Page 2 of The Shadow Fae Rhapsody (Elven Fantasy Romance #3)

Chapter 1 Rhianelle

“ C edwynn, you must inform Aelfric and Garrett of everything I told you,” I tell the young squire.

Something ripples in the young squire’s dark eyes.

“I—I understand, I will,” he stammers and nods fervently.

I leave him by the castle gates and continue my journey eastward.

Svenn is nothing like the Nightwalker we were taught to hate and fear. The council members’ decision in the meeting earlier was frustrating. They’re planning on locking him up. I can’t let that happen. Not when I know the truth.

Dim light from the street lanterns shimmers on the wet cobblestones over the lower district of Windhaven. Lord Wesley made sure his night watch lit every single one of them before dusk. I run along the walkway until I reach a set of stairs that leads to the lower level beneath the city. Talulla’s words cut through my mind like a dagger.

The underground passage of Windhaven’s old drainage systems connects everywhere across town.

If I exclude all the Valorians’ death, the rest of the murder occurs alongside the sewer passage across town. I lurch straight to the stairs leading down to the lower drainage tunnel. Multiple dark passages stare back at me, all cavernous with similar height and width. I’m not quite sure which one I should take.

“What are you doing?” A low, gravelly voice breaks the quietude of the air.

Shade stands behind me, clad in full light armor. The dark cloak and cowl blend him well with the night.

I stare into his gray, muted eyes. The demonic mask over the lower half of his face is a reminder that he is a cold-blooded assassin.

“You’ve figured it out too…” I say to him. “The murderer is using the sewers to move around.”

Shade’s silence is confirmation enough.

These ancient tunnels are how the killer is able to evade Lord Wesley’s patrol and tight security.

“We’re not the first to make this association,” the assassin finally says with a sigh, dragging a hand through his gray hair. “The city guards have scoured the sewers last week at your one-eyed knight’s suggestion. They found nothing.”

Nothing?

My heart stalls in my chest. This is my last hope of proving that Svenn is not the murderer they’re looking for.

“But…” the assassin drawls and points to one tunnel, “…they didn’t focus on this particular strait. It’s flooded from the tide during the day,” he says, showing the research he had done on his notepad. I don’t understand his scribblings, but I nod.

His eyes gleam in the dim light. “I’ll go ahead and check to see if the killer has left any trace.”

“Take me with you.” I ask him.

“No.” He looms over me, subtly blocking my path.

“Shade!”

“It’s dangerous and you’re the Silverra’s niece,” he reminds me in a low voice. “The guy will have my head if anything were to happen to you.”

He moves towards the passage carefully. I trail behind him like a stubborn duckling.

“Go home, Queen Rhianelle,” the male instructs, casting me a sidelong glance.

“You owe me, Shade.” I call him out, my voice echoing eerily over and over down the passage.

The assassin gives me a glare worthy of a Grimsbane from Tiamat. I try not to flinch as I stare right back at his smoky gray eyes.

“I—I’ve helped you label the salt and sugar in the manor with stickers.” My heart squeezes in my chest the instant I say that.

Shade is quiet for a long moment.

I hate myself a little for doing this to him.

The tea he made every time I visited my uncle was always a hit and miss. I’ve suspected that the Grimsbanes can’t read, but Shade never asked for help. He’s probably embarrassed about it, so I secretly put on stickers for him on the stuff back at the house.

I never would have requested for a return to any favors I do for others, but I’m desperate. More people are dying. I also need to prove that it’s not Svenn.

I need this, Shade.

The cruel silence persists. Then something like a dark laughter leaves his throat.

“Fine,” Shade mutters, shaking his head. “Not for the stickers. But for saving my life back in the human world.”

He enters the tunnel’s mouth and I trail behind him. Light from the streetlamp and the moon tapers off deeper into the passage. I rub Kahedin’s lamp crystal between my palms. It glows brightly, illuminating the path.

I walk faster to catch up with the Grimsbane’s long stride. The air in the chamber is still and stale, but my robe shifts subtly as if accosted by a breeze.

That’s odd.

I think Shade felt it too because he is staring at one side of the age-worn wall.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him, swallowing on dry throat.

His eyes glimmer. “Try angling that crystal from above.”

I do as he says and a hollow passage appears on the wall before us. Mortared stones reappear the moment I move around my crystal. I raise my hand to touch the strange wall, but my fingers meet air.

