Page 47 of What Whispers in the Dark
Serpent magic would take hold of him and control him into a state so vile and menacing that the whole of Elysian should bury themselves and hide to escape his wrath.
You’re a killer.That was Alora’s voice. The one that usually steadied him now damning instead.
You’re a starsdamned killer.His voice now.
Just like your father,she had said.
Just like Magnelis,he repeated.Just like Magnelis. Just like Magnelis. Just like Magnelis.
Garrik ignored Thalon and crushed bones and branches and blood underneath his boots, stalking into the darkness. He knew Thalon would follow. Knew he would do anything to keep him from letting the darkness fully consume him, but this time, it would not work.
Hewantedto be consumed.
Alora saw him for the monster he wasMadeto be. What every faerie knew he was.
Hedeservedit.
After all, Elysian tales were not spun from picking flowers in a meadow. What he had done for all those years … what waswitnessed. The lives forfeited at the end of his blade and the mere snap of his fingers.
She was right.
You’re a killer. Just like Magnelis.
“Find Aiden and Jade. Have them search the perimeter, then report to Alynthia.” He barely recognized the words as his own. That thing of nightmares that sharpened his face—and turned his teeth razor-edged—gnawed beneath the surface. Begging to be unleashed.
And he would. When silver met silver, and when purple cloaks and fealty to the High King encountered him, the gray-haired demon would descend.
Thalon appeared in front of him, stepping through his portal with a darkened forest on the other side. His brother’s face was cast in that of the warrior he had fought alongside for years. Stringent. Damning. Unyielding.
Carefully considering his words, Thalon stood square-shouldered, a pillar of stone against a raging storm. His voice thundered, “You cannot do this.”
A low growl of warning reverberated up Garrik’s throat. “Forgive me, but I do not recall your enthronement as High King.” Garrik prowled forward, knocking his shoulder into Thalon’s as he set his eyes on a determined path between the trees.
Smokeshadows whispered around him. Stirring and tendriling between oaks and evergreens as if to underline the path to his next victims.
Maybe those deaths would make him feel something.
Regret. Shame. Damnation.
Fuckingsomethingother than …this. This shell of who he once was. This beast Alora saw him as.
“Slow down, Garrik. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
What would be so terrible about that?He wanted to say it, but all that escaped was, “So be it.”
The look on Thalon’s face was all-knowing. His brother opened his mouth to speak, but Garrik could see his mind and refused to listen.
He did not wish to hear anything more about the male he supposedly was. About how Alora spoke out of fear and humiliation when he already knew that, but could not be convinced of the truth. That everything he had done was not truly him. The bullshit his friends would spew so they could sit around the fire at night and pretend they were the heroes when he knew he was Elysian’s villain.
Smokeshadows exploded around Garrik, transforming his flesh into darkness until he became as meaningless and weightless as he felt. His body transcended through the Dawnspace—black as his eyes and void of light—until he returned in his born form miles from his Guardian.
The cold steel in his hand cascaded in frost. His hands so cold they resembled a corpse. It would not be long before the darkness inside him succumbed and he lost control.
A branch snapped to his right.
Another just beyond that.
Flashes of silver and mumbled grunts to the left.
