Page 3 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

He went on, “Either Brennus conjures the ideas himself or performs the opposite of what I see fit.” And Garrik would not dare to offer suggestions involving lethal consequences lest Brennus, for once, endorsed him. He would never gamble that risk. “I will not persuade him so easily.”

In fact, Brennus rarely entertained Garrik’s council. Mere vermin nipping at his ankles to be kicked or squelched under his polished boot. And when he did follow Garrik’s suggestion, the High King was sure to learn of any error or flaw. To which he would inevitably be punished for. Brutally.

A cold shudder waved down Garrik’s spine, over the decades of barbarous mistreatment.

That relaxed hold on Ghost’s reins tightened punishingly as echoes of sharp snaps from a multi-fringed, barbed whip toyed with his mind.

A cruel reminder of the countless instances Magnelis used Garrik’s body as a bloody example for his poor decisions .

Miscalculations. For making a mockery of the High King by raising such astounding incompetence.

His son. An heir. Magnelis’s greatest disappointment.

Concerning Brennus, the punishments seemed tenfold.

A long-lasting example: the day Magnelis chained Garrik to the royal balcony overlooking Galdheir.

His arms had strained against the cold bite of shackles cutting into his wrists as he dangled, binding him to a three-beamed structure.

The towering wooden pillars flanking him had substituted as static, soundless Ravens while the beam above had framed his humiliation.

Like a hanging cage, he swayed in the midday sun, which scorched blisters on his chest. Murmurs from his mother’s stolen subjects had carried along the cold stones of the castle walls and slopes of the mountain, feeling more of a punishment than the blood dripping from his wrists and the countless lashes inlaid on his back.

All due to Brennus conjuring a falsity of Garrik’s whereabouts during a village raid.

Apparently, he was there, and also the one whose arrow had lodged in the male’s eye.

But Garrik had never grown partial to a bow.

One weapon he admittedly lacked mastery and proficiency for.

A rarity if he hit his desired location on a target.

He would much rather use his sword. Fucking everyone knew that.

Initially, Garrik had not been informed of the High General’s plans.

Only when he received a missive and reported to Galdheir did he learn of the failure in the siege.

Learned of Brennus’s injury resulting in permanent loss of sight.

An attempt at the High General’s life—the words spoken by the gutless male himself.

He only avoided the dungeons by groveling on the throne room floor. His punishment lessened to a hanging by spinning a false narration that an attempt on his life by a villager had knocked his aim of the arrow. It was only a matter of circumstance the High General suffered its path.

But something mocked him all these years…

The injury produced a gruesome scar traveling the length of Brennus’s forehead to his cheek. Even Magnelis should have recognized that an arrow would not have caused it.

The beginnings of a northern breeze tickled strands of gray hair across Garrik’s forehead, guiding him from the memory. If only he could steal into Brennus’s mind fortified by a magical drug, then the truth of what occurred that storming morning would be revealed?—

“One day. Just one starsdamned day, I wish I could strand him in another realm,” Thalon rumbled, his fist tightening on his thigh.

You and I both. But not before Garrik’s blade became intimately acquainted with his limbs… The corners of Garrik’s mouth did not so much as twitch at the thought. Icy, detached, he agreed, “In time.”

Metal scraped. A menacing, imperiling sound.

Beside him, Jade scowled. Cold leather groaned when she drew one of four daggers latched to her thigh and settled it on her lap. Her low voice mirrored the very weapon she toyed with as she argued, “But this would look lovely in his eye today.”

The good one. Garrik laughed to himself.

Some long-lost part of him wanted to smile, but instead, Garrik warned, “As much as I would delight in witnessing your fluency with a blade, any inkling of hostility and Brennus will order me to Galdheir…”Without requiring sight of their faces, he knew he had paled.

His breathing uneven. Any mention of the castle … even a whiff of its stench …

But he was not back there. He was in a meadow, astride Ghost, alongside his friends—his family. Garrik mastered his breathing, denying his terror enough to add, “For a test of my magic-washing. With you two beside me.”

They rode in silence, knowing his words gnawed their every step. He could have stared into the distance for hours, shackled by memories, if not for Jade asking in earnest, “You’re sure I can’t kill him?” An attempt, no doubt, to make him laugh.

It did not work. “I am certain.”

