The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7)

by Everet Martins

  She blinked at the light, eyes flickering into a shade of ruby. A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth, tongue running along her upper teeth. “I know.”

  Greyson narrowed his eyes, head pulling back. “Your eyes…” He took her hand, turning her so he could see into her eyes and found they were once again a luminous blue. He’d come to terms with the fact that hallucinations and delusions were part of his daily life now. “There were times in that wasteland that the only thing that kept me alive was the thought that I might be able to see you again. Every day, I wanted to be back here with you.”

  Her head slightly tilted, exposing a length of her perfect neck, wispy hairs shining from her nape. She frowned at him, utterly unmoved. This moment wasn’t playing out at all like he’d envisioned. She was supposed to be melting in his arms, pressing her mouth to his in passionate kissing. After everything he’d been through, nothing was the way he thought it would be.

  “You saw him, did you? Terar?” Greyson asked with a nervy croak.

  Her frown became a scowl, mouth parting open, breath hot and carrying an odd tang. “I did, with Father,” she breathed on his mouth, lips brushing his, the tip of her tongue making a circle around his willing mouth. Her hand slid down to his groin, rubbing through his riding trousers. Her touch brought him to an instant stiffening, but something about her breath gave him pause. It was a familiar smell, a smell he couldn’t place at first. She started to tug on him, working him with deft fingers, overwhelming with pleasure, rubbing him just so. Her lips latched onto his, and the odd scent clicked into place. Blood.

  “What the… you taste like blood!” He shoved her away, but she easily recovered her footing. Too nimble.

  Her eyes were wide and bulging with anticipation, irises burning scarlet. “As if you weren’t enjoying it. He gave me a gift! Let me give it to you too, brother!” She lunged for him, arms raised to either embrace or throttle him.

  He saw those eyes once before in one person: Juzo the Blood Eater. Greyson raised his leg and sent a hard kick to her stomach, far harder than he’d meant. He felt his cock deflating, hand coming up to cover his mouth. “What have you done?” he said, voice muffled.

  Larissa staggered back into the shadows with a heaving cough, hands protectively clutching her belly. She coughed for a long minute, gathering her breath. “Brother?” She raised her head in question, eyes glossed with tears. In the shadows, her eyes glowed with their own poisoned light. “I-I just want to play, like we always have.”

  He stabbed the air with his index finger and shouted, “You don’t know what you’ve done! You’re tampering with forces you… we don’t understand. Don’t you see? Terar didn’t give you a gift, he’s cursed you.”

  “No, brother.” She rose to her full height, breath mastered. She tugged off the shoulder of her dress, exposing a porcelain breast. She repeated the gesture on the other side, chest thrust out for him, nipples inviting his mouth. “Don’t you want to play with me? I can take away your pain.” She stepped closer, full breasts coming into the light and highlighting their perfect curves. “I can help you forget the wizards who helped you.”

  “Helped m-me,” Greyson stammered, then raised his hand. “Larissa! Please. Come no farther.”

  She stopped, letting him feast his eyes on her body identical to his in countless ways. To the curve of her ribs, the length of her arms, and structure of her lips. She frowned. “Is this about Henrick? The dead guardsman of the Falcon? You have to let him go eventually. What you two had would never last, not like us.”

  “No, Larissa. This is too much. You-you have to go.” And if you feel the urge to eat men…

  A playful grin spread up her mouth, the sort of grin she only wore before telling him a secret. “What if I let you do to me the same you liked to do to him? Then can we play?” She turned around, bent over, and wiggled her backside.

  Searing fire burned from Greyson’s belly and up to the top of his mouth. His vision flared with violet around the edges.

  “Brother?” Larissa’s voice trembled, pulling up the shoulder of one side of her dress to cover a breast. “Brother, stop!”

  He lost the moment. Time, light, sound, and thought faded as if he’d been struck in the back of the head. Sometime later, he opened his eyes and saw his hands squeezing around Larissa’s throat, her cheeks cyanotic. A pool of black welled out from around the back of her head, her hair matted into sticky clumps. The tip of her tongue was limp against the corner of her mouth, one exposed breast speckled with blood. He released his hold on her, fingers sore as they uncurled.

