From the Shadows: Villainous Tales of Dark Lords, Despots, and Devils by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

WILLOW

Willow was overseeing the last of the villagers making their way across the treacherous mountain pass into the protection of Herb’s primary wards when he got the news.

“The Mad Queen is dead! The war is over!” The cry carried up from below, along with the sounds of music. Of celebration.

Willow leapt onto a boulder, looking about for the source of that cry. There. A messenger in the uniform of the Meridian-Nadir alliance, her hair blowing in the mountain wind. It took a few minutes to get to her through the villagers, who had stopped in shock. When he did, the messenger looked up at him, beaming.

“What happened?” Willow snapped. It was the last day of the truce. Had Dwyn launched a surprise assault? If so, would the war really be over? Wouldn’t the Bloody Six avenge their Queen?

“Maevian Oriset is dead. She was killed by one of her own. The news is spreading like fire. The Mad Queen’s Silver Shade strangled her in her bed. The Bloody Six are nowhere to be found. Vine is leaderless, all her Earthbonds shattered. They are retreating and— Wait!”

Willow didn’t. He shoved the messenger aside and launched himself off the side of the Mountain, counting on his wards to slow his descent. He had to get to a Faerie Ring. He had to get to Vine.

Less than four hours later, Willow appeared in a ring of standing stones covered in vines and surrounded by rushing rapids. He struggled through the water, following the map Dwyn had just given him, and emerged from a cavern into the muggy heat of Cravmor, Vine’s capital. Waterfalls surrounded a lush valley with high cliffs, vegetation tumbling down the sheer slopes and around the stately buildings.

It was eerily quiet for a city. Deserted. Those who remained sat in corners weeping. Willow wandered the terraces and halls of the stone palace, his essence searching for the deep power of Ilyas’s Silver Gaze. Instead, he was drawn to a room where a youth knelt beside an altar, upon which rested the body of Maevian Oriset covered in a shroud.

Willow stopped in the doorway. The youth’s shoulder shook with tears, but when he straightened and turned to face Willow, there was no tremble to his voice or fear in his Crimson eyes. “Have you come to kill me?”

“Are you Ashan?”

The boy nodded. In his hands, he held the crown of Vine, the points digging into his flesh. In the scent of his blood, Willow could smell his essence—that of a King. The last he had heard of this boy, he’d only had a Golden Gaze. They did deepen with age or trauma, but to make so large a jump hinted at truly fearsome power to come.

He could pick up where his mother had stopped.

Willow should kill him.

Then again, Asherah should have killed Willow.

“If you’re here to end her line, do it already.” The youth challenged. In his face, Will saw Ilyas’s same stoic determination and courage. “We both know I can’t stop you.

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