“An optical illusion,” Shade muses quietly.

The city guards and Aelfric could have easily overlooked this part. This hidden passage makes it even more even more plausible that this could be the killer’s secret hideout. My heart thunders against my ribcage at the prospect.

“Last chance to go home.” Shade levels a hard stare. But I don’t back down from that glare.

“You need me, Shade,” I say as I rub Kahedin’s lamp crystal in between my hand. It sparkles like a light borrowed from the stars itself. “I have this.”

“Fancy,” the Grimsbane mutters. He puts on a strange equipment from Tiamat over his eyes.

I suspect that the tactical gear will help him see better in the dark. Maybe he doesn’t need me and my crystal after all… But I’m glad he no longer makes an effort to discourage me from my resolve.

I enter the dark pit despite every instinct screaming against it. It opens to a bigger passage with rough rock walls, divided by a wide water route in the middle. Raised stone walkways line both sides of the rise. We stay on one side as I flash the crystal to see where the tunnel leads to.

“Just another sewer.” I hear Shade grumble.

“But it doesn’t smell bad here,” I note to him.

The assassin tilts his head and sniffs through his mask, nodding in agreement. “The water reeks of sea brine instead of sewage.”

“Which way should we go?” I mutter, more to myself. This tunnel could lead to nowhere.

What if I can’t find a single proof down here? I feel a catch in my heart at the thought of Svenn being imprisoned again. Wesley’s guards or the Valorians could not force him into chains. No mortal could.

The Aeonians will make me do it.

I remember the last time they forced me to shackle his wrists for travel. I vow to myself to never do it again.

I am deep in thought when Shade decides to track against the flowing direction of the murky water below. We move silently into the gloom without words. The atmosphere gets more frigid the deeper we course into the tunnel. I’m thankful my lamp crystal offers a kernel of heat against the freezing air.

Rhianelle, go back, the Un cautions.

Every alarm bell starts ringing in my head. My heart shudders with unease at their sudden warning.

I look suspiciously at the broad-shouldered Grimsbane in front of me. He hasn’t spoken a single word in a while.

Who in their right mind would follow an assassin into a sewer anyway? If it is like any of Blaire’s murder mystery books, it could have been Shade all along.

“Are we lost?” I ask him, nervousness leaking into my voice.

He gives me no answer. A flicker of fear curls around my heart. His long stretch of silence is making me nervous.

The assassin strides towards the sharp corner ahead, silent as death. He suddenly holds up a hand, signaling me to stop. I meet his stare in the dark, catch the widening in his eyes.

“What is it?” I ask.

He heaves a heavy breath. “You shouldn’t have come.”

I lurch towards the corner to catch a glimpse of whatever he’s looking at—and I understand why Shade could not put it to words.

Pallid corpses drained of blood litter the wide chamber. I swallow the dread in my throat to keep myself from retching. I’ve seen my fair share of dead bodies, but something about the wrongness of their death strikes me cold.

A sense of doom pervades me, and I understand now why the council has decided to imprison Svenn. These horrific husks are far too similar to a Nightwalker’s victim.

“I can accompany you back to the surface,” the Grimsbane offers, silently studying me.

“I need to do this, Shade,” I say, my voice and my resolve unwavering. “I have to clear my husband’s name.”

“Does he like to eat bones?” he suddenly asks, absently.

I have learned not to question Shade’s weird sayings and questions.

“Some of these bodies are eaten… nibbled to the bones,” he says, kneeling to inspect the corpse beside his feet.

The assassin is right… that is indeed strange. Why would Svenn—a vampire—devour a corpse to the last bit?

I don’t get a chance to pray for the dead when Shade continues forward. “If you insist on coming, then full stealth mode from here on. Turn off your fancy crystal.”

I frown at the suggestion, but he’s right. The bright crystal will only betray our position to the murderer, whoever he is.

But how am I supposed to move forward in the darkness?

Surprise filters through me when Shade stretches his gloved hand to me. I hide my crystal in its velvet pouch and hold his hand tightly.

The floor becomes craggy the deeper we walk. Echoes of our footsteps are all I hear, and even that is muted. I feel like I’m getting closer to something, hopefully answers instead of the bowels of a monster. We continue on, further and further, until I lose track of the passing time.

