Page 118 of The Dagger and the Flame
Shit.
She crawled onwards, leaving bloody handprints on the stones. She had no idea how far she’d come but the clash and clamour of fighting had faded and the only sound remaining was the rattle of her own breath.
How the hell had it all gone so wrong?
I will not die here.
I will not die tonight.
‘Where do you think you’re crawling to, little firefly?’ A familiar voice crooned from the darkness. Sera closed her eyes, praying she had imagined it.
Dufort’s nearness was punctuated by the tell-tale crunch of footsteps. He sneered as he walked towards her, kicking bodies aside without glancing at their ashen faces. His eyes were as blue as her own. He had surrendered his Shade – orperhaps the monsters had eaten through it all – but the silver glint in his hand told Sera he was not weaponless. He had a knife.
She was so weak she didn’t trust her own legs to stand, let alone run. But she would not die cowering in the dirt like an animal. So she raised her head and met the hatred in his gaze with her own.
He stalled a few feet from her, taking in the blood pouring from her arm, then the crimson puddle in which she knelt. She was losing sensation in her body, and there were stars exploding in the sides of her vision. She patted her pocket desperately, but there were only four pearls left, useless against this particular monster. Her father. Her tormentor.
Dufort closed the space between them, then sank to his haunches. He took his signet ring off and dangled it before her, as though he were presenting a toy to a child. The ring was as ugly as the smirk on his face. ‘Is this what you came for, Seraphine? My hard-earned legacy. All my gathered riches.’
She wished she had the strength to spit at him. ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ she croaked. ‘Go to hell.’
He smiled pityingly. ‘We’re already in hell, Seraphine. And in case you haven’t noticed, it belongs to me.’ He sighed. ‘In another lifetime, it might have been yours. If only your mother had—’
She struck out, smacking the ring from his hand. It hit the wall with a clink. Dufort caught her by the throat.
She swung her fist again, but it was like moving through water. Too slow. Too heavy. He brought his knife to her neck. He hesitated, and she saw a ghost flitting behind his eyes. Theshadow of the man he had been long, long ago. The one who had loved her.
He blinked and it was gone.
He leaned on the knife, and it bit into her skin.
Sera reached feebly for the collar of his shirt. She was too weak to fist it. Her hand slid down his chest, to the place where his heart should have been. She mouthed the wordMonsteras blood trailed down her neck.
Then that wind came again, cold and sweeping. It rippled up her spine and blew the stray strands of Dufort’s hair back from his face. He froze with the knife at her throat, his eyes widening at something behind her. In the reflection of his pupils, Sera saw the monster loping towards them. It was haloed in the flickering lamplight, so big it took up the entire passage. So loud its footsteps made the ground rattle.
The monster roared as it lunged, and Sera’s body reacted before her mind. She reeled backwards, flattening herself against the ground, as the beast leaped right over her and barrelled into Dufort.
Dufort screamed as the monster landed on his chest, but its shadows choked the sound from his throat. Its jaws unhinged in an awful screech as it pitched forward. It was all Sera could do to scrabble away from them, every part of her trembling as she clung to the wall as if the bones inside it could save her.
She watched in horror as the monster closed its jaws around her father’s neck, plunging its reaching tentacles down his throat. Dufort twitched, his chest heaving as he tried in vain to fight the shadows inside him.
She knew she should run, or at least crawl, but she was rooted to the wall, unable to tear her gaze from her father. The man who proclaimed himself the lord of hell. Well, hell had other ideas. And as it bore down on Dufort, sucking the last drop of life from his body and turning the whites of his eyes black, Sera’s entire body went cold.
She didn’t know if it was shock or blood loss that stole the feeling from her face, but when the monster pulled back from Dufort, leaving him nothing but an ashen husk, she didn’t even flinch.
The monster looked at her, and she at it. It cocked its head, as if it was curious. Then it loped towards her, slow and thudding, its eyes still glowing with the promise of death. Sera was not afraid of that promise. She had spent all her terror already. There was only purpose left.
I will not die here.
I will not die tonight.
She slipped a pearl of Lightfire from her pocket.
The monster opened its mighty jaws, its shadows filling up the passage until there was only darkness and within it, the gleam of its fangs. It screeched as it swooped down at her, and Sera rose up, meeting it head-to-head as she hurled the pearl into the blackness of its throat. Fire met darkness in an explosion of light. It splintered the darkness, and the monster along with it, scattering the last of its shadows into the walls.
She collapsed in a heap, tears streaming down her face as magic flickered around her like fireflies. They gathered around the body of an old man, still wearing his captain’s hat. He looked so peaceful, he might have been sleeping. Sera prayedthat somewhere on a different plane, Saint Maurius was folding him into his embrace and carrying him over a distant sea.
A few feet away lay her father. She wished for him only a deeper, darker hell than this.
