Page 5 of Winds of Darkness

“No, you are not,” the Fae agreed. “You are the only one who can liberate those trapped here. I have waited decades for someone like you to show up.”

Rayner’s head tilted to the side. “I watched you butcher innocent Fae tonight.”

The Fae swallowed audibly, nodding once.

Rayner smiled at him. “If you take this off, I will end you.”

Even in the sparse torchlight, he could see the male pale. “It— It will be nothing less than I deserve.”

Rayner pushed to his feet, drifting towards the shirastone bars. He gripped them in his hands, leaning down to peer into the male’s face. The male took a small step back. “Explain what you meanwhen you say you have been waiting for someone like me to show up.”

The male nodded. “There are few powerful enough to take on the Baroness. The ones who are do not wish to. They like the power they have here, but you … You are different. You will do what I would never be able to.”

“You could have stopped killing at any moment,” Rayner sneered.

“Only to meet my own death. And then what? I would just be replaced.”

“But you would not have so much blood on your hands.”

The male hung his head. “I am prepared for you to take my life when I free you, Ash Rider. I will face Arius’s judgment and spend my eternity in the Pits of Torment knowing I deserve every moment.”

Rayner looked the male up and down before meeting his eyes once more. Then he shoved his arm through the bars. With a shaking hand, the Marshal slipped the stone from his wrist. In the next breath, Rayner had moved through the smoke of the torch. The male didn’t have a chance to scream as a blade went through his back and pierced his heart.

“Consider a quick death a mercy,” Rayner said, his tone low and dark. “For surely Arius will not grant you any.”

He let the male fall to the ground, the torch hissing as it went out, rolling across the stone. Rayner didn’t need it. He had excellent eyesight in the dark. The minute he was past the iron door, he was moving among the smoke again. He would leave the cliffs, regroup, and then come back for Aravis once his power had fully replenished.

He made his way to the front entry hall, still planning to kill those five sentries before he left, but he drew up short when he found Moranna standing in the archway that would lead outside.

“More unwise choices, Rayner,” she chided, her hand clasped around something he could not see. He reached over his shoulder for his sword, but she tutted at him. “Now, now, before you makeanother unwise choice, let me speak. Should you attempt to take my life, Aravis will be thrown from the top levels.”

Rayner spun to find she was not bluffing. He could make out two figures at the railing of one of the top levels. “What are your terms?” he demanded, turning back to Moranna.

“I thought you would see things my way,” she simpered, moving towards him. “Give me some of your blood, and I will let you leave these islands. I will not stop you.”

“What else?”

She shrugged. “That is it.”

“And Aravis?”

“Oh, she must stay.”

“I will come back for her.”

“I am sure you will,” she purred. “Should you make the choice to stay now, I am afraid both of your lives will be forfeit. Which would be … unfortunate.”

Knowing this was surely a trap, but not seeing any way around it, he nodded. Moranna jerked her chin, and a sentry hurried from the shadows. Rayner’s eyes never left hers as the sentry filled five vials with his blood. When he was done, he dropped his arm to his side, the wound already healing.

Moranna stepped to the side, gesturing towards the exit. “As agreed.”

Rayner moved forward, waiting for the catch. He turned so he could keep her in his sight, refusing to turn his back on her. He paused as the archway began to shimmer, the beach appearing on the other side. “Your death is mine, Moranna. I am coming for you and everyone here.”

“I await your return home,” she said with a small smile. “But know that when you cross those wards this night, you shall not remember how to get back here. You will lose all your memories of your time here. I wonder, how will you find your way to someplace you do not even know exists?”

“I have never had such a problem before,” he snarled.

“But you always came back to me, Rayner,” she replied. “Youhad reason to return, and I had reason to want you to. Now I have reason to keep you away for a time, to make you pay for what you have done here this night. How dreadful to not remember anything about your past. To not know where you come from. You will not even remember you had kin, let alone remember to return for one.”