Page 95 of Thorn Season
He wasn’t leaving this room alive.
My lips twitched up as I sent another wave toward him. But this time he was prepared. His arm heaved back—
And he lobbed the knife toward me.
My specter rushed aside with my sharp inhale, parting like a river fork to avoid the eurium. The air zipped past my head, and warmth bloomed at my ear. I turned to see the knife jammed in the wall behind me and realized too late that I shouldn’t have turned.
Because now the man barreled for me, swinging his second knife in wide, vicious arcs. I scrambled aside, heart pounding in my throat, my specter retreating from the blade.
Then his rough hand grabbed my neck. I heard the wheezing before I realized it came from me.
My arms flailed. I couldn’t take in a breath. Couldn’t gather my frantic specter, my sudden panic thinning it out.
His laughter blew across my face.“Stupid little—”I didn’t hear the rest.
My hand connected with something hard. I raised the brandy glass and smashed it against his head.
He roared as blood and crystal showered us. His grip slipped off my neck.
I wrenched back all the way, half sliding onto the desk. My foot swung out. He grunted as my pointed heel caught his thigh. A sloppy defense, but it gave me the time I needed to build a spectral wave—to build it up, up,up—
And launch it between his legs.
He collapsed, moaning. His knife clattered beside his knees. One last smack from my specter—and he sprawled across the floor.
I dropped from the desk, panting. I circled him on shaky legs. “This was how I found my father. An undignified way to die, isn’t it?” He reached for my ankle, but I secured his wrist with a throbbing tendril of power. “How should I leave you? Bleeding out the same way?”
“Wielder scum.”He sucked in ragged breaths, his face contorting. “Keep pushing and you’ll see what happens. You won’t win this fight.”
“This doesn’t feel much like a fight.” I wrung his wrist until he howled, and I lapped up the sound. I’d thought vengeance was an empty meal—but watching my father’s killer squirm beneath me, I knew I could devour this feeling until I choked on it.
“Who sent you here?” I demanded. “Where can I find them?”
He laughed wetly, his hand turning crimson. “What’s it worth?”
“Your life.”
He turned his head and spat. I cringed, not seeing the flash of the fallen knife until agony exploded through me.
My body convulsed. Fire ran along my specter—through my blood—into my bones, and I didn’t know if I was screaming or blacking out until my knees hit the hardwood and I knew I was doing both.
If regular metals cut through specters like blades on skin, eurium shattered them like shrapnel.
I was dangling on the edge of consciousness, trying to scrape up the pieces of myself, when the man’s body whacked against mine, stealing the last of my air. He crushed me to the floor.
Then he found my throat and squeezed.
I thrashed automatically, trying to shove him off, trying to breathe. But the pain through my specter was all-consuming, making me sobbetween my teeth. My legs writhed, tangled in velvet. I bucked my hips. Dug my nails into his wrists.
He tightened his hold.
My specter shuddered, fighting to convalesce. Fighting tolive.
“Wielder scum,” the man growled again, eyes hovering close above me. “You are nothing to us. You are nothing.”
Nothing.
Creature.
