The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

finding none. Gedomir’s hair shone like fire from the light in the room beyond. Behind him, Branwyn made choking noises. She’d dropped to the floor and was crawling back the way she’d come, nails scrabbling against the stone.

The air around her was wrong. Not poisoned, or not that Zelen could smell above the blood in the hallway, but simply wrong. Maybe Branwyn could get out of it. He didn’t want to take that risk.

Other risks were better.

Chapter 39

He lowered his blade and retreated, letting Gedomir’s next slash almost hit. “Please,” he said, taking another step backward. “Let her go. You can do what you want with me.”

“It’s too late to repent,” said Gedomir, with a thrust that truly came close to Zelen’s ribs. “Your woman’s killed Hanyi. Was that your intent all along?”

“No!” He’d thought that might happen, but hadn’t known it. “Please, Gedomir, I’ll say whatever you want. I’ll take back my oath, say I was mad—just let her go. I’m begging you.”

Zelen took a deep breath, then dropped his sword and fell to one knee, an inch or two outside Gedomir’s range. The fallen guard stretched out beside him, complicating the terrain, but that wouldn’t stop Gedomir for long.

His brother paused, but not out of mercy. He lifted his chin, the picture of righteous justice. “You can’t buy her life,” he said, “though you might have bought her an easier death than I’d planned. But you attacked your own brother. We won’t need you alive to show madness.”

Gedomir stepped forward again and swung his sword down toward Zelen’s neck.

It was a quick blow, with all Gedomir’s force behind it. It would’ve severed Zelen’s head, had he not already been rolling forward. The sword sliced a hot line of pain down the side of his back, but he kept going, tumbling inside of Gedomir’s range.

On the way up, he stabbed. The guard’s knife, which Zelen had grabbed from its sheath just before launching himself forward, sank into Gedomir’s thigh. It wasn’t a vital spot, and the knife wasn’t particularly sharp or well made, but Zelen, like his brother, was using all of his strength. Gedomir dropped his composure, not to mention his sword, and howled.

Beyond him, Branwyn drew her first real breath in too long. The dragging sound of it echoed through the hall, over Gedomir’s screams, and got Zelen’s heart beating again.

He couldn’t pause to savor the victory. A knee to the groin seemed a good way to follow up the initial attack. Then, when Gedomir doubled over, his head was at the right height for Zelen to punch him in the temple.

“You were onto something,” he said, shaking out his knuckles. “It’s worth a bit of pain.”

Gedomir, lying on the floor by the guard, didn’t respond. His eyes were still open, and he tried to glare despite not being able to focus them.

“I can dispatch him now,” Branwyn said. Her voice was back to gravelly hoarseness, but she was upright, holding her sword. “Or we can take him back to the city. The choice is yours.”

“He’ll see the house disgraced before he faces the Dark Lady,” said Zelen. “That’s fitting. Only, if we leave him alive, will he be able to cast more spells on the way back?”

“Not if we leave the knife where it is,” said Branwyn. With speed that was even more impressive given how recently she’d been struggling to breathe, she sliced the tunic from one of the fallen guards and twisted it into a rope. “Once Yathana comes back to us, she’ll be able to manage a longer-lasting, less awkward solution, but iron works in a pinch, and so does pain.”

Zelen rolled his brother onto his back and pinned Gedomir’s arms behind him. It was far easier than he would have ever expected, even given the other man’s condition. As a child, he’d have looked on this moment with pure wonder that his hands didn’t blister, or that the earth didn’t open beneath his feet.

It did tremble again. That didn’t stop Branwyn, who was winding the fabric tightly around Gedomir’s wrists.

“She killed Hanyi,” said Gedomir. His speech was slurred, but the words came out clearly.

“I did,” said Branwyn. She jerked the knot tight. “It was the best course of action at the time.”

The body lay in the hallway, her white dress drowned in a pool of red. “Then,” Zelen said slowly, “I’m sure it was. We can talk about it later. Tanya?”

“Upstairs. Hopefully she’s either made it out the window now or hasn’t tried at all.”

“I’d bet she’s better at climbing than she’ll be with either of the horses. We’d—”

The earth shook hard enough to send Zelen staggering, grabbing for the wall. He was glad that they’d tied Gedomir already, and looked back to his brother to make sure that the bonds still held.

They did. But a smile was on Gedomir’s lips, one Zelen had long since learned to dislike.

“What?” he asked.

“I didn’t tell you hoping for proper remorse, Zelen. I’m long past hoping you’d act decently. Your woman killed Hanyi. Hanyi was a wizard, casting a spell, and the Sentinel killed her here.”

“Oh, gods have mercy,” said Branwyn.

“Why? They never have before. And the Deathmistress,” Gedomir spat the honorific like a curse, “isn’t the only one who knows vengeance.”

The next quake hit, and with it came the roar of rending stone. Nothing fell in the hallway around Zelen, but still it took a minute to locate the center of the sound. The snarl that followed, equally as loud but clearly a voice—and clearly not a human one—did it for him.

“There,” said Gedomir.

It was his last word. His jaw split with the syllable, falling away into gray-orange fire. The flame had eaten away his face before either Zelen or Branwyn could act, and moved quickly to devour the rest of his frame.

Even if water would have worked, Zelen had none. All he could do was bear witness as his brother became sickly radiance, all vestiges of human form melting away into a