I see them! I choke down a sob. This isn’t the time for emotion. I keep myself down, trying to keep my glow mostly under wraps and out of sight.

Momma is in a cage hanging in midair, about five feet from the floor in the left most darkened corner. Jill is asleep on her lap. I breathe a sigh, but choke it out when I catch sight of Jack in the middle of the floor, roaring fires ringing around him at the points of a hexagon and one right beneath him. It's close enough he has to feel the heat. He hangs from his wrists, while his chin hangs to his chest as he spins slowly. His chest rises and falls rapidly with shallow breaths, and I barely see a swollen cheek before his back turns to me.

I see red. I’ve never believed such a term. How in the world can someone actually see red? Oh, I believe it now.

I shift, pushing my weight back to sprint across to my brother in a split second flight of rage I have never felt. It's as if my blood is boiling in my veins, and I grasp tightly to that which will lend me a way to kill that monster. Only a strong, warm hand jerking me back stops me from springing the trap.

I glare into silver eyes, but he only shakes his head, then points with his chin.

I shake my head slightly, the red slowly reduced back to the edges. Then I see what I missed due to emotion. Crossbowmen stand like a line of ants from one wall to the other, bows cocked and ready, pointed at the main entrance. Towards us. Ummm... that’s a lot of death on wings.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are. Don’t make me wait. No, no, no. Longer I wait, the longer this little jerk suffers.” My brother bites his cheek, even as he hangs above a fire. “I know you’re here, my little pet. Come out.”

I jerk my arm, trying with all my might to pull away from the crazy man holding me back, no matter what happens to me, I have to get to him.

“Let me go,” I hiss.

Instead, my assassin uses his hold on my arm to draw me to his chest. I beat my fists against him. “I have to—“ my words end in a slight sob as a choked cry comes from my brave brother.

“You can’t help them as you are. You must be calm, or you’re going to get us all killed.” The words, although softly spoken, hit me with the force of a slap. “Think. And get us all a way out of this.”

He squeezes me one last time as I grow still, then holds me at arm's length.

I feel the Spark in my chest, and ask her to help me in a way it never has before. I feel her consent... and her sadness.

And this time… I believe in her with all my might, and she reaches out a tentative hand, bridging the gap between us with love and understanding.

I feel hot breath on my neck, and the soothing voice of my bond. I’m here. What’s the plan?

I breathe deeply, pushing my heart deep in my chest where it cannot be reached.

Then my eyes pop open, and they burn with my rage. This I can use. The anger I will keep.

“That’s it.” Silver strokes my cheek, then abruptly draws his hand back as if burned. I ignore him.

“Ran, you will prowl the edges. Make sure we are not missing any. Silver—“

“Silver?” he whispers to himself. I don’t have the energy to smirk as I normally would. I didn’t mean to use the nickname. It just came out.

“Please get my sister and mother down. Anyhow, anyway, I know you’re talented enough to get her down and out, and don’t look back.”

“And what will you be doing?” There’s a wariness to his voice, as if he has guessed.

“I’m getting my brother out of here and making sure that monster can’t hurt them ever again.” And I may have to kill. I bow my head, whispering a silent apology to my father.

He wished for me to be different than him, and now that I’ve killed… I understand why he wanted me to be someone who didn’t have the soul-ripping torment that comes from seeing the light fade from another’s eyes, knowing it was by your own hand. But I won’t put my vow to him above my family–I don’t believe that’s what he meant, anyhow. He wanted to protect me through other means. But now to protect; I must kill. I hope he understands.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

You know he would, Ran whispers, soothing the jagged edges of my heart as I know what I must do.

“Alright. Be careful,” Silver whispers. I gawk at him.

“That’s it? You’re not going to suggest you take out the guards, rage against the plan, nothing? I thought I was just an unknown liability.” The last comes out bitter with a good dose of rage.

He shrugs, and it’s annoying how calm he can be in the midst of this. But, somehow, it also pulls me from the depth of my anger, his calming presence helping me to reorient myself. “I have faith in you. I would have no hope against so many, but you are strong enough. Go out there and get them back.” He pulls me into his arms once more, then he’s gone.

That man has so many sides he puts my brain into a tailspin. I shove it all from mind and focus.

I give the Spark a nudge, and it manifests itself into a row of knives, each aimed for the heart of a crossbowman I had seen. It takes something from my soul to set those traps of death, but I cannot let it stop me. The knives remain invisible to the necked eye, but I see each individual blade, I see their tapered edges and the blood ridge inset within the cool manifest of my inner Spark.

