Chapter 11 #2
We used everything we had, yanking the full might of our powers into the battle.
My voice.
Mikaela’s icy fire.
Kasi’s shadows and those of Jahrdran and Shadow, who’d followed us in.
Mikaela shifted to Miki-Leopard and lashed Zowen with her flames of ice, freezing his shadows as they attempted to attack.
Shadow raked at him with her shadow-claws while Kasi and Jahrdran wrapped their shadows around his, battling for supremacy.
While my friends struggled and fought, I sang the songs my people were famous for.
I infused my voice with hypnotic commands, slowing Zowen’s movements and driving him from the shadows back into our realm where Vorzak, Elliot and a veritable army of Blackthorn students and professors were waiting.
My friends and I followed.
Chaos reigned in the cafeteria.
Zowen’s shadows were spreading sluggishly, slowed by my song, but still hunting my classmates.
I had no idea how we were going to contain his shadows, so I wove a second compulsion into my song, a demand for the hidden to be seen, for his true form to be revealed.
His shadows retreated, his natural form of flesh and blood appearing, then fading back to hazy shadows.
As I continued to weave the compulsion, it grew stronger with every verse until the flickers were more flesh and blood than shadows, though his shadow-wings showed no signs of regaining their original form.
Zowen roared in rage and hurtled toward me.
Vorzak leapt in front of me, The Hissies a massive cloud around his head, all of them focused on Zowen.
They whipped forward and Zowen screamed, backpedaling away from The Hissies, who simply grew bigger and more menacing as they darted in, biting and spitting venom.
Elliot and Mikaela joined in, side-by-side, Mikaela back in her human form, the two of them targeting Zowen’s shadow-wings by spewing flames across them. Elliot’s were the raging hot flames of his dragon and Mikaela’s the icy flames born in the shadows with Miki-Leopard.
Zowen bellowed in pain and attempted to escape into the shadows.
Jahrdran, Kasi and Shadow dragged him back, their shadows wrapped around his, Shadow raking through his wings with her shadow claws, making him roar in agony.
His shadow wings contracted around his physical form, then burst out in a wave of shadows that flung everyone back.
He raced for the shadows again, but my song had risen in crescendo and taken on a life of its own. It lashed out and yanked him back.
He roared and spewed flames across the cafeteria, sending students and professors screaming and diving away.
I wove a melody for the seas that came to my call and they surged up through the floorboards, a wall of water that burst over the flames, then splashed down to drench us all.
Zowen roared and whirled on me again, spewing flames toward me, but the water was already there, spiraling around me and Vorzak, who’d once more attempted to shield me from Zowen’s wrath.
The waters rose, creating a barrier between us and the killer who wanted nothing more than to silence my voice.
Still, I continued to sing as Vorzak wrapped me in his arms and The Hissies grew and twined themselves around me, their bodies swaying to the melody of my song.
It filled the air around us, a wall of sound compelling Zowen to stay and fight, compelling him to remain flesh and blood as my classmates, professors and friends attacked.
As the battle raged on, the shadows whispered all around us, their messages overlapping and contradicting one another.
He’s too powerful, the dead whispered. He can’t be stopped.
He flees the light, he will be stopped.
Hide.
Fight.
Call the shadows.
Call the light.
The contradictions were confusing and I wasn’t sure what to do, other than to continue singing, but the whispers were hard to ignore.
We’re here.
We’ve come.
We’re here.
To fight.
Call the shadows.
Call us into the light.
I froze for a moment as the truth exploded in my head, as I realized the shadow army had been trying to help us all along.
The shadows who’d spoken to us from the very beginning, warning us to hide or to fight, were the very soldiers in the shadow army I’d been dreaming of.
And this was where it all happened.
Right here, in the cafeteria at Blackthorn Academy, with the vaulted ceiling and skylights that should be pouring sunlight into the room, but instead were shrouded in darkness..
This was my dream.
This was the moment the Shadow Army invaded, but I’d gotten it all wrong.
They weren’t Lydrel Zowen’s soldiers.
They were ours.
I shifted my song, weaving a new layer on top of all the others, this one not a compulsion, but an invitation to the shadows.
Join us, I sang.
Leave the shadows behind,
Come into the light.
The world is calling you back
Stand up and fight.
Come into the light!
As the magic of my song grew to almost unbearable degrees, I was only peripherally aware of the struggle that continued between Zowen and the others.
He attempted to escape again and again into the shadows, but my song continually dragged him back.
We weren’t winning, but we weren’t losing either.
The shadows that I sensed waiting in the wings just beyond our sight took a step forward, distracting me for one critical moment.
Zowen dove for the shadows once more, this time managing to disappear inside them for an instant, but by now, my song had attached itself to him and there was nowhere in any of the realms he could go to escape it.
I traveled with my song, for as long as I continued to feed it power, we would be tied together, our fates entwined.
Conversely, I was also physically tied to Vorzak and The Hissies, held safe in their embrace in the castle.
Thus, I was in two places at once, both in the cafeteria and also in the Shadow Realm, guiding my song as it rose and fell like the ocean waves, filling every corner of that realm with its power.
As I sang, Zowen raged through the shadows, seeking a place where my song could not be heard, somewhere he could escape the truth of all that he had done, somewhere he could not find, for that place did not exist in any of the realms.
A deafening roar shook the Shadow Realm and reverberated through the castle, then Zowen fell from from high above us, a writhing mass of shadows tangled around him.
