“Stop resisting us.”
Adair bit his lip so hard blood filled his mouth. He had relished in how it felt to overpower and rip Roque apart, slowly and deliciously, feeding off Roque’s fear, knowing his secrets and knowing that he had never done enough. And he had enjoyed killing him. After him, each life he took was like oxygen to embers, sparking and catching until he was an inferno.
Emory is dead. She is gone.
Painfully, the magic burned through his mind, through his blood, making him retch, his bile mixed with blood. Falling to his knees, the frozen earth beneath him crunched. Adair’s fingers scraped along the ice; his nails should have ripped off from the force, but his skin remained flawless.
Howling, his anguish cut through the woods and the emptiness of the Academy.
“You are ours.”
The pain he experienced before was nothing, nothing, compared to what seared through his body now.
A cold sweat coated Adair’s skin in a glistening sheen as the magic pulsed faster through his veins. Fire ignited first in his arms, racing down to his torso, chest and legs. His heart palpitated as his bones felt like they were turning to dust, and Adair’s screams begged for relief.
Voices bounced around his mind, but they weren’t memories. They weren’t anything at first, just soft whispers, echoes of places and people that he had once known. Of the secrets he had learned, the knowledge of men and their lies, of broken crowns and hidden truths, of the madness that cultivated it all.
“You will do our bidding to remake this world.”
The vision sharpened, and Adair stood, looking at the still pool of water, afraid to go to its edge. A dull throbbing ached in his temple as he shuffled toward it.
“We will do great things together. Rid the world of this weakness. And start to purify the magic.”
Staring at the water, the surface rippled as his quick breaths hit the surface. Inspecting his reflection, he stared back at the shadows curling before him in the water, deep purples and blues ribboning below the surface with every second.
It was there, at the edge of the pool that Adair saw what truly had overtaken his body. His reflection shimmered, skeletal bones jutting out beneath his parchment like skin, his eyes scooped out, his smile strange and unknown. There was no humanity left—he had become the nightmare.
Whimpering, he scrambled back, but the water continued to churn, the pond lapping at the edges as the shadows crawled toward him, slick and persistent. They rushed and crashed at him, blotting out any light, and overtook him, covering his legs, his arms, his torso, his eyes until that’s all that was left of him.
Adair drew in a deep breath and, not for the first time today, he woke up, lying on his back. Blinking, the sky took on an odd filter, hazy and unclear. Sitting up, he dusted off his jacket, eyeing the edge of the forest. All that stared back at him were the trees encased in ice, the downy flakes of the snow coating the world.
Standing, he turned, staring at the skeleton of the building resting on the hill and the hundreds of creatures coming at him.
Slowly, Adair stood, dusting himself off. Looking back toward the Academy, he walked to the army of monsters now at his disposal. Cutting through the ice and leaving the forest behind, ashes skittered amongst the fallen.
A dabarne loped to him, its long snout flaring as it smelled Adair. “You are not like the other. Not even the man and women who set us free from our cage. Who are you?”
Taking in the gashes on its hide, its rippling muscles and unyielding eyes, Adair slowly walked toward it, placing a hand on its mammoth shoulder. Growls rippled throughout the army, but the dabarne watched as blackness ran down Adair’s arms, flowing through his fingers and flaring underneath his palm. Flesh started to knit itself back together, sealing the wounds, and he could feel that same magic stirring in the monster’s heart.
He lowered his hands and bellowed for all to hear, “I am your KING!”
It was like watching grass flatten against the wind, as the dabarne in front of him bowed the front half of its body, the army following suit. As they all bowed, the air around him crackled, and he drank in the sight.
Behind the army, in the broken courtyard, a ring of ash lay, a lifeless body in the middle. His gaze skittered over the woman indifferently, but glinting in the rumble, her sword was beside her, its cruel edges and duel blade with sharpened teeth. Striding through the lines, the army’s answering roar echoed around him, and he drifted through the ranks like a ghost.
Reaching the middle, he picked up the blade, gripping it in his hands. It was heavy, the hilt cold. Looking up to the Academy, Adair raised the blade in the air, his yell more guttural as his army whispered and chanted throughout his mind.
“Our Dark King rises; he rises; he rises; he rises.”
His world was filled with inferno and rage as the Academy ignited in emerald flames. Lowering the blade and turning, Adair said, “I think it’s about time we pay the capital a visit, don’t you?”
There were ear-splitting roars rose around him, and Adair grinned viciously. His blood thrummed; his skin rippled with goosebumps. He could never get enough of this intoxicating elation. Nothing would ever be enough for his hunger. He would walk to the ends of the world and take and consume and never feel satisfied.
As gravity left him, his army galloped behind him, their footfalls like rolling thunder shuddering across the world. He was consumed by magic and smoke as he shot across the sky like a celestial body, and for the first time in his
