Swallowing hard, I try to regain the ability to breathe. Eyes glued on the body of a Saber with seriously bad vibes, and who is now seriously dead.
But he’s not alone.
Five, ten, fifteen more Sabers. All using their powers or simply moving in like this is an orphanage and the dinner bell just rang.
No, a menagerie. This is a noble’s exotic stable full of crazed carnivores, and we are dinner.
They move through the light, make the ground tremor, or punch with fists that are on fire – as well as all the normal weapons. Swords, daggers, spears. I didn’t get to see what was happening at the cottage, too busy trying to follow the serious instructions among Seth’s jokes and put the fire out. Maybe that was a good thing because this is scary.
Seth and Roarke don’t step into the fight until it’s pretty obvious that all the bad guys are here. Then the Elorsins close in, forcing the Sabers to cluster, slowing their movements, cutting them down.
There’s only five left when a tree vanishes from the edge of my vision.
Gone.
Dust.
Then another.
A path begins to form. Taking Thane’s attention, and letting his opponent cut a clean slice across the wolf’s shoulder. He howls, rolling to the side, then struggling to his feet. Somewhere in the middle, he swaps places with Pax. And it’s a very naked man who stands, bleeding, to face the danger.
Roarke’s a blur, suddenly behind Pax’s attacker. He jabs upwards into the Saber’s lower back so ruthlessly that the tip of his sword pokes out through the man's throat. Pax snatches up the dead guy’s sword, his face stone cold.
Bile rises in my throat – but I refuse to become a problem. To draw attention or distract them in any way, and I doubt a wave of vomit falling out of a tree would be missed.
Roarke moves around Pax like a dancing bodyguard. Clearing the way in a direct line toward the vanishing trees.
I’m not sure it gets much worse than this. Me going into the Spring wasn’t even close because they were all safe. Right now, none of them are safe. Sure, they ended up with a smaller number of attackers, and between them they’re using the trees and the more confined space to their advantage. No archers raining down. No unknown ambushes. But seeing Pax stalk toward the trees, toward what must be the Cataclysm, plummets me to a new depth of fear and desperation.
His left arm looks almost useless, but the sword he’s claimed in his right is held strong. An air of determination, of anger, of violence, floods the space around him. I’ve never seen him like this.
Never seen him looking so scary.
It’s wrong. It’s all so wrong.
The wind whistles, rustling the trees and shifting the filtered rays of moonlight. Moonlight that Pax is suddenly standing in. ShimmerSeeds from the far left, where Killian was seconds away from killing them, suddenly vanish then reappear beside Pax.
Slicing, without hesitation.
Each cutting deep gashes open in Pax’s legs and dropping him to the ground. I choke, frozen, tears in my eyes and unable to move as they step back as if they’re not allowed to finish him.
As if they’re doing this to torture me.
Pax’s cries are strangled by a whimper from Thane, and slurred curses slip from his mouth as he tries to get back on his feet. But his legs are torn open! Of course, he can’t get up. Roarke throws himself between Pax and the Sabers, outnumbered and struggling.
What can I do? What can I do?!
My mind smashes against my skull, needing to do something, but there is nothing!
And at the same time a bolt sails through the trees and slams into Killian’s shoulder. Not an arrow, not a spear, but something bigger. Into his shoulder and out the other side, tossing him back and embedding itself into the tree behind him. Spikes slice out in all directions, like thorns on a rose, making it impossible to slide it out. He grips the shaft and squeezes, cracking but not breaking it –
Because it’s made of glass.
Perfect. Beautiful Silvari glass stained with the blood of my Darkness.
It’s all happening so quickly.
The shooter saunters into view, cackling like a wild animal playing with its food, and he’s not alone. More people move out of the darkness, advancing closely behind the lead saunter-er.
Where are all these people coming from?!
Saunter into your face, I think, which makes no sense until his shoe laces tie themselves together, and the guy smashes to the ground face first.
