The First grinned maniacally. There was nothing comforting about the gesture.
“See?” she hissed, her eyes widening as a mad gleam overtook them. “That’s whyIam Ithiar’s chosen daughter. Powerful beyond belief, a member of the Twelve, and a true ruler of this land. No one can stand against me.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe even after everything they’d gone through, they would still fail.
Maybe.
But Marius wouldn’t go down without a fight. Not after havingcome so far.
And so, with one final prayer to the gods, he met the First’s gaze and smiled back. “You’ll have to get through me first.”
Fury, Anger, and Despair
Death was here.
Vivienne thought she’d been in its cold presence before, but she'd been wrong. None of her lived experiences compared to the savage destruction taking place all around her.
An hour ago, she never would have believed that five creatures could cause so much destruction in such a short period of time.
Now, though?
The awful proof surrounded her.
Black blood coated Vivienne's sword as she danced around one of the vile creatures that had stepped out of the darkness. She refused to call them vampires because they were nothing like her.
The aberrations had killed eleven vampire soldiers in less than a minute before the rest of the army realized what was happening.
Now, the strange creatures were battling the army. Even their movements and strategies made no sense. The undead seemed to be dancing to music only they could hear, switching places around the forest and terrorizing as many vampires as possible.
Vivienne was fighting alongside Jasper Boucher, a soldier she’d worked with several decades ago in the north. He’d been Made around the same time as her, and even though they’d never had any romantic connection, Vivienne considered him a good acquaintance.
Jasper panted beside her, gripping a battle axe made of shadows, as they stared at the monster in front of them. Crimson blood coated it from head to toe, but it didn’t seem to care.
Vivienne’s gaze darted past the creature to the prince. He was back to circling the First, the obsidian blade glinting in his hand. Every part of her yearned to be fighting at his side, but she couldn’t until these creatures were dealt with.
She’d already stabbed the monster in the stomach, and black blood was pouring out of the wound, but the creature didn’t seem to care.
Jasper glanced at Vivienne, yelling to be heard over the chaos of the battle around them. “This is bad!”
He’d always been one to point out the obvious. When they first met, it had amused, but now? Not so much.
“Yes.”
That was all she managed to say before the creature lunged towards Jasper. It moved with unnatural speed, snarling and snapping its long fangs together like a feral dog. It sounded like a Fledgling lost in bloodlust, but it lacked any sense of life that vampires had when they were Made.
The monster was dead, but alive. There was no life in its eyes, and yet it killed with fierce intensity.
Jasper swung out of the way, swinging his axe. The weapon hit the creature in the right arm, slicing clean through the limb. Ink sprayed everywhere.
The creature screamed, incensed at the loss of its arm. Instead ofslowing down, it bolted towards Jasper. It was moving faster than before. How was that possible?
Even with Vivienne’s vampiric senses, she could barely track the undead monster as it raced in a blur.
“Jasper, look out!” she shouted.
He spun around, lifting his bloody axe with a roar and swinging it through the air. Shadows rippled around the weapon, and he snarled.
A discordant screech ripped from the creature’s lips as it evaded the blow. The fingers of its remaining hand curled into a fist and punched through Jasper’s tunic and chest as though his body were made of paper.