Prince of Blood and Shadow
I. Chapter 7

The scene was chaos; decorations lay strewn across the floor, the festive trinkets, and garlands shattered in disarray. As Inias and Styx tore through the room, the colorful display of decorations spilled everywhere. Vayne had hidden the second Inias spotted him, and he didn’t have time to play hide and seek. “Yule is ruined...” Inias muttered as he tore through the room, ripping through every box with his hooked claws and causing a colorful display of decorations to spill everywhere on the stone floor.

“Styx, guard the door!” Inias ordered, worried Vayne might slip past them. Styx rushed towards the steel door as Inias continued his assault. Wherever he was hiding, he’d masked his presence. His scent no longer lingered in there, making tracking him difficult. The room wasn’t that big, and he would tear through every box pile. There was no scent in the room. Vayne had masked his presence. Moonlight streamed, illuminating the room, but it offered little aid as he frantically searched.

Tree decorations, garland, and various figurines lay shattered on the ground, the only noise filling the silence as he searched the storage room. There were so many answers he needed from him. What was that silhouette, and why stop Keira from replaceing her brother? He didn’t have time to ask any of them. Someone had taken her and all he needed to know was where.

His claws ripped through a thick wooden crate, yanking it across the floor to replace a ball of fire coming for his face. “Styx, fetch!” Inias ordered in a panic as he ducked and as the flames passed by him Styx leapt out, extinguishing the flame in his mouth. Inias rolled across the floor and stood as more came his way. The fox moved behind him to catch each before the boxes caught fire. Tendrils of shadow followed behind his fluffy tail as he caught each one.

They were coming from all over the room. Every time one came their way, Vayne seemed to move his position with blinding speed. Styx grew fatigued, crossing the room repeatedly as the flames intensified. If one of them hit anything, the entire room would be up in flames. “Missed me!” Inias taunted, maneuvering through a relentless storm of blazing fireballs within the small space of the storage room. He ran behind boxes, ducking away from the oncoming flames.

Inias tried to get closer but was stopped by more fireballs. One grazed his arm, causing him to cry out as the flames burned at his skin. He snuffed it out and ducked to avoid the next volley of fiery balls. If he could just evade the flames long enough to close the distance between them, he could pin Vayne down. The gap in their physical strength was considerable, but that didn’t help Inias when he had fiery projectiles coming from every direction.

He couldn’t dodge those flames forever, it would eventually drain his reserves. Inias wasn’t sure he could outlast him in such a small space. One would hit him or get past the fox and set the room ablaze. He wasn’t giving Inias an inch, overwhelming him with a constant barrage of fireballs and blasts from his fingers. Wish I’d learned some water spells, He thought to himself, watching as Styx struggled to keep up with blocking every projectile before it engulfed anything.

“Keep it up! You’ll burn the whole castle down, genius!” Inias cried as he rolled from behind a stack of crates to his feet. “Come on buddy, let’s use our words!” He reached into his sleeve and chucked a dart toward the last fireball, only for it to land in the wall. “Just tell me where Keira is, and nobody needs to replace out! Except the cleaning crew, I’m sure as hell not cleaning this up.” He kept talking, hoping Vayne would tire of his voice and lash out to shut him up.

Suddenly, he emerged from the corner. “Gotcha!” Vayne’s triumphant shout echoed through the room as he unleashed a blast of flames straight from his hand. Inias summoned a wall of shadow to shield himself, but the relentless force of Vayne’s attack pushed him back, the flames searing through his defenses. The heat intensified, sweat dripping down Inias’ forehead as he fought to hold his ground. His raven black hair singed at the ends, and he could feel his scarf catching fire. “So long, my prince!”

With Vayne distracted, breaking Inias’ shield, Styx slipped into the shadows. Inias lifted his left hand to strengthen his shields as the fox seemed to lunge out from the wall, pouncing upon Vayne’s shoulders with a harsh bite. He yelped as the fox took him down and Inias fell to his knees, with ragged breaths once the flames had stopped. He patted his scarf and jacket down as he stood at his feet.

The fires faded from the room, having only scorched a few boxes. “Where’s Keira?” Inias growled again, crossing the floor to Vayne pinned beneath the fox. Styx sat upon him like a lounging cushion and wagged his tail. Inias fell to one knee and gripped Vayne’s chin, forcing those shimmering sapphire eyes to meet his. He’d drained himself with all that fire. Inias could see it in the sweat dripping down his pale cheeks.

