Page 75 of The Shadow Prince's Ruin
She glances my way but seems ready to snap at any moment, and I can’t blame her when I peek through the leaves and see her father leaping away from the giant reptile like a flea. He’s still holding the dagger, and it’s only when I see him against the backdrop of the moon that I notice the dark vapor surrounding the blade. It disperses into a trail of pale dust, and the bassal follows it as if it was a cocaine addict desperate for even the smallest particle of the drug.
“He needs to throw it away. Now,” Sylvan hisses, crawling closer to join us at the vantage point, but neither of us wants to attract the monster’s attention. Still, we all gasp when Fenren stumbles over something hiding below the surface and narrowly avoids the charging animal. He is losing speed, tired of the chase, and as agile and strong as he might be, he has limits like anyone else.
Rolling away over the bright reflection of the moon above, Fenren manages to throw a rock at the bassal, but it just bumps off the armored back.
“It’s the most precious artifact he owns,” Ivy says, but Sylvan shakes his head.
“That creature eats shadowcraft. Fenren’s running around with a lure in hand!”
It might be dark, but I still notice the girl go pale. Her eyes dart between us, then beyond the bushes, but in the end she screams, “It’s after the blade!”
One of the beast’s heads is drawn to the noise, zeroing in on us with its golden eyes, but my initial need to run far, far away is drowned by terror when the other head clamps its jaws around Fenren’s legs.
Ivy shrieks when the cold-blooded monster’s other mouth seizes Fenren’s torso. The heads tug in opposite directions, and in the moonlight, the elf’s body opens and stretches like an accordion of guts.
With a cry of anguish, Ivy rolls away from us, out of the bushes, and toward the back of the hill, where the monster can’t see her. With her father gone, she feels no loyalty to us, nor any responsibility for our survival. It occurs to me that I could do that too—convince Sylvan to use his shadowcraft and run. He’d likely die in the confrontation before he drained enough of my vital power to make me faint, and I’d be free to live out my life in this fantastically terrifying world. But as the girl disappears from sight and both of the bassal’s heads have their fill of meat, I grab Sylvan’s hand.
“We should go,” I whisper, trying my best to not let fear take over and bring me to my knees. I didn’t survive prison and escape the cops all the way to a different world to die in the stomach of a two-headed dragon… thing.
Sylvan nods and crawls toward me, his hand on my shoulder as if he wants to communicate the depth of his trust. Behind him, the monster swallows the blade with a satisfied bellow, but instead of calming down like I expected it to, it turns all four of its eyes toward our hill.
I freeze, ready to turn into a rock and avoid moving until this thing loses interest, but its gaze flashes, and it bolts our way with terrifying speed. The hill is slightly higher than I am tall, and reptilian talons dig into the ground next to my leg moments later.
“Goddamn it,” I shout, capturing Sylvan’s gaze as we both roll away in different directions.
Sylvan is closer to the beast, and I scream in terror when the bassal’s heavy tail slams into him so hard, Sylvan’s thrown several feet away. My focus narrows when I see my fragile prince hold his shoulder, face twisted in pain as he struggles to get up. His eyes dart around, as if he’s lost his sense of direction, and I dash toward him.
I grab him and run up the hill. We will worry about his shoulder if we manage to survive this. As much as I despise the idea of having my energy drained, this is one of those situations that warrants it.
“Use it!” I yell. “Use my shadow!”
The bassal is on our trail, roaring to announce its hunger for flesh and shadow. As the toothy mouths open, blowing out the sharp odor of rot, a pull at the pit of my stomach tells me what’s about to happen. That beast’s gonna rip us to shreds.
Claws shoot from both of Sylvan’s hands and pierce two of the monster’s eyes. The injured head drops down the creature’s chest.
“Get behind me!” Sylvan says, and my world flickers as I follow his command. The air around us trembles and I can only hope he’s creating a shield around us, like he did for me at the tavern.
A feral cry resonates over the marshland and makes my ears ring as if it were a fire alarm. We’re knocked down by a shockwave so powerful that for a moment I worry I may never rise again, but Sylvan is already back on his feet. He between me and the monster, so small and yet so very powerful.
Pride fills my chest alongside guilt when I realize I scolded Sylvan for using a powerful weapon that could have saved Fenren’s life, if used without delay. But this isn’t the time to mourn bad decisions, because the air around the bassal shimmers, and my man sends his sharp claws at the remaininghead. I’m ready to cheer our victory, but the dark spikes that so easily cut into the beast’s flesh earlier break as they hit an invisible barrier.
Shock overpowers Sylvan’s features, but the monster shakes, and a black goo reminiscent of the liquid shadow I’ve seen Sylvan play with, oozes from the cracks between its scales. A tentacle shoots from the pool of shadow at our feet and attempts to strike the creature from the back, but it’s all for nothing, as it’s now protected by some kind of force field.
When the bassal jerks up to descend on us with its thick paws, I pull Sylvan back, saving him from talons that could tear through rock. The beast roars, but as the small body in my arms tenses and the shadows around us thicken, the invisible barrier around the reptile jitters, and the tentacle pressing on it from behind penetrates its bounds.
Heat blooms on my face, because this might be our only chance. I’m faint again, but it doesn’t matter. As powerful as my shadow might be, it’s not an unlimited resource, and we need to strike while the iron is hot.
“Kill it,” I shout into Sylvan’s ear as the creature turns its one functional head to see where it’s been injured. “You just need more shadow. Take it!”
His eyes flash in the dusky fog around us. “No! I’ve already taken too much. I can’t—”
I shouldn’t have been so prissy about his mistake. Hewasdrunk and was only taking baby steps in this whole shadow-borrowing business. Now I made him afraid of doing it even in a situation that warrants it.
I’m such a shithead.
“Doesn’t matter!”
The tentacle twists, stabbing at the bassal where it’s penetrating the barrier, and when the creature rolls off the hillwith a cry of agony, Sylvan stares at me, pale as a sheet. “We’ll just run and hide.”
