Page 55 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Chapter 16

Lunette

Rowan whipped around so fast I was certain he’d torn his stitches open. The moment he hit his feet, shadows exploded from him. Sleek tendrils and thick, coiling ropes of black magic poured across the floorboards like ink spilled from a barrel. They multiplied in the wavering hearth light, swallowing the floor, the rafters, the furniture in a disorienting tangle of living blackness. Dark mist rose up from the conjurations and crept into every corner, consuming the room whole.

This was too precise to be reflex. Too controlled for panic.

He’s hiding us.

Cold poured through the ruined doorway, sharp as a blade. I was already moving toward the edge of the bed before the shiver finished crawling down my spine. I wasn’t defenseless, but I wasn’t a trained fighter either. My best chance of helping Rowan was to let myself be grabbed if they came for us. Not a strategy I would’ve recommended in most situations.

Skin to skin meant easy contact for my magic to do what blades couldn’t. I wouldn’t win a fight that way—but I might end one.

Through the roiling dark, a shape resolved in the pale light bleeding through the doorway. Tall. Broad. Still in a way that living things rarely were.

Gods help us.

Rowan’s pursuers had found us. He needed my strength, not my panic.

I dropped off the bed just as dozens of Rowan’s shadows lashed out, snapping at the intruder like a pack of starving hounds. The combined strikes cracked against a gossamer-thin shell of power that, despite its seemingly fragile appearance, proved to be stronger than stone.

The wild magic that surged from the stranger in response made my skin crawl just before the floor trembled, and dust fell from the rafters.

Power like that did not belong indoors. A muffled screech of terror ripped from my throat before I could stop it. I’d never felt so much power all at once in such a tight space. It pressed against my skin like the air before a lightning strike.

Rowan pivoted, one swift glance assessing distance and angle. He didn’t look back to see if I approved. He simply decided, catching me by the waist to pull me behind his back. With all the magic swirling around in the cabin, I hadn’t sensed him conjure a sword and an obsidian tower shield alongside our defensive wall. But there they were—him squared behind both, braced for his second fight of the day.

The shadows condensed, pulling from their sprawl into the shape of a wall bristling with jagged protrusions at our backs. I braced for pain. For my end. For anything.

But nothing touched us, and the rumbling quickly stopped.

A deep voice cut through the mist, rattling my bones. “Down, Shadowborn!”

It wasn’t a request. Not even truly a shout. The command struck like a bell tolling in my skull.

Rowan froze. “Emrys?” Rowan’s voice echoed off the wooden walls, uncertain and stripped of all its earlier authority.

“Yes, you idiot.” The silhouette shifted, just enough for the mist surrounding us to part and reveal a glint of gold—an embroidered hem, perhaps, or metal at his wrist. “Was that a woman I heard?”

I considered speaking. Briefly. Then decided I enjoyed being alive.

Rowan made a sound beside me that lived somewhere between a snarl and a prayer for patience. “Does it matter? Get out.”

Relief crashed through me. Then confusion chased it out. He knew the man who’d just broken down my door?

Before I could dwell on that, a second set of heavy boots crossed the threshold behind Emrys. And then a third voice carried in from outside, riding the freezing air through the ruined doorway. “Nisien, is he okay?”

Undeniably a woman’s voice, anxious and breathless.

Gods above and below. Was there a queue forming at my door?

“Cursed…” Rowan muttered, dragging a hand over his face. Then, louder—a hiss more than a whisper: “Did you bring Nisien and Isca?”

Isca? The name rang a faint bell in my memory. Emrys too…

The second silhouette—Nisien, I surmised—turned his head just enough to answer the unseen woman. “He’s fine… I think.” The last two words sounded extremely unsure.

Emrys’s attention returned to us. “Are we going to fight, Shadowborn?” He sounded genuinely delighted by the possibility.