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Letting out a vicious snarl, she gave the man a hard shove, knocking him to the ground. “I’m going to kill you now,” she said, using every ounce of fey strength she possessed to slam her heel down on his knee. The joint shattered beneath his armor, and he let out a strangled whimper of pain. “And I’m not going to be gentle.”

She crouched over him, drawing the tip of her blade across his cheek. The cut welled, but the enchantments caught the blood, keeping it from dripping. She sketched a matching cut on the opposite cheek, and then waggled her fingers, watching as the cuts vanished and then reappeared, over and over until tears began to leak from those yellow eyes.

Feeling another pulse of aether thrash against the back of her mind, she began removing the pieces of his heavy plated armor, unfastening the buckles and letting them drop to the ground until she had stripped him from the waist up. He wore an amulet around his neck, and though the symbol looked familiar—a single shadow crystal nestled between the coils of an ouroboros—she pushed it aside.

She went on, “As much as I would love to stay here all day and make sure you suffer, I don’t have time for that. I can already feel you pushing back, and unfortunately, even though I managed tocatch you, I’m not strong enough to keep you down for long.”

She pressed her blade to his chest, carving out an “X” over his heart. “You killed the thing I loved most.” And for a moment, that raging grief threatened to overwhelm her. But instead of letting it crush her, break her down into a countless number of pieces that might never fit together the same way again—she used it, siphoning off every ounce of anguish and despair and feeding that bright, burning fury.

“You took him away from me,” she murmured, tracing that “X” with a gentle finger and smearing the blood that bubbled around the wound. “So instead of lopping off your head or carving off your limbs and waiting for you to bleed out, I thought I would show you how that felt. I thought I would show you what it feels like to have the thing that you would kill for, the thing you woulddiefor, ripped away.”

Leaning back, she lifted Snowdrop high into the air—and then slammed the dagger into his chest, smiling when she heard the crunch of bone. Her aether practically purred, and despite the spells holding him in place, Vaughn flinched. She twisted her blade, and the blood began to bubble. “It feels like having your chest cleaved open.”

She wrenched her dagger free, and this time, a low whine slipped past the man’s gaping lips. His eyes had finally gone wide with fear—true genuine terror. He was breaking through the spells, one by one, and his hands tried to grope for her, the faint pulses of shadow magic around his fingers burning like violet embers.

But it was too slow.

Every movement, every flicker of shadow magic, was too slow. He had underestimated her and her abilities, seen her as nothing more than a child.

And he had been wrong.

Giving her dagger a twirl, Taly placed Snowdrop off to the side and pushed apart the bits of severed cartilage and tissue that were already starting to mend. She felt two more spells pop, and he actually managed to blink.

“You invaded my island,” she said softly. “You killed my friends and neighbors and turned them into monsters. You attacked the only remaining piece of my mother while she did everything she could to save me.”

Taly’s eyes found his as she continued to list off his sins. “You tried torapeme. You tried to turn me over to my enemy. And now, you’ve killed my friend. You’ve killed the man that I love.” She viciously blinked back the hot, angry tears that welled in her eyes. “And that feels like hell, Vaughn. It feels like everything is falling apart with no way to ever put it back together. It feels like drowning in a big, black ocean that has no bottom and no shore and no sun.”

Wrenching back her arm, Taly summoned that fey strength and plunged her fist directly into his chest, between the fractured ribs and shredded flesh. “It feels like having your heartrippedfrom your body.”

She gave a sharp tug, and something tore. She held up her quarry, gripping it between fingers that still shimmered like molten ore.

Blood for blood, she thought, admiring that tiny pulsating rhythm beating against her palm.A heart for a heart.

She looked back at Vaughn. Normally, he would’ve died almost instantly. But under the effects of her spells, the blood hadn’t even begun to spray. His eyes were wide and frightened, his mouth slowly twisting into a mask of pain and terror.

She held out his heart, letting the blood drip onto his face. “You broke my heart,” she whispered. There was still fear in his eyes—but also a realization. He was going to die. It was decided. “And now I’m going to break yours.”

With that, she squeezed, her fingers still glowing with aether as the rhythm stopped, as that small yet vital part of him turned to dust and scattered on the wind.

And when it was done, she rose to her feet, stumbling back a few steps before releasing the spells. Blood abruptly sprayed from Vaughn’s chest, staining the ground around him, and his body gave one final jerk before going still. The arms that had been slowly reaching for her dropped to the ground, and his last breath gurgled from his chest, speckling his lips with red froth.

A warm breeze whipped through the hedges, rustling the leaves. Whipping the dark strands of hair away from Vaughn’s unseeing eyes.

Taly panted as the rage began to recede. Her aether dimmed, contracting in on itself and seeping back into her skin. That voice that had been hissing in her ear finally quieted, allowing the pieces of her and who she was to settle back into place.

Exhaustion slammed into her, and flames erupted in her lungs, searing her from the inside out. Every breath was more painful than the lastas she glanced around the clearing, slightly disoriented.

There was blood splattered on the white garden stone, blood staining her hands, her face, her hair.

So red. So warm and sticky.

And Skye…

Skye…

Falling to her knees, Taly began to scream. And when she ran out of breath, she screamed again and again and again.

She screamed for what she had done. For how easy it had been. How much she had relished that man’s pain. And all because of Skye. He was gone now. Taken from her. And now that she no longer had that rage and fury to keep the grief at bay, all she could do was scream and curse and beg for the Shards to take her too.