Bride of the Shadow King

Faraine.

Her name flashes through my head like a bolt of lightning as I stare down into a pair of bi-colored eyes.

Then her lashes fall.

It’s Ilsevel’s face tucked into my shoulder, Ilsevel’s hand clutching the front of my shirt.

Ilsevel. Only Ilsevel.

I shake my head. The screams of the woggha explode through my senses. Up on the front face of Lady Xag’s house, Ilsevel’s cousin balances precariously on a window ledge, too high to safely jump. A cave devil is scuttling toward her from the right and . . . seven gods save us, another one crawls out of a nearby window.

This is no time to fall apart.

I whirl in place just as Hael joins me, her sword drawn. “Here!” I drop my bride unceremoniously into her arms. “Take the barge. Get her to Mythanar. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

Hael’s eyes flare. “My king—”

“That’s an order, captain!”

Before she can protest further, I pivot and launch myself at the wall. Catching hold of rocky outcroppings, I climb, hauling my body up as swiftly as a spider, making for Lady Lyria. She’s not looking at me but faces the nearer of the two woggha. She’s too far away, and the monster is much too fast. I’ll never reach her in time, and even if I do—

“Chathanglas!” she shouts in a strange, hollow tone. In the same moment, she brings her fist down hard on the wall beside her. A burst of red light ripples out from the point of contact, traveling through the stone. It strikes the nearest woggha, which shrieks and springs away from the wall as though burned. It falls to the ground below, twitches once, and is still.

The ripple fades the farther it moves from its center. By the time it reaches me, I feel little more than a buzz of magic under my hand. Witchcraft. Human witchcraft. I’d not realized my bride’s companion was a witch.

There’s no time to dwell on this revelation, however. The lady, exhausted by her efforts, has collapsed against the windowsill, panting hard. Little sparks of red crackle from her hand and every bit of exposed skin. The spell has sapped her energy. She doesn’t seem to be aware of the second cave devil climbing straight down the wall toward her.

“Watch out!” I cry.

She looks down at me first, startled by my voice. I let go of the wall with one hand to point, uselessly. She turns her head, sees the monster bearing down upon her. Its awful jaw opens in a triumphant grin, teeth flashing, saliva dripping. It raises one forelimb. The lady screams.

“Morar tor Grakana!”

The battle cry rings in my ears. I look higher to see a figure sliding down the side of the wall. He aims straight for the woggha and thrusts his sword into that exposed place at the back of its head. The monster utters a final death rattle as it falls in a heap to the ground. Its killer, sword ripped from his grasp, just catches the ledge by Lyria’s feet.

“Yok!” I cry. The boy dangles above me. There’s a gash across his chest, and his face is fixed in a ferocious grimace. “Get down from there, both of you!”

Even as I speak, a third cave devil emerges from a lower window, not far from my position. I launch myself up the wall, pushing off with my feet. Catching the beast around the middle, I wrench it free of the wall. We hang for a crystalized moment, out in empty air.

Then we fall.

Wind rushes past my ears, and I just have time to think, Well, that was a mistake.

We hit the ground. Hard. Somehow, instinct made me roll in midair, and the cave devil lands first, taking the impact into its armored body. I hear an awful crunch. I don’t even have time to take a breath before I’m rolling, pushing away from the monster as it lashes out, struggling to gather its limbs, to lunge after me, to tear into my flesh. I come up in a defensive crouch, my gaze wholly consumed by that eyeless, hideous face. It opens its mouth wide, offering me a clear view through a cage of fangs down its screaming throat.

A blade appears through the roof of its mouth.

The wagging black tongue vibrates as the cave devil shudders and falls to one side. Sul stands over it, a sword in his hand. Hael’s sword, unless I miss my guess, though when and how he took it from her, I cannot guess. My brother smooths his hair back from his forehead and looks around, his expression mild. “Well, that was fun. Any more playmates to be had? No?”

Bracing with one hand, I pick myself up. My limbs are shaking, my breath tight, but nothing seems to be broken. My sturdy trolde bones stood me in good stead this time. I offer Sul a short nod, then look up to where the human lady and Yok are even now making their way down the wall.

“I thought you were dead!” the lady says. “I thought it must have killed you first before rushing in to ruin our little sit-down.”

“And I thought you were dead,” Yok replies, his voice shaking, though he’s trying to hide it. He leaps the last several feet to the ground, staggers heavily, but rights himself. He holds up a hand to the lady. “How did you survive?”

