Queen of Light (The Light-Bringer Trilogy, #3)

One

There was a thing waiting in the shadows.

It was sadistic and cruel, and paced the darkness shackling his mind. It was not of his world and was here to fill him with its bone-chilling cold. Some invisible barrier still separated them, but it crumbled a little more every time the thing stalked its length, testing its strength. He could not remember his name.

That was the first thing he had forgotten when the darkness took over him days, weeks, months, or eons ago. He'd forgotten the names of everyone he had held so dearly to him. He could recall horror, despair, and betrayal-only because of the single moment that kept interrupting the blackness like the steady beat of a drum: several minutes of screaming and blood. A duel of light and fire and shadow. There had been people he loved in the square when the ghost had sold them out; the red-haired girl who was beaten to an inch from death-

Beaten, as if she deserved it.

A girl with red hair and pine green eyes. A girl who had a heart of light and a soul of wildfire. It was not her fault, even if he couldn't remember her name. If the only name he remembered her having was "Light-Bringer." It was the fault of the woman on the girl's throne-who could bend shadows and force men to her cause.

There was nothing in the darkness beyond the moment when the girl's light and fire had been snuffed out. There was nothing but that moment, again and again and again-and the thing waiting nearby, waiting for him to break, to yield, to let it in. A prince.

He could not remember if the thing was a prince, or if he himself was once a prince. Not likely. Not in the slightest. A prince would not have allowed someone to be beaten an inch from dying right in front of him. A prince would have a stepped in to save her.

Yet he had not done so, and he knew that no one was going to save him.

There was still a real world beyond the shadows. He was forced to look through what were once his eyes by the demon in his mind at the strange people on occasion. And when he did, no one seemed to notice that the body before them wasn't being animated by something human. They didn't seem to notice that the thing using his mouth to communicate was the very same thing shackling his mind. He hated them for not caring enough to notice the difference. At least hate was one of the few emotions he still knew.

You don't touch him! The girl had screamed that-and was beaten. She shouldn't have dared to love him and he shouldn't have loved her. He deserved this darkness, and once the invisible boundary shattered and the waiting thing pounced, invading and enslaving him entirely... he would have earned it.

So he remained bound in night, witnessing the red-haired girl's scream and the blood the ghost drew, and the girl's deathly stillness. He knew he should struggle, fight harder, and knew that he did struggle in those final moments before the darkness swept in and started to tear him apart.

You don't touch him!

But there was a thing waiting in the shadows, and he did not know if he could bring himself to fight it for much longer.