“Don’t call me—damn it!” I jumped to the side as a sekya dove at me. The thing swept back up, cackling as I glanced down to make sure the one on the ground wasn’t moving. The unblinking stare looked dead to me. “I think I got—”

The eyes changed.

It was barely noticeable, just a faint glow returning to its golden eyes. The sekya gave me a bloody smile.

“Son of a bitch!” I shouted as the sekya rose, its wings spreading as it lifted into the air. “I can see Kars through your godsdamn chest! How is this possible?”

Kars turned, his head jerking as he blinked. “Well, that is not something you hear or see often.”

“Their head!” Rhain shouted as he rounded the side of the palace. “You have to destroy their heads!”

“Now, you tell us?” Bele snapped, the crackling bow dissipating as she reached to her hip and drew a shadowstone sword.

“I just got here.” Rhain skidded to a stop, his jaw unlocking as he saw me. “What are you doing out here?”

“Being unhelpful,” Bele retorted.

Lifting an arm, I extended my middle finger toward her. “The head, you said?” I grinned tightly. “All right, then.” My chin dipped as I summoned the eather. Thrusting out my hand, spitting and hissing eather streaked out.

The eather split the sekya’s head right down to its neck. My lip curled as it once more landed in a messy heap—an even messier heap. “I think I might vomit.”

Rhain rushed to my side. “What are you doing out here?” he repeated.

“Killing sekya.” I frowned. “Or trying to.”

“Yeah, I see that.” He stepped in, lowering his voice. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

I ignored him, not taking my eyes off the thing on the ground for more than a second. “I know. There’s no way this thing is going to—”

Rhain grabbed my arm, shoving me behind him as he rammed his sword through the underside of a sekya’s chin, catching it in midair. He grunted, taking its weight. Withdrawing his sword, he had already faced me as the thing hit the ground and shattered into ash. Rhain was speaking, but I wasn’t listening as I slowly turned back to the other sekya. That one hadn’t broken apart. I looked down, and my mouth dropped open.

Filaments of tissue stretched out from the two halves of the split head. The fibers connected and twisted around one another, drawing the two sides together.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shouted.

Rhain paled as the head stitched itself back together. “That is…” He swallowed hard, stepping forward and bringing his sword down on its head.

The sekya broke apart in a musty shower of ash.

Eather pulsed in my chest, warning me that death was afoot. “I really can’t kill them!”

His brows knitted. “Then you should get inside,” he instructed. “We’ve got this handled.”

A sword fell between us, bouncing off the ground. A body followed, smacking with a wet, fleshy sound.

I raised my brows.

“We’ll get it under control,” he amended with a wince. “Nyktos should be here shortly. Go inside.”

“That is not happening.” I dipped, not looking at the guard’s stomach or what was hanging out of it as I picked up the fallen shadowstone sword. “I can still use this, right?”

“I…I guess so.” Rhain frowned. “But I also don’t know why you can’t kill them with eather. That’s what Nyktos does.”

“Of course, he can kill them,” I muttered, turning around as my grasp on the sword firmed. The answer to why I couldn’t was somewhere in my head, but I really didn’t have time to figure it out.

A sekya had taken notice of me from where it hovered. Raising my free hand, I wiggled my fingers. It cocked its head to the side. The sekya smiled, baring its dagger-like teeth.

I returned the smile.

Letting out a powerful shriek, it flew toward me. I waited until it was inches from me, and then I moved. Twisting to the side, I popped up behind it as its talons dug into the ground. Stepping forward, I drove the sword through the back of its head. The feeling of the shadowstone meeting little resistance brought forth a twisted surge of satisfaction. It felt like forever since I’d held and used a sword outside of training. The last time… I wasn’t going to think about the last time. I watched with relief as the sekya shattered.

Ignoring Rhain’s glare, the robe’s hem snapped at my ankles as I spun toward the cluster of guards hacking away at the sekya. One of the creatures with a shadowstone arrow protruding from its chest swooped down, aiming for Kars. I rushed forward and grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on. Fingers sank into the surprisingly soft wings, and I jerked the creature back.

The sekya’s screech ended abruptly as I jabbed the sharp edge of the blade through the back of its skull. It spasmed and then disintegrated into a fine, dusty mist.

“Fates,” Bele snarled, cleaving a head from a sekya’s shoulders. She stared northwest. “What is going on?”

The rich, metallic scent filling the courtyard settled in the pit of my stomach as I followed her gaze. My heart sank. Another dozen or so sekya neared the Rise. Nearly the same number of guards stood, but many were injured, and the creatures were fast with their talons and teeth. This was about to get really bad.

I turned to the guard I quickly recognized as Eamon. “Help get the injured inside.” He gave me a quick nod and I spun back to the others. “I’ll take them down. While they’re out, go for their heads,” I instructed, the eather throbbing in my chest. “Be quick.”

“Done,” Kars shouted.

I was already walking forward, raising my right hand. The air around me hummed with power as fine threads of silvery-gold eather drifted from my fingers, covering the ground. The web of eather formed, its branches clawing at the sky like ascending stars. I willed the essence toward the sekya—

Suddenly, the realm became silent.

Still.

Everything north of the wall turned black as the night sky seemed to deepen and come alive with dark, violent power. The pulse of awareness in my chest intensified as the air charged, raising the fine hairs all over my body.

Several of the sekya in the sky shrieked, their wings pounding rapidly at the air as thick shadows rippled over crackling arcs of energy, snuffing out the light—my light.

My mouth dropped open as I slowly lowered my hand. All across the courtyard, the sekya on the ground spun toward the smoky mass.

Whirling shadows poured down the side of the Rise and the sekya scrambled in different directions. They were fast.

But he was faster.

Dark tendrils snaked out from the void of churning nothingness, streaking across the sky and the ground. Strands of thick shadows wrapped themselves around the bodies of the airborne sekya. Funnels of whirling, coal-black mist raced across the ground, and the shrieks rose to an ear-piercing volume. Threads of silvery eather spun through the swirling darkness, slamming into the sekya. Their shrieks were cut short, one after the other, as my gaze fixed on the center of the shadowy mass above the Rise.

Ash lowered to the courtyard with immense widespread wings made of sparking eather and unrelenting shadows. His skin reminded me of the darkest hour of night pierced by streaks of starlight. The tunic he’d donned earlier was gone. Silver energy leapt from his white-as-snow eyes and outstretched palms.

The breath I took went nowhere. I couldn’t look away as the sekya continued to fall around us, their bodies shattering. His feet touched the ground, sending shadows billowing all around him. This was Nyktos, a Primal of Death, in his true form.

And I was in awe.

Delicate tremors coursed up and down my body as he stalked toward me. Shadowy wisps bled into the air around him at his approach. The kaleidoscope of shadows and silvery eather swirling through his flesh slowed. Behind him, the last of the sekya splintered, their feathered wings fragmenting, and half-mortal bodies becoming nothing more than faintly glowing embers. Ash’s wings dissipated. Tension surged in the air as a brutal harshness etched itself into his striking features.