It’s not Svenn. It’s not Svenn. It’s not Svenn.

I repeat over and over in my heart. He made a promise never to harm an innocent.

Shade suddenly stops dead in his tracks. His pause is so sudden I nearly slam my head on his back.

What’s wrong? I sign in the dark.

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” Shade replies in a low voice. “It’s suddenly so quiet in here.”

He’s right.

Deafening silence falls upon us. I don’t even hear the flowing water anymore. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on high alert. I can’t shake the creeping feeling that we have been lured here.

The tunnel that was once devoid of smell now reeks of something foul, like carrion. A heavy presence looms in the dark and my blood runs cold at the sudden clicking sound.

“Now would be a good time to use your fancy shiny rock,” Shade whispers close to my ear.

I rub the crystal slowly so I don’t startle whatever being that is making that rattle.

My gut plunges into a free fall as the light gradually reveals the features of the hunching figure in the dark. I want to call it a rat for its long snout, but it’s standing on its hind legs like mortal man and elves. It hisses and lifts its face at the glow of the crystal, revealing razor-sharp teeth.

But that’s not what scares me most about the creature. It’s the skin—grotesquely mismatched and sewn together like a tarp.

Another growl reverberates from behind us.

This one sounds more vicious, hungrier.

“I—I think there’s more of them,” I stutter, my heart hammering wildly in my chest.

Shade nods.

I rub Kahedin’s crystal faster between my palms and the radiating glow intensifies.

“Show yourself,” Shade mutters in the dark.

And show themselves they did.

There are at least a dozen of them on the walkway, surrounding us from front and back. The clicking sounds are coming from the twitching of the sharp nails and talons on their limbs.

My erratic heart is desperately trying to jump out of its ribcage at the rumble in the rabid creature’s throat. It’s going to attack us soon.

Just as I thought, one of the rats lurches straight towards Shade.

“Behind you!” The scream hurls itself from my mouth.

The assassin ducks to the left, the beast’s long talon missing his neck by inches. It strikes again, clawing at Shade’s throat, but he is faster as he shoves his blade deep into the creature’s belly.

It falls to the walkway, its body twitching as it dies.

No. The rat is not dying at all. It’s reviving.

Flesh and muscles stitch back sinew by sinew.

Shade kicks into the face of another one scrambling towards us. Its head smashes under the force of his boot.

The assassin stares blankly at the enemy he had just decapitated. “Usually, I’d say go for the head, but will you look at that…”

I watch in horror as the rat beast attempts to regenerate its head.

“At least it restores slower,” he remarks darkly.

Those first two were a test for us. They’re going to come all at once now. Panic clutches my chest at the incoming threat.

The assassin swivels to look at me. “Are you armed?”

I shake my head in dismay. “No.”

I left my ceremonial rapier in the council room. Even if I had brought it with me, I’m certain it’d be useless against these creatures.

“What’s your favorite weapon?” Shade asks calmly.

Huh?

Shade has the worst timing to hold a questioning session. I’d be happy to answer that when we’re not surrounded by enemies. I’ll even tell him my favorite foods and books too.

“The weapon you are most familiar with?” he asks again.

“A long sword,” I finally answer, hoping it will finally help him focus on our current dire situation.

Shade pulls the very thing I wanted from thin air.

A blast of shock goes through me when he hands me the weapon.

“How?” I murmur my awe.

“Magic,” he says easily.

No.

This is no magic or trick. In that scant moment, I glimpse a summoning circle in the air.

Shade is a summoner.

I don’t have time to dwell on that when the rats lunge at us with terrifying speed.

With a weapon in my hand, I cast my fear aside. I take on a defensive stance, waiting for them to come to me. When they do… I tear through them like the wind.

Limbs and heads fall from my borrowed sword. The beasts’ dying screeches soon fill the dark chamber.

Whatever creature I miss, meets its swift end at the assassin’s blade. His skill works so well with mine. We understand each other without talking as he passes me whatever weapon I need. I don’t think I’ve met someone with a fighting style so compatible with my own.

Shade pushes one against the wall and the monster thrashes violently against him. We exchange a single glance in the dimness. He is crafting an opening for me. I run towards them, using the momentum and my weight to shove the blade into the creature’s heart.

These creatures may have crawled out of nightmares, but they are no match for the Grimsbane of Tiamat and me. Shade and I stand back to back, our eyes watching the tunnel in all directions.

