Page 106 of Curse of Darkness
He punches toward me in a mess of writhing shadows, and then he’s reforming into flesh, the blade materializing too.
My sword shrieks against his as I meet the blow. Forming it is instinct. I push back against him, seeing the shock on his face as he realizes that physically, I’m stronger than him.
“You’re old,” I grate out, shoving him back. “And maybe you were challenged once—when you hunted your brothers and sisters—but their children? They ran from you. They fled. And you cut them down as they did so. It’s been a long time since someone’s matched you, hasn’t it?”
Anger darkens his eyes. He hammers a blow at me that I barely meet. “You think you’re a challenge?”
I slam my palm against his chest and rip at one of the souls within him.
It comes to me as if it’s been waiting for me, the shadowy remnants of it curling around my fingers as I yank my hand back. Fury. It’s the one I once called Fury. The first Darkyn who ever tried to hunt me, and the first I consumed.
He must have somehow captured it when it was freed upon my death.
Malakhai staggers back, clutching at his chest.
“Yes,” Fury hisses inside me.
“Yes,” whispers Death.
“You’ve spent years trying to hunt the rest of our kin.” I attack with a blow that nearly finds his throat. “You’ve consumed us. Hunted us. Destroyed us.” Another flurry of swipes, his a little more desperate than mine. “But I’ve spent years thinking of you. Only you. Thinking of how I would one day ruin you.”
“I think I’ll make it slow,” he hisses, “when I rip your daughter’s soul from her.”
“Never.” Rage obliterates my vision as I attack him with a vengeance.
He’s on the back foot but there is victory in his eyes as he lures me toward him.
Malakhai vanishes into a whirl of shadow. It swarms toward me, and I barely have a second to try to predict where he’ll reform.
He explodes back into being, right in front of me. Shadow-merging takes a lot from you, but he only has to do it once. He only has to do itrightonce.
His sword glances off my hasty deflection and skates down my arm.
Staggering past, he turns and tosses his sword from hand to hand. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
I can’t hold the sword’s form.
Shadows bleed from it.
“No! Hold it!” screams Death.
But the blade vanishes, fragmenting into nothingness as I grip my wrist.
A sharp yowling echoes behind us, and then a creature forms at Malakhai’s throat.Grimm. Teeth and claws sunk deep into Malakhai’s jugular.
“What in the—?” Malakhai grabs the grimalkin and throws him at the ramparts.
Grimm vanishes half a second before he hits, and then Malakhai screams as the furball materializes right in front of his face, claws raking over his eyes and mouth.
I swear I’m never going to hear the end of it if that furry little prick actually succeeds in taking down one of the Darkyn.
“Well, you enormous overgrown bat, are you going to help me? Or just stand there gaping?”
“Maybe if I wait long enough, he’ll put you on a skewer,” I snarl, lunging forward.
“Grimm! Thiago!” Vi screams behind me. “Get down!”
Vi? What the fuck is she doing up here?
