Night of Masks and Knives: Book 1 – Chapter 9

“Skydguard are scattered everywhere across the grounds. Do you think they were waiting for her?” Vali asked. He kept tilting his head side to side, doubtless sounds were striking him in every direction.

The same way Raum could see inhuman distances, Vali could hear the slightest gasp of breath from lengths away when he used his sensate mesmer.

Skydguard everywhere.

I’d not planned on such a fight, but such things happened whenever the Black Palace and masquerade were involved. I’d come mere moments after she’d abandoned the loft, mere moments before the guards attacked.

Now, we’d end it swiftly.

I tugged the black hood over my head. “I’ve no doubt each guard has been waiting to take her the moment they discovered those vials.”

With a simple gesture, I signaled for Vali and the rest of the guild to abandon the hayloft and take Strom land for ourselves. No mistake, there was always a warped thrill at the idea of cutting down a few skydguard.

More than blood and bone, what I wanted to avoid was her.

After this, there would be no barriers between us, no illusions, and I still had no thought on how to manage it.

A fire of anger burned inside my chest, the constant heat of resentment and fear lived beneath the surface.

I didn’t take well to my foundation being rocked, and to have her among us would shift everything.

There was no other choice; I’d dropped focus, drawn her in, and made the deal. Whether I wished to or not, I’d honor the bargain. She’d join us, and for the coming weeks the Nightrender would be a piece of her existence.

Only the Nightrender. I would be no one else. No matter what other names she discovered.

I opened my palms and summoned darkness around me like a cloak of night. My eyes drifted from the latched window to the quilts folded neatly over the hay, then to the crooked table-shelf made from scrap wood and rusted nails.

The beginning of a smile was unwanted as I dragged my fingertips across the surface. Bleeding thing took me a week to build.

A scream from outside snapped my eyes off the pathetic shelf.

Darkness coated my eyesight like an old friend. In truth, I’d always been meant for frightening things.

I rolled my shoulders back, then abandoned the loft.

Outside, I breathed in the cool air, tinged in the coppery hint of blood, the salt of sweat, the rancid tang of piss as skydguard went against the Kryv.

The Guild of Kryv wasn’t large, but despite our few numbers, we knew how to kill with gory magnificence. Each Kryv wore blades sharper than anything, and at the front gate little Hanna and her brother, Ash, pounded rawhide drums painted in the oak tree of the gods. Both were dressed in black with rough lines of battle green and dark kohl streaked over their eyes.

Ash lifted his moonlight pale face, finding me as I stepped into the gardens.

“Terrify them!” he shouted.

I responded with a fist pound to my heart. Ash wanted to join the fight, but at only thirteen it was better to keep him back. The only way to convince the boy was to assign him the task of keeping his young sister safe.

Ash would pick Hanna every time.

Shrieks and cries of the dying guards faded beneath the hypnotic beat and delight of Kryv movements.

Raum and Tova were lost to me, caught in the mess of swords carving bodies, likely leading through the fight.

I didn’t need to search her out, didn’t need to oversee her removal. The Kryv were capable and would be better suited. I had already succumbed to distraction once. There would be no room for more.

I lost count of how many guards bloodied the grass before the air changed. Colder, a little harsher. From the gates to the gardens, darkness spread. Heady, tangible.

On my tongue the bittersweet tang of magic burrowed deep. Each breath drew in the chill of shadows.

There was nothing kind or beautiful about the mesmer of fear. It preyed upon folks’ weakest moments. In those moments when the heart stilled, when adrenaline flooded the blood, I took those fears and twisted them.

Enough terror lived on Strom lands tonight to feed my power until dawn.

I envisioned the skydguard in my mind, then directed the shadows to coil around them. Fear of death would give me the power to break bodies, but one slip, and I could strike the wrong side.

That was the trouble with fear. It was everywhere.

In the Kryv, the servants, the guards. Wading through whose was whose took more energy than the use of mesmer.

An ache bloomed up the back of my skull by the time I’d homed the shadows only around the skydguard.

In the next heartbeat, guards seized their own throats with a sort of pathetic desperation as I draped my cruel magic around them. To the naked eye there was nothing around their necks, nothing strangled them, only the night and blood. Inside, fear gripped them, and I transformed it into a weapon.

″By the gods.” A voice drew my focus to the edge of the gardens.

By one of the stone walls running the edge of the garden, she gaped at me, hand over her mouth. That fiery hair was damp across her forehead, those sharp, green-sea eyes wide and terrified.

.

Dammit. I blinked through the memory. A prompt reminder this entire scheme was a wretchedly foolish idea.

From where she stood, a potent mix of fear and intrigue confused my focus, enough some of the gasping skydguard slumped in relief as my mesmer retreated.

She hugged her middle and turned away from me as if my darkness might devour her. It would, should she get too close. I wouldn’t let it happen. For her sake or mine, I didn’t know, but this conflict of wanting her and resisting her grew tiresome.

I lowered my head, ensuring my hood hid my features. With a raised hand, once more skydguard gasped and clawed at their faces.

I made a tight fist.

The snapping of necks was grisly.

Malin leaned over and retched when a guard five paces from her went still, his body twisted and broken. The darkness recoiled, like serpents in the grass, and left a thin trail of blood spilling from the corner of the dead guard’s mouth.

Tova hooked a hand under her arm. “Are you injured?”

″No.” Malin’s breaths came in sharp, little gasps, eyes on me in horror. “The Nightrender.”

Blood pounded in my head. She feared me, and I should want it. But I could not deny there was a dull pain at the thought.

The doors of the longhouse clanged against the sides as Jens Strom rushed out, haggard, half-dressed. The way his eyes took in the bloody scene, the darkness, the Kryv, clearly, he’d been kept from intervening, only to break free to his land upended.

″Lynx.” The largest member of the guild hurried to my side. “Handle the woman. We’re leaving.”

Lynx wasn’t one to talk a great deal. Truth be told, beneath all his meat was a man who spent a great deal of time lost in books and thoughts of the stars and how they formed, how the world turned, how the seas shifted currents.

He was a puzzler, a poetic. But brutal in the same breath.

″Stop!” Jens shouted.

Malin whipped her head toward the sound of his voice, but Lynx was already on her.

One of his thick palms coated her entire face. In two breaths she went limp in his arms. His ability to calm the body to the point of sleep was useful, and if I had to guess, could be used for sinister things with enough strength.

With a simple whistle, Ash and Hanna’s drums played a new tune, signaling our time here was over.

With the last of my energy, I pulled shadows from the branches of the trees, the corners of the gardens, the forest, tightening them around every Kryv until they were concealed.

″No!” Jens shouted again as Lynx faded into the blackness with his stepdaughter. I was the last to leave, always remaining behind to see the Guild of Kryv safely removed from any fight. Jens had a wild look in his eyes when they locked on mine. I doubted he could see much of me, but he knew who looked back at him. His shoulders curved forward in a bit of defeat. “Bring her back and I will hide her away.”

″You had your chance and failed.”

″Why do you do this?”

A wicked grin spread over my lips. “Because I always keep my promises.”

House Strom was blanketed in night. Not even a single flicker of a candleflame could be seen as I disappeared with my guild. The past at my back and . . . at my front.