Chapter One
~ Shade ~
“Lift your feet, girl! You look like a wounded animal,”Elgen criticizes, her husky voice scraping against the walls of my mind.
Heaving, I wipe away the sweat that’s trickling past my eyes, and I peer at where the shadow is watching me from her vantage point high up on the training hall wall. I’m tempted to argue, but I’ve been stumbling through this obstacle course barely managing to avoid being sliced into tiny pieces or burned to ash, so I guess she may have a point.
According to Thane, this is the easiest obstacle course in the academy. The Beginner’s Course, as he calls it. Situated in one of the larger training rooms within the stone walls of Shadowbone Academy, Thane explained it’s made up of only twenty obstacles. That’s right, he used the wordonly.I think he was trying to reassure me and point out how basic the course is, but I guess the joke’s on him, because I’ve been failing at this spectacularly.
Avoiding moving on to the next obstacle of death, I stare at where Tarlaz, Elgen’s shadow companion, is positioned beside her. He’s preoccupied as he pretends to devour what looks like a giant shadow cake, complete with thick swirls of piped whipped cream.Great, and now I feel like cake. Why don’t these classes ever have any snacks?Technically, I could conjure one right now if I wanted to. It turns out, eating at the dining hall is more of a formality than anything, but I’m guessing pigging out while I’m supposed to be sweating my ass off wouldn’t win me any points. Still, I can’t help wondering how big of a cake I could conjure up using my academy ring. As I imagine a giant cake that’s taller than my head, a wide grin splits across my face. That is, I’m smiling until I remember Thane warning us that none of the students will be leaving this room until weallmake it through this damn course.Crap.
Forcing myself to ignore my hollow stomach, I shake out my limbs and slap my cheeks as I face the obstacle in front of me.Okay, you can do this, Shade. Easy peasy. Just a few more obstacles.A giant metal disk is spinning in front of the platform I’m on, suspended in the air and resembling an illustration of a UFO I once saw on a sci-fi romance cover. I know I’m supposed to jump onto the disk, but when I peer over the edge of the platform to the ground far below, my head spins and I can’t seem to make my legs move.
“You know, I am wounded,”I say, continuing to stall, and complaining to Elgen as I reply to her earlier comment. I still haven’t figured out how I can talk to the shadows in my mind like this, but their constant chatter has helped to make my classes at Shadowbone Academy a little more…bearable. Even if Elgen has been acting like an overprotective mother hen ever since I returned from the hunt. You’d think surviving being picked as the Token would have gained me some respect, or at least, a little more faith that I’m not completely hopeless, butif anything, the ancient shadows act as if I’m even more fragile now. I like to tell myself it’s because while I was gone, they’d realized how much they would miss me if I died, but they probably just hate the idea of losing the only person they can talk to in this place.
“I think I twisted my ankle on those boulders back there,”I add, wincing as I gingerly place my left boot on the ground and pain shoots up my ankle.
Completely unsympathetic, Elgen hums disapprovingly in my mind.“If you can’t even handle this, child, how are you going to win the games?”
“Win?”I choke on a laugh.“Yeah, my plan is survival, and I’ll be lucky if I can even manage that.”My amusement fades then, and I frown as I consider what she’s said.“And what do you mean ‘win’ the games? I thought as long as I survive, I graduate, and graduates get immortality and a place in the shadow queen’s army?”Not that the last part is exactly something I want to aspire toward, but at this point, I don’t have a choice. The tattoo on my back marks me as a student of this academy, so I can either risk trying to escape and likely die in the days that follow, or I compete in the games, try to survive, and hopefully by some miracle, gain my immortality. I can deal with the whole army thing later. Besides, there’s also the fact that I still haven’t regained my memories, plus the tricky situation involving my four delicious shadow daddy fated mates… Yep, my life is…complicated.
“Correct. At least, that’s the way it has worked in the past,”Tarlaz replies, distracting me as he lifts his head from his shadow cake.“But there’s also a champion. A student the queen deems an overall winner of the games. They are bestowed something powerful.”
“More powerful than immortality?”I question.
“Perhaps not, but valuable none-the-less,”Tarlaz says.“It is guaranteed the graduate will receive a commanding position within the army, and they have the opportunity to request an audience with the queen.”
“An audience?”The warmth drains from my cheeks.Gaining more of the queen’s attention sounds like a terrible idea, and I highly doubt anyone would want me in any kind of leadership position within the army. I have a hard enough time keeping myself alive. The last thing I want is the responsibility of keeping a legion of soldiers from being slaughtered.
“Ordinarily, the victor may use that audience to discuss their desired position within the army, but there have been instances when other requests have been made,”Tarlaz continues.
That catches more of my interest.“Other requests? Like what?”
This time Tarlaz doesn’t answer, but the shadow has completely abandoned his cake.
“Requests like you asking the queen if she’ll consider freeing us from this… institute,”Elgen answers for him.
Surprise ripples through me.“Hold on. You think she can free you from Shadowbone?”
“We’ve been trapped in this academy since it was built,”Tarlaz explains.“We wondered if you won an audience with the queen, that you might ask for her to release us from the magic that binds us to this place.”
My head spins, and I try to remember what the shadows have told me about themselves. All I can recall is that they’re ancient creatures who were living on this land when the academy was constructed, and unfortunately, were bound within the walls. I think of the centuries they’ve been trapped within this place. About how desperately I’d want to escape if I had been kept here against my will all that time. When I’d been trapped in a cage asa crow, that was bad enough, and I shiver thinking about how they must have felt all these years. The last thing I want is to get any more of the queen’s attention, especially when I’m possibly destined to destroy my mates and make us lose the war. If the queen finds out that I’m fated to Thane and the others, I doubt she’ll be too happy about it, but I don’t have the heart to refuse the shadows’ request.
“Like I said, I’ll be lucky if I survive,”I reply truthfully.“You’ve seen how well I do with all this, but I guess…if I had an audience with the queen, there’s no reason I couldn’t bring it up.”
Immediately, the shadows start dancing on the wall, and even though I know I’ll likely disappoint them, seeing them happy makes me grin. I’m glad I can give them some hope. I think we all need that sometimes.
“Very good,”Tarlaz says after a moment.“Then let’s get back to shaping you into a warrior, shall we?”
Oh, right. The obstacle course.Groaning, I eye the long path of obstacles still before me. I think I’m halfway. Maybe...
“Nope, I’ve changed my mind,”I tell Tarlaz.“Crap. It’s like I’m stuck on a hamster wheel from hell.”Except, you know, it’s not really a hamster wheel. Nope. It’s a seemingly endless course that I swear has been designed with the sole purpose of torturing the students.
“You’re being dramatic,”Elgen replies dryly.
“Am I? Because it feels like I’ve been at this for an eternity,”I retort. To be fair, that may be a ‘me’ problem, because all the other students have already made it to the end, but I figure I still get to complain. Even so, I know I can’t put this off any longer. I hiss as I half-drag my injured foot and limp toward the spinning disk obstacle in front of me. Just looking at it is making me dizzy, but I gather what little courage I have and jump ontothe moving circle. Copying the students from earlier, I quickly crouch down, bending my knees so I’m not flung off.
“Holy crap, I did it!”I say in my mind to the shadows, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.
