Something tells me I can’t remain in a room without them, so I trail behind.

I have no choice but to follow the dreams that don’t belong to me and never will.

If I want to stay alive here, then I must become a ghost.

56

THE SHADOW KING looks as he always did.

Black smoke in the shape of a man, filling the air with the scent of brimstone. The air nearest his form is leeched of light. Wings made of ink flare out from his spine, lifting up in claw-tipped curves overhead.

His eyes are the same obsidian, with pulsing red coals in the centers.

His gaze burns Briana’s skin. Ah yes. Her ability to detect the attentions of demons. I grit my teeth against the near-unbearable sensation. How does she stand this?

I search inside for her so-called root, the red aether connected to her keen senses, and while I feel the dormant furnace, like her, I cannot activate it at will. Our spirits have switched places, but even I do not have access to her greatest gift. I look down at the glowing silver-blue sword still in her hand. The only aether I can access on this plane is my own.

“Is something wrong, Pendragon?” The King’s voice is a low, amused crackle. His voice is the sound of wind rushing through the mountains at Cadair Idris. The voice that villagers once feared could beckon forth the Cŵn Annwn, the hounds of the otherworld. The voice that once commanded all Cysgodanedig, all Shadowborn.

It is a voice that once haunted me, too… before I silenced it.

I do not acknowledge his question. “What shadow did you use to gain access to this place, demon?” I quickly search the lawn of strewn bodies, seeking the darkest, deepest shadows on the grounds; his passage for jumping from one space to the next, as the eye blinks. There are a few possibilities by the trees, back up the gravel path, near the waiting vehicles. He could have used any of these shadows to arrive… but that is not the question I need answered. “And how did you know I had returned?”

His ink-like wings flap, pushing burning smoke against Briana’s face. Her body coughs. Another annoyance of physicality. “You are as arrogant as ever, Pendragon.”

“You are mistaken, king of Cysgodol,” I say, sniffing. “Arrogance is what severed you from your Court, not what separates me from mine.”

“Your Court is in as much disarray as it ever was.” As he speaks, his form grows dense, becoming more corporeal. The red coals grow, become two flames in black. A split red tongue flashes, then disappears in the smoke. In a blink, he becomes shadow once more. “I have been watching them. Hundreds of years later, and they are factions within factions. No longer riding under the dragon-rampant banner of Arthur, son of Uther.”