Page 87 of Unveiled

Adrian rose to his feet without using his hands, as if pulled up by invisible strings. The wind coiled around him. His hair lifted. Frost formed beneath his boots in spiralling patterns.

Max cursed behind Connor. “Christ above. Connor, he’s—”

“Don’t,” Connor snarled without turning. “He’s still Adrian.” He stepped forward, grabbing Adrian. “Fight them.”

Adrian’s mouth twitched, a flicker of panic breaking through. “Connor, Irial—” His body jerked violently, his head snapping back.

A shape stepped through the light. Long and tall, dripping with shadows like liquid night. Its eyes were twin voids. Its limbs moved erratically. It stayed in the rend, not making a move onto the solid ground of the forest.

“A Soul Cleric,” Adrian gasped.

Connor was beyond asking how Adrian knew so much about a world he’d never seen. He shoved Adrian behind him, his teeth bared, his wolf rising in a surge so violent it left black spots in his vision.

The entity tilted its head. Then it spoke with a voice that was not one voice, but dozens:

The Marked belongs to us.

Connor growled, low and lethal. “I’m the Veilwarden. You won’t take him on my watch.”

The entity raised an arm, its fingers elongating into blades of living shadow. It lunged. Connor met it head-on. The entity struck like winter given claws.

Connor met it mid-lunge. His hands exploded with light, shades of lavender, purple, and silver pulsing in the air around them. The energy he now felt almost begged to be let loose.

The shaft of his dirk cracked through shadow as if it were brittle stone, and black vapour exploded and recoalesced around the blow, re-forming fingers that ended in hooks of night. The creature’s weight was too light, too swift, and moving with the logic of smoke and the intent of a blade.

“Behind me,” Connor snarled without looking back. He pushed his hands toward the entity, which shrieked in anger as the flames hit it. A scorching smell filled the air as it stepped back, and Connor stepped forward, resolute and victorious, as his fingers sent his new essence into the Soul Cleric’s form.

Connor. The word wasn’t spoken so much as pushed through the tether between them. They’re pulling—

Adrian didn’t say more. The mark across his chest had become a brand of pale fire, each pulse synced with the rend’s widening breath.

“Hold.” The word came out part man, part wolf. Connor bared his teeth and drove forward, pushing every emotion and all his fury into the rend, into the Soul Cleric.

The being’s limbs scissored. Steel screamed, fabric parted, and corporeal mist and shadow scorched.

The edge kissed Connor’s arm, and the cold burned hotter than flame. He twisted under the second strike, slammed his shoulder into the thing’s torso, and shoved. It slid back across grass that had frozen mid-bend. Frost shattered under its feet, shards of it hurtling toward the being and disappearing into its shadowy depths.

A terrifying scream of anguish and pain erupted as the Soul Cleric tumbled back into the rend. Another shape unhooked itself from the rend’s light, this one taller and thinner with eyes like holes cut into a sheet of midnight.

“Another one of you bastards,” Connor breathed. “Fine.” He revelled in the power he held, and his gaze fixed solely on annihilating the being in front of him.

He let the wolf rise beneath his skin. Bones didn’t form. They remembered. His muscles thickened, and the world focused into edges he could use. He moved, the tendrils of energy he held reaching out to the unwelcome intruder.

The thing slashed. Connor stepped in, too close for it to reach him, and drove the silver under what passed for its rib cage, simultaneously forcing his energy into the opening he’d created.

The creature convulsed. The scent of old ash and wet stone hit the back of Connor’s throat. He ripped the blade free and spun low, his hands still engulfed in power.

“Come try to take him,” Connor growled, and the clearing seemed to flinch.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Adrian

Adrian was falling.

The rend tugged at him from the inside out. A thread hooked behind his sternum, reeling him gently, inexorably toward light that wasn’t light at all.

The clearing blurred. The trees warped, and sound filtered through frost. The only fixed thing was Connor. Heat and gravity, and the iron weight of a will that refused to yield.