Page 63 of The Edge of Darkness

Nivelle fell to one knee—seemingly on instinct—and tucked her chin to her chest. I spun, trying to find who she was kneeling for, but I only saw a thick fog barreling through the trees.

Niall and I both cast out our shields. They were thin, pathetically weak in this place, but something was better than nothing.

Silas’s wings flared as the shields skirted past him, and he whipped his head in our direction, eyes wide as he scanned the both of us. “How?” he hissed.

When I gave him a confused look, he stepped closer. “Your power may be an exception because it is of the gods,” he whispered, “but his”—he jerked his chin at Niall—“shouldn’t be this strong here.”

I took note of the awe and the worry in his eyes.

Before I could ask what he and Nivelle were so afraid of, a throaty female voice washed through the atmosphere.

“You dare defy the laws of my land with your magic?” She was addressing Niall, and she sounded enraged, yet surprised that he was able to manage. “Who are you, Son of Shadow?” Her words echoed as if they were uttered from deep within a cavern. And beneath those words, a rasped whisper floated through the air. “Darkness Incarnate,” it said. “Flame of Dark.”

Niall searched for the source of both the voices, but the fog cloaked everything beyond our immediate area. He was the usual portrait of poise as he replied, “I’d say I’m someone worth speaking face to face with. Show yourself, and perhaps I’ll tell you.”

I shot him a glare that said, This is not the time to test an unfamiliar entity!

He only lifted the corner of his lips in a smirk.

Up ahead, Nivelle hadn’t looked up from where she was kneeling.

The female’s voice leaked out from the vapor once more, sounding closer this time—worried. “Your essence is . . . familiar.”

“Is that so?” Niall crooned.

“It shouldn’t be,” she warned. “Who are you?”

“I am the High Lord of Calledan.”

“A fae?”

“In the flesh,” he said with a slight grin.

“That is not possible.”

The mist drifted closer to Niall until it was nearly upon him. Roirdan was instantly there, ready to meet the phantom opponent—should he need to—but Niall pressed a hand against the commander’s chest, steadying him.

Seeming to glean what it needed to, the mist balked and shrank back to the tree line.

“Flame of Dark,” the whispering voice hissed.

I stepped up to Niall’s side and took his arm. The cryptic name-calling had me on edge, but Niall’s tone remained calm as he said, “My scent shouldn’t be familiar to you at all, but if that’s the case, I’d say we have a problem.”

Another hiss slid through the trees, followed by the female’s voice. “A problem indeed, High Lord. For many reasons. These lands are a prison; no one ventures here.”

Niall made a show of looking around, as if examining the space like he hadn’t already seen it. “Seems rather pleasant for a so-called ‘prison.’”

His reply earned a warning glance from Silas.

Suddenly, the land—the very atmosphere—evaporated. The twisted, moss-encrusted trees, the garden, the glistening stream—all of it was gone. It was like an illusory veil had been lifted, and all around us, nothing but barren volcanic rock and scraps of vegetation—no more than a few inches tall—rolled across the landscape, bathed in the dim evening light that managed to seep through the ever-present cloud cover.

The voice seethed as it echoed around us. “Would you call this pleasant?”

Niall remained quiet. We all did.

And Nivelle was . . . trembling.

“This was all your god-king could scrounge up for us when we arrived pleading for refuge. A slice of stone atop a volcanic rock. And we were expected to carve a life of plenty from this forsaken ground.” Power rumbled and shook the earth beneath us. Or maybe that was the volcano of which she spoke, growing restless deep within. “I have made what I can with what little we were given so that my witches could survive.” The illusory landscape reformed, encasing us in Nivelle’s garden amongst the trees, the fog once again drifting throughout.