Page 97 of Fallen Nocturne

I am faster than last time because I know the palace now. I dart through the study door, race down the corridor past the weapons hall, and fly past the ballroom with its painted sky. My feet are silent on the stone, my breathing controlled, my body low and quick the way Astefar taught me to move when something bigger and hungrier was close behind.

The difference is that last time he was playing.

This time he is not.

I hear it before I see it. A sound like sailcloth snapping in a gale, and then a rush of air that blows my hair forward. I look back over my shoulder and my legs almost give out.

Wings.

He has wings.

They spread from his back in two vast arcs of darkness. No feathers cover them, only dark membrane stretched over powerful bones. Each wing is so enormous that the tips nearly brush the walls on either side of him.

The candles gutter in their wake. Shadows spill from the wings like smoke, pooling across the floor before racing ahead of him like hunting dogs freed from their leashes.

I scream and run faster.

The halls blur around me. I take every turn I can find, trying to lose him within the maze of the palace, but the shadows are faster. They slide along the walls and stream past my feet. Corridors darken before I can enter them. Doors slam closed just as I reach them.

He is herding me.

Every stone, every passage and every shadow in this place belongs to him.

I crash through the first open doorway I find and stumble into an enormous bedroom. A broad bed stands at its center, draped in layers of dark fabric. Candles flare to life as I enter, illuminating tall windows and heavy carved furniture.

Another door stands across the room.

I sprint toward it.

It slams shut before I reach it. Dense shadow spreads across the wood, thickening and twisting until it resembles the shape of a man. Darkness peels away from the door and steps into the room.

The figure matches the masked man in height and build, with the same dark hair and an identical mask concealing his face. But this version has no wings.

A rush of air sweeps through the bedroom. The real masked man lands in the doorway behind me. Two immense wings fold against his back without vanishing. His breathing is heavy from the chase, and his eyes burn through the mask.

Two of them.

Two of them and one of me and nowhere left to run.

“The rings, Rhianelle,” the real one says.

The wingless figure steps toward me, his gaze as intense as the original’s. He shifts to my left, cutting off another path while the winged man guards the doorway.

I am trapped between them.

They move with the eerie coordination of two predators sharing a single mind.

“Last chance,” the winged man says quietly.

He crosses his arms, his folded wings framing him in darkness as his shadow-double closes the distance between us.

I curl my fingers around both rings and hold them against my chest.

“The rings are mine,” I say. My voice shakes, and I hate it.

His gaze shifts toward the wingless figure. “Then whatever he does next is not my responsibility.”

My attention follows his. There is something less controlled in the way the wingless one watches me, a wildness in his eyes that the original keeps carefully hidden.