Page 69

The unraveling began at the man’s feet. Skin split like overripe fruit, blood spilling in thick, glistening ribbons. The rupture climbed—knees, thighs, hips—his body splitting apart in a wave of bloody devastation, the worst of it concealed beneath white robes that quickly turned red.

Skye gripped him by the hair, holding him up so that he could look into those wide, frightened eyes until the very last moment—as the skin of his neck pulled apart, and his jaw fell away.

Until those eyes finally dropped from their sockets, and he released a fistful of hair with bloody roots that floated down to rest atop the puddle of guts and flesh at his feet.

A breathless pause. Then murmuring. Then delighted laughter and clapping—boisterous, thunderous applause .

They were amused. They were enthralled. Encore! Encore!

Taly saw it all in slow motion. Each pair of hands clapped in rhythmic, delayed gesticulations, the sound echoing in layers. Faces in the crowd blurred, contorted. Jubilant expressions turned grotesque.

She sat motionless, mind reeling. Was this her doing? She couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t. Couldn’t deny that the shock of watching the man she loved dissolve a prisoner in front of a room full of finely dressed strangers might have made her grip on her magic slip, if only for a moment.

People told stories, of course. Tales spun from threads of darkness and intrigue, whispered in hushed tones among the common folk.

Beneath its dazzling facade, the Dawn Court was a cesspool of hedonistic excess and depravity.

Taly had heard it all. Stories of blood rituals and torture chambers hidden behind gilded doors, where screams of agony mingled with the sounds of revelry.

Of wild orgies and even, on occasion, human sacrifice.

She’d never given the wilder rumors any credence—after all, these were the same parties Skye was attending. But now… They were like harpies. All of them. Their sharp, gleeful clapping mirrored the clashing of talons, and their smiles twisted in beak-like sneers, eager for carrion.

Once a palatial hall, the room now seemed a rocky precipice, where monstrous beings feasted on misery.

As Skye descended the dais, yet another butler handed him a cloth to wipe his hands. People rushed up behind him to ogle the remains of the body.

Discussions and laughter began to unfold. Voices chimed in with inquiries and conjectures.

“...did you see? Unbelievable...” “...a lesson, well deserved...” “...flawless technique, wouldn’t you say...”

Skye was led away, presumably to clean up. If blood had splattered him, Taly couldn’t tell. It blended with the deep red of his suit. He glanced at her only once. His face was a mask, his eyes cold and unreachable. The man she knew wasn’t there.

Even the bond was silent, as though he was shutting her out.

“To Justice!” Kalahad’s voice sliced through the haze of her thoughts. Her sense of time recalibrated as the room erupted into a chorus of voices rising in unison over the clinking of glass. And with the echo of that final toast fading, the room became alive once more with the buzz of chatter.

The savagery of the moment passed without a single person batting an eye.

“Oh, Lady Jurah. Come. You must.” With a passing nod at Taly—her part in this performance was now done—Kalahad made his way to the dais, ready to show off the corpse, or what was left of it, like it was his own work.

“It’s the curse of the long-lived, I’m afraid.” Taly looked up, and Ivain said, “To those that may never experience death, it becomes endlessly fascinating.”

“Why aren’t you laughing along with them then?” She didn’t mean it as an accusation, just an attempt to understand.

Ivain said grimly, heavy with the weight of age, “Because I’ve already seen enough of death to have my fill of it.”

At the dais, Kalahad stood encouraging some of the more squeamish ladies to put their fingers in the intestines. The heads were taken away as silverware scraped against plates once more.

Taly no longer had an appetite. She stared at her plate, the luxurious cut of wyvern steak resting in a pool of rich, spiced jus, and felt her stomach turn.

Down the table, Aimee had already gone back to her project for the night, which seemed to be the handsome blonde beside her. Kato was laughing at something someone said, though his eyes did find Taly’s. His mouth twisted to the side in recognition, or maybe it was sympathy. She couldn’t say.

“Excuse me,” Ivain said and tossed his napkin on the table, rising.

Seizing the chance, Taly gathered her skirts, preparing to follow. If he was going to make his escape, she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.

“Poor dear, you’re not distressed by our little spectacle, are you?

