CHAPTER ONE
LYVIA
Pyracantha, Lotrennia.
Six weeks after the Battle of Odessa.
You are not afraid of the dark, the shadow purred.Let me out.
Dulled gray irises darted between me and Ronan, unable to focus on either of us, as I reached my fingers to the milky white skin of the ashen restrained in a black web of vines. He bucked and thrashed as my hand clamped down on his gaunt, clammy shoulder.
Despite the mugginess of Lotrennia, his skin was frigid, like a sweaty body tossed into the winds of winter. The creature’s stench clogged my throat, a mix of rotting meat, stale blood, and the dry, cold breath of death. My instincts screamed at me to run, but it was nothing compared to the dangerous new darkness swirling in my veins.
Let me out.
Strong hands gripped either side of the ashen’s pallid face, holding his head in place as he snapped his elongated teeth at my trembling hand.
It was Isla’s idea to use contact. To touch the thing…theman…in front of me. She stayed behind today, often splitting her time between training me and Drystan, her protégé. I told myself it didn’t bother me. Drystan needed her guidance to hone his powers and stand ready to face King Saros when we returned to Sultira. We’d need every human mage we could get.
Yet every attempt I’d made in reversing the transformation of the ashen, undoing what Dark King Daimos had done to them, had been a failure. My gut twisted under the pressure.
A company of Lotrennian soldiers had captured several of the creatures from a horde released on their shores after I’d shared my revelation with Queen Antares, Bayne, and Nerissa’s aunt by marriage. I believed I could save them with the Transcindiel power hidden deep within me, though it was often lost under waves of darkness.
The Obscura roiled in my veins at the contact, bucking and thrashing as hard as the ashen in front of me, willing,demandingI release it. Isla had warned me about power of this magnitude, the strength it would take to control it. There had been eight Bellators. Eight powers, yet I wielded two.
I took a steadying breath, splitting my focus and strength between subduing the darkness and reaching for that thread of song-like power that allowed its Bellator to transform:Transcindiel.
My eyes closed as I searched, letting my mind’s ear take over as I swam through a tunnel of consciousness, listening for the lilting tune.
A soft melody pricked my attention, and as I reached for it, a gut-curdling shriek pierced the air. My eyes shot open, hair standing on end. I stepped back, my hand clamping over mymouth as two freshly gnawed fingers dropped from the ashen’s bloodstained lips.
“Call for a mender!” Ronan shouted as the elven guard held his bleeding hand against his chest. The elf’s brown eyes were wide in dread and his mouth dropped in shock as he stared at me.
“NOW!” Ronan bellowed, moving toward the elf whose knees crashed to the dirt floor. The ex-queensguard ripped a shred of cloth off his dark blue tunic, tying a tourniquet around the elf’s forearm as scenes from last year on board theEvectaedged into my mind.
Hand. We had to take his hand… The creatures Dark King Daimos created could spread the transforming curse with a single bite.
Ronan grunted as he pinned the guard to the ground, hollering once more for a mender. Steps shuffled from outside the room. I rushed to the guard’s side, reaching for the other hand when the injured elf turned his face toward me, his brown irises lightening to a near-white as the blood drained from his face and his canines stretched into sharp fangs. His face tightened as animalistic violence surged into his being.
His pupils constricted as they landed on me, and shadows clouded my veins in preparation. His lips stretched over pale gums, and as he lurched toward me, Ronan plunged his dagger into the soft flesh beneath his chin. Guards rushed into the room as Ronan twisted the blade, with the last semblance of life drifting away from the elf’s dulled eyes.
I pulled my gaze away in time to catch the glimmer of a blade slicing through the restrained ashen’s neck so fast that its head sat there for a moment, balancing in place as the last bit of dull light left its once beautiful eyes. The head rolled forward, and I shuffled back as it fell to the ground with a thud.
Guilt raked at my chest. Another failure, two casualties. The guards knelt next to their dead comrade, examining the eyes and mouth of the newly formed ashen. Their eyes slid to me in hostile accusation as they removed the body.
The guard behind me made a single, long sweep over his blade with a cloth after beheading the ashen. Purely out of habit, as the ashen had no blood circulating in their veins. Like so many, the elf avoided my eyes. Others, those who worshipped the Bellators of old, spat and cursed my name as they passed.
Betrayer, they hissed.
They believed Enya, the last Bellator to wield the Obscura, the power I felt so strongly, had nearly destroyed the world and the rest of the Bellators.
“I’m so sorry,” I croaked. “I?—”
“They know the risk, Lyvia,” Ronan cut in, offering a curt nod to the guards before turning me toward the exit.
My shoulders sagged as I added another tick to the growing list of bodies that piled around me. Seven failed attempts since arriving in Lotrennia. On top of the thousands I had obliterated on the cliffs of Odessa six weeks ago.
Ronan’s lips drew a hard line as he offered me a quick squeeze on the shoulder. Small, black vines slid out of the knot as the door swung open, shutting and relocking just as fast. The vines somehow knew who was allowed to pass and when.
