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Lucan studied him. The elf’s pale skin was nearly the color of milk tinged blue. Deep bruises accentuated his swollen jaw; streaks of black—remnants of shadow-binds—crawled over his throat like jagged lightning.
“Yes,” Lucan replied. “I am.”
Something—pity, almost—flickered in the elf’s baleful gaze.
Shadows blackened Lucan’s fingertips and coiled around the prisoner’s jaw. They tightened with a slow, deliberate pressure, forcing the elf’s chin higher and higher until his bruised throat lay exposed, skin taut.
The prisoner’s lips trembled. “To the stars we da—”
His voice failed beneath the crushing shadows.
Lucan’s fingers flexed.
Crack!
The sound echoed through the great hall, sharp enough to silence the murmuring court. Bone shattered beneath skin, but Lucan did not stop. Shadows looped around the prisoner’s torso, holding him upright even as he jolted forward.
Cr-rack!
A garbled scream broke free from the elf’s throat—a raw and broken sound almost immediately consumed by gleeful laughter from the closest courtiers.
Lucan’s face remained perfectly still.
Never her.
Another twist.
Vertebrae separated, one after another, beneath the relentless pressure. Silvered blood spilled from the prisoner’s mouth, running in thin streams over Lucan’s gloved hand before splattering onto the polished marble below.
The courtiers leaned forward. Someone applauded. The sound washed over Lucan like distant rain.
Shadows now moved on their own accord; a thick tendril wrapped around the elf’s left arm and wrenched until it popped, then hung limply at his side. Lucan dug his long nails into the soft flesh below, relishing the flood of warmth over his hand. His free hand intertwined with the prisoner’s hair and wrenched his head back. Shadows crawled over the elf’s face as he gagged on his silvered blood. His skittering heartbeat called to him like a siren’s song. The prisoner’s body convulsed once.
Twice.
His pale violet eyes found Lucan’s one final time. The hatred laced with pity remained.
“Tell your stars,” he whispered for only the elf to hear, “that your precious leader will scream even more sweetly for me before I spill her blood.”
Lucan drew a single sharpened nail across the elf’s throat.
Silvered blood erupted in a glittering arc across the black marble, painting the dais steps and the boots of the nearest nobles. Gasps turned to delighted shouts as the body collapsed in a graceless heap at Lucan’s feet, the heavy clunk of his collar accentuated by the raucous cheering of the court.
Silence settled over Lucan even as the courtiers celebrated. He merely stared at the corpse, devoid of satisfaction.
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Aurelion said softly at his side. “Find me this so-called Ashen Blade. I have grown tired of waiting.”
Lucan lowered his gaze.
“Yes, Father.”
Servants hurried forward before the blood had finished spreading, throwing sand across the marble and scrubbing at the silvery-red stains with clean cloths. By morning, there would be no trace that the moon elf had ever lived.
Lucan suspected the same would eventually be said of him.
six
Wanderings
