Page 57 of A Crown of Tears and Treason (The Curse of Silver Secrets and Cruel Shadows #1)

Chapter

Fifty-Seven

EVIE

Z andyr was a force of nature. He’d left the prince back in Phoenix Peak. The Dragon had come to battle.

No mortal being could move that fast.

Faster than my watery eyes could track him.

Faster than my attackers could react.

Faster than the wind howled against me and the water splashed from the wretched creature snapping and tearing bits and pieces of a body.

All I saw was the glint of Zandyr’s sword as he sliced through the attackers with the fury of a thousand fighters. As fast as his blade slashed, they turned to ash.

His long hair billowed in the moonlight daring to creep in these foul parts. I only got a flash of his face.

Pure fury. Unrelenting, unflinching fury.

And his eyes. His eyes were pools of black. No sign of the blue or the human behind them.

Three of the shadows foolishly tried to attack Zandyr.

He whirled around and skewered two of them on his sword. The third wasn’t as lucky.

Zandyr grabbed his throat and raised him up and up, until his legs dangled and twitched. He knew death was close.

“You dared harm her,” Zandyr roared, the sound monstrous. Unhinged. Feral. “You dared take her away from me.”

A crunching sound later, the shadow no longer had a throat. He disintegrated along with his hideous brethren.

Then Zandyr was upon the rest. A few of them, the ones who’d been the farthest and had seen what awaited them, rushed to the trees, crying for salvation.

There was none. None for the masked killers. Zandyr made sure of that, tearing through them with his might.

I swayed on the spot. I wanted to cry out to spare some of them. At least one.

Not for their wretched souls, those were damned, it was obvious.

Whatever they’d done to themselves was clearly killing them from the inside. But we needed information.

But when I opened my mouth, I tasted my blood, ash, and the rest of this hideous night, and bile rose once more.

It took all of me, all that remained of my energy, to not crumple to the ground.

In the river, the creature kept thrashing, as if delighting in its kill. I didn’t look too hard at the massive neck that rose from the water. Or the teeth that snapped, big enough to swallow my entire carriage whole.

Animals didn’t grow so large on their own. Magic. Dark magic.

Finally, Zandyr’s sword slashed once more, bringing another pile of ash to the ground.

No sooner had he sheathed it, he was at my side. I tried to look up at him, I did. But the haze was consuming me.

I couldn’t see. I could barely breathe.

But I felt.

His strong arms wrapping around me.

His relieved sigh as he took all of me in.

His clean, woodsy scent that smelled like home and safety.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered against my temple, crushing his lips against it. “You’re safe.”

“The others,” I mumbled, barely coherent. “Goose, Leesa, Adara, Zorin.”

“Safe, all of them.”

He pulled me gently to his chest, as if to feel my heart beat and convince himself that I was alive.

Bloody, scratched, scared, but alive.

His palms caressed my cheeks. I tried so hard not to think of the blood he was wiping away.

“What did they do to you?” his whisper was laced with an ice-cold ire. “I shouldn’t have killed them so fast. They didn’t suffer enough.”

Let them. Let them pay for what they’d done. To me, to my parents, to countless others.

“My cousins…”

“They’re warned and safe.”

Relief coursed through me so hard and fast, tears stung my eyes.

He hooked one arm underneath my knees and lifted me into his arms.

Each movement was careful, slow, so at odds to the vicious, murderous whirlwind he’d been only a few seconds ago. “Let’s go home before the beast decides it wants dessert and slithers toward us.”

As soon as he cradled my limp body to his chest, a sense of calm took over me. All the exhaustion I’d been fighting so hard finally enveloped me.

And I let it.

Because I knew I was safe in Zandyr’s arms.