Seth chuckles – and I’m not sure if I caused the Chaos, or he did.
Roarke is trying to defend Pax, but the two women have the upper hand, one kicking him behind the knees and the other clubbing him over the head. He falls hard.
Not-getting-up kind of hard.
I count five new Sabers, plus the four Sabers already underneath me, and the Cataclysm still making the trees turn to dust as they approach – and the only one of my guys still standing.
Seth.
Thane takes over in a flash of light made brighter by the heavy night. His limbs are the same kind of damaged as Pax’s were, though, so all he does is struggle and fail. He growls, snapping at the two nearest women, both holding long swords and moving in wide ready-to-strike arcs.
My gaze darts from place to place, Elorsin to Elorsin and attacker to attacker, unable to take in fine details. Just Sabers, some in common enough clothing, others in sleek, body-contouring armor vests and leg guards and arm guards. It looks like thin black leather polished to an intense shine, but I can feel them, each and every one, and I know they’re made entirely of Silvari glass.
A giddy rush spirals up inside me, but I have no chuckin’ idea why.
Seth settles himself between Killian and Pax. The gap is too wide to defend them all, and the attackers begin circling around and between them. Taunting and playing.
“Eyv, shall we eliminate them?” one of them calls into the trees.
Seth, still in a fighting crouch, turns toward the disappearing trees, toward Eyv – whoever she is. Another flash and Pax is back in control – but the growling is still heavily Thane.
The woman doesn’t disappoint. Typical tall and slender Saber, but her teeth are sharpened, maybe even by a metal file. Her nails are long and pointed, and her body is clad completely in glass.
So much smooth, cool, humming Silvari glass.
“I knew you’d let your guard down,” she sing-songs.
I trace the edges of her armor, each bend, each curve, looking for the reason why it’s calling to me. My eyes stay on the glass, and the only way I know what any of them are doing is through what they’re saying – and through the humming.
Eyv runs her open palms over her armor… my armor.
Mine?
“Yes,” she says, but she’s talking to Pax, and I’ve missed most of the conversation. “It took me a long time to find a material that lets me use my power without ending up naked too, and your Crown was more than happy to oblige. Did you know that, Silvari glass is impervious to all known magics? Not most of them, but all of them. I find that fascinating. Nothing else in this world can resist my power, no matter how strong – or how precious.”
She stretches one arm out, and the instant she touches the nearest tree, it’s turned to dust.
I have a sharp flash of a woman, heavy with child, in a marketplace, and a Saber brushing a finger over the belly and removing the baby.
Pax growls, launching himself forward, but he falls to the ground, pulling at his barely healed legs with anger and frustration.
Eyv ignores him. Ignores Killian spiked to a tree and Roarke on the ground too, as she walks towards Seth. Chaos raises his blade, ready.
The sheen of her armor dances with the change in angle of the moonlight and the shadows.
I feel Roarke stir, then suddenly, time stops. Everyone’s frozen, even Eyv.
Seth rushes forward, sword swinging, ready to end her. I almost cheer, almost – then time slips back and Roarke sags. Seth
slashes out, but the blade slips harmlessly over the armor, ringing like a high pitched bell into the forest.
She brushes her fingertips over his clothes – gone. But he doesn’t back off, and the other Sabers watch the show. It’s their enthusiasm that screams the loudest, eager eyes and battle cries.
This is wrong. It’s too dangerous. Seth’s too close.
Pax cries out. Killian growls. Roarke pushes himself to his knees – hugging his head and straining his power.
Time slows again but doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop – and Seth’s blade is raised high before I realize she can still move. His whole chest is exposed as he tries to cut downward at her neck, a spot the armor has left vulnerable.
But Seth’s too close. I can see it in the reflection on the armor: her hand outstretched toward his bare chest and the hair's breadth between them shining in the glass.
In my glass.
