Page 59

Here in the underrealms, even shadows had a face.

This was no ordinary demon. The power rippling off it meant one thing.

“Zaol!” Arabella shouted.

She’d never seen this kind of greater demon, but she’d seen illustrations and read about them. It was her job to know about all types of demons. But she had no idea if Breckett or Hadeon could identify it on sight.

And if they knew how royally fucked they were.

“A greater demon?” Breckett shrieked.

As it turned out, he did know about them.

Drawn to the sound of his voice, the creature of flesh and shadow swiped an arm out toward the erox. She threw up a wall of shadow in front of Breckett, which sent the zaol’s arm flyingupward at an unnatural angle. It made a strange cawing-like sound before its other arm lashed out.

An idea struck her, and she made several pools of shadows between her and Breckett.

“Jump!” she shouted.

Eyes locking with hers for the briefest moment, he nodded before stepping between the shadows. It was one of the gifts of the erox—one that Elias had used at the castle. A breath after Breckett disappeared, the zaol’s shadow blasted where he’d been standing.

Breckett’s body flashed in and out of existence as though his body was a skipping stone across the pools of shadow over to where Arabella and Jessamine stood.

“Thanks,” Breckett gasped. “Good thinking.”

While the Abyss was a realm of shadow, she didn’t know the depth the darkness had to be for erox to jump between them. Maybe he could’ve done it without her assistance if he’d thought of it. But if he couldn’t, she knew with sudden certainty that neither she nor Breckett had the strength to use their combined abilities to leap through shadows hundreds of feet at a time across the desert. They’d fatigue too quickly, especially with Hadeon and Jessamine, and they all had to save their strength.

The zaol made its strange cawing sound again, lashing one of its arms out across the entire space—slashing into the trunks of trees.

Hadeon blasted his magic before him. The power sent him backward and out of reach of the zaol, and he flapped his wings to steady himself. But with the heavy tree coverage, he couldn’t take to the sky.

There was a loud cracking sound as a tree split in half. Chunks of dirt, grass, and other debris flew through the air.

Arabella rolled sideways, landing on her feet. But the world continued to spin after she was upright.

Fuck.

Why was she so weak?

She glanced over her shoulder long enough to see the zaol's fingers dig into the earth as Jessamine leapt out of the way and Breckett flickered between shadows. The zaol pulled its limb back in. As it did, it seemed to growl. But it was hard to tell without a face.

Unlike the soulless, she thought this being was intelligent. It might be driven by hunger—by the need to consume—but it did so with purpose and strategy.

There was a swelling of the shadows, and she watched as the darkness leached from the ground, flowing toward the zaol like water rolling down a cliffside.

It’s gathering power,she realized.

“Run!” she shouted, grabbing Breckett by his shirt collar and shoving him in the direction of the desert—away from the oasis. Jessamine and Hadeon turned at once, hurtling themselves forward.

Arabella threw every ounce of strength she had into each stride, willing her legs to move faster. As they all ran, the shadows trailed along the ground beneath their feet—toward the zaol.

Behind them, the greater demon bellowed.

“How do we kill it?” Hadeon shouted.

Arabella shook her head. “No one knows.” Greater demons were creatures of legend in Shadowbank. No enchantress texts detailed how to end them since no one had faced them and lived to talk about it. “We could try decapitation, blasting through its heart, burning its body…”

“In case you haven’t noticed, it doesn’t have a head,” Breckett snapped as he ran.