Arsen’s fist tightened on his glass, remembering the leader’s face. It had been beautiful in a way that he hadn’t expected from a human, or one of their twisted cousins. A fierce, hawk-like visage with golden eyes, like twin lamps set in flesh. They had shed a sallow light over his features, glinting off the extended fangs, highlighting the blood splatter from his latest kill, and dancing like fire on the edge of the wicked blade he held. He had kicked over the bodies of some of Arsen’s men, with no more concern than one might have had for a dead animal. But he had stared into each face carefully, as if looking for someone.

Aeslinn, Arsen thought. He wanted the king. And was furious when he could not find him. He glimpsed Arsen a moment later, down the corridor at the end of the hall. He should have been all but invisible at this range, shrouded in gloom, yet the creature’s eyes picked him out just the same. And then he leapt for him, astonishingly quick—

Only to be denied by the first of a series of wards that Arsen’s people had erected, donating magic that they could ill afford to slow these horrors down.

It had worked—but not by much. The ward stopped him for a moment. But then his eyes burned brighter and his body pushed deeper into its deadly embrace, and he just kept coming.

The ward had seared him, burning off his clothes, dusting away his hair, and turning the sword in his hand a bright reddish gold as if it had just come out of a forge. His skin, too, had suffered terribly, flushing red and then black, as the ward burnt him alive. But he had healed almost as fast, muscle and skin flowing back over his bloody form as he stepped through the magical barrier, and out the other side.

Arsen had stared at him, standing there nude and bloody and terrible, with the crisped remains of his skin knitting back together and the splotchy patches of his own blood drawing up and disappearing, until they were entirely gone. Leaving him pale and perfect once more, with a mane of mahogany hair sprouting from his scalp to flow down onto his shoulders. It was the most impressive thing Arsen had ever seen, and the most frightening.

There were two more wards, but Arsen had not waited to watch the monster wade through those as well. And he would—Arsen knew he would. He was like a man possessed, or possibly mad. Because the whole time, he had said the same thing, over and over, even when his lips were melting off his body, when his tongue was on fire, when his hair was alight: Where is she? Where is she? Where? Where? Where?