Mine – the word comes from within me. Like a mountain hearing an earthquake – its own rocks rumbling and crashing. But I’m not the mountain, and that word is not my own.
Not mine, but truth.
I accept it, and the knowledge echoes through me. Like my left hand finally realizing my right hand exists.
Do it – that voice inside me rumbles.
I don’t need the prompt because I finally see how I can help.
My desires break free, asking the armor the stupidest question in history… but also the most obvious one.
Can you break?
It shatters.
Can you shrink? Close in? Crush her?
The glass responds – snapping closed. Razor edges mince skin, muscle, and bone before my eyes. Not a beat, or a blink, or a chance to change my mind.
In a shower of blood and gore, the woman is gone. Her head and legs fall to the ground, the rest of her sliced into pieces. Very fine, very bloody pieces.
Agony claws at us – the man and me. My dark world inside his consciousness, all mist and shadows, is lit by a sole window. A view out of his mind at exactly what he is seeing.
Exactly who he’s looking at.
Eyv.
Dead.
She can’t be dead… –
Pax ignores me, screaming and struggling with the same gut-wrenching realization.
We’ve been waiting. We’ve been planning. We’ve been needing.
The memories are too clear, too raw. The young, ambitious Cataclysm hanging delicately from Lucif’s arm. The Black Castle’s outer corridor was only partly covered, lavishly adorned in far-too-large embroideries, and ran between all the wings. Lucif’s and our own included.
She was there. Day after day. Glimpses from a distance of black hair, muddy-brown eyes, and gifted silks. She always got my hackles up, but so did all of Lucif’s hand picked entourage.
Even when I didn’t know she was stalking Jessamy.
Even when Jessamy was out of sight, walking the village with Killian, exploring the market, we paced inside trying to convince ourselves that she was safe. She was safe.
We were far from the castles and their political troubles.
We were quiet and peaceful and forgettable.
We were no threat.
We should have been safe.
No one is safe! –
Not the baby, not Jessamy, not Tali – silver furred and gentle, writhing in the pain of loss. Her fawn colored eyes glazed with tears and her body raked in a fever so strong that Jessamy didn’t even have the strength to take form again.
No one is ever safe – not until we kill them all.
We need to kill them. Each and every one. Us. That should have been us! –
It needed to be us. To feel her pulse. Tear the flesh from her neck. I needed to see her pain. I needed to feel that blood.
We waited too long, hesitated to draw her out. Let her approach. Nevermind the damage that has made our legs almost fucking useless.
The man and I were in agreement. None of that mattered so long as we could destroy the last Hyll.
Let her get close, then sever her hands in two sharp blows. That’s how we took out the other Hylls. No hands. Then slow strangle or fast mutilation – depending on which one of us was in control.
Pax crawls across the leaf-strewn forest floor. Dragging us within arms reach of the body. It was a fast mutilation for sure. Arms, legs, a head, and nothing from in between. The blood already smells ripe with rot, and the head lolls to the side to stare at us with dead eyes.
“It needed to be us,” he growls low, grasping a fistful of leaves and crushing it hard enough to push blood and bits between his fingers.
And now she is gone – but the hole in our soul remains.
No Bubble
Gone.
I can barely breathe enough to accept the word – the truth.
The woman who has hunted us, tortured Pax, ended his family and the lives of his loved ones, is dead.
Pax cries out, like seeing her dead is the opposite of a relief. Dragging himself forward. Man, then wolf, then man again.
Moonlight reflects off the stream of dark red blood across the forest floor. Crunched in Pax’s hand, a fist around the nothing that is left of her. It’s grief, I can hear it in his cries, but I can’t understand why, and I don’t linger to try.
The other Sabers fill my mind in sharp clarity, two beside Roarke, two next to Pax, one in front of Killian.
I ask the glass, And them?
And the glass obeys.
Eliminate – the voice inside me says, but I clamp it down hard.
I have to concentrate.
