Page 19 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

But Thalon was not leaving. By the resolute pierce of his eyes, Garrik knew he would become his demon given flesh, and would suffer every blow until one of them yielded.

Garrik’s Smokeshadows held the power to dawn Thalon away if he wanted, but …

No matter the hesitation within him, no matter the warnings in his mind of how deadly this would be, it was Garrik who spoke first. “Do not allow me to leave this tent until I have returned.”

Smokeshadows whirled around the space. Tendrils of swirling darkness engulfed any sharpened weapon within view, disappearing through ash and clouds.

“If I rip your head off, you will be to blame.” It was as much of a warning as Garrik would give.

From the flare of excitement on his brother’s face, he knew Thalon was not frightened and readied his stance as he shot back at him, “Bring it on, you spoiled little shit.” Speaking from when they were adolescent faelings, Thalon wickedly grinned and gave no time for Garrik to take another breath, and swung.

With the weight of his entire body, his fist slammed into a wall of nothingness.

Garrik’s shield cracked his knuckles before Thalon recoiled and repositioned his stance, skin turning a furious shade of purple.

At least with bone and flesh, the object could absorb the impact and shatter.

With Garrik’s shield, it would be as if he had hurled his entire body weight in a powerful blow against a wall of marble.

Garrik’s power trembled the room. He stalked forward with rage-filled onyx eyes, shadows billowing from his body, leaving a trail of Smokeshadow footsteps in his wake.

And lunged.

Thalon swung out his arms, shaping a circle in front of him, and then jerked his clenched fists down to his sides. Lightning and thunderstorms traveled down his body, a vortex inverting in on itself and transforming him into a portal.

Flesh became rays of sunlight and electrical storms.

Garrik flew through him, landing behind Thalon’s glowing back near the table.

Thalon turned. Eyes like Sun himself—the Celestial sovereign ruler of day—glowing gold so bright Garrik’s vision threatened to incinerate.

“Impressive,” Garrik gritted through his teeth at the deception. “That will not work again, Realmpiercer.”

“Maybe if you’d trained in the arena instead of sulking in your tent, you’d learn something new.” Thalon swung open his arms, and the portal that had been engulfing his body detonated toward Garrik.

“ Sulking ?” With barely a breath, an imperceivable airwave roared into the incoming portal.

The impact exploded around them in bolts and wind.

Shaking the canvas, stirring maps and correspondence around the tent.

“You think the damn nightmares are me sulking ?” he growled, and with all the force from his boots to his fist, swung.

Black-veined knuckles collided with facial bones, and Thalon lost his footing, barreling back against the bed, producing a sharp grunt when the frame caught his spine.

One instant, the morning sun’s rays battered the canvas, illuminating every surface inside.

The next, a fog of darkness descended. Smokeshadows swept from every corner, haunting the floor around their boots like damned souls clawing their way out of Firekeeper’s pits, and surged until they engulfed the room in an endless veil of night.

A thrumming pulse of static energy enclosed them. Garrik’s shield—one last permanent effort of protection, even from himself, before?—

“ Get out , Thalon, before I rip your starsdamned head off .” A threat—a damning, deadly and real threat.

Teetering on the edge of something animalistic, that thin tether to his faemanity was slipping.

His voice, unrecognizable to everyone except his Shadow Order.

Beast-like, a dragon’s roar, called from somewhere in the dark, demanding to be released.

And then, a goaded whisper. Inches from Garrik’s ear. “No.”

“ Thalon —”

A gurgled choke. Garrik’s neck caved in, pulled back by a corded arm with flawless speed, restricting the air from entering his lungs.

A palm drove his head forward, gripping tightly into his gray hair.

Then Thalon kicked in his knees, forcing him onto the furs as his punishing grip around Garrik’s throat tightened.

Portals sphered around the High Prince’s hands and compressed his wrists, constraining them to his sides like thrumming, electrified shackles.

The floor opened beneath him, swallowing his lower legs, ankles, and boots before contracting at his knees, as if taking the form of an embedded mighty redwood, its roots swallowed by the dirt below.

