the severed heads floating in lazy circuits around the throne turned his marrow to ice. Lord Arion lay at his dead father’s feet. What had brought the young lord to this end? Then Caim saw the cocoons hanging on the walls, more than a score of them, shaped like men wrapped in black shrouds. He spotted the tufts of Keegan’s unruly hair sprouting from a casing. Some of the men moved, a little, but many remained still. Caim took a step toward the nearest cocoon and halted as four dark shapes glided from the shadows of the room. A voice whispered from the darkness.
“All these years, I thought you were dead.”
Caim braced himself as the witch walked out from behind the throne, radiating power like a miniature black sun. She strode over to the nearest cocoon and paused a moment to touch it. Muffled cries issued from the bubble of shadows. The man within the grim prison struggled for a moment, and then hung still. Her fingertips came away reddened with blood, which she put to her lips as she smiled at Caim.
He tried to take another step into the chamber but found he could not move as the cold infiltrated his body. His limbs were locked in place, his lungs frozen in midbreath. Everywhere the chill spread, sensation vanished. He didn’t want to know what would happen when it reached his heart. Caim strained with every muscle, but the paralysis held firm. And the shadow warriors circled nearer.
The witch gave him a smile that bordered on seductive. “And when Levictus reported your presence in the south, I hoped he would kill you and save me the trouble.”
A soft glow sparkled beside him.
“Caim,” Kit whispered, almost too soft to hear. “It took me forever to get through all the energy laced around this place.”
He wanted to tell her to get away before it was too late, but he couldn’t talk. He widened his eyes as far as he could and darted them back and forth between her and the witch, but Kit just hovered in place. Think of something, Kit. Distract her-anything!
Kit flew up next to him and ran her hands across his chest, like she was swatting at cobwebs, but nothing happened. There was a flicker of shadow, and then the witch was standing before him. Her eyes were so black he could not tell where the pupil ended and the iris began. They seemed to yawn wider as she placed a finger on his chest. A stabbing pain cut through the layers of his clothing to penetrate his skin.
“I warned Soloroth about you, but he was always too headstrong to heed me. Sickening, how he allowed himself to be conquered by an untrained half-breed like you.”
Kit ducked out of sight. Caim hoped she had some kind of plan.
“Pathetic,” Sybelle said. “But my sister was a weak-minded fool, always adopting helpless creatures. And here you are, a stain on our family. One I intend to cleanse away for good.”
A cloud of tiny darknesses descended from the ceiling. Caim tensed as their minuscule fangs chewed through his clothes. He strained harder against the power holding him in place. If he didn’t escape, he was going to die, slowly, painfully. He tried to bite down on his tongue to elicit some feeling, anything.
“Fight her, Caim!” Kit whispered, as if he weren’t.
He called to the shadows. He felt them along the walls of the great hall, lining the cracks in the high ceiling, but none answered his summons. He tried again, and the sword quivered in his hand as a sudden pressure filled his chest. His heart thudded, once. And then again, sending warm blood flowing through his body. The cold retreated for a moment. If he could just move an inch…
A roar ripped through the chamber. The shadow beast. Caim pushed harder and felt a crackle along his spine. Something bit him on the shoulder, but he didn’t stop. With a final push, the paralysis shattered like a crust of ice covering his skin. The moment his arm was free, Caim swung at the spot where the witch had been standing, but the black blade cut only air. Then his grunt became a hiss of pain as the shadows tore into his flesh. He tried brushing them off, but they were everywhere. He stomped on the ground and swung his blades. Then the stinging bites vanished and the darkness lightened. Hundreds of shadows-maybe thousands-fluttered in the air like demented moths, colliding in the air and falling to the floor. His shadows had come to him after all.
As the pall lifted, Caim looked around. Kit was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the shadow beast, but he didn’t have time to find out why as four shapes glided toward him. He ducked under the curved blade of a sword-staff rushing at his throat. Rolling across his shoulders, buds of agony blossomed from the wounds along his back, but he was alive. For the moment.
