The Dark Between Dreams | ✔️

Chapter 49 🔻 Rage

I opened my eyes in a world more saturated with color. The red of the sky was more vibrant, more alive, like the blood of the living-fresh, hot, arterial. The scent of smoke and flames on the wind burned my nose and left an acrid taste on the roof of my mouth. The frosty kiss of air chilled by the dead and injured made every hair on my body stand on end, while the heat of red lux flames licked my sweat-glistening skin-ice and fire. Cuts and scrapes I didn't know I had stung. Black blood seeped from my wounds.

But I savored all that.

I relished the iron-tinged heat in my throat and the bite of my own nails into my palms as I stepped past withering ghosts and melting shadows with my winged spear in hand. A chorus of raspy caws filled my ears, drowning out the beating war drum of my pulse as all that remained of Crow's flock joined me, led, of course, by Nannāru. My shadow purred as she coiled inside me like a python, ready to strike at the behemoth I stared down.

Most of this city's sector lay in ruins at its monstrous king's feet, yet the stories-high statue of a knight-still looking so heroic as he impaled a screaming monster at the end of his halberd-still stood tall and immaculate. I caught my reflection in the knives that made up his armor, each silver blade pristine despite the flying ashes and soot thickening the air. My pupils were red with luxlight, a halo orbited my head, and tears-made from both sorrow and rage-streamed unceasingly down my fierce soot-covered face.

I climbed up the statue. The uncoated knives couldn't pierce my glowing skin. A black cloud of crows were my wings. And there, standing atop the knight's helm, I saw him; the knight. The king. The god. The monster.

New eyes popped open from beneath his healing flesh. He upended entire blocks in his rage beneath the whole sun. And I hoped Albrecht was watching me now. Blackburne screamed.

More tears trickled down my cheeks. I sucked in a long, shaking breath. Then I raised my chin and sang, my words stirring the rising ashes.

"Little one, who dwelt in the house of darkness..."

Blocks away, the beast froze. His eyes swiveled around in their sockets erratically, searching the smoke. I continued Crow's song.

"Now you are outside, and you have seen the light of the sun."

A rumble shook the skyline. Hundreds of eyes glared down at me as the beast turned toward me-at the measly little insect at its feet. The kingdom had been smashed and glowed red like a poppy field, and the king of nightmares came for me to put me to rest. Well, I was done sleeping. It was time to end this nightmare.

The kusarikku was awake, and she had a bigger monster to put down.

"Let's go, Monster," I said.

Blackburne screamed and shot out a tentacle at me again. I leaped out of the way from the knight's helm and ran up his outstretched metal arm. The tentacle stabbed into the statue instead, causing it to rock. With my cloak of crows winging me, I rushed up the giant halberd and took a running leap from its giant red blade just as the colossal statue toppled over beneath me. I grunted as I landed on one of the behemoth's many wriggling appendages. The beast tried to shake me off, but I dug my spear into its flesh and held on as the tentacle whipped around.

The beast struck with another tentacle. I dodged. I was unshakable. Everything could have been so perfect, I thought as I locked eyes with one of those unblinking orbs-each one much larger than me. I screamed and leaped from the tentacle, grabbing folds of the slimy flesh of the behemoth's body. Why did you have to ruin everything?

The behemoth screamed again. Every eye honed in on me while I climbed to the top of it. Crows screeched and pecked at the eyes-but they only inconvenienced the terrible creature. I stabbed my spear into the behemoth.