Chapter 17

Chapter

Seventeen

SILAS

What the absolute fuck is he doing? If he had time to save someone, why the fuck didn't he save himself?

We're mere feet from the ravine's edge. If I can twist myself around and clamber up, we'll reach it with ease.

Dandelion doesn't need to be told this as he sinks his claws into the face of the cliff and effortlessly hauls himself up and out, leaving me dangling upside down.

I can't see Callisto… I haven't seen him since the moment he hit, but I can see all the rocks… all the things he could have hit on his way down… things that could have killed him… and rage eats through me.

Swinging myself up, I catch the root and use it to climb out to where Dandelion is standing, tail twitching. His ears are pinned back and he's hissing and growling up a storm.

There are about forty people facing us and about sixty undead.

I won't be able to do anything about the undead with my magic, but if I kill the necromancer, I won't have anything to worry about. Sidestepping over to Dandelion, I draw my sword out of its sheath.

"Why do you want him?" I ask as one of the undead ventures too close to Dandelion, who tears his head off and turns the undead's body back to dust.

"You ten, go down to the river and find the other. If he's dead, bring the body back to me," a man orders as ten of the living break off.

When I step forward, the men and women facing me tense, prepared for the fight, and the undead fixate on me. I take a deep breath before pure darkness descends upon us, fading in and out as the world shifts from dark to light to dark again. They're confused and caught off guard as the light from the sky is sapped from their eyes and all that surrounds us is blackness as dark as a moonless night. But it doesn't stay dark; instead it flickers in and out so they can only see me for the mere seconds light touches them before they are blinded again. The mere shift in the world around us elicits fear in them. When they hear me coming in, they rush me, prepared to cut me down but as one draws near me, he screams and tears back, slamming into one of the men coming for me as I can taste his terror.

Rushing forward, I cut down the closest of the men as what looks like a dark essence slips out of him. It wraps around my wrist before I send it forward to where it tears through the body of another man as more essence joins the first.

The flashing darkness makes it impossible for them to see what's happening as I walk toward them and hear their panic. It's not a sound I enjoy, but they've thoroughly pissed me off. They've chased us down. They've tried to hurt Callisto. They've thrown him down into the water where I don't know if he's dead or alive.

And rage is eating through me.

I don't even have to kill another, I just stand there in the pulsing darkness, able to see them not as I see them during the day but as dark lights that originate inside them. Their souls, perhaps? And when they are cut down, that light is drawn out of them as their body hits the ground before their soul comes to me like I am its master. I have complete control over it as I send it out into the darkness to kill for me.

Even though the flashing darkness only spreads over a small area, it's like they can't find their way out no matter how hard they try. The pull of my magic keeps them locked into this hell with me. They were ruthless before, prepared to slaughter me, but now that they're met with death, they draw back, well aware they've met their final enemy.

An undead, oblivious of what I'm doing since my magic can only affect those who contain souls, comes crashing forward, but Dandelion tears it down before drawing away from me, like even he's afraid of me. Even so, he watches my back as I fixate on the necromancer who is doing all he can to end my life, but he's not fast enough as the essences that I can control focus on him… and tear right through him.

And as he dies, the undead turn to dust around us, once again coming to rest.

But I can't rest yet… not until I hear the final scream.

With that, the essences return to me, and with a swing of my sword, I slice through them, freeing their souls from my control.

Light returns as the darkness disappears and the dead men and women lie before me, all thirty of them, and I barely had to lift a finger. From here, not a single one of them appears to be wounded besides the very first man I took the life of.

Stepping away, I bump into Dandelion, who looks a bit startled to be facing me. Even he is scared of me.

Callisto says he's afraid I'll think of him as a monster.

I'm the biggest monster he'll ever have the pleasure of meeting.

"Come on, we have to reach the bottom," I say as I swing up onto Dandelion's back and nudge him with my legs. "Run."

And without hesitation, the beast runs.