Abolisher
8.

Delaya Fairdust returned two days later.

Azryle stood on an empty bridge, watching the water beneath it as moonlight wiggled with its surface—he’d slid out of the inn as soon as Ferouzeh’s breaths had turned heavy enough to suggest she wouldn’t rouse even if a nearby building crumpled down, to catch himself open air—when Fairdust came attacking him from behind.

She was fast as a cat, silent as a cat—moved in a feline grace—but Azryle had his ripper speed, senses. When she so much as attempted to slide a dagger to his neck, Azryle had her wrist gripped.

Her dark eyes widened.

But before Azryle could even slide his own dagger from beneath his sleeve, somehow—somehow—she snaked her arm free from his tight grip. And went sliding away, crouching.

Fairdust lifted to her feet in that same feline grace—her rose-gold hair caught the moonlight as she did. “At least you’re not a drunken fool today.” Then added with a wink, “Your Highness.”

“And you’re sloppy as before,” muttered Azryle.

“You took something.” Her frustration prickled at his skin. “Thievery doesn’t befit a prince.”

“And inattentiveness doesn’t a well-known thief.”

She sneered, “What, you want a pat on your back for mustering that much information?”

Azryle shrugged. “Kefaas Petsov’s whereabouts would do.”

“You want his whereabouts? You’re going to have to tear them out from my throat. As for what you took …” Two knives slid into her either hand as she exposed her palms. “I’m going to steal it back from your corpse anyway. You know”—a smirk—“like a thief.”

Then she was advancing towards him. Her steps started slow, then she broke into a run. Azryle marveled at the lightness of her as she moved, as if her feet weren’t touching the ground, as if an invisible ground layered atop the one he stood on. As if she were levitating.

As she advanced, she hurled a dagger first.

Azryle swept. In the barest moment, he heard the splash of river as the weapon cracked the surface of the water, before Fairdust appeared at his side and attempted stabbing his waist. But—

Azryle gripped her hand.

Those gold-cored dark eyes—lively with fury—met his before bright light laminated her head to toe—the way it had Syrene’s after she’d driven that sword in her chest. Azryle’s eyes snapped shut at the sudden brightness, and had a good sense to recoil a few steps before she could make the most of his sudden blindness and stab him.

He opened his eyes as the brightness behind his lids began abating.

Paused.

Fairdust wasn’t there.

He whirled, listening, feeling—

She wasn’t on the bridge at all. Instead—

Azryle looked up in time to catch a hawk tearing past the winds and nearing his face—

His first instinct was to move—to duck—but even as he knew it was too late for either, he managed to move slightly and bring an arm to his face to keep the bird from shredding his face. The hawk’s claws tore the leather and skin.

Pain lanced up his arm, blood trickled, and Azryle swore.

The hawk was back in the skies, and he marked his target, a dagger sweetly slithering to his palm.

Azryle tracked its moments, the unnaturally swift grace and the way it sized him up before hurtling for him with the speed of a lightning bolt. He waited as it drew nearer, nearer—

Midway, bright light once again took over the bird—looking like an enormous star falling in his direction—and Azryle thought she would return back to her human form but—

Delaya Fairdust landed atop him as a leopard, throwing him off mentally and physically.

A shapeshifter.

Azryle didn’t have the time to let that sink as they went rolling across the floor—the animal trying everything to get its claws under his skin. She snarled atop him, those elongated fangs and canines too near his neck—

And then Azryle was on the top, the dagger poised to be driven through her—

Another flash of bright light and Fairdust vanished beneath him, and Azryle was on his knees. He motioned enough to catch a rat leaping off the bridge—

An eagle emerged.

She opened her talons and dove for him—

Azryle had had enough.

He reached in for that ounce of dark mejest burrowed within him like tons of darkest ink residing in one part of the bluest sea, the power he’d buried deep within himself long ago, and never went in search for it.

World seemed to slow down, everything around him seemed to still as he grazed that part of his mejest; it came alive. Boulders seemed to have been slammed into him as power whizzed inside him like a tamed beast finally freed. As if his touch a spell-breaker, Azryle’s legs buckled as that seed unfolded like an enormous tree.

His pulses sharpened and shrieked in his ear; power bellowed its triumph in his head.

And when Azryle opened his eyes, Fairdust was still afloat—the world still in a slow motion he didn’t comprehend, not when this force clouded his mind, separated him from the world.

Azryle knew what he would replace before he looked down at his hands.

Dark mist looped around his fingers like a shadow come alive. As if the night had reshaped itself and had come to him without its stars and moon.

He looked to the eagle, and cocked his head—only willed it—and the bird toppled to the ground. Fainted.

This slight use of this cunning power sent pain piercing in the vein at his temple, and Azryle gasped when he tugged it back to himself—forced the tree back in the folds of its seed—with all his strength as if it were a mere cloth.

As if he’d indeed pulled off some diaphanous cloth obscuring the world, the night seemed to brighten around him, the world resumed.

And, after making sure no one was around to witness the Pall Moira in his vulnerable state, Azryle swept to his knees and gasped down the untainted air.

✰✰✰✰✰

Syrene jerked awake.

Her heart was hammering, sweat sliding down her face in the chilly night.

It felt as if a mountain had been poured inside her, as if she weighed thrice more than she’s weighed when she’d gone to bed.

Her hand involuntarily reached for the locket hanging from her neck, fingers curled around Quemcet. But this reverberating bellowing in her entire body refused to let her heart calm—

It’d never occurred before—many things with Drothiker, many things with her own mejest rubbing against Drothiker—but never this. As if a phantom obliteration was taking place inside her.

Still, Syrene would take no chances—not before she’d spoken to Eliver again tomorrow.

She swung her legs off the bed and slid out—the cold bit at her bare feet. She began undressing as she walked to the bathroom—was naked before she reached it.

Syrene walked straight into the shower stall and let the icy water numb—suppress—whatever power had unlatched.