Page 157 of The Reaping Rose

He takes.

He finds.

He needs.

I pinch my eyes closed, taking a breath. In the darkness, there is no thread of silence anymore. They are all so awake—nearly screaming. There are frays of a web that was once calm and peaceful.

Spinning, the obsidian click of my heels is a warning as I move through Alasdair’s manor. Outside, the shore is stained in blood. The trees are dusted in ash. Beyond the gates are the cries of grief.

Guards keep their eyes off me as I pass, worried that if they spare me a glance, my shadows will wring their necks, or worse, eat their souls. Before Malachi started playing with his orb, I might have let one slink out to remind them never to stop feeding that fear.

Now, there’s no point because the darkness lingers all around us.

Shadows pool at my feet, adding another layer to the deep-purple silk that swishes with every step. An obsidian circlet holds the dress at my neck, tempering what wants to get out.

My shadows are so hungry lately. Ravenous and angry.

I spin the obsidian ring around my finger again, containing what little I can when the orb pulls out the angry lash of darkness inside me.

“Soon,” I assure them.

It will all be quiet soon.

Marble pillars wrapped in silver ivy frame the door to Malachi’s chambers. He’s not there either. Even where his physical presence remains, he is not of his body at all anymore. He is something else.

Turning down a separate hallway, I pass a guard. His back stiffens when he meets my gaze, and that’s all it takes for a shadow to dart at him before I can contain it. It strikes with the bite of a snake. Quick and merciless, as its teeth sink into the guard’s neck, and he drops to his knees.

They’re so temperamental lately. Impossible to control.

I spin the obsidian ring again, but it does little to silence the whispers the closer I draw to my brother.

When I finally reach the door that leads below the manor, there are no guards because they’re no longer necessary. A shell of light caresses my nerves as I step through. Day is replaced with night. Polish turns to rot.

I descend the stairs, and my brother, who was once always surrounded by opulence and beauty, is at the heart of decaying darkness.

“Hazel,” his voice croons from the bottom of the staircase.

He feels me coming. Or maybe it’s the orb sensing my shadows shriveling at my approach. At first, they stretched toward that strange magic around his neck, curious and thirsty for a sip. Now, they know better.

With each pulse, they warn me.

Salty sea air is pungent down here, wafting through the barred windows at the staircase. It’s replaced by a dewy, moldy stench the deeper I travel. Until there are no windows or natural light.

Malachi rests on a stone ledge, twisting a ribbon of sunshine at his fingertips.

His eyes are closed. His shoulder-length blond hair wet and matted from sweat. A thick black scar crawls from where the orb rests against his chest, climbing his neck. His cheek. Until it reaches one eye, which is no longer blue, but liquid gold.

“You don’t look well,” I say plainly, stopping before him.

At least he’s alone and not testing my stomach today with a scattering of limbs and bone and blood as he has been lately.

He grins, sickly and weak as he blinks his eyes open to face me. “When you look at me like that, you remind me of our mother.”

My stomach churns at his comment. Malachi never speaks of our mother. Father taught us both not to, erasing every part of her from the palace—the realm. She is but a whisper. A secret.

An example.

One I don’t remember, but Malachi does. He was three hundred by the time I was born, and while I was too young when she died, he remembers.