Another one perishes and another one appears. More of those creatures surface from the water. They can’t die… and they keep coming.

“There’s no end to this.” A low snarl slips past Shade’s mouth.

He’s right.

There has to be a better way we can stop those rats. I’ve thought of calling Ed or Brock who live in the swamps of Astefar. They can swallow these creatures whole, or better yet, Miss Bernadette.

But I can’t summon them here.

We might yet survive these demons, but summoning a being from Astefar is certain death for Shade and it may endanger the people living right above this tunnel.

Skills and strength are how we will survive this. My gaze shifts to my fighting companion in the dark. “I have an idea.”

“All ears,” he mutters, his breath comes out in short, ragged bursts.

“Do you have a limit on the number of weapons you can summon?” I ask Shade.

He arches a brow at the question.

“I’m stealing them from one of the guild’s vaults in Tiamat,” he confesses. “That means it’s limitless.”

I focus on the word limitless instead of stealing.

Good.

“We spear them to the wall, Shade,” I share my plan with him. “That way they can regenerate all they want, but they’re stuck.”

I can almost feel the assassin’s smile underneath his mask. “Let’s do it.”

One by one, we hammer and nail them to the wall. My wrist sings with pain but I ignore it. We keep trapping them until there’s only one of the rat demons left.

It lurches straight towards me at full speed. I lose my footing on my limp leg.

Shade charges towards the rat without hesitation, burying his stiletto deep into the creature’s soft abdomen. They stumble on the walkway, wrestling each other for dominance. Their struggle lasts long enough for me to worry.

Relief shudders through me when Shade rises from the ground, victorious. Blood drips down his arm to the tip of his fingers.

“Shade, your hand…” I mutter, pointing at the dagger jutting from his arm.

The assassin grips the hilt and withdraws the dagger from his flesh as though pulling it from a sheath. He throws it to the ground and walks to me. “Let’s get out of here.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I glance at the trapped beasts behind us before leaving. They’re howling and shrieking in the dark, whispering a promise of death. I hope Cedwynn manages to deliver my message to my knights and reinforcement is coming soon.

Fear pulses down my spine in constant dose as we forge our way back to the main tunnel. We continue walking until Shade’s legs buckle from whatever injury he sustained. I let him sit down to catch his breath.

My body will succumb to the exhaustion soon too.

The assassin straightens his spine and leans on the wall. “Your Highness, listen to me. I need to you to promise me something…”

I hate this.

I don’t want to listen to his last will.

“You’re going to be all right, Shade,” I assure him. I call upon Anastarros and his blessing.

Come forth and heal this assassin, I will it.

“Promise me,” he insists, snatching my hand. His gaze flicks up, stealing my attention and my breath.

I inhale deeply. “What is it?”

He stares into my eyes, his eyes intense and hard. “No matter what happens, you must live for the next one hundred and twelve days.”

I blink at the request. A torrent of questions goes through my mind, the first being, Why one hundred and twelve days?

I decide it’s best to just vow it. “All right. I’ll try not to die…”

A flicker of shadow on the wall makes me pause. Movements and light flash from the crevice of the crack on the wall. I move closer to inspect the hollow opening. Something dark and ancient peers back from the narrow slit.

My heart nearly stops, then speeds up in sharp beats. I grab the hilt of my long sword instinctively.

The stone begins to shift and bulge, as if there is something behind it. Shade and I watch as an eyeball appears on the wall before us. My blood freezes to ice when it blinks like a proper, living eye.

“Careful,” Shade says, pulling me back a step. I heed his word because this is no ordinary magic, unlike the kind performed by the Mhlaryan elves.

This is something darker and far more dangerous.

It’s sorcery.

“Congratulations on finding me,” the voice through the eyeball speaks. The malevolent tone sends goosebumps rising over my skin. “Are you ready for the kind of death you’ve earned?”

But I could recognize the deadness in that voice anywhere. It was a long time ago, yet I remember it clearly.

“I know you,” I say to the eye on the wall.

“No, you don’t—”

“The village of Feywildra in Elowen. You came for me when I was a child.” I stalk forward.

The admission completely stuns whoever it is hiding behind the eyeball, and he turns mute.

Shade looks back and forth between the giant eyeball and me. “You guys know each other?”

I nod firmly and the darkness shudders.

