Vivienne was stiff beside him. She seemed on edge, and she hadn’t spoken for hours.
Nearly a half-hour had passed since the last wail. He’d been counting the minutes. The sun was slowly setting, but it wasn’t fast enough.
And then it happened.
Another scream ripped through the silence, but this one was closer than the others. Marius sucked in a breath as he searched for the source of the sound. He didn’t see anything in front of him. His eyes swung to the left. Nothing but darkness met his gaze.
A second screech came from his right. It was completely dark, but this time, the shadows moved. Thick swaths of ink swarmed, gathering together and forming a creature of pure night. It was there, but not.Black, but darker than the rest of the shadows. Corporeal in a place where nothing had been moments ago.
It shouldn’t have existed, and yet, it did.
Marius’s stomach curled in on itself as the darkness evolved yet again.
A pair of blood-red eyes blinked to life as a mouth curved into a gruesome, macabre smile. Four arms that were somehow there, but also not, flailed towards them. Sharp claws decorated the ends of inky hands, glimmering in the darkness.
The sun was setting, but it didn’t matter.
Death had been hunting them all day, and now, it had found them.
The creature cocked its head and opened its mouth, revealing rows upon rows of black, serrated teeth. Its tongue was made of shadows, and a red ember glowed from within its body.
The air around the beast was icy, and Marius realized the temperature had been dropping all day because of this creature.
It was the storm, the ice, the cold, the shadows.
Had it been stalking them from the moment they arrived?
Scarlet eyes blinked, and then, the creature lunged. It was a bolt of crimson lightning as it darted beneath their overhang, screeching at the top of its lungs.
“By all the gods,” Vivienne swore beside him. “Fight!”
The command was unnecessary. Marius’s dagger was already flying through the air.
He held his breath, his arm still outstretched, as the blade landed in the creature’s left retina with a gruesomesquelch.
Blood poured from the creature’s eye, illuminated by the ember within the beast.
Time slowed to a crawl.
Drip, drip, drip.
Onyx blood pooled on the ground.
The shadow monster’s right eye slowly blinked.
Knots twisted in Marius’s stomach.
Vivienne said something, but he couldn’t hear her over the monster’s wail.
But it didn’t fall over. It didn’t die.
Midnight ribbons reached up, yanking out the blade. Ice formed around the dagger, and inky blood poured from the wound.
A half-scream, half-laugh ripped through the air as the creature tossed the weapon aside. The dagger clattered against stone, but Marius didn’t pull his gaze away to see where it landed.
Vivienne shouldered past him, her sword held high.
“No more wasting weapons. On my command, we fight,” she hissed. “Got it, Prince?”