Page 87 of In the Ravenous Dark
“Look, it’s the illustrious Ivrilos.”
That’s not the voice he wants to hear.
They don’t even try sneaking up on him; they know he would sense them. They approach, five shades all from opposite directions, pinning him between them. Creating a web of their own.
But, little do they know, Ivrilos is the spider.
“The king sent us,” the first shade says. “You have the choice to come along quietly. But just to warn you, he’s not pleased. And he especially won’t be pleased when he learns you took the lad for yourself. He was of the family. It’s for the king to decide whether or not he was worthy to stay.”
“Standards are slipping, clearly,” Ivrilos says. He struggles to remember the shade’s name, a minor lord who died twenty or so years ago, not yet elevated to a guardian. Which means he’s hungry. The rest are even younger shades.
The king is testing Ivrilos—the kinghere.His father.
There are two kings, one above, one below, though there may as well only be one with how tethered the two of them are. His brother’s barriers never before faltered enough for Ivrilos to catch a glimpse of his father lurking in the background. But for amoment, he sensed Athanatos in the living world. And he’s probably been there all along, standing behind Kadreus.
Ivrilos doesn’t have time to consider the implications of that. The shades are closing in.
His feet shift in the sand as he tries to keep an eye on them all at once. If he fails to go with them, to explain his actions to his father in a way that will excuse him—and he doesn’t think he can—then these shades are meant to take the measure of his strength and wear him down. Only then will his father come to finish him, to make good on his four-hundred-year-old threat. It might not be immediate. And even if Ivrilos wins the fight against these shades, he’s likely to lose as much essence as he gains. And his father can keep sending shades to harass him across the dunes until, like a man dying of thirst in the desert, Ivrilos begs for mercy.
His father will give him mercy in the only way he knows how.
And yet. If Ivrilos uses this test to his advantage… If he losesnothing… His hands tighten on the hilts of his half-moon blades. He thinks of Rovan.
The other shades take note of his resolve. And, as one, they charge.
They come at him in predictable ways. After all, he’s seen just about everything.
When Ivrilos meets them, he’s smiling again.
He doesn’t know how many hours or even days later, how many shades have hunted him and become the hunted, when he sees the dark silhouette on the horizon. He’s been steadily making his way in the direction of those black towers, and now his goal is in sight.
He’s given up on finding Rovan. There’s a chance she never died, but since he can’t use their bond to go to her, he doubts it. His access to the living world has been cut off as if she were dead. She must have slipped through his fingers and either passed directly toher second death, or else their bond was so weakened by her shield that she appeared somewhere else. Maybe she fell victim to another shade before he could find her. Packs of the young and weak roam the dunes for exactly that purpose.
He can’t think about that, or he won’t be able to put one foot in front of the other.
His father never came for him. Maybe because of those shades he sent in advance; Ivrilos defeated and drank every last drop of their essence. They stopped coming a while ago, because Athanatos realized they were only fodder.
Maybe his father is scared. Hunted, instead of the hunter.
Ivrilos still doesn’t believe he’s strong enough, not without the essence of someone as powerful as his brother, but there’s nothing left for him now. Early on, he did his best to reach Bethea or Delphia or whoever could hear him and answer whether Rovan might still be alive, but he never heard anything back.
It’s over.
His feet eat up the sand beneath him. They’re powered by the energy of the dozens of other men he’s consumed. He’s stronger than he’s ever been.
This is it. He’s going to defeat his father or die trying. His final death.
As he starts down the last, massive crest of sand that will carry him like a wave to the front gate of Athanatos’s dark kingdom, he suddenly feels a tug in the opposite direction. Like an invisible string running behind him that’s grown taut. He tries to take another step, and the tug becomes a sharpjerk.
And then he’s ripped off his feet. Gone in a blink, as if he were never there.
The dark towers remain. Waiting. Hungry.
28
A great breath tears through me. Based on the ripping sound, I feel like it should hurt, but I don’t feel any pain. I open my eyes and immediately have to shield them. The scene around me is so bright, colorful, and soft after the sharp-edged, blood-soaked violence of what came before. And especially after the darkness that swallowed me for so long. I have a feeling it almost consumed me entirely. Wherever I am, whatever is happening, I simply bask in the knowledge that itdidn’t.
“Rovan?”
