Page 201 of The Incendiary

Light from the torches our fighters carried flickered across his paling face. “The Caves are warded. They’re safe.”

“Maybe. For now,” I answered grimly. Was he putting pieces together? That Simeon and his wards were weakening? I’d learned firsthand just how manipulative Simeon was. It was no surprise that the Wintertons and the other Elders blindly followed him. But I knew Elias had begun to question.

“We all run,” Elias announced, nudging me back toward my horse.

“No.” I held my ground. You couldn’t run from Molochai’s shadows. “I’m the one he’s trying to trap. I’ll stay and fight him. He can’t kill me, anyway.” Even if I wanted to stay dead, my body would inevitably bring me back.

He paled. “Ary⁠—”

A shrill scream split the humid nighttime air. Behind Eli, three of our soldiers were impaled by ropes of shadows emerging from the trees like arms. Their bodies were yanked and thrown violently from the backs of their horses, slammed into tree trunks or the ground, killing them instantly. It happened so fast that I was sure most of them never knew what struck them. For those few, it was one small mercy.

Elias moved to shield me just as a gust of chilling wind tore through the pathway and extinguished our group’s torches.

“You have to run, all of you!” I screamed, reaching for Helios’s fire. “Please⁠—”

A rope fastened around my ankles, snapped them together, and jerked me off my feet. Pain ricocheted up my spine when I was slammed into the earth.

And then I was being dragged faster than any horse or human could run.

“Aryella!” Elias’s roar faded into an echo within seconds. I thought I heard Mavic and Ezra shout, but they were quickly silenced.

I was with them, and then I wasn’t.

My body urged me to scream for help, but I focused my energy on curling forward and attempting to free my legs from the shadowy ropes that bound me. The friction between my body and the ground as I flew across the forest floor, branches and debris whipping and cutting at my skin, sent burning pain through my muscles. Each time I touched the ropes, the shadows pricked at my skin as if alive and vehemently objecting to my touch.

After a minute, I skidded to an abrupt halt in the middle of a clearing. I scrambled dizzily to my feet and lit the air with Aesta’s light, only for it to be snuffed out less than a second later.

And again. And again.

Grunting in frustration, I spun in circles while my eyes tried to adjust to the moonlight through the clouds above. When I was tossed to the ground and flipped from my back to my stomach, the pain in my abdomen was so brutal that it caused my vision to blur.

I groaned and rose again. I would fight him, no matter how many times he knocked me down. His shadows ripped my feet out from under me and slammed me back onto the ground. This time, the force of it left me wheezing.

“Fuck… you!” I screeched, refusing to stay down.

Footsteps drew closer, and I heard Molochai’s voice.

“Hello again, little mutt.”

I reached for Aesta’s light once more, but I wasn’t fast enough. Shadows wrapped around my throat, and I was thrust into corrupted darkness.

FIFTY-EIGHT

ARYELLA

When I woke up with my back flat on the ground, still fully clothed, the first thing I wondered was why I wasn’t tied up naked to a tree.

A small mercy, I supposed.

I scrambled to my feet to see Molochai standing only a few feet away, hands folded patiently at his waist. He had the clearing lit with a few torches, but as far as I could see, no one was watching. This time, it was only him and me.

I braced myself for another strike of shadows but saw my ankles were no longer restrained. The air was unnaturally silent.

“Aryella Jay Whitlock,” Molochai greeted me. “Or should I say… Aryella Jay Smyth?”

My furious stare met his, my disdain multiplying when I felt compelled to get lost in entrancing brown eyes that were agonizingly familiar. His eyes, but cold and evil rather than warm and loving.

I cursed all twelve gods for the fact that this was as close to him as I would ever see again.