A cry echoed across the walls when Inias answered Vayne’s silence with a harsh tug to his ear. “Where did you take her?!” Vayne spat blood across Inias’ cheek, which he answered by slamming the boy’s pretty face into the floor. He continued, slamming it over and over. “Where. Is. She?!” With every word, his face hit the floor, cracking the stone beneath his face. He didn’t have time for a lengthy interrogation. “Listen, I’d love to take my time, but I’m in a bit of a rush, so talk.” Inias saw the foam fall from Vayne’s lips onto the floor and he shot his head up to replace the black silhouette standing above them. Styx jumped from Vayne’s back, but the shadow disappeared through the wall crack once more.

Inias looked down at Vayne’s limp figure, his mind racing with uncertainty. Was it poison? He had encountered nothing like the shadow before. He had to replace Keira before the goblins had a feast. As he prepared to leave, a whimper from Styx caught his attention. The fox had unearthed a small throwing knife from Vayne’s pocket. “That’s hers!” Inias exclaimed, taking the weapon and hurrying out of the storage room.

“I heard it down there!” Inias heard a voice as he left the room. Outside the door, a guard turned the corner, heading for him. “I don’t have time for this…” Inias groaned, scooping up Styx as he raced towards the nearest glass window and hurled himself through it, shards raining down around them. Pain seared through his legs as he landed, but he pushed through it, dashing through the gardens in a blur of shadowy tendrils. The task at hand was to save Keira. Vayne had mentioned that someone was on their way to abandon her as goblin food. He should have agreed to go with her earlier. If she died…

Inias shook at that thought as he dropped Styx beyond the castle grounds. He leaned down to let Styx sniff the knife in his hand before he stuffed it back in his pocket. Guards were rushing towards them, and as the fox sniffed around, Inias stuffed a hand into the pouch on his side and threw a handful of his purple dust straight at the guards, causing them to be enveloped in the sleep-inducing mist. Styx howled and ran off towards the tree line across the yard. “Wait up!” Inias called, rushing off to after him.

The pair reached the tree line, and Styx rushed to leave the groves for the thick forest. “Is she close?!” Inias asked as he struggled to keep up with the little fox. Styx nodded and took a sharp right turn towards the sound of horse hooves in the distance. Their distance from the castle was uncertain. Everything around him was a blur as the two raced towards Keira.

Please be alive…please… Inias pleaded in his thoughts when he caught sight of two horsemen ahead, traveling by torchlight. One pulled a small wagon, and he could see the outline of someone laying inside. He threw two knives towards the horsemen. They shined like purple stars as they weaved around trees to land in each of their heads, causing them both to fall from their horses dead.

Styx rushed to block the spooked horses before they ran and Inias rushed to the wagon, cutting it from the horse. “Keira!” He pulled her from the wagon into his arms as Styx let both the horses run off to join Inias, dutifully sniffing the unconscious girl. “She’s alive…” Inias breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back against the wagon. He cradled her in his arms as she stirred. “Agh!” A cry echoed across the forest. He hadn’t felt her wake before a fist smashed into his jaw. After all the magic and strength he’d exerted, he crumbled to the ground.

“Bastar-Innie!” Keira gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him up. “Are you okay?” she asked, inspecting his cheek. “What happened?! Who were those guys?!” Inias rubbed at his cheek as she continued to assault him with questions. Where were they who took her? A lot happened in one day and he didn’t know how to process it all and tell her. “I’ll tell you, but we have to get bac-.” Going back now would raise too many questions. Vayne wasn’t working alone and Inias didn’t know what that shadow was capable of. The castle wasn’t safe.

“I’m not going back!” Keira exclaimed as she stood at her feet and offered her hand to Inias. “I’m going to replace Vestin, remember?” She reached into the wagon to retrieve the knives her captors had bagged up among her other goodies. “They left my knives next to me?” Keira rolled her eyes and began slipping each one back into its proper place on her outfit. “Careless idiots.”

“Fine, I’m going with you,” Inias agreed. She was determined to go, and now he couldn’t go back. “Really?!” Keira beamed a smile at her friend and threw her arms around Inias shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug. “I hoped you’d come through for me, thank you!” Inias closed his arms around waist and let her pull him in close until he felt something sharp poking at his chest through his tunic and hissed as he tried to pull himself free of her, “Keira, you’re stabbing me…” He groaned, as she hugged him even more tightly.

“Oh!” Keira pulled away to fix the knife left poking out of its strap across her stomach. “Sorry!” She moved aside and glanced at Styx, who had been observing them. “You coming too?” Styx howled and wagged his tail. Keira grinned and leaned down to ruffle his fur, which he accepted and nuzzled against her hand. She made her way to one of the dead men and pulled his cloak free, wrapping it around her shoulders, then took the other man’s and tossed it to Inias, “Come on Innie! You can explain what happened while we replace a place to camp.”