  “No! No, no, no, no! Did I? Did I? Larissa? Sister? You can’t die that easily. Wake up!” He gave her cheek a hard slap.

  She stirred and slowly raised her head and blinked. Her tongue drew back into her mouth. “Where did that come from? I like this new Greyson. Now, you’ll play with me, brother?” A sickle smile cut across her mouth.

  “By the Dragon… you don’t know what you’ve done, what you’ll have to do,” he whispered, staggering back against his desk, books thumping to the floor.

  She stared at him. “Oh no, brother. I know. I met Terar months ago.”

  He ran.

  His sister’s sinister, choking laughter followed.

  Bezog’s club arced down in a feint, changing directions at the last instant and snapping up to smash his attacker in the balls. Even over the cheering crowd, Greyson could hear Edwin’s moans. Edwin, a tall man with cabled muscles, hesitated for a moment too long while Bezog’s back was turned. Now, he crouched on the ground in his suffering, eyes streaming tears. Bezog hefted his club, tapering at the bottom, and slightly widening at the business end, ringed with iron studs.

  “And what did you think of the Purists? Lovely grounds, they have isn’t it?” King Ezra waved at onlookers from the royal box. The royal box sat atop the bleachers surrounding the tourney grounds. The bleachers were warped and packed with nobles and peasants alike, all trying to get their daily fill of violence. Some brayed for Bezog to lose, while others cheered for him. Beer sloshed out from mugs and over soiled and scraped knuckles. Others cheered between dragging squares of charred meat from skewers with their teeth.

  Greyson seethed but fought to control the rage clawing up his throat. “I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. Why you have let such a despicable lot of tyrants rule any land is beyond my understanding, Father. Their leader…” His voice was drowned in a wave of cheers as Bezog’s club brought another fighter down to the dirt. Danton, if Greyson remembered his name right.

  As the cheers softened, the king started, “The moment you stop fighting is the moment you die. Bezog understands that.” The king’s face held a placating grin under his beard, but his voice held only venom.

  Bezog bared his great teeth in a snarl and went after the next man at his flank. The tourney was supposed to be a free for all, the best man left standing. The men were smart enough to know that if they bested Bezog first, they’d then have a fighting chance. Bezog rammed the fat man’s shield with his granite shoulder, club smashing down onto his shield, raised again before it could connect with bones. Kalman was almost as big as Bezog, but where Kalman had fat, Bezog had muscle.

  “You’d consider fighting the Tower with that— that monster, Terar?” Greyson balked.

  Larissa, seated on the other side of the king in a gilded chair, leaned over to smile at Greyson, attempting to steal his attention by pulling at the plunging neckline of her sky-blue dress, surely knowing his eyes would search for her lovely tits. Like a dog to meat, he savored those curves, realizing what he’d done and filling his cheeks with heat. Her lips rose in a silent, victorious laugh. He gave a disdainful shake of his head at her, setting his attention back on his father. His attempt at murdering her apparently had no sway over how she regarded him. Everything was a game to her.

  “That monster, as you so eloquently put it, will help us shift the balance of power. The Tower has grown arrogant and must be put back in line. I prom
ised that we would bite, and our bite must be severe. This is how we do that, my son.”

  Greyson set his face into a scowl. “It’s not right. Not all wizards deserve to die.”

  Bezog’s club grated at Kalman’s shield, slowly wearing him down and the shield ever lowered, the weaker man’s face scrunching in pain. In a desperate move, Kalman chopped at him with a dulled sword, not sharp enough to hew connective tissues from bones, but certainly sharp enough to cut. Bezog shuffled back, swept his club low, and caught Kalman below his knee.

  Bezog’s contender was resilient, not even uttering a cry of pain, merely staggering back with a fierce grimace. Bezog rolled his great shoulders, casting a glance at the tourney master. The tourney master waved him onward. Bezog heaved out a sigh, trudging toward Kalman.

