Page 70 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Vicious, Perfect, Terrible

Rayze

“Answer me,” Warrick shouts, his eyes wild as he lurches to his feet. He stumbles back as the smoke reaches for him. “What is this?”

The smoke breaches the front doors and Serpents— fold . They drop to the ground and convulse. Blue currents of Volt spark from their skin as smoke licks across their prone bodies.

Dacre shouts toward us seconds before he’s on his knees.

Choking.

The roar of pirates cracks through the night. Their sprinting silhouettes crash through the smoke toward The Dredge. Warrick’s rag-tag team of soldiers lunge into the smoke only to fall beside Dacre.

The orange smoke— Brass. It’s attacking Volt.

As it should. Although, admittedly, I thought I’d get away with taking out at least one more Kraken ship before daddy started rolling out his secret weapons.

I swivel my head to where Warrick retreated, his hand shaking around the hilt of his Serpent blade.

“They’ll take it,” he hisses. “Fucking pirates. They’ll take my city if they take our occupied lower levels of The Dredge.”

Smoke curls toward my boots.

It’s been hours since my injection of Volt. A small amount every day since the Blood Betrayal. I’ve built some immunity to the drug, but it’s a slow-going process, considering it’s the equivalent of poisoning myself.

I wish I’d known Brass would make its debut today . I would’ve skipped my fucking dosage.

Pirates storm inside The Dredge. Screams erupt as Skin are dragged into the streets by their hair. Bronze battle axes flash before they dig into the Serpent soldiers lying helpless on the ground.

Thunder rolls.

My lips press together, my decision made—and I plunge into the Brass. A painful shriek tries to tear from my throat as the remnants of Volt in my bloodstream immediately attack.

But there’s something else.

Something euphoric .

My magic crashes through me as if someone drags it out of my gut. I gasp, my chest seizing as the Threads of Fate flare to life. Thousands upon thousands of strings web through the air, bright and beautiful and waiting .

My vision sharpens. The never-ending pain in my hands vanishes.

Brass may cage Volt, but it amplifies the shard of magic gifted to me by Fate.

Just as the Daughters intended.

Pirates turn toward me, aware of the single woman left standing.

I rip my bow from where it fell in the explosion.

Orange licks through the night, Kraken pirates white-knuckling their battle axes. Between two, a teenage girl kicks and squirms.

The Serpent army is convulsing on the ground and these pirates take girls. They could gut the lower level of The Dredge. Take full control for The Kraken. But no. They’d rather claim a few kicking and screaming treasures.

The Kraken’s claim of our power supply was never about taking the city. This is psychological warfare—forcing Warrick to know they could come at any time, any place, and snatch everything he cherishes in the blink of an eye.

My father wants my snake to suffer, but the only one who gets to fuck with my pretty weapon’s head is me.

“Let her go,” I growl.

One of the pirates flashes a smirk. “Stand down, baby. You’re surrounded.”

My lips drag into a tight smile. One hand steadying my bow, my other creeps inside my coat. “I won’t ask again.”

He presses the Skin girl into his partner’s grasp and prowls toward me, his axe lifted.

“Closer, baby ,” I murmur, and a feral, dark grin lifts his features.

Oh, goody. He likes to play.

I jerk my elbow back and launch.

His gold teeth snap open in a howl, my arrow lodged through his left eye. A hiss through the air, and my second takes his right.

My third—his throat.

He chokes and falls to his knees. The other pirate drops the girl in panic. Muscle and girth lunges toward me. All bulk. Predictable. Killable .

I pluck a group of four arrows and lodge them at the ready.

“One more step,” I purr.

He yells and raises his arm, his axe edge glinting beneath the flickering overhead lights. Power surges through the building. His axe slices down—

DARK.

I drop as the blackout hits.

One more breath. One more heartbeat. That’s the only mercy he’ll find in my presence.

LIGHT.

His axe clangs against the ground, inches from where I’d been. I lurch around him, and he swings.

DARK.

My arrows fly—

LIGHT .

Each meets its target: his chest.

He chokes, his mouth open in shock.

DARK .

