Fury rolls through me, and the confusion disappears. I’m not a damnedlittle human. I’m a Priest.
The first Mark I received, the Mark of the Phoenix, blazes bright red as dragonfire wreathes my entire body. It burns away all the shadows that hold me tight, freeing me and burning Azric in the process.
I don’t wait for him to recover. I can’t. The Prince of Bones is known for his brutality. He won’t hesitate to do whatever it takes to rip the information out of me, and seduction would be the kindest possibility. I can’t fight him. I can’t escape him. There’s only one real chance to protect the secrets I hold.
I race for the nearest window, the Infusion of the Falcon giving my body the speed it needs to be faster than any human and many Godforged could hope to be. I can’t beat him out of his tower, but I can make sure no one gets the secrets that were entrusted to me. I can keep the Order and Rhaskar safe.
Even if it means I give up my life in the process. That is a price all Priests are willing to pay.
I hit the window hard enough to break even the leaded glass. The shards of the window rip over my body, tearing at my skin and leaving long gashes as I fly into the air. I can see the city below me as I fall, and a sense of peace washes over me. A two-hundred-footfall takes a surprisingly long time.I always knew I’d die trying to protect Sylvantia and the Order.
That fall is also long enough for Azric to leap out of the window after me. Bones and wings made of shadow sprout from his back as he turns his body into an arrow, diving toward me. He, of all the enemies, is as much at home in the air as the dragon he rides.
“No, you don’t, little human.” His words carry past the wind, and I turn mid-flight to see him gaining on me. He’ll catch me before I hit the ground, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him. There are no Infusions to make me fall faster, no Marks that will kill me.
That sense of peace flees my mind as instinct takes hold. The scorch marks which had covered his face when he’d started his dive have already healed. I did absolutely nothing to him other than give myself a chance to escape. He’s furious, and the shadows he wields surround him as he gains on me.
Those shadows are the one thing I need and wouldn’t have had in a freefall. I spread my arms and legs to slow my descent ever so slightly, to better let him catch me. Azric seems surprised at my movements. He knew I was human, and the only humans who can use magic are Priests. I’m sure he knows exactly what I am. The other thing everyone knows is that Priests choose death over capture, just as I’d done when I’d leapt from the window.
There is a reason Priests hold our secrets so tightly. We know the abilities of every creature on Nyth, but no one truly understands ours. Our Infusions don’t work on anyone but humans, somethingno Immortal or Godforged seems to grasp. Our Marks fade as soon as we die, and we keep them hidden at all times.
How would the Prince of Bones know I could shadow walk?
He reaches out his hand as I see the base of the tower pass me by, and I smile up at him. I reach for him, but rather than grasp his hand, I brush my hand against the shadow just below his arm, and the Mark of the Cloak on my lower back glows black again.
I can see the tower above us and the shadow I hid in when climbing it. I have the two requirements to shadow walk: a shadow to walk through and a shadow to reappear at. In the blink of an eye, I disappear from below Azric and appear in that unending nothingness for less than a breath. I come back to Nyth at the base of the tower.
Without a moment of hesitancy, I grab another vial from my cloak, the Infusion of the Chameleon, and down the green liquid.
My stomach does backflips from the sudden change in speed, and I want to vomit, but the Infusion calms everything inside me, urging me to stay still, to not move an inch. It’s a good thing because I’d be much more visible if I were moving.
I glance down at my cloak, and instead of black linen, it appears to be crimson obsidian. The Chameleon isn’t true invisibility, but it’s the closest thing I’ve ever heard of. I look exactly like the area around me from any direction. As long as I don’t move and ruin it, no one could tell that I wasn’t a part of the tower from a distance.
The Prince of Bones flies past me. I can hear him cursing as he passes, but then he disappears into the shadows he’s wreathed in.He’s gone into the Void to hunt for me as if I were like him, capable of living in that darkness outside of Nyth.
The Infusion doesn’t last long, only five minutes, but it should be long enough for Azric to give up the hunt for me. He doesn’t know I can’t shadow walk very far. He probably expects that I’ve gone miles or even further from here.
The last place he’d look for me is a few feet away from where he last saw me. I’ll pull up my hood and walk down the steps to the city when the Infusion wears off, just as I walked up the stairs earlier this evening. Then I’ll be lost to them all.
I may have nearly been caught. I may have nearly died. But I now hold a weapon of the gods, stolen from under the nose of Azric Cyrus. If this doesn’t earn me a place as a Priest, I don’t know what will.
My father will have to accept me into the Order now. Even if I am a woman.
Chapter 2
The House of Shadows was given dominion over shadows by Vyran the Black, though that is the least of our abilities. Our true power lies in our connection to the Void. A shadow is a passage between this world and the eternal darkness that surrounds Nyth. This is how we shadow walk, moving through the Void like a fish swimming in the sea, and reappearing from another bit of darkness somewhere far from where we started.
~Queen Echo Vael, The Future of Magic and Dragons
Fiona
I’ve traveled the two weeks back to the border through the Kingdom of Averna, Lysara’s domain, without being accosted a single time. Now I stand at the edge of Death’s influence. The ashy ground under my feet and withered birch trees disappear a few steps in front of me, turning into lush green. The unbroken haze that fills the air and blots out the sun on this side of the boundary disappears along the invisible line that defines the edge of Averna.
On the other side, life rules and death has to fight for a fingerhold. The Priests did this; they held back Lysara’s attempt to claim our kingdom. Almost eighty years of fighting has proven the Order is strong enough to hold back even the Goddess of Death’s undying soldiers.
In all of Nyth, only Sylvantia remains truly free from any of the gods’ touches. Of all the ten human kingdoms, only we stood defiantly when they offered their deals to us. Choose a side, swear allegiance to a single god, become that god’s weapon in a game of war that will seemingly never end, or become food for the rest of them.
Every other leader accepted their fate and picked a side. Every leader other than my adoptive father, Rhaskar Thorne. The leader of the Order of the Priests. He isn’t the King of Sylvantia. No, there have been multiple kings since the awakening of the gods, but there has never been another leader of the Order. Only him.
