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Wilder was far from passive in her wake. His twin swords glinted in the torchlight as he parried and struck with the same mesmerising dance of strength and precision he’d taught her, a force to be reckoned with, death’s own calling card.

He didn’t question why she wasn’t using magic. He simply let her take the lead, an equal, a fellow Warsword in command.

When the way was clear, they scrambled up the staircase, towards the open gates of the tower. More howlers, and wraiths too, were spilling across the drawbridge in swarms.

Closing in, a wraith aimed a lash of darkness at Wilder, who stumbled slightly before righting himself, his silver gaze molten with determination, still gripping his swords menacingly.

But Thea’s rage surged within, like a flood breaking through the walls of a dam, nearly blinding her with its force. She stared the wraith down, swinging her sword as she closed the gap across the bridge, her stormy gaze meeting its clouded blue eyes.

‘You’re dead anyway,’ she promised. ‘But touch him again, I dare you.’

A whip of darkness came for the Warswords, but it never landed.

Thea cleaved it and its master in two with one slash of her blade, leaving its heart to simply fall out of its chest with a grotesque slap against the bridge.

Behind her, Wilder gave another hoarse laugh. ‘Furies save us all,’ he murmured with a savage grin.

Together, Thea and Wilder fought the howlers and wraiths back across the drawbridge, discarding their corpses into the murky waters either side. Bodies piled up high, and the Warswords clambered over them, slaying every vile creature in their path.

Overhead, membranous wings blocked out the yellow sliver of moon, arrows raining down on the enemy from above and striking wraiths from the sky.

Thea didn’t know how Wilder was still standing, but they ran, crossing the outer grounds of the tower, monsters still falling from the sky thanks to the Warsword defending them from above —

But when they reached the iron gates, three enormous figures blocked their path.

Rheguld reapers.

The largest Thea had ever seen, easily fifteen feet tall. They were beyond grotesque, their sinewy frames pulsating with that nightmarish quality, their talons gleaming in the pale moonlight and their horns foul and twisted atop their heads. But it was their eyes that were the most unsettling feature of all; she had always thought so. Round and unblinking, clouded with a hazy blue hue, they pierced the world around them, reflecting the void of evil within.

A bleat of fear sounded. At their feet cowered an emaciated man. He was clad in rags and covered in all manner of filth.

‘Aemund?’ Wilder breathed beside her, staring at their prisoner.

Thea’s stomach bottomed out. ‘You know him?’ she murmured, training her gaze on the wretched soul between the reapers.

‘We know him. He’s the man we put here… The one who tried to poison Artos in Harenth,’ Wilder told her, his expression pained. ‘He… he was in there with me.’

Thea surveyed the reapers. One of them had a taloned hand resting atop Aemund’s head, the way a master might comfort a pet. ‘I don’t think he’s with you anymore —’

A shout sounded from above – a warning from Talemir. Thea’s gaze snapped up, but it was too late.

Darkness billowed from all three reapers in thick, rolling masses, a swell of power expanding around them. Thea had never seen reapers join forces like that before, a solid wall of obsidian taking shape before it came crashing down upon them.

Thea lunged forward, blades raised, but was knocked back by a powerful, invisible force. She went sprawling across the dirt, but was on her feet again in an instant, only more determined to end the monsters before them. They had taken enough from her, enough from the midrealms —

But the darkness grew stronger still, taking form around them, around the tower – a shimmering shield of shadow, trapping Thea and Wilder within and blocking Talemir outside. The sliver of moon beyond disappeared, leaving them in pitch-black. The only sounds were the beating of wings beyond the barrier, and Aemund’s short, shallow breaths. The reapers made no noise, but she felt them moving closer; could sense their malevolence, their thirst for power and pain, as though it were tangible, a hand reaching out to coax their nightmares from their minds.

The stench of them became overpowering, rancid enough to make Thea gag. But she held her ground, Wilder’s presence stoic at her side.

Thea closed her eyes and felt the first whip of obsidian lash out.

It came for Wilder, not her, as though it knew where to strike to hurt her the most.

With a precise slash, she severed it from its host.

A shriek pierced the air.

Rage dripped through the silence that followed, and she felt the reapers close the space between them, the air shifting.