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I raise my arm and turn it over, examining the inky, smoke-like tattoos that now decorate my skin. As a beam of sunlight breaks through the canopy and illuminates my pale skin, I realise my veins too are becoming darker.
Like my soul, and my wings, and my destiny.
My feet are bare, my chest too. But I do not feel cold. I feel warm, as if a furnace is burning in my gut.
With each footstep, the foliage around me seems to darken, and shrivel, and wilt. It recoils from me the way Alana did.
But it will return, and so will she.
When I show her how powerful I am, and that being by my side is the sensible choice, she will crumble like ash in the wind.
Approaching the campsite, I notice the crackle of the fire and the scent of the smoke. My senses are heightened. I hear the movement of wings and feet, and the low chatter of voices.
I am drawing closer to the clearing when I hear a familiar voice. “Finn?”
I turn to see Raine, the pregnant Leafborne who hates me with a passion that almost rivals Eldrion’s. She thinks she has hidden it, but I’ve always seen it there. In her eyes. Congealing like ink on water.
She immediately brings a hand to her stomach, assessing me.
I smile at her, and feel my eyes flashing red.
My wings quiver and slowly unfurl.
Raine steps backwards. She meets the trunk of a large oak tree and presses herself against it. She raises a hand, bringing green flashes of earth magic into her palm. “I always knew?—”
Before she can finish her pathetic attempt to wound me with her words or her woefully inadequate powers, I give a flick of my wrist and the shadows that live in the darkness behind the trees are unleashed.
They engulf her in seconds, and she falls to the ground.
She’s still breathing, but barely.
She will be gone soon.
And the baby? I pause and try to decide whether I care.
I do not.
Before walking away, I crouch down and tilt my head so I can look into her wide, terrified eyes. “You should know,” I whisper, lowering my lips to her ear, “that by the time the sun reaches its peak today, the Leafborne will be extinct. There will be only one of you remaining. And she was never really one of you. She was always better than your kind.”
Raine’s lips part and she coughs. “Alana,” she splutters.
I stroke her hair from her face, then pinch her jaw between my thumb and forefinger. “Yes,” I whisper soothingly. “Alana. She is the best of you, and the worst of you. And she will rule by my side.”
Another cough. Blood this time, trickling from the corner of her mouth.
I frown and stand up, then I splay my arms and begin to inhale. I breathe the shadows deep into my lungs. I let them fill me up. I hold them inside me. And then I release a deep, earth-shattering roar and set them free.
They fly through the forest, weaving between the trees. Over and under and around. They block out the freckles of light that filter through the canopy. Everything darkens.
The air grows cold and heavy, a thick black fog rolling in at my bidding.
The first scream that pierces the air is the most delicious sound I have ever heard. I close my eyes and relish it. There is another, and another.
They start to run, but the shadows are herding them for me. Tying them in knots, confusing them, gathering them exactly where I need them.
I release a low, gut-trembling sigh.
Their fear feels so good. It feeds the darkness inside me, yet makes me hungry for more.
