Page 102

Taking a risk as he had done for her so many times.

A gunshot moving over her shoulder told her that the men were watching her back as much as Niamh was.

The world lost its intensity, the noise of battle a low thrum, the world going monochrome before flickering with vibrant colors. As if everything around her had moved to the background, time slower than before, Bryn ran her hand over the man’s pinched features, his brow smoothing at her touch.

An onslaught of feelings and memories of his life hit her, and she bit down on her lower lip as it tore through her psyche, but she kept her hand on the man, giving him as much comfort as she could with her whispered promises.

As his soul split from his dying body, she saw herself kneeling over him from his eyes, hers shining gold as she looked down at him.

“Free him,”the voice inside her head calmly ordered. A reverence there that had never been before.

The world had stopped around her. Time was still, and the world was now brighter as she crossed the veil into Faerie.

“You shall pass,” she whispered, and at her words, his eyes lost the life within them as the yellow orb that was his spirit fully left his body.

Bryn held his soul in her hands as she stood, cradling it to her as she would something far too delicate to withstand the harshness of the world.

She whispered her prayer, feeling relief at knowing there was in fact a place for these souls after death, before lifting her hands above her body. She released the orb as it exploded into millions of tiny lights that swarmed her before rising up and swirling into the form of the shopkeeper, a specter of himself.

“Thank you,” he whispered, before fading from sight, and the colors were once again the dull and drab browns of her own world. The one she knew all too well.

A man of shadow had stood over her as she released the soul.

Standing over her as she returned from Faerie and back to the world of pain and death.

Slowly, time started moving again until the battle once more raged around her.

Chapter 45

CyerradoveoverSaints’Road as the wraiths swirled in and out of the shadows, having already torn through one-fourth of their town before Bryn had even stepped out onto the street with Niamh at her side.

All because the king felt their powers awaken.

Bryn knew there would be no rest now until the king was dead.

One of the very men who had held a gun on her minutes before the horns had sounded stared at the sky, his eyes blank as death took hold.

The soul leaving his body was not the bright yellow of the others but stained and more of a sickly brown with black bordering. As the spirit stood up, looking around, his gaze settled on Bryn.

Turning away as Justin’s shot hit the wraith that was about to attack her, she ignored the soul that was starting to walk toward her.

As she slammed her knife into another wraith’s forehead, the wraith managing a cut to her side before she landed the hit, the soul hovered near where she was fighting.

The words he yelled at her, pleading with her to save him, were on the back burner since Faerie did not call for his soul yet, and Bryn honestly doubted Faerie would.

It was most likely he’d be hunted by Arawn’s pack after the battle, and she did not want to know what happened to those souls.

His pleading turned to rage as he yelled at her to put his soul back in his body.

Funny how now he accepted who she was and was okay with it, when not so very long ago he stood ready to tie her to a stake. One she had been trying to ignore the whole time they had been on Saint’s Road.

The stake stood as a morbid reminder in the background of the battle she was engulfed in, reminding her of another battle she had spent most of her life fighting. One physical to one mental.

Cyerra swooped down before landing on Bryn’s shoulder, the soul backing off at the sight of the crow.

Interesting.

“How shall I serve you, Phantom Queen?”