Path of the Dark by Jayne Castel

Author:Jayne Castel [Castel, Jayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Winter Mist Press
Published: 2019-10-16T16:00:00+00:00

20

And There Was You

RYANA STARED DOWN at Elias and slowly drew the fingers of her right hand in toward her palm.

The Dark obeyed her, tightening its grip on his throat.

Elias’s lips parted. He was struggling for breath, grappling with the garrote. He was strong, but he couldn’t break it.

And yet he didn’t beg to be released. Even on the edge of death the man was stubborn and proud. The Shadows take her, but she loved that about him. The realization made Ryana even angrier.

“Killing me won’t change anything.” Elias’s voice was a rasp. “Alive … I’m more useful to you.”

“And why is that?”

The pressure on his throat increased, and Elias’s dark eyes widened, panic flickering in their depths. His face turned taut. “I can get you to Gael,” he managed. “Together we can stop Anthor from attacking Rithmar … I will … make my father see sense.”

Those final words were be barely audible. Elias gave up speaking then. His body arched back, his legs kicking as he started to suffocate.

An instant later Ryana released him.

With a gasp he collapsed back into the stream. The clear water bubbled over smooth grey stones and eddied around him. Elias paid it no mind. He rolled over onto his side, choking, wheezing, and clutching his bruised throat.

Ryana watched him.

Her fingers itched to tighten once more, to have this arrogant, ruthless, and deceitful man at her mercy. But the red fury that had descended upon her as she’d stepped into the clearing started to ebb.

She couldn’t kill him.

Watching Elias struggle to recover his breath, she wondered if she’d come to regret her decision.

Elias pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was soaking wet but didn’t appear to notice. His gaze fastened upon her, and she caught the baleful glint in his eyes. She’d have to be careful around him now.

The mask had slipped. He’d likely want his revenge upon her.

“So … you can get me to Gael?” she asked finally.

Elias nodded.

Ryana stared back at him. She tried not to think about his betrayal, his lies. It was too raw.

Instead, she focused on Gael. Just the thought of the enchanter made her belly ache. Gael was like the Grey Ravage, a plague that you couldn’t rid yourself of—he kept turning up and poisoning everything he touched. After those knives Dain had sunk into him, the enchanter should have died that day in the cavern under the Shadefell Mountains. Yet somehow he’d lived. And not only that, his ambitions had merely shifted elsewhere. Now that releasing Valgarth was no longer possible, he’d appeared at Reoul’s side.

It occurred to her then that this would be her only chance to stop the man.

This wouldn’t be vengeance; it was unfinished business.

“When did Gael ally himself with your father?”

Elias swallowed, wincing as the act pained him. “I don’t know. I told you … I’ve never met him.” He paused here, before he rose unsteadily to his feet. “It’ll be recent … after my departure for Rithmar.”

Ryana’s mouth thinned. She still didn’t believe him.

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