I’d been so distracted by his escape that I’d failed to continue to weave the invitation for the shadows, and as a result, the shadow army had fallen back, undoing that single step forward they’d taken.
Don’t be scared, I sang to them.
Don’t be afraid,
This is your home
You are so brave!
As Zowen spiraled downward, the shadows revealed themselves to be Kasi, Jahrdran, Shadow and Miki-Leopard, who’d pursued him into the Shadow Realm and who were now wrapped around him, dragging him back.
Elliot launched himself upward, wrapping his wings around Miki-Leopard, propelling her free from the tangle of shadows, then whirling and plowing into Zowen, so that the two chameleon dragons, one with shadow wings and the other with wings dotted in leopard spots, tangled together and fell.
The two dragons landed in the middle of the cafeteria with a thunderous crash.
Locked together, roaring and raging, they battled on, the rest of my friends, classmates and professors joining the fight as Zowen’s shadows began to spread through the room once more.
Somehow, that short trip to the Shadow Realm had empowered his shadow-self to resist the compulsion to maintain his physical form. Either that, or his physical form was nearly lost to him entirely, as his physical wings appeared to be.
I desperately wanted to help my friends in the battle, but the best I could do for them was to focus on my song, so I continued to weave its power.
Leave the shadows behind,
Come into the light.
The world is calling you back
Stand up and fight.
Come into the light!
As I sang to the shadow army that had been haunting my dreams for months, lights started to appear inside every shadow.
Lights inside my shadow-beast friends.
Lights inside the shadows that made up my shadow army.
Even the light inside Lydrel Zowen—deep, deep inside—was still there. That tiny spark of light that was the love he’d once held for his shadow-beast mate.
I continued to sing, coaxing the timid shadows back to the world, to become the shadow army I’d dreamed of, to fight for justice for the millions of victims Zowen had claimed in his raging loss and to fight for their own freedom from the shadows that had caged them for so long.
Leave the shadows behind,
Come into the light.
The world is calling you back
Stand up and fight.
Come into the light!
Slowly at first, then with growing momentum, shadows poured from the Shadow Realm.
Shadows upon shadows upon shadows filled the room, the shadow army that had once terrified me so marching into Blackthorn Academy and filling it with their sorrow and their pain, with their demand for justice.
I shifted my song once more, singing to Zowen one final time,
Look around!
See the ones you have wronged.
Your rage has no place here
Your time has come and gone.
Look around!
Peace is waiting for you.
Stop fighting your fate.
The end is here.
Look around!
Justice has come for you.
Stand your ground.
Accept your fate.
Return to the light.
My song reverberated through the room and the battle slowed, then stopped, as the students and professors of Blackthorn Academy and Lydrel Zowen all yielded to its power.
Frozen in place, his shadow wings flickering behind him, going back and forth from shadows to flesh and blood, Zowen did what my song commanded.
He gazed around the room, eyes roaming over the shadow army until they stopped on one particular shadow that stood apart from the others.
While Zowen stared at the flickering light deep inside that shadow, the rest of the shadow army marched forward once more.
In response, Zowen’s shadows, the ones that had spread throughout the room, shielding the skylights high above and hunting my classmates below, began to retreat, shrinking away from the army that moved inexorably closer and snapping back into Zowen’s form.
No longer blocked by shadows, sunlight poured through the skylights, creating small funnels of light throughout the room.
The shadow army flowed seamlessly around them, shifting and moving relentlessly forward. From the perimeter of the room inward, from floor to ceiling, they poured.
As the army moved forward, the students and professors of Blackthorn Academy fell back.
Elliot, Miki-Leopard, Kasi, Shadow and Jahrdran pulled away with them, all of them yielding the fight to the shadow-beasts of another age, beasts who’d risen as a shadow army.
That army showed Zowen no mercy.
They ripped into his shadows, shredding and tossing the pieces of darkness into the funnels of light around the room, until finally, the only thing left of the chameleon dragon turned Shadow Killer was that tiny spark of light that represented the love he’d once held for his mate.
I called that light to me and cupping it in my hands, sang the final verse of a song I’d read the year before in a book Kasi had retrieved from her shadow library.
Somehow, all those months ago, The Song of Shadows had found a place inside me where it waited until this very battle to be sung.
The light inside never dies
It lives on, in all of us
Hold it close, this tiny spark,
then let it fly, so it never goes dark.
Let it fly, so it never goes dark.
I opened my hands and the light flew toward the shadow that had stood back while the army tore apart Zowen.
That shadow now streamed forward, shadow-hands held out to accept that small, emaciated light into its arms.
That light joined the shadow’s light at its center and the two merged into one.
As if that was all the shadow ever needed to move on, it simply dissipated, the light at its center disappearing in a flash of bright light.
That was when the rest of the shadow army streamed toward Kasi.
She stood not far from where the final battle had taken place, tears streaming down her face, Jahrdran’s arms around her, Shadow and Miki-Leopard flanking her.
Elliot crouched at Miki-Leopard’s side, his leopard-spotted wings spread out behind him.
As the melody of my song dwindled to a soft hum, the shadows streamed past Kasi, shadowy hands and arms brushing over her hair and along her sides.
Their shadows and hers, along with those of Jahrdran, Shadow, Miki-Leopard and even a few that seemed to be Elliot’s, mingled together for one long moment, then separated, the shadows of another era fading from the world one final time.
When they were all gone, Kasi let out a soft, keening sound, then collapsed in Jahrdran’s arms.