Just the bad guys, I try to hold that notion tight. Nothing else on my mind. One train of thought, one idea, this one desire. Go around my Elorsins – keep them safe.
Unlike using Allure, this power doesn’t rip at my mind. But the way it calls to me – as it explodes out from the pieces of Eyv’s body, flowing around my guys but smashing into everyone else – takes everything in me to control. I don’t even dare to breathe. It flows like water, and I struggle to hold the current in my hand.
Very sharp. Very deadly water.
Around the horses, I whisper.
I squeeze my eyes shut but still, somehow, feel the world through the movement of the glass. Everything is black and shimmering in my mind. Anything the glass brushes against paints outlines. Each Saber falling. Even the position of the leaves on the ground.
My fingers slip from the branch, my body falling far too easily. This could be a problem, considering Seth threw me too far up to climb down, but if I let go of the glass, they’re all dead.
So I let myself fall.
“Seth,” Killian shouts.
I feel Seth move. Feel him dive into the current because getting to me is more important than being cut to pieces. The glass bites into his skin.
Around him! I shout. Always around him.
The glass responds. Obeying. But it doesn’t want to stop. It’s furious, alive and aggressive and demanding action. To kill. To protect. The world is just black, but the shards cut lines of light in the dark, painting in detail each and every curve of his body in my mind.
All too quickly, I reach the bottom. Even knowing Seth’s underneath me doesn’t prepare me, and I slam into his arms – hard.
He buckles, his knees hitting the ground, cradling me down.
“Vexy,” he whispers.
I can’t respond. My body is locked up tight, my mind consumed by the connection.
“Is the glass yours?” he asks.
I offer a strangled noise that’s close to a confirmation but may also be a whimper.
“Can you stop it?”
Stop it? Why?
They’re safe, I realize. My guys are the only ones left standing. There’s no one left to kill.
They’re safe.
Thank you.
The glass falls to the ground, and I force my eyelids open. Seth’s deep blue gaze waits patiently to lock onto mine.
“And breathe,” he says.
Oh, I
inhale, gasp, then try to inhale again without an exhale between.
He lets me stand up, patting my back as I cough like an idiot who’s forgotten a basic life function.
“Is she choking on air?” Roarke asks from my right.
I manage to get myself under control and figure out what I’m looking at. Seth, straightening and supporting me despite being dotted with papercut trails of blood. Roarke is on my right with blood in his hair, standing but looking like he’s in pain.
Killian wedges his foot against the tree and starts to push himself forwards. Forcing himself along the spike-covered bolt, he’s already made some progress. How long has he been doing that?!
I gasp, which makes him pause, grunt, then keep going. Without thinking, I move toward him, but Seth grabs my shoulders, stopping me.
“Wait, the glass,” he says, waving at the ground.
It almost looks like snow, only more iridescent and deadly.
Staggering and bleeding, Pax moves towards me without even looking, stepping onto the shards and instantly drawing blood but not slowing down.
“Stop,” I gasp, holding my hands up at all my guys.
Come to me? I ask the glass. The shards littering the ground hum to life. You too, I ask the spike in Killian’s shoulder, adding, gently.
The weapon turns to liquid and flows into the air. Killian falls back against the tree, moaning in the most delicious thank-the-gods-for-that kind of way. The shards on the ground pool, flow, and join together, all moving to me. Not quite liquid, because it has sharp spikes rolling and moving, but similar.
“What’s going on?” Seth asks, trying to pull me closer to him.
His arm wraps around my shoulders as he steps back
“I think I’m doing it,” I say.
“I figured that, but what are you doing?”
“Just.” I hold my arm out as I talk, and the glass rises, rolling over itself until it reaches me. The collection of armor and weapons condense down to nothing more than a single armband, then firm back to glass.
After about thirty seconds of awe, Seth kisses my temple.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
I shake my head, and he believes me, running to Killian’s aid.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 119