“You called yourself the Shadow Fae,” I say.

A heartbeat of silence passes, followed by a heavy sigh.

“Ah, yes,” the voice from the eyeball says at long last. I sense relief coming from the sorcerer. With that last word I said, it’s as if I have revealed the full extent of my knowledge of his identity.

“So, you remember me,” he muses with a light laughter. “Then you should remember what I’m capable of.”

I’ll never forget what he did to Loren, Oscar, and the twelfth regiment.

Perhaps I should be afraid of this killer from my past, but I’m too furious to be scared. All this time we were searching for a murderer in town, turns out it was the work this servant of black magic.

“Why would you do this?” I ask him, trying to make sense of all those mutilated bodies.

I expect him to state a proper purpose, be it revenge or hatred, but in a voice of high boredom, the sorcerer merely says, “Practice.”

Anger crawls up my chest and my heart aches thinking of all the people who died by his hand. I take a deep, slow breath to calm myself.

“Windhaven and its ancient tunnels have the perfect condition for my experiment. Of course you had to ruin it, stupid elven bitch—”

He doesn’t get to finish his words when Shade throws a dagger to the eye.

The sudden act surprises the sorcerer but the blade does nothing to him and falls flat to the ground.

It’s never a fair fight when it comes to sorcery. Mages have to be present in the field of battle to cast their spells, but a sorcerer can safely hide at a distant. This eyeball is only a lens for the sorcerer to see if his spell is working. He is probably thousands of miles away from here, and there is no way we can get to him.

Laughter rumbles from the eyeball at the failed attempt. “As I was saying, prepare to die, bi—”

The assassin summons and flings another dagger to the sorcerer’s lens. Once again it tumbles back harmlessly against the wall.

“It’s useless, Shade…” I touch his arm, shaking my head.

His head dips a little. “I know… but he deserves to be cast down for what he called you.”

My lips curl with a small smile at that remark.

A strange rhyme floats from the eyeball and the air in the tunnel trembles. I listen closely to the words he weaves, something ancient, evil, and long forgotten.

It’s an order to kill.

Oh no…

“What is that?” Shade raises his head as the air in the tunnel trembles. “Is he reciting a poem?”

Yes, one of death and suffering…

“There’s not going to be anything left of you once I’m done,” the sorcerer says with pure malice.

I hear snarls, snapping teeth, and screeches from creatures not of this world.

We need to be prepared for what’s coming. I tug on Shade’s black battle suit. “Give me your back.”

I pass on the blessings from Anastarros into him while there is still time.

“Save your energy. I’ll manage,” he grits through clenched teeth.

No, he will not.

Shade’s spleen is ruptured. I don’t even know how the assassin is still standing.

Deep, rumbling growls echo through the tunnels and the ground trembles from beneath my feet.

“How uninspired…” the assassin mutters almost tediously, staring at the darkness beyond us. “He’s calling those same monsters again.”

Yes, but more of them, Shade… By the sound of it, hundreds. And they’ll be here soon.

I don’t know how we are going to fight all those beasts. We barely survived two dozen of them.

“Half of my organs are leaking. You should make a run for it,” Shade suddenly whispers. He juts his head to the other end of the tunnel, urging me to leave.

I stare and blink at him, without moving from my spot.

“I’ll follow you soon. Go now,” he adds.

I feel like I’ve heard those words spoken to me long ago, at a time when I was useless, powerless, and weak. But I’m neither of those things now.

I recognize the lie.

“I’m not five, Shade.” I shake my head. No more running. No more leaving the people I care about behind. I clench my fists in determination.

“Let me borrow your bone knife,” I say to him.

Shade arches a brow at the command. But the best thing about him is that he never questions anything I do. I can always count on him to play along. He delivers it to my hand without stalling.

“Be still and silent for the next seventy seconds. Do not even breathe,” I tell him as I draw the runes of the summoning circle on the ground. Recognition shines in Shade’s smoky eyes when he realizes I’m just like him.

A summoner.

There’s no way for me to contact Lulu in such short timing, Nimue will faint in Shade’s presence, and I’ve cut ties with Jessica. The only one I can rely on is Ed.

“God of Terrible Things, Devourer of Souls, heed my call—”

I stop from uttering another word.

Another growling sound reverberates from the tunnel behind us, but this one is different.

Familiar.

It’s him.

My husband.