A Dawn of Onyx (The Sacred Stones, #1)(99)

A sob choked out of me.

I knew we needed to keep moving, but there was nowhere to go.

Shit, shit shit.

Kane looked up at the night sky with something like acceptance. He released a long exhale.

“I’m sorry,” was all he said.

With one hand still holding Leigh to him and another pressed outward toward the soldiers, he closed his eyes.

It was hard to see in the dark, and the billowing clouds of smoke had blotted out any moonlight that might have illuminated the scene before me. Still, I watched as a single pitch-black tendril of shadow, as if with a mind of its own, wove through the army marching toward us. Splintering off into vines of black ribbon, silently, every single soldier in front of him was smothered by the dark, twisted specters. Agonized cries for mercy pierced through the night but Kane didn’t relent. He focused harder, conjuring darkness and thorns and shadow and dust. Choking, sputtering, the men fell one by one. Kane didn’t move a single muscle, but his jaw was steel, his eyes ruthless and blazing.

My blood turned to ice, my throat closing with a strangled gasp. I knew what he was. I knew what he must have been capable of.

Still, nothing could have prepared me for the monstrousness of his predatory, fatal power—the instantaneous death of so many men.

I backed away instinctively.

“Run,” he bit out, dropping Leigh to the ground, so he could use both his hands. “Make it to the beach.”

I knew what he was. I had accepted it.

But the vicious, thorned wisps had sprouted from the very earth and destroyed—no, decimated and decayed—each man. One moment, alive, enraged, ready to kill—the next, a pile of ash carried on a wind.

It was enough to seize the air from my lungs and turn my stomach to sloshing water.

“Go!” he roared at us.

I had to move. We had to move.

I whirled, taking Leigh’s hand and did as he said—running as much away from him as toward the hope of safety. The salamanders still blocked our path back toward the castle, and thus the caves to the beach, but a second wave of inky blackness descended on the salamanders in front of us, drowning them in a suffocating tidal wave of shadow. The creatures spit out fire in retaliation and I ducked, shielding Leigh in my arms but it never reached us. Instead the fire turned to ash midair and rained down on the grassy hills like sickly snow, lit by moonlight and darkness and death.

We kept running, past the smoke billowing out of the burnt castle and toward the beach.

Amber and Garnet soldiers were everywhere, reveling in the screams, as they dragged pleading souls out of the armory and the blacksmith. Blood pooled in the dirt and grass in little puddles, our feet splashing in them like a rainy day.

We dodged through shrieking people and burning structures, past warring soldiers, sword fights, and gore I would never be able to strip from my mind, let alone Leigh’s.

Upon passing a dismembered corpse, I whispered to her to close her eyes. But I knew she wouldn’t.

The Fae King had done this. Had destroyed this peaceful capital of earth and flowers and saltwater. Reduced it to a bloody, burnt husk.

He had to die.

He had to, for what he had done.

Kane would make sure of it.

Finally, we made it to the stone outcropping that sheltered the beach.

“Follow me,” I whispered to Leigh, heart in my throat, as we trudged through the caves surrounding the cove. Our feet were cold, ankles itchy with saltwater and rough sand. Only the sound of crashing waves and faint battle cries penetrated the still caves. That and our ragged, desperate breaths.

Through the end of one cavern, I could just make out the beach. Soldiers warred on the sands, the now abrasive sound of metal on metal like a violent chorus rattling in my skull. On the far edge of the cove the enemies had built an encampment of sorts, surrounded by cannons and fire-breathing beasts, and a row of soldiers behind that.

If we could make it past that we could reach the fully rigged ships, where they were anchored in the shallower water near the cliffs. Except—only ships with Amber’s leafy emblem filled Siren’s Bay. Where were Peridot’s?

“They must have sunk the others,” said Kane. I nearly smacked my head on the stone behind me in my shock.

Where had he come from?

The instinct to wrap my arms around him and rejoice in his safety was tempered by the memory of his strange power. I took a step back. Leigh seemed to feel the same, sliding behind me ever so slightly.

“You’re afraid of me.” He said, face dark. It wasn’t a question, but I still couldn’t fathom a response. He swallowed hard. “We’ll have to take one of their ships.”

“What about everyone else?”

“I’m sure that’s what they’re thinking, too.” If they made it this far. He didn’t have to say it.

I squinted into the darkness. The moon was a pale, glimmering reflection in the ocean waves and a strange contrast to the bloodshed on the sand before us. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed movement near the sea.

Not the chaos of battle, but an anchor floating out of the ocean, moving of its own accord.

“There,” I gestured to Kane. “That’s got to be Mari.”

He quirked a brow at me. “The redhead’s a witch?”

Ugh. Now was not the time for this conversation. “Yes, and Briar Creighton’s amulet isn’t in your study anymore. Also, we almost killed your pet strix.”