Page 54 of Brimstone

The heat in the air hit me like a physical blow.

I ground my teeth together, throwing my shoulder into the shield, and I pushed forward. The second we’d made it out of the pool and the soles of my boots had hit the sandstone floor, I threw the world into darkness.

“My eyes!”

“I can’t see!”

“Where are they? Keep firing!”

Cries went up throughout the Hall of Mirrors. My shadows filled the huge hall from floor to ceiling; the air hummed with my magic, blotting out the light, and suddenly, it didn’t matter that Madra had assigned an entire unit to guard the quicksilver pool. Her men were human, and humans couldn’t see in the dark. One of theirmanyflaws.

In fairness, the Fae couldn’t see when my shadows flooded their vision, either. I’d warned Carrion of this before we’d entered the pool and had told him what to expect.

There would be shouting. There would be large-scale panic. There would be a lot of scrambling . . . and then the dying would start.

To my eyes, the room was in monochrome, the chaos unfolding before me in different tones of gray. Guardians fumbled around in their cumbersome armor, crashing into one another. Those who fell to the ground were taken out by their inability to find their own feet again. Archers shot at each other in the dark. Arrows cut through the air, aimed high, aimed at pillars, aimed at anywhere but us. I made sure of that.

It didn’t take much. A gentle nudge here. A little tap there. Bowstrings snapped. Guardians went down screaming, shot bytheir own friends. I led the way through the melee, deflecting any stray arrows that chanced to sail in our direction, and all the while, Carrion yammered away in my ear.

“What’s happening? What can you see?”

“Be quiet.”

“What’s that smell?”

“How the fuck shouldIknow?”

“Ow! Oh, oh shit, I’m standing on something soft.”

“Pick up your fucking feet!”

“Fisher? Fisher. Are we nearly at the door? Ow, what the hell wasthat? Something hit my arm really hard.”

“It wasmy fist. Now shut. The fuck. Up.”

We reached the door in one piece, which I was less than thrilled about. If Carrion had taken an iron-tipped arrow to the ass cheek, that would have definitely shut him up. Trouble was, it would have shut him up for good, and Saeris wouldnothave been happy about that.

For whatever reason, my mate didn’t seem to want the smuggler dead, and I had no choice but to let him live as a result. Worse, I had toprotecthim now, and holy gods, wasn’t that just a kicker? I shoved him ahead of me as soon as we were through the door that led out of the Hall of Mirrors and into Madra’s palace. We didn’t need those gold-clad idiots busting down the door as soon as they realized we weren’t inside the hall with them anymore, so I urged a wisp of shadows into the lock and ordered them to stay. The keyhole would no longer accept its key. For a time, at least. The door itself was already triple reinforced, from what I remembered of it from my first visit, and there was no way they’d be able to kick it down. Not until we were long gone.

It was the middle of the night, but the long hallway ahead was washed in brilliant sunlight.Sunslight, I thought, correcting myself. I would never get over the fact that Zilvaren had two su—

What in all the gods’ names . . .

The smuggler was standing frozen in the middle of the hall with his hands outstretched, knees bent, ass sticking out like he’d shit himself.

“Why the fuck are your eyes closed?” I demanded.

Carrion cracked one eye open, looking up at me. As soon as he realized we were on the other side of the door, he exhaled, standing up straight, brushing himself off. “I don’t know! It was weird, not being able to see anything. Closing them helped.”

He was the strangest male. “Okay. Sure. That makes perfect sense,” I said.

“All right. No need for that tone. I’d probably have felt a little braver if I’d hadSimonwith me.”

Lorreth had called his god sword Avisiéth. A fine, strong name for a sword. Carrion had called his Simon. Maybe that name meant something impressive in Zilvaren, but as far as I had been able to glean thus far, it did not. “For the last time, we couldnotbring two fucking god swords back into this realm. If Madra got a hold of one of them—”

“I know, I know.” He waved me off, pulling a face. “She could have used one of them to still the quicksilver again.”

“I don’t like being here without my sword any more than you do.Trustme. But I amnotgetting trapped in this hellhole. Now come on. We need to move.” I didn’t give him the opportunity to say anything else. I set off running down the hall, and to his credit, the smuggler kept up.