The only way to tame a beast was to first chain it. So Thalon did.

A pulsing, steady beat pounded in Garrik’s head. He could not move. Subdued as if some glorified, holy force—a Celestial gift—raged in Thalon’s veins and blessed him with unmeasured time.

“ Do not touch me ,” Garrik grated out.

Unmistakable turmoil rushed Thalon’s features as he towered behind him. An unbreakable pillar of a male that could not be moved or persuaded. His voice shook uncomfortably as he whispered, “Is this what they did to you in Galdheir?”

It was … nearly the most devastated he had ever heard his brother sound. He almost wanted to lean into it—a part of him cried out to try. But that venom inside his veins roared above it, demanding to turn that heartfelt rasp into bloodcurdling screams.

With a malicious thought, Smokeshadows initiated a defensive, slicing against the invisible barrier on Thalon’s skin, unsuccessfully attempting to curl around his arms and rip him away.

But with each gasping breath in Garrik’s lungs, they grew weaker, consumed by the terrors of those years, as if allowing the Guardian to strangle their master. Forsaking him as he called out to them.

Thalon’s voice hardened then. “Forced you to your knees…”

The shadows in the tent feathered—began to wither. Garrik thrashed— thrashed ? —

“Put you in chains…”

Every vein in his body pounded and bulged, fighting— fighting— to stay alive—because … because his brother was right. And that hold— that hold around his neck …

Garrik slammed his eyes shut. Sealed with the force of his pain.

“Held you down, choked the life from y?—”

And then it happened.

The shift from who Garrik wanted to be to who he was Made to be.

Thalon’s taunting snapped something deep inside him that he could not control any longer.

Garrik felt serpent darkness encasing every nerve in his body, molding every bone into the demon he fought to keep contained.

Sensations, hot and sharp like the injection of venom, pricked and burned their way through his veins.

Every inch of flesh on him felt as if it were slithering through blades of sharp-edged glass.

Warping him. Reshaping him. His vision leached until no color remained and he only knew infernal darkness.

Lifting a warm arm against Garrik’s chin, a male voice commanded, “Look at me, Garrik.” When he refused, that male demanded, “ Look at me .”

Through gritted teeth, his strength nearly gone and the oxygen sucked from his veins, Garrik had to obey. His cursed, lifeless eyes pierced glowing, golden ones with a glare of promised death—not recognizing who controlled him as the monster inside him raged.

If the male faltered, even for a second, he would snap his starsdamned neck without hesitation.

I will fucking destroy you , he sent to the male and curled his lip, canines sharpening.

Golden beads caught his wavering attention, and somewhere from the depths of his mind, he knew this male.

Knew what those golden beads were: Earned.

Which meant he could not kill a Guardian, lest he be cursed and damned.

But he did not care, and continued to snarl, Rip the flesh from your bones and paint the horizon with your blood, Guardian ilk.

The Guardian’s face fell.

What seemed like lifetimes later, he murmured, “Thalon.” Soft. Tender. As if attempting to calm a terrified, defenseless beast. “Garrik, it’s Thalon.” With Garrik’s head caged against his solid abdomen and that arm unmoving from his chin and throat, a dark palm cupped his forehead. A thumb stroked.

Marked One filth , he spit. Hostile.

That thumb kept stroking. “Thalon.”

I will drink the blood from your skull and display it at Magnelis’s feet ? —

Something wet splattered Garrik’s cheek.

“Thalon,” the male gently repeated, like it meant something.

“Thalon,” he said once more, lips quivering.

His arm trembled and re-tightened as he pleaded, “Please. Please , Garrik. Don’t make me do this.

” Tightening and tightening. “This isn’t you.

You’re in there somewhere. Fight … fight your way back to me, Garrik. ”

More warm droplets. More liquid on his cheek.

The fucking pissant is crying? He soundlessly laughed. Flexed his numb fingers inside the magical bonds.

“You are Garrik, High Prince of Elysian.”

No shit. What did that matter?

“You are good. Selfless. Our protector. Not a mindless killer. My brother held captive.”

