Page 49

“Ten each,” Caelum said. “Easy, now that we can kill them as well.”

“Or we make it interesting,” Solas said, swinging his sword in a graceful arc. “Most kills wins.”

“But there are four of us,” Aldric said, fear bleeding through his voice like the blood oozing from a discarded body of a villager at my feet.

Solas barked a laugh as I moved forward, blade sliding free and shadows coiling to strike.

I didn’t spare the prince a glance.

“If you want to keep your insides where they belong,” I said, voice low, “hide.”

I dissolved into the darkness, tearing myself between the voids and reappearing in the thick of the village, ignoring the cold stab of pain through my chest.

The dead littered the ground. Blood trickled through the cobblestone like a crimson stream after heavy rain.

A Zyrrith burst from the shadows in a blur of grey and black. Its body was short and compact, stretched tight over slick, ashen skin that glistened like damp stone. Four black eyes clustered across its face, each one reflecting nothing. Empty, hungry, and only knowing pain. The eyes of a monster. My eyes.

Its mouth split too wide.

Rows of jagged teeth crowded together, slick with blood, opening and closing in wet, eager clicks. A thick, barbed stinger curved from its lower back, twitching with a life of its own and dripping with dark poison.

Its wings beat in a violent, relentless blur, filling the air with that maddening, bone-deep buzzing.

Six legs struck the ground at once. They pierced stone as easily as flesh, anchoring it as it lunged.

Screams. Crying. People running. The buzz of the Zyrrith’s wings. Flesh tearing.

The monsters dissolved into the shadows as fast as I did, appearing to attack.

I bared my teeth, swinging my sword over my head and lunging, tearing into the shadows and reforming midair as a Zyrrith appeared below me, about to sink its teeth into a retreating male.

My blade drove between its wings, sinking deep into grey flesh with a wet, tearing sound. Its screech of pain sent a satisfied grin across my face.

After all, what better way for a monster to feel alive than to kill its kin?

We crashed to the ground, and I pulled my sword from the dying creature with one smooth pull.

A weaker heartbeat flickered across my senses. Aldric.

Across the street, he dragged a wounded Fae toward a cottage, shoving the door open and helping another inside. Blood streaked their faces, grief raw and unguarded.

“Go,” he snapped. “Get inside and stay down.” He slammed the door and turned back to the chaos, already running for the next injured Fae.

He would die for them.

Stupid Mortal.

Something slammed into my side hard enough to throw me to the ground. The air whooshed from my lungs as I crashed into the cobblestone, sword clattering just out of reach.

I cursed under my breath, rolling just in time to slam my bare hands against the opening maw of the beast.

My muscles strained under the pressure. Was the curse making me weaker as I grew closer to death?

Sickening breath washed over me as the Zyrrith’s mouth opened, displaying rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth eager to devour me.

I growled, deep and primal as shadows tore from my hands, flooding into the creature’s mouth and tearing it apart from the inside. Its skin popped in a spray of deep blue gore.

But I was too late to save the villager.