AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He strides forward and reaches out with his hands.
While I focus on Finn, he moves towards Yarrow. He stands above him and hauls him to his feet. Yarrow does a good job of fighting back. He is strong. He tries to batter the shadows, tries to resist as they clamp down on his mouth and enter his nose, choking the breath from his body.
He mutters Finn’s name, but Finn cannot help him now.
And then he falls.
They all fall.
I hold Finn still in my shadowy grasp and I make him watch. A tear rolls down his cheek. I lean in and catch it with my index finger. “Don’t cry, jester. Your turn will come. You will not have to live with this pain much longer.”
He whispers my name, and keeps whispering it until the last of his army has breathed their final breath.
As Eldrion staggers to the edge of the roof, panting, glistening with power once again, I make Finn stand and face me.
He is cocooned in my shadows. My shadows.
I stare into his eyes, and reach into his mind. For a moment, I soothe him. I latch onto his pain and I lessen it. Soften it. Kiss it better with my thoughts. And then I take away the comfort and replace it with something else.
Memories.
The first time we met in Eldrion’s castle, my fear giving way to curiosity as Finn showed me kindness.
Laughter echoing through the corridors as Finn taught me to juggle, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
Late-night conversations, sharing our hopes and fears, feeling understood for the first time in years.
The warmth of Finn’s hand in mine as we plotted our escape, a promise of freedom and a better life.
The exhilaration of flying together, wings finally unbound, the world stretching endlessly before us.
But then the memories darken. And I show him what he did to me, and what he made us become.
The first time I saw a flicker of something sinister in Finn’s eyes, quickly masked but unforgettable.
The moment I realised Finn had been manipulating me all along. The pain I felt. I give it to him, I make him feel it, too.
Watching in horror as Finn transformed, shadows consuming the man I thought I knew. I give him that horror. I stare into his eyes as it blooms in his gut, and flames of guilt and fury lick at his insides.
I let him feel what I felt looking at Briony, and what I felt when my own kind turned against me, and what I felt when Eldrion fucked me.
Finn is writhing in my grasp.
I give him my pain. All of it, so that I do not have to live with it a second longer.
And when he is full to the edges, and cannot take anymore, I whisper. “Thank you, Finn. You created me. And I really do like what I have become.”
He tries to speak. But I am done.
I squeeze his final breath from his body then I let him fall to the ground.
Lying there now, he looks just as he did before. His body is smaller, and his wings are pale.
He looks completely harmless.
But looks can be deceiving, can’t they?
Eldrion steps over the bodies of Finn’s army and takes my hand. “He’s gone,” he says, studying my face as though he is waiting for me to dissolve into tears.
