Page 2 of Walking in Darkness

The man laughed, a vicious sound that slipped through her like ice. “You are all so clueless, aren’t you? Cowards who hide away within the safety of their beloved Tearsith, then fall into Faydor as if you’re actually going to make a difference. As if you stand a chance of stopping me.”

He continued to approach, and Aria’s attention darted in every direction, searching for any possible escape. But the blackened walls billowed and danced on all sides. A fortress of depravity.

There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

“Who are you? I saw you ... in the day. While I was awake.” She tried to demand it. To keep the quiver from her voice. He didn’t deserve her fear.

But it was difficult to do when pure evil was glaring at you.

His head canted to the side as his grin grew. “This life is filled with many mysteries, is it not? A child lying in their bed, waking to a paradise unseen, believing they are a chosen one. But no ... that paradise is only a shroud. A cover for the affliction we’re to be given. A man walking in darkness, charged with a burden unlike any other would ever be asked. Asked to carry an albatross so great he’s on his knees, both night and day.”

Aria’s mind spun through his confession. The hatred and bitterness that underscored the words he uttered.

“But why suffer when we can be so much greater than that?” He kept coming closer, and Aria’s short breaths turned jagged with every step he took. Slow and purposeful, he erased the space between them. His presence slicked over her in the coldest wash of evil she’d ever felt.

She was trembling when he stopped a foot away, and he reached out and dragged a single fingertip down her cheek. It burned through her like a blade, a match to the way his voice sharpened in cruelty.“Why succumb to the albatross of being a Laven when you can have everything?”

He suddenly had her by the throat. Her eyes went wide with the shock, and her hands flew to his wrist. She struggled to break free, both hands ripping against his hold. He only squeezed tighter.

She struggled for air, choking against the lack of oxygen, though she refused to stop fighting.

She couldn’t go down like this.

Not after everything she’d already survived.

“Do you want to know who I am?” His voice curled with venom. “I am the one who will purge the existence of those who think they have a chance of standing in my way. I am the one who will put an end to your kind. I am Ambrose. And you, little Valient, have no power here. You may have prevailed against the Ghorl I sent, but you will not prevail against me.” His fingers dug deep into her throat. “Because you are pathetic, just like the rest.”

Aria read the truth in his icy-blue eyes as he added a second hand, squeezing so tightly she was sure he was going to crush her windpipe.

She may not have been able to die within the boundaries of Faydor, but she realized quickly that protection had not been extended to this place. To this stricken, abhorrent place. She could already feel her spirit being drawn from her body like vapor sucked into the nothingness. Could hear the moaning of her soul.

Agony clawed down her throat and clamped around her chest.

On instinct, she fought harder, and she tore at the backs of his hands and arms as she struggled to break free.

Writhing and thrashing.

Kicking and flailing.

He laughed at her efforts until she managed to strike him in the stomach with her boot. Even she was shocked when he flew back, soaring high in the air before he slammed to the ground ten feet away. He skidded along the hard, barren dirt, his body digging a foot-deep trench in the black-soot earth.

Shock blew his eyes wide as he scrambled up into a crouch, as if he could not grasp the action, before he was flying back for her in a storm of fury.

His speed was greater than that of any human.

Before she could prepare herself, his fist flew, colliding with her right cheek. Pain splintered across her face. She cried out, though she regained her footing and threw her own punch. He gripped her by the wrist before her fist could make contact, and he wrenched her arm backward.

Aria screamed.

“Little bitch. Cunt. Whore.” He wheezed all the foulness that typically oozed from the Kruen. “You have no power. You have no power.”

But she somehow knew that she did. She could feel it spark within herself. A glow that demanded that she retaliate.

Stand and oppose.

It was thelight.

The same light that she’d used to battle against the Kruen in Faydor. It was how she extinguished them—binding them with the energy that raged inside her.