Page 36 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

I knew how to kill. I once had wielded death like an artist wielded a paintbrush. But I’d never been a warrior the way Elias was. My killing happened in the curtained quiet of the daylight hours, in quiet locked rooms or sound-dampened dungeons.

Yet, I could see the appeal of this, loud and messy.

I had no time to calculate. This was all instinct. The darkness flooded me, stronger than it had ever felt on even my best nights as my father’s second.

Behind you, they warned, as one of Elias’s men dove for me.

This one, they whispered, wrapping around the throat of another at my slightest command.

For even the most talented Shadowborn magic wielders, it was nearly impossible to hear the thoughts of more than a couple of other people at once—let alone other Shadowborn, who had been trained since birth to guard against the unwitting betrayals of their own minds.

But now, though I had more than half a dozen soldiers coming for me, I sensed them all—every one of their unrealized intentions.

I grabbed one and shoved him into his comrade’s impending strike, sending both careening to the ground in a blood- drenched pile.

Tendrils of darkness flooded from the walls and strangled the next, buying me enough time to grab a sword and send it through one man’s heart, and then another before he had time to adjust.

With each of my heartbeats, I ended another, another, another. And I felt my mind grow deliciously hazy, the dead draw closer, the darkness encroach.

But I was so connected to my magic that my own body became a liability. It couldn’t move as fast as my mind did. One of the soldiers’ blades caught my arm, the burst of pain making my steps fumble at a critical moment.

The next strike drove through my torso.

The dead let out a screech and clawed at my assailant, and I swung back around, sword bared, to skewer him through his chest.

I sagged back against the wall, breath heaving. I paused just long enough to take in the scene around me—what I had done. Bodies cluttered the hall. Some still twitched, their slurred thoughts of pain nagging at the back of my mind. Blood collected around my boots.

Elias encroached upon me like a wolf upon cornered prey. The expression twisting his face was half smile, half sneer. Each death I’d doled out to his men had driven him deeper into his bloodlust.

“I should have done a better job finishing you off in the Descent,” he growled. “But better late than never.”

My knuckles tightened around my sword as Elias prowled closer.

I let a sliver, just a sliver, of my pain slip through my mental walls.

I let my blood-slicked hilt slide from my hand, the blade falling to the ground with a pathetic CLUNK .

I let him approach me with his raised sword.

I let him take in this situation for what it looked to be. An easy win.

And then, just as the smirk of certain victory rolled across his lips, I reached into the darkness and threw open the doors to all the parts of myself I didn’t yet understand.

The parts of myself that I had cultivated in Morthryn. The parts of myself that I had gained when Mische pulled me out of that ritual circle.

The veil to the dead was so thin. I tore through it like it was a woman’s lace lingerie, and let the dead rush through me.

Dark silhouettes crawled from under the flowing chiffon, from the dark corners of the ceiling, from within the ghostly silhouettes of Alarus’s past kingdom.

And they leapt upon Elias like starving wild dogs.

Was it cruel of me, I wondered, that I’d saved him for last?

His eyes went wide. But instead of surprise or fear, his final look to me was one of pure rage. He threw himself at me with his final burst of strength.

But he was just a mortal, in the end.

The dead crawled over him like ants to a carcass, pulling him apart. It reminded me of what Ophelia had looked like in her failed resurrection. Reminded me of how she must have flailed and fought when Malach had first killed her, with Elias by his side.

Elias didn’t suffer as she had. Not quite.

But at least it was close.

No, I decided. It was a fitting end for him.

To his credit, he really did try not to scream.

Try.

I turned and disappeared down the hall, Elias’s final, guttural wail echoing behind me.