Page 66 of Bright Soul

“Kind of,” he answered.

“Good enough,” I said, then leapt forward in full shadowborn form to join the duel of black and white shadows nearby.

Phaeron had been edged back from the combination of Endaeron’s power and Garroway’s vampire strength and speed. He attacked with bladed shadows as I slipped my weapon into the vampire’s guard, spraying dark blood from a slash just above his ribs.

But the rip of flesh began to knit together, healing at an impossible speed. “Cress, at last. How I’ve grown to despise you,” he chuckled in a two-toned voice. White shadow flashed in my face, forming thorny tendrils that bound my upper arms to my chest.

“The feeling’s mut—”

His magic flared, and I squeezed my eyes shut just in time, struggling out of the grasp of his magic. We’d traveled down a level, and he released me from the magic when I was a few feet above the ground. I crashed to the unforgiving tile with my arms still pinned to my side, pain flaring through my side and leg.

What felt like a hundred sets of eyes turned hot attention toward me. Unnatural creatures and torchbearers alike leapt the moment Garroway disappeared. I flared my shadows, cutting through the bindings he’d left on me and dissipating the bright shadows. As I was reaching for my sword, an obsidian figure swooped in for a landing and faltered, lost in the dimness of our surroundings.

“Light,” he ground out. I cast a quick Lux on my sword, and the monsters flinched for a moment. Geo kicked the closest ferret-like creature away before it could sink its teeth into my shadows and flesh.

I leveraged myself back to my feet, feeling a warning jolt of pain that radiated down from my thigh.“I shall repair you,”Braza said with urgency, as we both noticed the duel of black and white above us, occasionally punctuated by the flash of a silvery throwing dagger or a hint of Ben’s blood magic infusing a strike.

No one was fighting alone, at least. I helped Geo with shadows and light, shooting out darkness with many points to strike at the creatures surrounding us.

I cowed the torchbearers reaching for us by blinding them with a flare from my weapon. They babbled, begging Myuna for mercy as they clawed at their eyes.

“Your goddess says stand down,” I ordered with as much authority I could muster. A family of four—two adults and two kids of different ages—the nearest white-eyed people, dropped their hands and stayed in place, looking confused.

Geo hesitated, checking a swing of his weapon and shield to avoid harming them. He pivoted, showing no mercy for the twisted animals, but they died too easily. The blunt force of Geo’s fighting style crunched stretched bones and strained tendons. It left a graveyard around him, soon replaced by Myuna’s enslaved supernatural victims.

I didn’t want to harm them when they could still be saved. “I’m going up!” I shouted to Geo before falling into the shadows, letting Braza control the magic that turned us into particles.

In a blink, we cleared the guardrail one story up, just in time to see Garroway catch one of Ben’s daggers and reverse its course, embedding it in his chest. I heard the sucking gasp he took as he fell backward.

“Stay alive a little longer, little Benjamin. We have unfinished business,” Garroway said in a two-toned drawl.

Ben bared his teeth with another gasping breath. He probed at the wound and wrote the rune for healing on his skin with ashaking hand. I placed myself between him and the possessed vampire, sinking into a guard stance.

“As do we, blood baron,” Phaeron snarled.

He had re-engaged Garroway’s attention, the two of them fairly evenly matched with swordplay and shadows. Braza pulled at my awareness, asking for a few more moments as I tested my wounded leg. Her power had turned the lingering ache into a smaller pinch of pain.

“Ah, yes. So we do. My lady is quite displeased to have you off your leash—”

Phaeron’s attention drifted for a split second before he disengaged in a swirl of black shadows, which stirred in the wake of Geo arriving like a battering ram. He checked his momentum with stony wings and slammed shield-first into Garroway, sending him straight through a glass storefront.

I lined up just a step behind Geo as he and Phaeron faced the person-shaped hole together, forming a wall of muscle and rock. But the Hungering Darkness didn’t emerge as a corporeal vampire, instead escaping as a curl of white shadow.

“Behind you!” Ben called in a strained voice.

Garroway had appeared right behind me, his sword descending toward my neck. An identical weapon caught his, Phaeron reacting first.

I called on Jin, borrowing from the core of fury she held for the creature that’d killed her first witch. That fierce desire for revenge filled me. I moved with sinewy grace as the two men re-engaged their stalemate, dancing with them both. Phaeron pressed the attack, and so did I, wounding Garroway when he wasn’t able to hold us both off at the same time.

Our cuts were beginning to stick, his vampiric healing too overwhelmed. He seemed to be slowing, too. A flash of understanding lit his blood-colored eyes before he turned to white mist.

“Is there any way to stop him from running?”I asked Braza.

“Patience, brightest of souls. Turn off Lux a moment.”

I did as she suggested, shaking the lingering light out of my weapon. Now that I wasn’t actively fighting, Geo pushed me behind himself, shield raised for whatever came next.

“Lick your wounds, then. Coward,” Phaeron spat. He was in full shadowborn form, with spikes over his tail and a wolf-like visage over his face. It was spread in a vicious snarl as Garroway circled overhead, just beyond our reach.

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