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With ease, I spin sideways, eluding another guard’s attack before advancing and slicing the guard in front of me.
More grunts, snarls, and hisses sound out as I make my way through them with ease.
The guards quickly change tactics and try to overpower me with a distraction while more sneak up from behind. But I sense them immediately and evade their attempt to catch me.
I carve a path through them and fend off another attack, but more and more guards show up, replacing those that have fallen.
They soon overwhelm me, and it gets harder to defend against them all. One falls but another quickly replaces him.
A blade slices against my shoulder, another across my side. But I feel nothing. No pain bar the ache inside me slowly crawling its way throughout my body.
More and more slices cut me, the guards eyes lighting up as they watch me grow slower and more drained.
I can see it in their eyes; they’re toying with me. They don’t use their shadow powers, because they know I will pay with every cut, every drop of blood shed, every bruise and broken bone.
They know it and I do too. And instead of fearing it, I welcome it. I welcome the thought, knowing I deserve much worse.
“You are all ordered to stop.” A shout bellows out from somewhere behind me, but none of the guards stop, and neither do I, continuing our fight.
The guard with the scar tries to outsmart me, but I drive my blade into his shoulder, eliciting a curse before twisting around to my next attacker, when my sword clashes with another. But instead of another one of the guards, my gaze meets with steely-gray eyes full of thunder.
Kestral.
CHAPTER 25
He sees something in my eyes that makes his own widen with pity. And I can’t bear it. I can’t because I don’t deserve his pity. Or anyone else’s. I deserve nothing but the sharp edge of my own blade.
So I don’t stop fighting him, and he doesn’t ask me to. I continue to purge the pain from my heart, using my blade to funnel it out of me. He becomes my conduit, my channel and inner resolution.
“Leave,” he shouts. And even though his eyes haven’t left mine, his blade is still as quick, his moves swift. I know he’s talking to those around me.
I hear their grunts and curses but don’t see them leave. But I feel them. I feel it and know that it is only Kestral and me here now.
Kestral, me, and my inner demons all fighting as one.
He doesn’t ease up when I grow tired, and it only makes me angrier; in turn, giving me the energy I need to continue my fight with myself.
“Where did the creature come from?” he asks, but it only reminds me of what happened, and the claws that were slowly falling away ensnare me once more.
“What was your plan?” he continues, but I tell him nothing, instead striking each question harder, moving quicker to try and relieve some of the suffocating tightness trying to envelop me whole.
“Did you capture it?” he continues, even when I say nothing.
Even when I push harder and harder. Even when I beg him with my eyes to stop.
But he doesn’t, and then I see it all again.
The blood. My hands. It’s everywhere. And Visha as she gazes up in horror, her ashen face completely lost of any warmth or light. Warmth and light she will never see or feel again because of me.
“From where?” he asks again, but all I see is Visha.
Visha. Visha. Visha.
The claws slice into my mind and heart, ripping it, tearing it apart. And I can do nothing but let it. Let it pull me under once more.
Kestral sees something on my face, his own softening with a sadness I do not deserve.
“It is not your fault. Her death,” he says, his voice soft. But it only scrapes against my ears, making me want to silence it.