By you. And when I get my hands around your worthless neck— He pictured them there. Wrapped around the reike tattoo. Imagining that vital snap.

The male’s hold kept narrowing against his throat; Garrik’s vision spotted as his other thumb stroked his temple. “You are Garrik, beloved High Prince of Elysian. You are good. ” His voice wavered like a lesser male . “Selfless. Our protector. Not a mindless killer?—”

Re— he choked— Release me … s-so I might disprove your … delusion, w-winged sw-wine.

Tighter and tighter and tighter.

“My brother held captive. You are Garrik?—”

S-sav-vage P-prince ? —

“Beloved High Prince of Elysian. You are good. Strong. Selfless. Our protector. Not a mindless killer. My brother held captive. You are Garrik, High—” The male continued stroking. Continued chanting, but high-pitched ringing replaced his insufferable voice.

The Savage Prince cried out to his darkness for salvation, but it did not answer. Not in the way he needed.

That pressure cupping his forehead lifted before the male twisted two rings on his fingers. “I’m sorry, brother,” he said. Then, with one final squeeze, denied Garrik’s last breath, and said?—

He woke to dancing shadows cast in solitary torchlight and something smelling like salt and brine of the sea.

And … he was sitting upright, as far as he could determine. His back reclined on something hard and unforgiving as his body swayed up and down.

He did not have the strength to stand up.

Could only blink his bobbing, heavy eyelids.

Could only make out a few images, like walls forged of thick iron bars bolted to the wooden floor and ceiling.

And beyond them … an iron-barred door, twenty paces away, was closed in front of a wooden staircase. Beside it …

“Where are we this time?” Garrik rasped to Thalon, who sat on the floor with his knees bent in front of him. His marked forearms draped on top.

“Aiden’s brig,” was all he said, separated by prison bars.

Garrik dropped his head against the cell wall. Nodded, opened his eyes, and studied the grain on the boards of the ceiling. The shield ? He sliced his eyes back to his brother. The one around camp. Everyone would have felt it fall. Would now be unguarded, vulnerable to attacks and wandering eyes.

Thalon’s gaze flickered to the rings on his tattooed fingers in answer.

The shield stood then. That one and all the rest. The hundreds.

Garrik deepened a breath, grateful for Thalon’s perilous actions. For using those rings.

That was also how they were there, on a ship, below the sea in one of his mother’s pocket worlds.

Only a few had access granted to his powers, found encased in those rings.

Thalon had opened the door with his and portaled them inside.

And if Thalon was forced to enact such measures, then Garrik had been too far gone to be coaxed back to sanity.

Thalon’s sole recourse had been to quiet his mind.

He did not fault Thalon for it. But himself…? He was a fucking fool—should never have allowed such astounding idiocy. Should have dawned Thalon away.

Nothing but the salty aroma and sounds of the sea surrounded them.

Garrik half-wondered if Thalon was still there when his voice, silent as his mother’s decayed gardens, cautiously muttered along the moldering floorboards, “I don’t know what in Firekeeper-filled-hell you went through these past days, but can’t you see that I’m trying to help you? ” The words lingered.

“I will not hear this again.” Shadows gathered by the stairwell’s door and opened it with a screech of the hinges.

Clinging to the iron bars. Waiting like a hand ushering someone through.

But too quickly, Garrik realized his silent command would remain ignored.

He tightened his jaw at Thalon’s rebellion, and ordered, “Leave me.”

Thalon scoffed. “I’m not leaving until you get out whatever’s tormenting you.

I can’t watch you fall from another portal, half-dead , while I hold your body, only for you alone to deal with the reasons why after.

I can’t .” Eyes glassy, defeated, he cleared his throat and shook his head.

“If you need to fight your demons, fight me. Because I’m done watching you break alone. ”

Garrik’s rising anger was barely restrained as he gritted out, “ I am not breaking .”

Neither one of them believed it.

His Guardian rose and walked to the cell door before he unlocked and swung it wide open. With holy fire simmering in his eyes, Thalon called a portal, and Garrik’s tent lay in ruination beyond it as he growled, “Prove it.”