  The tourney master would normally call an end to a match when a crippling blow might have been dealt if they were using real swords, maces, and hammers. The king liked to watch the contenders suffer. He wanted to see them put down hard, truly hurt before the quarrel was called to an end. The tourney master was compelled to oblige, and the crowd seemed to revel in the brutal violence, cheers going louder with the king’s bloodlust.

  “Bezog puts on a great show, doesn’t he?” the king asked no child in particular.

  Larissa enthusiastically answered, “Oh yes, Father. He’s marvelous. A wonderful choice for the Black Guard. I believe he will have no problems fulfilling their namesake. And pitting a Black Guard against the best of the Falcon, a wonderful idea. The peasants seem to be mopping it up…” She raised her arm in a dainty wave and added a cheer of her own.

  “He can fight,” Greyson said flatly, then lowered his voice. “No qualms about killing, that one. There is something missing in him, something off.” Not like a beast of Shadow growing in your guts, but off nonetheless. As if just the act of thinking of it caused it to shift. A lance of bubbling pain pushed a moan from his lips, urging him to double over. He struggled to stay upright and made his face a mask.

  “Brother?” Larissa asked. It was the first sign of genuine concern she’d shown since he’d returned.

  “It’s nothing.” He waved her attention away, only serving to make her eyes narrow in suspicion. Her eyes glowed with a hint a red, hardly discernible in the bright of the day. He wouldn’t have found it notable had he not known what she was, what she could do. “You— magic,” she mouthed, brows drawing down.

  Shit. The last thing he needed was Larissa accosting him with a floodgate of questions. She gave him a hard blink and the glow of her eyes faded.

  The king slumped in his chair, eyes slitted, and hands coming to rest on his paunch, oblivious to his children. “Very few understand how easy it is to kill a man. To the masses, it’s a line that, once crossed, offers no respite. Why is it so hard for many to understand? Animals kill to eat on a daily basis. It doesn’t trouble their sleep, but offers sustenance and succor.” The king slurped from a goblet of red wine, its sides lined with emeralds, dribbling a stream down his beard.

  “If killing is inherent for men, then why do so many have to train in order to do it?” Greyson asked, raising his chin.

  A stifled chuckle came from Larissa. “Soft as fresh dough,” she muttered.

  The king openly laughed. “If you want to rest your blade for peace, my son, the only safe place is in your enemy’s heart.”

  Bezog regarded Kalman with a mocking smile as if he were just another obstacle in his path to victory. “Come on, are you going to fight me or just stand there?” He beckoned with his club, saying it loud for all to hear.

  Kalman growled, apparently not all the fight yet hammered out of him. Greyson saw beyond the flabby belly and saw well-muscled arms and legs under his chainmail armor. This man was certainly a man of arms. Despite his growling, there was a tired narrowing of his eyes, one leg clearly favored. He launched into an attack, a furious swiping of his blade, but cut only air as Bezog shuffled away, smiling all the while, eyes fixed on his sword.

  Bezog dodged one blow and then another, cutting an angle to the opposite side of his shield arm. He stabbed with his club, thudding into the fat man’s ribs, and producing a sound like a log being split by an axe. The fat man raised his head in a howl of pain, sword arm pressing on his shattered ribs.

  The injured man tottered back, Bezog’s grin spreading up his cheeks. Bezog planted his boot on Kalman’s loosely held shield and kicked him down onto his hands and knees. Kalman glared up with defiance, a length of wet hair swept across his brow. Bezog gently lowered his club against his neck, the crowd’s cheers hushing to whispers. “Give up?” Bezog’s voice carried around the bleachers.

  Kalman dropped his shield and sword, waving him weakly away. “I concede defeat.”

  Bezog smirked and dropped his club. He abruptly walked away as a burst of whoops, cheers, and cries of “Bezog!” split the air. He gave a limp wave to the crowd as he stalked off toward the path out of the tourney grounds under rows of raised bleachers. The crowd’s clapping fell away, and some started to rise to disperse.

  “He’s not a man for spectacle. Why did you make him do this?” Greyson hissed at his father.

  “I didn’t make him do anything. And since when do you care about soldiers? Bezog entered the tourney of his own volition, though I must state that I am pleased he found the reward appealing. No man can deny the allure of a full coin purse. The people must know and love their champion.” The king rose with a mighty groan and shouted, “Hold, Hold! Bezog!”

