Josephine's voice kills any man who hears it-except for the assassin sent to capture her for the king that's been chasing her all her life...but what happens when he decides he doesn't want to hand her over and keep her for himself instead?
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The shadow man was back.
Lurking in the farthest corners of my mind, he was watching me try to get to Inala with my powers unfurling out before me on the physical plane, hands outstretched, mouth open, yet silent.
Even as the storm raged on.
Even as Oren watched with wide eyes.
Even as the king's soldiers flooded the beach once more and were close to finding my prone body sitting upright in the line of fire, but I was too far gone inside my mind.
The shadow man had taken ahold of my consciousness, and he wasn't planning on letting go anytime soon as I felt his influence stretch taut over me like a thick blanket.
There was no song pouring from my mouth, only deadly mist that burned anyone on contact with it.
"You'll get nowhere if you keep that up. You'll burn yourself out much too fast, especially after the work you've done with Orenthal in his cabin. Seemed very...comfortable, if you ask me."
My concentration was wavering, and that red light the same shade as Inala's fiery hair was waning as I attempted to locate her in Hefeta in my mind's eye just like I had found Sigrid the night the king's men had kidnapped her.
"Slow down. You're expending too much power too soon. Anymore of this and you'll be drained and be of no use to the Siren you're seeking."
"Who are you, and why are you trying to help me?"
The shadow man stepped out from his cover of darkness and I gasped aloud as his form came into focus.
The sigil on my forehead that Sabira had called the kiss of death burned under his stare as more of his towering body came into my line of sight.
There was no longer any connection to my earthly body or the world outside.
There was only the shadow man inside my head and me standing before him with panic painting my blood in deathly colored hues.
"I'm not quite sure you're ready for those answers yet, Josephine."
"And why not? You've been infiltrating my mind, making me see things that aren't really there, distracting me from—"
"From?"
His voice rumbled like a peal of thunder that exploded somewhere outside the reach of my mind.
I could've sworn someone was faintly screaming my name, if only I could pull from my mind, move away from the shadow man and his machinations of distraction.
"From protecting the people I care about! Now get out of my head, or I'll kick you out myself."
His laughter was water dripping on a moss covered rock, a slow moving creek rippling across a verdant studded countryside.
