Page 31 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

B lood dripped like a haunting melody from Garrik’s sword. The iron taste overwhelmed the air. One by one, the cold metal of silver armor and strips of purple fabric littered the dirt like his own personal battlefield.

Twelve remained.

But not for long.

Everything felt numb. Like he didn’t exist in this realm. Like walking in the Middleworld, between space and time.

Thalon panted at his back, only having portaled alongside him as Garrik relieved the last Raven of his head on the ground.

Garrik swung and thrust his sword, hoping—pleading—that he would feel something again. Something other than?—

“Garrik.” Thalon’s voice was realms away. Nothing but a muddled scream underwater. “Garrik,” he screamed again.

But Garrik teetered on the edge of reality, that tether he could control. His eyes wholly black, void of all light, he scanned the trees, the mountain, and every cruel star in the sky. Entirely colorless, his vision was a prism of grayscale inside his abyss for eyes.

Serpent magic would take hold of him and control him into a state so vile and menacing that the whole of Elysian should bury themselves and hide to escape his wrath.

You’re a killer. That was Alora’s voice. The one that usually steadied him now damning instead.

You’re a starsdamned killer. His voice now.

Just like your father , she had said.

Just like Magnelis , he repeated. Just like Magnelis. Just like Magnelis. Just like Magnelis.

Garrik ignored Thalon and crushed bones and branches and blood underneath his boots, stalking into the darkness. He knew Thalon would follow. Knew he would do anything to keep him from letting the darkness fully consume him, but this time, it would not work.

He wanted to be consumed.

Alora saw him for the monster he was Made to be. What every faerie knew he was.

He deserved it.

After all, Elysian tales were not spun from picking flowers in a meadow. What he had done for all those years … what was witnessed. The lives forfeited at the end of his blade and the mere snap of his fingers.

She was right.

You’re a killer. Just like Magnelis.

“Find Aiden and Jade. Have them search the perimeter, then report to Alynthia.” He barely recognized the words as his own. That thing of nightmares that sharpened his face—and turned his teeth razor-edged—gnawed beneath the surface. Begging to be unleashed.

And he would. When silver met silver, and when purple cloaks and fealty to the High King encountered him, the gray-haired demon would descend.

Thalon appeared in front of him, stepping through his portal with a darkened forest on the other side. His brother’s face was cast in that of the warrior he had fought alongside for years. Stringent. Damning. Unyielding.

Carefully considering his words, Thalon stood square-shouldered, a pillar of stone against a raging storm. His voice thundered, “You cannot do this.”

A low growl of warning reverberated up Garrik’s throat. “Forgive me, but I do not recall your enthronement as High King.” Garrik prowled forward, knocking his shoulder into Thalon’s as he set his eyes on a determined path between the trees.

Smokeshadows whispered around him. Stirring and tendriling between oaks and evergreens as if to underline the path to his next victims.

Maybe those deaths would make him feel something.

Regret. Shame. Damnation.

Fucking something other than … this . This shell of who he once was. This beast Alora saw him as.

“Slow down, Garrik. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

What would be so terrible about that? He wanted to say it, but all that escaped was, “So be it.”

The look on Thalon’s face was all-knowing. His brother opened his mouth to speak, but Garrik could see his mind and refused to listen.

He did not wish to hear anything more about the male he supposedly was.

About how Alora spoke out of fear and humiliation when he already knew that, but could not be convinced of the truth.

That everything he had done was not truly him.

The bullshit his friends would spew so they could sit around the fire at night and pretend they were the heroes when he knew he was Elysian’s villain.

Smokeshadows exploded around Garrik, transforming his flesh into darkness until he became as meaningless and weightless as he felt. His body transcended through the Dawnspace—black as his eyes and void of light—until he returned in his born form miles from his Guardian.

The cold steel in his hand cascaded in frost. His hands so cold they resembled a corpse. It would not be long before the darkness inside him succumbed and he lost control.

A branch snapped to his right.

Another just beyond that.

Flashes of silver and mumbled grunts to the left.

Magnelis knew of Alynthia but could never infiltrate the wards. No matter the failure, the High King never ceased his intent to break the barriers, stationing a heavy stream of soldiers there permanently.

Garrik had dawned to these mountains more than a few times to let the darkness devour him as he sought a bloody escape. Only, Alynthia’s wards were down. Killing Ravens this time was not only for mere sport.

You’re a killer. Just like Magnelis.

Leather groaned under his hand, so tight his black-veined knuckles blanched.

Just like Magnelis.

In the glow of moonlight, twelve figures split through the trees and froze.

Garrik’s grin twisted utterly wicked, embracing the very thing he hated— himself .

Three Ravens did not so much as breathe before they were nothing more than heaps of gurgling blood and torn flesh. Bodies paling as their lives rushed from them and seeped into Firekeeper’s realm, where they belonged—where he belonged.

Swords angled toward him, and five soldiers on trembling knees circled closer. Their reinforcements, of higher rank, drifted backward toward the solace of the trees. Not like that would help them any. Only a delay in their deathstamp.

Perhaps he should cut them down slowly. Take his daggers and stab their hands above them to the trees while he cut out their tongues so they could not scream. Then, cut by cut, their hearts.

Garrik rapidly shook his head. Serpent darkness, like venom, roared inside his mind, producing thoughts not solely his own.

But, before Garrik could determine his true considerations, two Ravens broke free and lunged.

He swung. The heavy clang of metal ripped through the roaring silence as a shock vibrated down his arm from the impact.

And though it may be foolish, Garrik allowed the second Raven to slice into his arm, to think he had opened a blind spot, only to force the male close enough to rip his throat out with Garrik’s fist.

Even with the blood dripping down into his leathers … he felt nothing.

Another sword slashed into his forearm. Garrik pleaded to feel something as his eyes darkened. To feel pain—to feel punishment—for every soul he had ever stolen.

But nothing . There was nothing . Numb and empty, the only thing that convinced him he was alive was a ragged, fogged breath.

And when the last Raven ran through the forest as if he were prey fleeing the hunt, the Savage Prince dawned inches from his face and took the male’s head between his hands. Even when the lethal snap resounded and echoed off the trees … Garrik did not feel anything.

Only heard Magnelis’s voice snicker, You are just like me.