  “Their champion? What do you mean?” Greyson asked. “Wait… the Tower?”

  The tourney master, having a keen ear, roared into an ivory megaphone. “Listen to your king! Attention everyone, your king speaks!” Everyone came to shuffling halt, puzzled faces squinting up at the royal box. Murmurs hung on the air.

  The king raised his own megaphone to his lips, trembling in his grip. “The tourney is not over! Bezog will fight the others again, this time not as a melee but all against him.”

  The crowd erupted in cheers of joy while Bezog’s shoulders slumped. His granite jaw flexed as he glared up at the royal box.

  “It was already all against him,” Greyson muttered. “Did you not see the fight?”

  Larissa leaned over the king’s gilded chair and whispered, “Is he your new lover, brother?”

  “No, I hadn’t considered him. His chest is well muscled. Dare I say his tits bigger than yours, Sister.” Greyson smirked at Larissa’s play at a frown.

  “Now that’s not very nice,” she sighed, settling back in her chair.

  King Ezra continued into the megaphone, “As my champion, Bezog will prove to you why I have named him so.”

  “Champion?” Greyson watched Bezog mouth the word.

  “This tourney is only a start of what is to come. Just a moment…” The king launched into a fit of coughing, unceremoniously dropping the megaphone when he snatched his goblet from a tray. He emptied half of it in one gulp, then gestured with it, slopping wine over a man’s back seated below the royal box. The man scowled up but dared not to voice a complaint. Greyson bent down and handed his father the megaphone, but not without receiving a glare for his effort. The king cleared his throat, projecting his voice over the bleachers. “This tourney is as close as we can get to war. This is a battlefield. Bezog, consider this as part of your training for your fight against the Tower’s champion.”

  “What?” Greyson gasped as he stood, eyes flicking to Bezog. The color visibly blanched from his cheeks. He didn’t think it was possible for the giant man to possess fear.

  “Well, this isn’t fair,” Larissa said flatly.

  “I agree. Bezog’s had enough.” Greyson huffed, glad for his sister’s rare moment of support. He rewarded her with his best smile, but she missed it.

  “No,” she said, staring out over the tourney grounds. “It’s not fair to the men. He’ll kill them.” Larissa’s voice was ice, and Greyson knew she was right.

  The king levered hims
elf into his chair. Greyson thought to offer him assistance but thought better of it. “The battlefield is not fair. Life is not fair. Consider this another of my lessons to be remembered when you sit upon this throne,” King Ezra said, patting Greyson’s thigh.

  A gesture of affection from his father. Had the world gone truly mad? Greyson narrowed his eyes where that spot of his father’s warmth lingered.

  Kalman dragged himself to his feet, hefting his shield as if it were a mountain. His other hand pressed against his injured ribs, each breath seeming to plunge him further into the depths of misery.

  Bezog shook his head first at the men, then at the crowd, and finally, his dark visage rested on the royal box. Greyson felt his eyes like daggers in his guts, blaming him for this charade. “You’re going to make Bezog kill our men?” Greyson asked, mouth going dry as cotton. “I don’t think… this is not a kindness.” He wished he could’ve plucked the words from the air before they reached his father’s ears.

  “A kindness?” The king leaned away from Greyson, regarding him like a monster to be observed. “At this point, I believe your sister has the larger fruits between the two of you.”

  Greyson didn’t have to look at Larissa to feel her contempt. A series of spiking pains coursed up through his back. Rather than bringing a wave of agony to his face, they brought a razor blade smile for his father. They could all mock him as much as they wanted. He knew he would have the last laugh when he birthed the end of this kingdom. The end of the realm and the end of everything.

  “There is something wrong with your eyes.” The king appeared to wilt in his chair, shoulders hunching down. “Are you well, son?”

  Greyson realized then that when he felt his pains most severely was when his eyes likely glowed. He screwed them shut, waiting for the pain to subside, and blinked. “No, Father. Why do you ask? You’re right, you know. My kindness has always been my greatest weakness.”