removed the band? He wasn't sure he wanted to find out, and he certainly didn't want to be connected to her when it happened.
'So we decided on a fun compromise,' Asp continued. 'You came all this way for poor Timha, and you didn't get him, so I don't see that letting you go could do much harm. So we'll just take one of you, and let the other two go free. On the assumption that if we were to fight, there's some chance that you might kill at least one of us. I think that's a very good bargain.'
Silverdun glanced quickly over at Ironfoot, who nodded. He was connected with Sela as well.
Asp frowned. 'Please tell me you're not planning some kind of secretive maneuver,' he said. 'It's just going to get you all killed.'
'Fine,' said Silverdun. 'You can have the woman.'
'What?' said Sela, looking at him in horror. Had he misunderstood her? Or was she simply playing the part? Her connection to him vanished before he could sense the answer.
'Oh,' said Asp. 'Well, that's lovely! I honestly didn't think you were going to agree. All that Fae propriety and so forth.'
'We Shadows have no use for propriety,' said Ironfoot. 'They leached it out of us, just as your masters did to you.'
'Not quite,' said Asp. 'We never had any to begin with.'
'So, we give you the woman, and you let us leave?' said Silverdun.
'Why, I suppose so!' said Asp, seemingly delighted.
'Then come along, Ironfoot,' said Silverdun.
'But the next time we see each other,' said Asp. 'I wouldn't expect any such bargain.'
'Understood,' said Silverdun. He and Ironfoot backed slowly toward the door. Sela looked at him, forlorn, empty.
At the doorway, Silverdun stopped and said, 'I'm so sorry, Sela.' He stepped toward the door, raised his hand as if to bind the witchlight in the room to keep it lit, but instead channeled Elements, and dissolved the silver lining around the iron band on Sela's arm. He heard it clatter to the floor, heard Sela shriek.
The world exploded with light. Not actual light, like the witchlight that Silverdun had conjured in Preyia. Something else: an illumination of reality that separated and defined everything in Silverdun's vision: each blade of grass, each willow, each stone on the garden path. He and Ironfoot ran, and when he looked at Ironfoot, he saw a being of light, a superimposition of bone and blood and flesh and something else, a column of white entangled in a web of blackness. That web, he knew, was in him as well. It was what made him a Shadow, he realized with total certainty. The pit that Jedron had thrown them in, the pool of blackness. It was in them and around them and it had somehow become them.
A sound came from the house that Silverdun had never heard before. A howl-no, a pair of howls-rising shrilly into the night sky, a sound of infinite pain, infinite horror.
Reality shifted back to its normal state. The front door to the house slammed open, and one of the Bel Zheret, Asp, lurched out of the front door, lunging at Ironfoot.
'Monsters!' he screamed, tackling Ironfoot. The two of them went down in a tangle. 'She killed them! She took them! You are all monsters!'
The Bel Zheret was stronger by far than Ironfoot, who was still recovering from his close call with Timha on the ledge. All for nothing, Silverdun realized. He ran and kicked Asp in the stomach as hard as he could.
Which, it turned out, was harder than he imagined. The Shadow strength flowed through him. The Bel Zheret flew off of Ironfoot and slammed into a nearby willow trunk, his knife clattering from his hand. Silverdun pursued him.
With astonishing speed, Asp righted himself and met Silverdun's approach. He grasped Silverdun by the throat and hammered him with his fist, in the solar plexus, driving Silverdun's breath out of his chest and knocking him backward. The force of the impact twisted Silverdun's neck in Asp's iron grip, and it felt as though his throat was about to split open with the strain.
He hit back, his dagger still in hand, slashing across the Bel Zheret's belly, drawing blood that came out black in the dim moonlight. Asp barely seemed to notice. He shoved Silverdun to the ground and stomped on Silverdun's ribs. Silverdun tried to catch his breath, and couldn't. Spots appeared and wavered in his eyes. He felt Asp snap his wrist, prying the dagger out of it. Felt teeth on his throat. Felt the percussive damage of fists on his face, in his groin. He swam toward consciousness but felt himself slipping deeper and deeper into the darkness.
He looked up and saw Ironfoot standing over Asp, holding Asp's own knife, reaching it around to slit the Bel Zheret's throat, just as Jedron had taught them: the certain kill.
But it was too late. Asp already had Silverdun's knife and was digging it upward through Silverdun's belly, twisting it, angling it, plunging it into his heart.
