“Keepers retreat!”
Lucian was not a sentimental man, but he was grateful for the quick thinking that had him grabbing the handful of items he’d tied around his waist before donning his armor. By the time the day was through, nothing within the citadel would remain.
Looking out over what had once been the central fountain, Lucian met Kael’s eyes, his brother’s grim expression matching his own.
“The citadel is lost.”
There was nothing left they could do now but survive.
Lucian fought like a man possessed, his blade spinning around him so fast he was obscured by the blur. He hacked and slashed, showing no mercy for the monsters that stole the lives of the innocent. They deserved none.
No matter who they’d once been.
Dropping to his knees to dodge a bolt of sickly green acid, Lucian used his momentum to roll forward and cut the legs from the Shadow who’d flung it. A wet gurgle sounded above him, telling him Kael had completed the kill.
The two men didn’t acknowledge each other. They didn’t need to. Not when enemies still walked among them.
Dragging in a ragged breath, Lucian scanned the thinning crowd, seeking out his next target. The battle was starting to slow, the ground littered with corpses. So many familiar faces stared up at him with blank eyes, and more than he cared to admit had died by his blade. Dozens of Keepers had been turned—although one was too many.
How? How had this happened?
Frustration and grief simmered in his veins. All the prophecies and warning in the realm hadn’t been able to stop this from coming to be.
Howling in rage, Lucian swung his blade, the tendrils of inky smoke wafting along the edges burned through rotting flesh and made quick work of a snarling Shadow. The fiends may have destroyed his city, but at least few, if any of them, would survive to celebrate the victory.
A flash of red caught his eye. Lucian stared hard at the crumbling stairway as Ronan stumbled down it with the Night Stalker leaned heavily on his arm. They were the first to step out of the building since the Triumvirate’s order to fall back. Lucian didn’t want to contemplate what that meant for the rest of the Keepers.
Heart pounding, he looked behind the warrior, searching for a head of familiar blonde curls.
Effie was nowhere to be found.
Lucian’s heart stopped, and his eyes flew back to a guilty-looking Ronan. He was already moving, his voice barely human as he snarled, “Where is she?”
“She wouldn’t leave. Somethi—”
Blinded with rage, Lucian shoved the man, sending him staggering back. “You left her?” he roared, disbelief and fear turning his blood to ice.
“She’s not—”
Voice dropping low, Lucian looked Ronan dead in the eye, not wanting to leave any room for misinterpretation. “You better hope she’s alive when I find her, Shield, because if something’s happened to her, nowhere in any world will keep you safe from me. I will hunt you down and slit your throat in your sleep.”
Ronan’s nostrils flared and a flash of something burned in his eyes, but he only nodded.
Pushing past him, Lucian ran up the stairs and into the burning building, the shouts of his brothers lost in the wind.
Lucian lost track of the number of rooms he combed through, pausing only to turn over a body and ensure it was not the one he was looking for. The burst of relief each time it wasn’t grew fainter as he ran out of places to search.
Entire wings of the citadel were gone, leaving Lucian with the option of trying to dig through the debris or climb over it. More often than not, he had to turn around and try to gain entry from a different direction.
One way or the other, he would find her. There was no other acceptable option.
Lucian knew that he should have been at her side as soon as the fighting was underway. Effie was his charge, his responsibility. But she’d been cut off from him, and the townsfolk were all but defenseless without him.
He’d justified his absence by telling himself that Effie was with Ronan. The Shield should have kept her safe. The bastard damn near flayed him alive when they met for Lucian failing to do the same. So how? How by all that was holy could he have just left her?
Lucian shook off the rage, needing his battle calm to stay focused. Emotion had no place here.
Taking the next turn at a run, Lucian skidded to a halt. Less than an arm’s length before him, a small body was crouched over something on the ground.
“Effie?”
A wet growl was his only answer.
The hair along the back of his neck lifted. There was nothing human about that sound.
Suddenly, the answer to a question he hadn’t wanted to face slammed into him.
Denial was a cruel mistress. She let you bury your head until the truth of a matter cut you to the core. When it would hurt you the most.
Lucian would have laughed if he wasn’t so close to losing it entirely.
There had been so many clues, the truth begging him to notice. He’d missed it. Him. A fucking Guardian with the ability to see life’s very essence. Never once did he think to use his power to check her. Not after Sylverlands, when he’d inadvertently done so, and she’d shone more brightly than twenty fucking suns.
Never, in all his years as a Guardian, had Lucian seen anyone shine as Effie had that day. There had been no doubt in his mind that her soul was pure. That she was untainted.
He’d never made a costlier mistake in his immortal life.
It was only now, when it was too late, that he finally understood his error. Her soul’s radiance was the very reason he hadn’t sensed the dissonance. The same must have been true for Tinka.
Khouman’s broken words swam to the surface. ‘Would never hurt a fly unless it was to save someone . . . but then I started to notice the changes in her. A savagery so out of place with her gentle heart . . . Surges of temper . . . A new proclivity toward violence.’
Tinka had taken weeks to transform, then, just like now, no one realized what happened until it was too late. Until their loved ones were lost . . .
If Lucian had taken the time to search Effie’s essence again, would he have found the microscopic stain? Would it have made a difference?
Or had Effie’s days been numbered ever since that Shadow tore out a piece of her and contaminated her blood?
Lucian didn’t need his power now to show him what should have been obvious as soon as the first of her symptoms started to appear.
Her sudden disregard for her friends.
Her muddied visions.
The unexplained bout of physical pain when he’d held her in the shower.
All things that had been explained away as something far less sinister than the truth.
In order for the corruption to fully spread inside its host, it must have to tear the person’s soul apart first. No wonder it had taken so long for the changes to be revealed. The weaker and more prone to evil the person, the faster the corruption spread. But for Effie and Tinka, those who were truly good, the transition was much slower, but no less absolute.
Lucian’s heart caught in his throat as the blonde head started to turn toward him. Even though he knew what he’d find, he almost dropped to his knees as reality stared him down. Years of training was the only thing keeping him upright.
“Hello, Guardian,” Effie snarled, black lines slithering through milky white eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you.”