That quickly— “Not even a little?” She twirled the sharpened point on her fingertip, cratering her skin. Her mare seemed just as interested in the male’s future as it turned its head.

A slight raise of his brow was Garrik’s answer, holding their stare.

She curled her lip in almost a snarl. Jade never bothered hiding her lethal disappointment.

One day, he would unleash Jade on their world.

One day Elysian would know of what he suspected lay dormant underneath.

Pure Death and endless, agonizing fiery destruction from the world that crafted her.

An ember that, if kindled into a flame, would destroy everything in her wake.

It was only a blessing—or perhaps a curse—she did not carry a spark’s worth of magic.

Despite it, Jade could level worlds with sheer determination and will.

Garrik was still picturing that infernal destruction when Thalon vowed, “Soon, you will be High King, and those who oppressed Elysian will suffer Firekeeper’s flames.

” Damnation ignited those golden eyes, glowing like a laboring forge.

So much so that Garrik nearly looked away, knowing his own fate awaited in those flames.

“Maybe I will crown you High King instead.” A kernel of truth.

By their light chuckles, they thought it an absurd joke, but Garrik never desired the high monarchy. He did not believe the realm required one ruler over all— especially not him.

Thalon considered a moment. “Your Majesty, High King Thalon,” he mused, as if tasting the words like a sweetened delicacy.

Then added, “Guardian of House of the Seventh N, Realm Liberator, General Realmpiercer, the fiercest in all of Elysian. Nice ring to it.” A smile as bright as sunlight graced his face.

His chin tilted skyward, the golden beads on his dark braids swaying in the smoke-dusted breeze.

“Males and their titles,” Jade quipped, earning a rich, thunderous laugh from Thalon.

Garrik feigned a tight smile and guided them forward. Toward the awaiting forest crescenting the meadow.

Their Guardian’s body ceased shaking as he collected himself. A tattooed hand trailed down the artwork of monsters and languages exposed on the dips and swells of his chest. He opened his mouth?—

Garrik whipped his head over his right shoulder, glaring past Jade, and into the trees.

Shadows danced, unsettled. He commanded these scouts of the kingdom, silent guardians who detected Magnelis’s dark whims and those of his worshipers. Now, they stirred. Cold and compelling, they tendriled until his thoughts narrowed and sought whatever caused them to call.

Garrik.

It was not a request, but he ignored that distant, stern voice. Ignored the other, too.

His power drew him in, taking his perception to that weightless place as if he soared with winged creatures.

Lingering on the edge of the Middleworld, he pressed forward into his magic, scouting the forest and what lay within it.

A spirit flowing along a phantom current.

Weaving through the trees, a laid-out path by his powers of darkness, invisibly passing creeping things and brushing his conscience along the bark of trees.

Something was out there. Something?—

Ghost did not wait for his order. She broke into a lope, pounding forward with Jade and Thalon, their weapons drawn, close behind.

His nerve endings ignited, burning as if sliced by shards of glass.

Ravens.

Dozens of them, along with?—

Rage—terrible, all-ending, perverse dark rage —swept over his bones.

The depths of his frigid violence caused every inch of tan flesh to blanch like wintry moonlight, branching with black veins and tightening to the point of pain. The sculpted planes of his face sharpened as his teeth reformed as razor-tips, demanding purchase on the thin flesh of a neck.

Amassed in a huddle inside the serenity of a glade … chained by their small, small necks …

Younglings. So many younglings.

Daggers were lodged in three Ravens’ throats well before they broke the outlining tree line.

Whirring past him like a shrill battle cry—and just as exhilarating.

Garrik thanked the stars Jade was on his side as Ravens shouted and fumbled to their feet, knowing not which way to turn and defend themselves.

The effort was futile.

Magnelis’s elite did not know it, but they were condemned the very moment they entered that glade.

The very moment they decided it wise to capture children for whatever sadistic purpose.

Likely bound for sale in the Lord’s Markets of Kadamar, fated as groomed slaves—or worse , test subjects in Galdheir’s dungeons.

He should know. He was fucking one of them.

Among the chaos, Jade tore the last dagger from her thigh and embedded it between another’s eyes. “That’s four,” she growled, low and deadly.

Racing his gelding around a tree, Thalon, horrified, shouted from behind, “You’re counting ?”