Page 127 of Of Shadows and Blood

Black edges my vision and I realize I am fighting nearly blind but I continue, screaming with each cut I try to make. Without warning, my knife meets steel and sparks fly. I grunt at the sheer strength of his blow, trying to push against his weapon but everything hurts. We push, locked against one another and I wonder how this dagger is even able to withstand his force when I take a blow to my stomach.

Dropping my only weapon, I collapse and try to pull air into my lungs. The pain, the pressure – it’s suffocation at best. I claw my abdomen to find air, but my muscles are stunned. My vampyr and cess blood try to heal me but it is not coming fast enough.

A hand yanks my hair, hauling my body up with it. Every movement pushes those black edges further into my vision. I struggle to catch small, quick breaths, realizing every rib must be broken. Blood trickles down the side of my head and I feel the wetness across my cheeks. Tears, blood, it doesn’t matter because he brings his sword up to my throat, pinning me against his body.

“And here I thought you couldn’t fight. That you were weak. I’ll admit, you put up a good show of strength but without those powers –” his breath warms my ears as he tuts – “you’re useless. But you won’t be for long. Oh, no, you won’t have to wait much longer.” He brings the sword tighter against my throat and in that moment I choose to stop fighting. The fraying edges of my vision take over and an overwhelming silence swarms my mind.

I send out a shiver of pain, or fear, or knowing into the mental void. A prayer. A plea. Letting it be the last thing I do in this world.

Killian is saying something else, the sword now biting into my skin with warm blood trickling beneath it but I hear nothing because, right as my consciousness winks out, I almost feel the void of the world shiver back. It’s not just a shiver, but a groan from the darkness a foot behind us. Killian notices it too because his blade slackens just enough for my elbow to jab into his ribs. He barely finds his footing and I turn to see the utter darkness rising from the void and then I see it. The brutal scratches into the rock of the chamber. The shredded ropes which lay dangling from the posts.

Everything I have learned about Krue makes this stench of death terrifying. The continent was a land of ancient, magical beasts before the first kingdom, under Martine, conquered every inch of forest, stream and mountain that harbored them. Sawyer mentioned the ruling family turned Krue specifically into a prison for the rest of the continent.

What better way to take care of enemies of the state than to feed them to the monsters of the land’s past? This – this is what drew Cedric’s ancestor to Krue.

The darkness shifts and moves like smoke. The black mass holds no solid form. My eyes, the injured state of my head, can barely recognize it as anything but the darkness of the chamber but pale-yellow lights twinkle within, as if it is sentient enough to lock eyes with its prey before eliminating their existence. It floats above the missing bridge, nearly taking up the entire space. No mouth, no limbs. But the utter reek of the cavern indicates it does indeed feed. It continues to rise, writhing and growling.

We both back up a step. “Run,” I breathe, more to myself than to Killian.

With no time to think, I turn heel and sprint down the tunnel, Killian a step behind me. The monster begins to chase and though it makes no clear sound, the utter force of its devouring power creeps along the sides of the wall. My lungs scream as the broken ribs try and fail to mend themselves with my movement. Any cess power that carried me earlier is now weakened.

The tunnel turns and turns, ascending back to the main cavern. I slip in loose gravel, feeling the warmth of the void behind me so I drive forward, glancing to each side but seeing or hearing nothing of Killian.

There was no sound. No scream. No devouring.

The monster barrels on and I almost trip on every panicked step.

The chase continues and I feel the heated caress of the void behind me, snaking up my legs. I pick up my pace, taking every last bit of energy with me and willing my muscles to keep fighting.

One more step.

One more breath.

Just around the bend.

The trickling of water alerts me that I am nearly at the antechamber where the forked tunnels were and past that, the steps to freedom. The stairs approach and I begin bounding, taking the steps two at a time.

Just a few more.

Killian steps from nowhere in front of the frame of the entrance, on the other side, in my room, alive. And I realize then that his power, godsdamn apparating, helped him shift to safety.

“NO!” I scream as he latches the door shut. My hands smack onto the wood right before I’m engulfed.

The monster tears into me immediately but not in the way I expected. I was right about its manifestation. Not solid, but not completely weightless. This being is dense, dark, evil. The energy within it poisons me and all light blackens. The void consumes and consumes and consumes. Pulling my body in every direction and I tumble down the stairs, only landing further into the shifting abyss of its carnage. My skin lights with the flame of intense pain and my scream is swallowed, rendered useless, the entirety of my body enveloped in the oily substance of which this abomination exists.

Broken and suspended in this shadow, it does not stop.

It tears through me again and again, pulling out every last bit of energy from my body. My skin is now dried and I yell useless, silent screams yet I push, sliding my body down the last step onto the damp gravel. The knife I had is missing, but still I push. Unsure of how much further it will allow me. Unending, unyielding.

Gravel scrapes beneath me as my will stretches beyond survival. If my life was a deep well, I surely have found the bottom. The air from my lungs, whatever is left, is sucked dry and I begin to suffocate. Invisible claws begin to rake down my back, shredding my dress and skin. Ribbons. I pull myself one more inch, pushing for one more after that.

It’s a foolish thing, to want to continue your existence through such immense pain. To want to exist knowing the odds are against you. And that glimmer of fool’s hope that was expelled these last few inches is now spent.

The claws come back, seizing my body at the same time my hand wraps around the dagger lying at the entry to the tunnel.

My fingers spark around the metal, cess metal, and I swing my arm into the mass, hoping I don’t stab myself in the process. Heat in my hand wraps up my arm as I will any amount of power through the alloy. The beast vibrates and shifts crazily, as if lighting it on fire from the inside out.

No, I am doing just that.