I launch a final arrow. He’s wide open for me. May as well.

LIGHT .

Lethal metal slices over his tongue and tears through the back of his neck.

I’ve never understood why they look so surprised. He should’ve known pain was his end the moment he touched someone without permission, and he should’ve known it’d be a woman to deliver it.

I whip around as boots pound into the entry of The Dredge.

Throat, cheek, ear, gut. The snap, snap, snap of my bowstring.

Blood and gargled pleas.

DARK .

I lower my bow, the threads of their lives blinking out of existence like stars disappearing among storm clouds.

LIGHT .

“Devil,” my snake’s rough voice seeps across bodies, his Volt-ringed eyes shuddering. He crawls forward on his elbows, his shoulders heaving. “ Angel ,” he chokes out.

“You’re welcome,” I whisper.

Our eyes lock, our torment strung between us like a phantom limb. A cruel reminder of everything that was carved from our souls.

My eyes burn. “Mention magic again—to anyone—and next time, I won’t save you.”

His grip tightens on his weapon.

DARK—

Then I step into the rain.

Warrick

I claw over the corpses she left in her wake, coughing against dissipating orange. She’s slipped between my fingers. Again . Vanished in the storm and smoke.

But she was here. My angel. My devil. My heaven. My sin. My Vicious, Perfect, Terrible . Gods, she’s like a disease, humming through my veins greater than any dosage of Volt.

Another inhale of orange smoke, and she appears again, but she’s young. So am I. Kids. We’re just kids. Running through the gardens of Squallspire playing tag. She swivels around and shoots off a wooden arrow.

It rebounds off my chest and I collapse to the ground with a forced cry of horror. “I’ve been slain! Slain, I say!”

My chest warms with the memory. It’s so clear, so vivid , but I’m not sure it’s real. It feels— new . Or maybe old? A memory trapped for so long it doesn’t quite feel mine anymore.

But for how long?

I grit my teeth, glaring through the smoke at the canister labeled brASS .

I want to skin her. Peel her open. Strip her raw in the same way she’s torn me. I want her to know that her rage isn’t singular. It’s ours. Our story. Our heart. She took and she took, and I’m tired.

I. Am. So. Tired.

“Come back,” I growl as I drag myself through the rain. It slashes against me, the smoke thinning with every gray sheet. I catch the flick of her worn trench coat as she disappears around the corner.

Run .

And I’m on my knees. Crawling. Begging.

Baby, please.

“Rayze!” I scream. Her name tears from me, and I know it’s hers. I know it by the familiarity of its shape. I’ve loved that name. Forgotten it. Forgiven it.

Hate it.

Volt crackles down my spine, and I choke, stumbling to my feet as I break through the smoke’s barrier.

RUN.

My boots slam against water. The city tilts and shatters. The pavement blurs. “No, don’t go,” I groan and clutch my head. Things are shaking free with every step closer to her.

There’d been such clarity. So brief but so fated .

She was mine.

Is mine.

Will always be mine.

Who?

I double-back, wild as I sprint toward The Dredge. I was so close. Now little mirrored shards tear me apart from the inside out.

The smoke. It has to be the smoke that offered the reprieve, the ability to remember deeper than our most recent past.

I kneel among the last remnants of the soft orange swirls, my eyes narrowed on the metal device they leaked from. S moke scatters and drifts among the rain and wind. Each soft touch of vapor—agony. A deep, unsettling sorrow.

Her.

Rayze.

“Rayze Angeline,” I breathe. “Hallie Trask.”

Rayze Hallie Rayze Hallie—

The smoke wanes. Vanishes.

Ray —

“What the fuck was that shit?” Dacre kneels beside the device.

I rake my fingers through my wet hair, tilting my head back and closing my eyes against the rain. “How many are dead?”

“More pirates than snakes,” he admits. “I don’t know how.”

My brows pinch. “A woman. There was a woman.” Devil .

“A woman?”

I peer through my lashes, watching as he spins an arrow between his fingers. I yank it from his grasp and trail my thumb down its shaft. Angel .

My lips part as I stare up at the moon peeking between storm clouds and warships. “For always,” I murmur.