Magic courses through me in a flash, bringing darkness with it. My vision flickers.
The world loses all its color, bloodstains turned black.
And all around me, shadows wake.
The arena dims as if a storm were passing overhead. Every shadow in the vast space starts to stretch and distort, reaching for me. They move toward me in strange ways, crawling inside me, wrapping themselves up and around my arms like vines.
“Be careful,” Anassa urges.“This power—you don’t know how to control it. You don’t know where it starts. Or where it ends.”
The depth of my darkness is limitless. I can sense that.
Or it could be, if I had the courage to embrace it. But right now…
Right now, I know exactly where it ends. There’s a precise spot where my magic is choked out and throttled by Killian’s influence. Still, what I have access to is more than I ever could have imagined.
Holding a shadow-covered hand out, I stare briefly at it in fascination. There’s a pulse in my chest, like the magic is urging me to utilize it, to grasp it and free it.
“Watch out!” someone shrieks. I glance back up just in time to see three of Jonah’s comrades charging directly for me.
“Use your power, Meryn!” Stark bellows.
Anger roils through me, and for the first time since my crown was taken, the shadows respond.
I throw my hands up instinctively, protectively.
Stop, I think.
Stop, I command.
Force explodes from my palms—a huge, moving wave of shadow. The wave crests over the two riders in front of me and then swerves out in big looping arcs, reaching more of Jonah’s allies all around the arena. It reminds me of the Daemos blasts at first, air made solid, but on a larger scale and darklyvisible.
I relish it, the darkness inside me now rising violently to the surface.
Stop them, I command the shadows again. They move at my instruction but of their own volition—of me but somehow outside of me, too.
The shadows wrap themselves around the wolves and their riders. Their bodies start to contort and lift into the air.
Screams echo around the arena, and I snap out of my satisfied stupor.
No.This isn’t me. I need to stop this—
There’s a suffocating pressure in my chest as the shadows pull tighter and tighter around them all. Around their necks. The shadows slither into their open mouths, stifling screams for mercy.
Stop, stop, STOP!
Then a loud echoingsnap.
The riders and their wolves drop dead onto the arena floor. Not just the three charging for me, but a lot of their allies, too.
A dozen, at least. Dead.
The shadows retreat, and the reality of it washes over me, turning my stomach. I’m going to be sick.
My hands start shaking against Anassa’s fur at the horror—the horror of whatI’vedone.
The arena stills. All combat ceases as everyone stares in shock at the mangled remains of the wolves and their riders. I watch the corpses as if waiting for them to get up again. Their twisted limbs make them look small and vulnerable in the vastness of the arena’s floor.
Darkness still slithers around my arms, cool against my skin, a visceral reminder of what I’m capable of.
