A stream of dark magic shot across the hall. It struck the floor inches from my boots, blasting stone into the air. Pain sliced across my cheek as a shard grazed me, and warmth trickled down my skin.
The shadows reacted.
Every single one turned toward the Priestess.
The air changed so sharply I felt it in my teeth.
The Academy lights dimmed to a soft glow, and the shadows stretched taller and wider, slipping across the floor like fog. They took shapes now. Not bodies exactly, but suggestions of them.
A hand.
A face.
A mouth smiling where no mouth should be.
The Priestess took a step back as the shadows moved with eerie grace, surrounding her in a wide circle. Their whispers became sharper, clearer, threaded with years of anger that had apparently been waiting for the right moment to spill free.
“You are nothing without me,” she snapped.
The shadows stilled, and for a second, nothing moved.
I glanced at Barlen as the entire room erupted in a sound that was absolutely laughter…deep, terrible, ancient laughter.
It rolled through the Academy and up the staircases, rattling the windows and sending dust drifting from the ceiling.
Barlen’s mouth fell open, and I clutched the wall beside me and tried very hard to remember how breathing worked.
The shadows laughed at her.
At the Priestess.
The woman who had bent them, commanded them, fed on them, and shaped an entire realm around her will.
They were laughing, and a smile started before I could stop it.
The Priestess saw, and her fury snapped back into place. “You think this is amusing?”
“No,” I said quickly. I was smart enough to recognize that the shadows could turn on me, too.
Barlen let out a strangled sound that might have been a laugh if he hadn’t looked like he was about to collapse.
The shadows nearest me curled lightly around the cracked stone floor, and the silver inside them brightened.
A word drifted through the air, softer this time.
Hope.
The Priestess screamed, and the sound tore through the hall, and every lantern burst brighter. She pulled from the ground, the walls, the courtyard, and the dark sky beyond the open doors. Black power stormed toward her in violent streaks, feeding into her hands until the air around her warped.
Barlen shoved me behind a pillar. “She’s drawing everything she can.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It’s very bad.” His eyes stayed on mine as fear filled them. “She might not have the shadows, but she’s still powerful.”
“Thank you for confirming.” I peeked around the pillar as the Priestess lifted her hands, and the storm of darkness above her condensed into a spinning mass that made my shadow mark burn cold and hot all at once. My butterfly birthmark answered, pulsing so hard that tears blurred my eyes.
The Academy shuddered, and the shadows hesitated.
