Page 57 of Fated to the Wicked King

The machine howled louder.

“Are we interrupting?”

The king appeared first, his dark presence filling the doorway as though the space itself recoiled to make room for him. Sophie was close behind, pale and wind-flushed, her gaze finding me at once.

Tannis jerked the knife tighter against my throat.

“Back off,” he barked, fear bolstered by adrenaline. “All of you. One more step and I cut her.” His hands shook, the blade scratching the skin of my neck. I didn’t imagine they planned to encounter the Wicked King in their tiny village.

Sophie froze.

The king did not.

His expression was unreadable, almost bored, though I knew him well enough to sense the sharpened attention beneath it. His gaze slid to mine, narrowing ever so slightly at the point of the knife against my neck.

The armed villagers surrounding us did not seem to trouble him in the slightest.

A darkness stirred at his feet.

His shadows spilled outward in slow, silent tendrils across the warehouse, creeping between crates and under floorboards, winding closer to the men inch by inch with patient intent. The villagers noticed too late, horror on their faces as the blackness reached their boots.

But before anyone could blink, a vast spiral of searing, blinding light burst to life before us with a sharp pop and a furious crackle, unfurling in the center of the warehouse like a wound torn through the world.

The whirling maelstrom phenomenon screamed to life.

Wind rushed inward, dragging snow and loose debris into its spinning glow, while the air filled with the scent of ozone and scorched metal.

The first shout had barely left anyone’s throat when several villagers broke ranks in panic, shoving past one another as they lunged for the maelstrom to escape, their silhouettes swallowed whole by the blinding whirl one after another.

Gregory moved before I fully understood what I was seeing. His steel flashed from its sheath in one smooth motion, and suddenly the warehouse rang with the sharp, brutal music of combat. His blade turned aside a pickaxe strike before driving the attacker backward into a rack of tools. Another rushed him from the side, only to be met with a pivot so swift it seemed effortless.

Tannis wrenched backward, the knife scraping deep enough to break skin. I cried out as he attempted to drag me with him—but black shadows had already coiled around his legs and torso, locking him in place. A sharp tug yanked him away, his knife clattering to the floor amid a carpet of shadows already receding.

With another yelp, I fell to the floor with a thump.

The king moved through the melee like a force of nature, his shadows binding several men in writhing darkness while he struck down two more with his bare hands, wielding violence on every front.

Sophie held her own. She darted low across the buckling floor toward the far corner, skirts gathered in one hand. But when a man lunged to catch her, she twisted with startling speed and dragged a small dagger across his forearm. He yelped, blood splattering the ground, and she slipped free to the shelter of overturned crates.

Ignoring the bleeding cut on my neck, I scrambled to straighten up.

My fingers flew to the inner pocket of my coat, fumbling past herbs and tools until they found the small glass vials. I yanked one free, then another, cracking them together with shaking hands. Powder hissed and sparked in my palm.

I threw it.

The flash detonated in a burst of white brilliance that filled the shed like lightning trapped indoors. Several villagers cried out, clutching their faces, stumbling blindly into one another as Gregory cut through the opening I had made.

As if in response, light burst through the glass chambers of the fantastical contraption in violent pulses, and the air inside the shed convulsed. The walls bent inward and outward at once, timber stretching like wax before snapping back. Tools hanging from hooks multiplied, blurred, then spun in impossible directions. The floor lurched beneath my feet as though it had forgotten how to remain level.

Gregory grabbed Sophie as the doorway warped sideways.

I reached for the frame and found my hand passing through the splintered wood that suddenly wasn’t where it should be.

“What’s happening?” Gregory’s eyes narrowed.

The villagers didn’t seem the least bit shocked by the anomalies occurring all around us. Most of them were too busy trying to jump into the maelstrom to flee.

There were too many things happening at once—shouting, steel and splintering wood, the machine’s shriek, the walls bending in and out. I backed away on instinct, my pulse thundering.