—“it can be very, very slow. I am the Mistress of the Healing Arts, you know. I know precisely how much a body can endure before it breaks. I could keep you alive for days.”
His eyes widened, the last vestiges of his knightly bravado shattering. This was the terror I wanted to see. The kind Kazimir inspired. The kind that meant no one would ever lock me away again.
“Tell me who the spy in Skyspire is,” I ordered. “Who told the Hero’s Guild about the emergency ascension platforms?”
A low, guttural noise caught in his throat. “No,” he panted. “I don’t know.”
I waited for the telltale cold prickle of my truth-sense. Instead, I felt nothing. Sir Darian genuinely didn’t know who our spy was. Not anymore, at least.
Well, that was disappointing.
I studied his glazed eyes more carefully, noting the way they struggled to focus, how his pupils contracted and dilated erratically.
The magical substance Auremar had been feeding his knights wasn’t just creating dependency.
The withdrawal had carved holes in his mind, selective amnesia that conveniently protected Auremar’s secrets even as it destroyed his pawns.
“Worthless,” I sighed, letting the stiletto dissolve. This was a waste of time.
“You’re a monster,” Lightbringer rasped. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Took you long enough to figure it out.” I smiled coldly. “Goodbye, Sir Darian.”
I didn’t bother with another weapon. I simply closed my fist, and the shadow serpents constricted, crushing the air—and life—from him in one final, brutal snap of breaking bone.
Killing Lightbringer was easy. He’d invaded my home and killed my friend. He’d nearly gotten Kaz killed.
“I warned you,” I said quietly as he collapsed. “I told you what would happen if you came for us again.”
Lightbringer tried to speak, blood bubbling from his lips, but whatever he wanted to say died with him.
I turned to find my father staring at me like he’d never seen me before. Covered in mud, bleeding from scratches, he looked nothing like the man who’d locked me in a tower. He looked small. Pathetic.
“Well,” Kazimir said, sounding amused. “I guess you changed your mind about keeping our knight-commander alive?”
I swiped mud from my cheek. “He annoyed me.”
“And him?” Kaz jerked his chin toward my father.
I considered it. Really considered it. It would be so easy. One gesture, one thought, and I’d never have to think about him again. Never have to wonder if keeping him alive made me weak or strong or just as cruel as he’d been.
But my hands wouldn’t move. The shadows wouldn’t rise.
I’d thought power would make me feel safe from him. But standing there, covered in mud and blood, I remembered the fourteen-year-old girl isolated from everything and everyone. The girl with stolen memories and a dead mother and a father who’d let it happen.
“No,” I said finally, the word scraping my throat. “He still has information we need.”
It was a lie, and we both knew it. I wasn’t keeping him alive for information. I was keeping him alive because I wasn’t ready.
Kazimir sighed, but there was understanding in it.
“Fine. But if he escapes again, I’m feeding him to the void beasts.
” He stalked toward my father, and his entire demeanor shifted.
Shadows wrapped around the tree, and his voice became steel.
“Did you hear that, Evenfall? The void beasts are particularly hungry this time of year. Nothing but bones left when they’re done. Sometimes not even that.”
My father pressed himself harder against the tree. He knew now—had seen what I’d become, what I was capable of. The daughter he’d locked in a tower could have killed him but didn’t.
I hoped he lay awake tonight wondering what I had in store for him instead of death.