Jon Sprunk - Shadow's master

“I'd rather there wasn't a next time.” Caim turned to Kit. “Which way?”

“We should go back to the stairs,” she said. “They're the fastest way out of the building, but there's more guard rooms on the floors above.”

“Perfect,” Malig said with a grim smile. “Dray wanted to send Aemon off to heaven on a river of blood. I say we open the floodgates.”

Caim stayed by Kit's side as they made their way back to the stairs. All was quiet aside from the slap of their footsteps, and yet his stomach was clenched tight. It would only take one outcry, one alert guardsman, to ruin their chances. The guardroom on the next floor was empty. Malig found a long cloak to throw around his shoulders and a rack of swords. He tried a couple, swinging them around, and settled on a hand-and-a-half bastard sword with a wide blade.

Caim glanced back in the direction of the stairs. He didn't know which way to go from here. The shadow warriors had used a portal to transport him down to the dungeons. If he had his full strength back, that might have been an option now. Kit's offer echoed in his mind. You can have my blood.

He crammed it back with all his other problems. He needed to focus. “Where do we go from here?”

Kit pointed to a door on the other side of the room. “I think that will take us out to a lower level of the city.”

“Fuck leaving.” Malig struck his newfound sword against the stone floor so that the steel rang. “Let's go reap a slaughter on these pigs. For Dray and Aemon.”

“No.” Caim knew what he had to do, but enough people had died for his cause already. “Mal, you're taking Kit out of the citadel. Once you're back in town, find horses or steal them, and ride south-”

Kit leveled a finger at him. “No, Caim! I'm not leaving without you. We both go, or we both stay.”

“I have to complete what I started.”

“Fine,” she said. “Then I'm coming with you.”

“You're not Fae anymore.”

Malig frowned at Kit. “What?”

“I don't know how you managed it,” Caim continued, “but I won't let you put yourself at risk for me anymore.”

“You don't get to decide that,” she responded.

“No need to argue,” Malig said. “We'll all go look for some blood to spill.”

Caim stepped closer to Kit. Her eyes were huge pools of violet water threatening to overspill. “I can't lose you,” he whispered. “Please go. If I can, I'll find you after…”

“No you won't. But if I can't stop you, then remember this.” She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him with her open mouth. Warm, coppery liquid spilled onto his tongue. Caim tried to pull back, but she pressed herself harder against him. His efforts to break away lessened as a buzz stirred inside him. It began in his stomach and flowed outward through his entire body, filling him with a pure, white-hot energy. It cleansed away his exhaustion and pain. Even his hand ceased to bother him. When he opened his eyes, the world had changed. The walls of the room pulsed with life-tiny darknesses oozed down the surfaces and greeted him with soft chitters. Finally, he pushed her away.

“What did you-?”

Kit wiped her bloody lips with the back of her hand. “Call it a wedding gift. Now go kick some ass.”

Wedding gift?

Caim looked to Malig, and the Eregoth snorted. “Don't look to me for another kiss. And don't worry either. I'll get your girlfriend out of here. You sure you're going to be all right alone?”

“I'll manage.”

Kit gestured back to the stairwell. “Those go most of the way up. After that, I don't know. And there will be guards.”

Caim nodded. “I understand. Better get going.”

Malig peered out the other door. “Looks good. Come on, girlie.”

Kit stopped on the threshold. “Be careful, Caim.”

“I will.”

Malig saluted with his sword. “I got her, boss. Go get some.”

As the door closed behind them, Caim called to the shadows. They flew to him like old times, adhering themselves to his skin, their tiny claws nipping at his flesh. The worst was his flensed hand, but the shadows wrapped around it almost gently, enclosing it in a wriggling second skin.

Caim pulled a glove over his newly mended hand. His pulse pumped hard and steady through his veins. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face, along his jaw, and wavered on his chin. It fell, and he was gone before it hit the floor.

Caim climbed the tall steps of the staircase. Lamplight at each landing cast long shadows across the walls and ceiling. His knees ached a little, but the exercise felt good after being cooped up in the cell.

Windows studded the outer walls at each landing. Beyond their stone casements, the night sky rippled like a sheet of black silk. A moon would have been fitting, big and red like a spot of blood, but there was none. The citadel spread out beneath him in a darkly shining panorama. A great, dead city.

Caim ascended level after level, past empty halls gathering dust, until he reached the top landing. He inched open the door. The room beyond was empty. He entered what was either a long chamber or a wide corridor. A stone table was set against the left-hand wall with two clay jars. The air was dry and carried a faint scent of ordure, or maybe it was his imaginaion. In any case, he was alone. The tugging sensation reawakened in his head, coming from overhead and slightly north. Toward the apex.

He padded around to a bend to discover a door. The brass handle was corroded with verdigris. He lifted the latch and pushed it open. A low creak filled his ears as he peered through the gap. A hallway extended on the other side. The iron cressets on the walls were empty.

Caim advanced with every sense straining to its fullest. He passed an open archway leading into another room, square and deep with a high ceiling. A stone seat sat facing the doorway, flanked by a pair of cold braziers atop small caryatid pillars. He came across other rooms, some empty, others with a few pieces of furniture, but all of them dark. There was no color, no texture save smooth stone. A thick layer of dust covered their floors.

The hallway terminated in an archway. As Caim started toward it, the tromp of marching boots echoed down the hall, and a flicker of torchlight appeared ahead. Caim pressed himself against a wall, drawing the shadows around him. They chittered as they clung to him, and a spasm rippled through his chest. Not painful so much as jarring, like a jab to the breastbone. The feeling subsided just as two Northmen in black plate armor marched through the archway. One held a halberd across his chest, the other an oil-soaked torch.

Caim waited until the soldiers passed by, and then he emerged behind them. The torch-bearer's gasp was like air rushing from a bellows as the point of the suete knife punched through the mail webbing under his armpit. At the same time, the butcher's knife thrust between the gap of the halberdier's helmet rim and the collar of his backplate. Caim shoved hard with a foot stomp and pulled his knives loose as the Northmen toppled. The torch guttered on the floor and went out.

Shadows descended on the dying men, and through them Caim tasted the dwindling life forces, felt their energy flowing into his bloodstream. His heart beat strong and a trifle too fast, as if intoxicated by the power. Caim breathed through his nose until the rush abated.

The small chamber beyond the archway had a vaulted ceiling and four branching corridors, but no soldiers down any of them. He chose the north hallway and found more stairs at its end. This staircase had no landings, but kept rising around a central newel column as thick as a wagon wheel. Caim climbed with both knives ready. The stairs ended at a door made of black stone instead of wood. There was no handle or latch, but a circle had been carved into the center, two handbreadths across. Caim studied the door. It was well set into its frame. A slab of this size would have to weigh at least fifty stone.