“STOP! I’m here. Stop—please,” I beg, still behind a stalagmite.

Silence. Blessed, charged silence.

“Here at last. I thought you’d never get my message.”

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

He tisks, wrapping the bloody whip around his claws as those beady black eyes of my nightmares locks on my face. “But you haven’t been completely honessst with me, have you? No. I’ve learned much from your brother. And your sister. Your sweet, sweet sssister.” his tongue flicks out, tasting the air and making my skin crawl.

“I’m sorry, sis. It was too much. I couldn’t—protect them,” Jack whispers with a broken voice. He sounds old and weary, not what a thirteen-year-old should ever shoulder. I choke down a sob.

“It was not your fault. I’m here now. It’s going to be alright.”

“Ahh. Pretty promises. How do you intend to keep that?”

I growl. “I will kill you.”

He laughs, a growling sound that makes my skin tingle. “No, Guardian.” My blood runs cold. He knows. He watches me, delighting in revealing that tidbit of knowledge. “You won’t. You’re too weak.”

“What do you want from me?” I yell again.

He flicks a whip out, scoring a line across Jack’s back. I start forward, but he holds up a hand and brings back the whip, licking the blood and keeping eye contact with me the entire time. “Guardian, you have something that belongs to us. A certain white bastard of a wolf.”

“Why? Why do you want a wolf?”

He cracks the whip again, and I jerk forward into the firelight. “Nuh-uh-uh.” He shakes a taloned claw at me. “Wrong question. Where is it?”

“Far from your clutches.” I clench my fist, and the knives imbed themselves into the chests of the crossbowmen along the far wall whose arrows of death were trained on me and my brother.

I’m moving before the last gurgling cries of the men reach my ears. Tears stream from my face, but right now, I must be strong.

The creature before me bristles. With one wrist, he flicks the knife aimed for his heart into the earthen wall behind him, and with the other he flicks the whip around Jack’s throat. Jack gurgles, his eyes growing wide as no air makes it past his lips.

“Come no closer, or I snap his neck like the small twig it is.”

I stop in my tracks, hating this thing before me with all that I am.

“Let him go. It’s me you want!”

“Hmm, now that’s more like it. Down on your knees—that’s it. Now tell me where the creature is.”

“There is only one creature here,” I mumble.

“Ssspeak up, little prey, or find out why you should obey me. I have another plaything—what? Where’d they go?” Beady black eyes dart around, before coming back to rest on me in all their angry horror. “You,” he whispers. “You did thiss?”

But I hardly hear him. I send another knife through the air, and it cuts through the whip like butter. Jack sucks in a deep breath, then coughs it back out.

I send more at the creature, but it blocks them with its claws before they meet any type of flesh. He roars, a sound that shakes the whole place, and an unnatural wind whistles in the underground cavern.

It picks me up like a rag doll, jagged edges of the unseeable wind digging into my flesh like some sort of stone. It tosses me into a stalagmite. I cough, the breath being forced from my lungs with the impact. It throws me again before I can gather my bearings, sending clots of dirt into the air and jagged spikes of pain through my body.

“You idiotic little girl. Thought you could challenge ME? The supreme governor of His Supremacy’s army?” He laughs, the sound growing more deranged the more seconds that pass. It abruptly cuts off. “No. You, a small little prey, could never hope to even come to match me. Give me what I want. It was fun for a time, but my patience is at an end. Give it to me now, or die.”

The wind drops me abruptly, and I spit out blood from where I’d bitten my tongue. My breath comes out a wheeze as my poor ribs re-broke on impact two or three... I kinda lost count.

Claws wrap around my neck, lifting me from the dirt where I landed. And I’m right where I need to be—if in a little more pain than I was hoping for.

I smile at those beady eyes that narrow.

I strike, and he doesn't even have time to blink before my new black steel dagger, courtesy of one fine assassin, pierces his heart. He drops me, and I crumble to the floor. He backs up, clawing at the knife with unwieldy claws, only drawing more blood in his frantic haste to peel the knife from his heart.

I watch, completely devoid of the sympathy I thought I would have, watching someone die by my blade. But then, me and death are becoming old friends.

I just want it to be done.

“I’m not weak, only merciful. But there will be no mercy for you.” I pull the blade from his chest.