” the noblewoman beside her tutted. Lady Seraphine.

They’d been seated together all night, and it had been nothing but a parade of thinly veiled inquiries and condescending nods, as if Taly were a child hopelessly out of her depth.

“These little events are merely a form of discipline, quite customary. They’re not meant to be taken personally. ”

It was exhausting, forcing herself to feign gratitude for their hollow attentions. The greatest challenge, however, was not punching the silver-haired harpy right on her over-powdered nose when she reached out and gripped her arm.

“You and the heir are quite close, I’m told. It must be quite the experience, standing so near to such… power .” A shiver ran through the noblewoman, her smile curling. “Surely, you must have some insights into his demeanor.”

Politeness demanded that Taly retake her seat, her one chance at freedom vanishing as Ivain blended with the stream of butlers and slipped away unnoticed. She reached for her wine glass, raising it to be refilled as Lady Seraphine prattled on.

Together, or not at all. But apparently, that rule didn’t apply to dinner parties.

Shit…

Skye splashed cold water on his face. His hands shook as he cupped them beneath the flow of water streaming from the ornate silver faucet.

Shit, shit, shit…

Air sawed through his lungs, each breath a battle against the vise tightening around his chest. The soft glow of crystal sconces lined the walls of the lavarium, papered in black and gold. The light cast eerie shadows across his strained features reflected in the large gilt mirror.

He pressed shaking fingers to his temples, willing the storm inside him to settle. His mind raced, replaying the events of the evening—the man on his knees, the surge of rage and power, then the sickening realization of what he’d done.

Images flickered behind his tightly shut eyelids, memories not his own but borrowed.

He saw the men and women whose heads now stared out at the crowd, lifeless. Their clandestine meetings played out before him, each whispered plot and hidden agenda an echo that reverberated through his mind.

There was no denying the man’s guilt.

Skye could’ve stopped there. He almost did. The words were already forming on his tongue that would’ve handed off the responsibility for his death to someone else.

Then he saw Vale.

He saw a man, indeed the man before him, creeping down a shadowy set of stairs, and through his eyes, he saw a human Taly in the relay room below.

The memory was real. It rang with undeniable truth.

He saw when Vaughn grabbed her by the neck—saw her back hit the wall. He saw the subtle movement, even watching from behind, when that bastard reached for his trousers.

Skye gripped the marble counter as past and present overlapped. Taly never told him…

The man’s lust clung to his thoughts, like an oily residue, impossible to scrape off. But that wasn’t even the worst part. It was the hope—sickening in its persistence. A desperate, twisted yearning for a role in the horror, a chance to share in the violation, and the patience to wait…

Marble cracked, just as that man’s skull had cracked.

He hadn’t meant to kill him. Truly, Skye hadn’t even realized what he’d done until it was over. It was just a flicker, a momentary lapse. His thoughts spiraled, grasping at the fragments of that moment—the rush of power, the scent of blood, the visceral joy at justice being served.

He hadn’t lost control of his magic since he was 12 years old—when he broke Taly’s arm, just by reaching for her, and vowed to himself never again .

If he didn’t have control, he was a danger to others. A danger to the people he cared about.

If he didn’t have control, he could be locked away in Gloomrend Gaol with all the other shadow mages deemed too dangerous to be allowed to roam free.

With all the other bloodcrafters—because that was him now too.

Was this how it began? The first whisper of that insidious madness that came for all bloodcrafters in the end? Was that brief moment of unchecked power a glimpse of his future? A preview of the inevitable unraveling of his sanity?

The doorknob rattled. Skye ignored it. Then he heard the lock click, opened from the outside, somehow—

“Hey, back off.”

But Ivain appeared. “There you are,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I’ve been searching all over this damn house.” Ivain took one look at him. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Skye muttered.

“That was quite the performance out there. Should I dance around the subject first or can we cut straight to you telling me where the hell you picked up that kind of magic, because it sure as Shards wasn’t from me?”

Except that wasn’t quite true. Every drill, every exercise, every time he worked to hone his aether—that was where the knowledge came from. And when the surge hit, that rush of power out of nowhere, it followed that learned precision straight to the trigger. He went off like a misfired pistol.