AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He squatted and gripped handfuls of a circular wool rug, large enough it covered most of the room. Muscles bulged in his shoulders, tearing his shirt down his back, but the fibers in the rug pulled apart just as easily in his bare hands. “There’s a seam in the floor but I don’t see a handle.”
Guillaume looked over at the massive black dog and jerked his head toward Thierry. Itztli immediately took up position beside Sekh so Guillaume could step over to help.
“Oh, no, G,” Shara cried, laying a hand on his arm. “Not your Templar blade.”
Shaking his head, the knight huffed out a laugh. “I wouldn’t care to test one-thousand-year-old steel on its ability to pry up a wood floor when there are so many other tools at my disposal made to hack through anything.”
Dropping to one knee, he rolled up his jeans, revealing a leather sheath buckled over his boot, long enough to reach from knee to ankle. He pulled out a curved blade with a heavy, tapered point perfect for chopping.
Rik blew out a low whistle of appreciation. “You just happened to have a kukri on you today?”
With a wink, G wedged the tip into the seam. “You never know which weapons I’m carrying any given day, but a kukri’s a good bet for just about anything.”
Alternatively prying and chopping through a few stubborn pieces of wood, the knight pulled up a hole in the floor roughly a foot wide.
“That’s plenty,” Shara said. “I just need access to the darkness below.”
Maybe it was my imagination, but the room already seemed darker. Even though it was nighttime and there weren’t any windows in the library, there was still an element of increasingly intense, heavy energy I couldn’t see. Hairs prickled all over my body, and even Thierry stilled his twitching.
Straddling the hole in the floor, Shara held her arms loose at her sides with her palms up. Closing her eyes, she… pulled. That’s the only way I could describe it. Through her bond, I felt the tug deep in her core. The same way she’d pulled the sphinx to her, only this wasn’t blood she called.
“Ahhh, yes.” Smiling, she nodded. When she opened her eyes, they gleamed with ultraviolet shadow rather than her normal midnight sky. “This darkness, Carys.”
The other queen didn’t answer, so Shara turned to look over her shoulder, repeating her name.
Carys stared at her, slumped on the floor, her mouth gaping open. Closed. Open. Like a fish. “Incalculable,” she finally managed to say. “Unknown.”
“What does that mean?”
Stepping back into the room with the others, Daire laughed. “I’m guessing it’s like dividing by zero.”
Carys nodded jerkily. “Exactly. It might work. It might not. I have no way of knowing.”
I refused to get my hopes up. Not for my sake, or Thierry’s.
For hers.
* * *
SHARA
Thick shadows poured into the room, curling like Okeanos’ tentacles around my limbs. Swirling over the floor, billowing gently like clouds.
Black, deep purple fading to dark gray shadows—but not evil. Not tainted. The epitome of darkness—that had never been touched by the sun.
My domain—thanks to my father, Typhon.
I’d never tried to wield darkness before, so I wasn’t sure what to try. I could push shadows into Thierry and try to force the taint out, filling him up like the tendrils filling this room. If it would cleanse him, somehow…
Experimenting, I lifted my right hand, willing shadows to rise around him. Winding up his body like slithering snakes. Flowing into his mouth and nostrils. The torn skin on his throat. Lew’s talons were still buried in him, slicing deeper every time either of them moved. Only a few threads of something that might have once been tendon or muscle still clung to his spine. Everything else was… loose. Liquified.
Shadows moved through him, but the goo was still there. Like oil and water, it didn’t mix.
Sighing, I pulled the shadows back out and stilled my mind. Letting the tides of darkness lap gently as they willed around the room. Tasting everything.
Ugh. My stomach rolled.
Closing my eyes, I exhaled hard, pushing the taste of taint away from me. From all of us. Darkness carried the taint away, soaking into the ground deep below the house. Dirt absorbed the decaying particles of contaminated blood and flesh like any other dead body.
