Shadow of the Knight by Matt Heppe

Author:Matt Heppe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Fantasy.Epic
ISBN: 9781518799549
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2015-12-29T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

The pyren seized a ghul and threw it to the floor next to Ayja. The lych, her father, pinned the ghul down with one hand. The ghul writhed but made no real effort to get free.

Her father. Was it truly him? He was supposed to be an eternal knight—one of the silver skinned creations of Akinos and the Orb of Creation. But this was a lych.

“What fiendish business is this, Morin?” Cam demanded. He stood close by, his sword poised to strike.

Morin barely spared him a glance. “Put it down, Nidon. I saved your life with my healing before, and now I’ll save hers.”

Ayja felt Morin’s cold hand pressed against her wound. Her father’s hand, although the word didn’t mean anything to her. Or did it?

She stared at the ghul, less than a stride from her. She smelled its stench and grimaced at its hideous, tortured visage. Morin knelt between her and the ghul. She saw the ethereal glow around Morin’s hand where it touched the ghul.

Morin bowed his head, and a flood of warmth filled her. The pain from her wound suddenly diminished. She stared up at his face, and some of the deep creases seemed to go out of it. He looked almost human.

The ghul thrashed, but as the warmth grew in Ayja the ghul’s movement slowed. It whined and cried out and then stopped moving altogether.

“This one is gone,” Morin said. “Bring another from the hall, Lord Darra,” he said to the pyren.

The ghul was dead, just a husk of skin and bone. “You killed it,” Ayja said.

Morin nodded. “To heal you.” The words chilled her.

“What happened to you, Morin?” Cam asked. “You’re no longer eternal.”

“Things change,” Morin said. “I’m free of the Orb now.”

Darra came back in, dragging another ghul with him. This one used to be a woman. She still wore a peasant dress. The pyren threw it down on top of the first.

Morin put his hand on the ghul’s head and she grew still.

“Stop!” Ayja said. “You’re killing them to save me?”

“They’re already dead, they just don’t know it yet.”

Ayja pulled away from Morin’s touch. A voice in her mind commanded, Stop! For the briefest moment she felt compelled to obey, but then she pushed against it and broke free.

Morin stared at her with his cold, black eyes. “How…” he started, but then trailed off.

Ayja sat up and looked down at her wound. There was an angry red welt there, but the wound was closed. Her side ached, but it didn’t stop her from standing.

“Can’t you heal her?” Ayja asked, pointing at the ghul Morin still held pinned to the floor. “Can’t you undo what’s been done to her?”

“This is their purpose. They exist to serve.” Morin released the ghul, and it slunk into a corner of the room.

“Get them out of here,” Morin said, waving at the ghuls. “All of them.” Darra immediately obeyed, dragging two bodies out the door. Another pyren entered and kicked and cuffed the living ghul until it departed.

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