A line of fire traced down his left arm. Caim spun around, but the shadow warrior had drifted out of range. He started to follow until another warrior advanced on his right flank, forcing him to turn in that direction to deflect blinding-fast cuts from a pair of black-bladed axes. Caim parried and circled away, never stopping, but the four warriors had him pinned. Every move he made put him in range of one of them. A twisting thrust from the scimitar broke past his defenses to jab his upper thigh. Caim smacked aside the midnight blade and riposted with a long lunge. The scimitar wielder parried his thrust, and Caim followed up with a combination of high-low attacks. The tip of his suete slashed across the cuisse plate covering the warrior’s thigh, but it didn’t penetrate. Caim jumped back as the other three closed in around him. But even that much success bolstered his resolve.
He wove around a slash from the sword-staff and rushed in low, dropping to his knees and sliding under the shadow warrior’s guard. His knife rose to ward off the sword-staff while he thrust with his other hand. The sword’s point dug between armored plates and punched through the mail underneath. Caim pushed until the blade’s length sank into the shadow warrior’s guts. He was up on his feet and turned around before the body hit the floor.
The remaining warriors pressed him harder than before. Caim backed away under their barrage of attacks, trying to keep one shoulder to the wall. The axe-man wandered half a pace too close and took a deep cut across his elbow. But before Caim could follow up, a jet of cobalt fire lit up the hall. Caim dropped to his belly, and a blanket of frosty air draped over him as the blue flames washed against the wall. Hoarfrost spread up the wooden paneling, which split under the intense cold.
Caim jumped up. The shadow warriors were gone. No, he felt their presence in the room, moving through deep patches of darkness even his vision could not pierce. The witch was gone, too, and that worried him more. Caim edged farther into the chamber. A draft of cool air wafted across the back of his neck.
Caim dropped to one knee and swung his sword as he spun around. The axe-man fell back, blood streaming from the stump of his severed wrist. His other hand came up. Caim blocked the overhand chop. The sword lashed out again and again until the warrior lay on the floor, his legs drawn together and one arm folded over his chest.
As Caim stepped away, a mass of dark webbing caught his left hand, its fibers clinging to his wrist. He turned with the pulling of the net and parried a spear thrust. As the weapon flicked out at him several times in rapid succession, Caim gave up trying to pull away and instead yanked himself closer to the spearman. The scimitar sliced the air behind Caim as he swatted aside another spear thrust. He made two quick counterjabs and the spear clattered to the floor, followed by the shadow warrior’s body, pierced through the throat under the chin.
Caim sliced through the net holding his wrist and flung himself over his crumpled opponent. He turned as soon as his toes touched the floor, but the remaining shadow warrior held back, watching him from several paces away. Caim trembled from the exertion even as the sword’s hunger pulsed through him.
A snarl cut through the quiet, and the scimitar wielder collapsed facedown on the floor. The shadow beast perched on the warrior’s back, its jaws locked around his neck. Caim looked around, expecting to have the flesh blasted from his bones at any moment, but the witch was gone.
Heavy thuds sounded all around the chamber as the outlaws fell from the walls, their shadow-wrought cocoons evaporated. The men were covered in bloody marks, and they moved a little slow, but it looked like they would live. Caim thought he should feel some relief at that; instead he just wanted to be gone. Across the hall, he spotted the lingering remains of a gateway. He could see the direction it led, but not where it arrived.
It was a trap, of course. He thought of the many reasons why he shouldn’t follow, but then the sword sent a jolt of pure hatred spiking up his arm. He needed to end this now, while he had her on the run.
As Caim sprinted across the slick floor, someone spoke behind him, but he was listening to something else, a faint buzz at the edge of his hearing. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as a black hole split the air.
For Liana and Hagan. For my father, my mother…
He took a deep breath and plunged into the portal.
Caim swayed as he landed on hard flagstones. He reached out, thinking he was going to fall, but then his balance snapped back.
