Page 4 of Crown of Storm and Silence
Shadow-fire erupts across his skin—not the hot flames of the living world, but something far worse. Cold fire that doesn't char or melt, but consumes the very essence of what it touches. His flesh doesn't burn away—it simply ceases, crumbling to ash-fine dust that the wind scatters like forgotten dreams. His screams cut off not from pain, but from the sudden absence of everything that made him real. The smell hits me—charred meat and melted fat, sweet copper blood and something else, something that tastes of burnt souls and shattered innocence.
The familiar emptiness follows the violence—my shadows fed on my life force as much as his, aging me in ways that have nothing to do with time. Major uses of my power like this carved away pieces of what I used to be, transforming me into something darker, something more monstrous. The smallermanifestations—tendrils around throats, whispers of darkness—cost little. But true destruction? That demanded payment in years I'd never see again. Nesilhan had been right—I was becoming exactly the creature she'd feared. But watching him dissolve into nothing had been worth every day it cost me.
The woman screams—a sound like breaking crystal and dying hope—and I realize with perfect certainty that I feel everything. Every nerve ending sings with dark ecstasy, every shadow that moves at my command sends shivers of pleasure down my spine. The part of me that should recoil in horror has been devoured by something far more honest, far more true.
I have become death, destroyer of mediocre lovers and inconvenient witnesses.
Nesilhan was right about what I'd become. She always did have excellent instincts about people. Pity she didn't stick around to see how spectacularly accurate her predictions were.
The burned remains hit the ground with a wet thud that barely registers. The woman spins around, naked and trembling, her scream piercing the night as she stares at what's left of her lover. Poor thing. She has no idea this is just the opening act.
I step toward her, shadows coiling around me like smoke given purpose, and she backs against the tree with nowhere left to run. Her eyes are wild, pleading, and so beautifully terrified that something long-dormant stirs in my chest.
"Please," she gasps, "please, I haven't done anything to you."
"No," I agree, my voice surprisingly gentle even to my own ears. "You haven't. But you see, that's the thing about being a monster—we don't particularly care about fairness anymore."
I reach for her throat, not to kill but to feel the rapid flutter of her pulse against my palm. Life, desperate and fragile, beating against the darkness I've become. She tries to pull away, but shadows hold her in place with infinite patience.
"What's your name?" I ask.
"A-Amira," she whispers.
"Amira." I taste the name, roll it around my mouth like wine. "Do you know what it means?"
She shakes her head, tears streaming down her face in silver trails.
"Princess," I tell her, and my smile feels unnatural, like pretense. "How fitting. Though I'm afraid this particular fairy tale doesn't have a happy ending."
The darkness in me pulses, fed by her fear, by the salt of her tears, by the exquisite pain of everything I've lost. It whispers sweet promises of revenge, of making the world pay for taking away the one thing that mattered.
And for the first time in months, I listen.
"My lord," Emir says carefully, stepping into the clearing like a man approaching a wild animal. His face is pale, eyes wide as he takes in the carnage—the ashes that were once a man, the terrified woman pinned by my shadows.
I turn to him with a sardonic smile that doesn't reach my eyes. "You know, Emir, Nesilhan always said I'd become a monster. I do believe she was right—though I suspect she pictured something with more scales and fewer witty one-liners."
The woman—Amira—tries to crawl away, and I watch her with the detached amusement of someone observing an interesting insect. "It's fascinating, really. She fled because she couldn't bear what I might become. And here I am, exactly as advertised. If only she could see me now—she'd be so proud of her prophetic skills."
I release my hold on Amira, not out of mercy but out of boredom. She continues her desperate crawling, gasping and sobbing, and I find myself wondering if this is what rock bottom looks like, or if there are still deeper depths to explore.
"We should leave," Emir murmurs, but I can see it in his eyes, too. The fear. The recognition of what I've become. What we've all become in the shadow of my transformation.
"Yes," I agree, turning away from the wreckage I've made. "After all, there's so much more world to disappoint, and I'd hate to keep it waiting."
As we walk away, leaving Amira to pick up the pieces of her shattered evening, I feel the last vestiges of the man I used to be slip away like smoke. In their place, something else grows—something fed by shadow and loss and the particular kind of madness that comes from loving someone who will never come home.
The dead, after all, should know better than to make prophecies they can't stick around to see fulfilled.
2
The Stranger's Arrival
Nesilhan
The needle slipsthrough my finger for the third time this morning, and I curse under my breath as blood wells from the tiny wound. Mira glances up from her herbs, concern creasing her weathered features.
"Your hands are shaking again," she observes, setting down her mortar and pestle. "Perhaps you should rest."
