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She snarled under her breath and began to circle again, but the others did not move.

That did not escape my notice.

I noted the way they lingered behind her like trained dogs, swords drawn but feet planted, waiting for the command she had not yet given.

“Where is Lyra?” she ground out. My beloved’s name sounded foul on her tongue. My jaw tightened as I fought against the urge to slice it from her mouth.

“You should stop slaughtering your own,” I growled, letting my canines show. “The Hells are rising.”

Her laugh cut through me, a sharp sound that rang with madness. “Are you truly so blind?” she asked, eyes bright with something too close to devotion. “It is not the Hells who are rising. It is Lyra. She must be sacrificed to bring peace to the realms.” She leant in, dropping her voice to a soft whisper as if she were willing me to understand. “The Goddess of the Sea will drown us all.”

She lunged, sword coming for me with impressive speed.

But I was faster. And I was done with this conversation.

I dropped low and rolled aside as her blade drove into the snow where I had stood only a breath before. White powder burst around the steel.

Darkness invaded my vision. Shadows oozed out of me like liquid death, knuckles turning white on the hilt of my sword as I rolled into a crouch.

I was not a creature of patience, and I could feel what little I possessed slipping away and giving in to the monster lurking inside me.

The shadows withered, whispering to me in a layer of voices that were almost lyrical.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

Dreya must have sensed the change in me. The scent of fear wafted off her as she watched the whites of my eyes bleed away to reveal the predator that I was.

Her face blanched of colour as she brought her hand to her mouth and sent a piercing whistle through the air. A signal. The Mortals rushed from the trees.

I lunged in the same breath, moving so fast that she had no time to block.

My sword pushed into the flesh of her thigh, giving way with a satisfying squelch. Her cry of pain was only half as satisfying as watching the life fade from her eyes would be.

A wound for a wound.

Dreya fell to the ground, hands flying to my sword protruding from her leg as she sobbed.

I pushed harder, steel scraping bone as blood poured from around the blade, staining the snow a vibrant red.

“P-please,” she begged, the word catching in her throat. “I don’t… I don’t want to die.”

Her fear sank its teeth into something savage inside me, and my deadened heart answered with a harder beat. Begging had never inspired mercy in me. It only sharpened the hunger. Made the beast bare its teeth and lean closer to the kill.

She was a danger to Lyra.

And monsters like me did not spare threats.

I wrenched the sword free and spun, the blade carving a brutal arc through her chest in a deep gash before the first Iron Guard reached me. His weapon had barely left his side when my steel opened his throat.

His eyes widened as his weapon slipped from his grasp and struck the snow. He dropped to his knees and crimson spilled down his front. A heartbeat later, he crumpled beside his leader, death claiming him just as swiftly.

There were at least fifty soldiers rushing me with their weapons raised and screams of war echoing cross the field. A useless waste of their last breaths.

I cut down the first two who reached me, not bothering to look at their faces as blood sprayed in a wide arc as my blade slashed through their abdomens like butter.

I spun to take down the next with my sword raised⁠—

The bond flooded open in my chest, for one brief moment, I saw her.