“Dumb luck, mostly,” she replies, accepting his aid. Her teeth are chattering, and her entire body quakes. She wraps her arms tightly around herself. “What was that thing, anyway? Some sort of troll housecat?”

“A woggha,” I answer grimly, striding up to the two of them. “A cave devil. They’re closer to your human wolves than any domesticated beast.”

She shivers. “Subterranean demon wolves. How lovely.”

I look to my young soldier, grab his shoulder, and inspect his chest wound. It’s a shallow cut, though painful. “What happened?” I ask, speaking in troldish.

“I’m sorry, my king,” Yok replies. “I left them in the front sitting room. It seemed safe enough, what with the house abandoned. And the princess was hungry. Her lady sent me to find food.”

“Your job was to protect them, not feed them.”

He hangs his head, ashamed. “I know. And when I reached the kitchen, the woggha were there, eating whatever they could find. I tried to shut and bolt them in, but they overpowered me. I ended up pinned down in the pantry.” His eyes widen, and he turns suddenly to the lady, switching to her tongue. “There was a fourth one! Another woggha!”

“I know,” she replies, smiling mirthlessly. “The princess and I managed that one between us.”

“The princess?” I snap. “She was involved?”

The lady tosses me a cool glance. “Not to worry. She mostly participated in the role of bait. But she served that role admirably, I’ll give her that!”

I eye the woman. This cousin of my bride is more than she seems. That little display of witchcraft proved it. Perhaps she was chosen for this journey to act as bodyguard as well as witness.

“My king,” Yok says in troldish, drawing my attention back to him. “There’s something you should know. I don’t know quite how to explain it, but . . . when I was trapped in the pantry, I thought they were going to burst through the door. There were three of them, and they were slavering and throwing themselves against it, and I knew I couldn’t hold them off much longer. I was sure I was a dead man and had begun to pray to the Deeper Dark, when . . . I don’t know. There was a sound. Like music. At first, I thought it was just a ringing in my ears. But the woggha reacted too. They went from slobbering at the door to absolute silence.” He drops his head and draws two deep breaths. Then he looks up at me again. “When I finally dared open the door, they were gone. It was . . . it was like something had called to them somehow.”

My brow furrows. I’ve never heard of cave devils acting in this way. And a sound, like music? What could it have been? Perhaps Yok had imagined it in his terror. He’s still very young, after all.

I sigh. Either way, we’ve no time to dwell on mysteries just now. Clapping the boy on the shoulder, I scowl at him. “I’m disappointed in you, Yok. You shouldn’t have left the princess’s side, not even for a moment. But no matter! We live and we learn and we act better next time. Besides,” I add with a half-smile, “you redeemed yourself somewhat with that heroic jump out the window. Even your sister would be proud of you for a maneuver like that.”

Yok flushes and drops his head again. I give him a last pat on the shoulder, then march over to Sul. My brother stands over the woggha he slayed, staring down at the carcass. His face is more pensive than I remember seeing it in a long while.

I stand behind him. For a few breaths, we are silent. Then I speak in a low voice, “Well, Sul? What do you think of my plan now?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t like trusting humans to save us.” For once in his life, his voice is blunt, hard. And honest. “They’re so base. So crude. And they lie with every breath they take. I hate that we must make ourselves vulnerable to such creatures.”

My brother’s words send a dart of shame to my heart—shame at my own human heritage. But it doesn’t matter if I am of a lesser race, that my blood is diluted or even tainted. For whatever reason, the gods have seen fit to make me King of Mythanar, Lord Protector of all the Under Realm. Thus I must do what I believe is right. And bear the weight of consequences.

I look down to the docks. Our barge is no longer tethered in place, and when I follow the river’s flow, I do not see it. Which means Hael must have gotten away with my bride.

My bride . . .

I frown. Once again, that bizarre image passes through my memory—the image of bi-colored eyes peering up at me in that unexpected moment of mayhem and terror. But no. No, it simply could not be. For the face I’d glimpsed was certainly Ilsevel’s, not Faraine’s.

“Juk,” I mutter through my teeth so no one will hear. I’ve got to get her out of my head. Once and for all. For my sake. For Ilsevel’s. For all of the Under Realm.

I let my gaze sweep across the silent, stricken village. The weight of those deaths threatens to crush my soul. Those deaths, and the deaths yet to come. Unless I can prevent it.

“Come, Sul,” I say, squeezing my brother’s shoulder. “I need to get married. Fast.”

“Yes, of course.” My brother chuckles dully. “And let’s hope the power of true love is enough to save us all.”