Chapter 13
LYRA
She stepped into the ring like someone carved from night itself. No staff. No blade. Just her body and her magic and that was more than enough. Her hair fell in ink-dark curls down her back. Her violet-rimmed eyes were calm, almost bored. She moved with a stillness more threatening than motion.
And in that moment I knew her. Not from whispers.
Not from the name on the board. But from the balcony.
The girl beside Kieran. The one who had been dragging her fingers down his sleeve.
The one who looked at me like I was dirt under her boot.
She did not look at me. Not yet. She simply took her mark on the opposite end of the ring, feet planted, eyes unreadable.
An Overseer lifted his hand. “Crucible Match: Initiate Lyra Alerain versus Advanced Candidate Neseryn. Match proceeds until yield, incapacitation, or interruption by ward. Begin on signal.” The crowd leaned forward. “Begin.”
Neseryn moved first, like a shadow slipping free of its tether. Not a sprint. A glide. Barely touching the stone and the first strike hit me. Not a fist. Not even a blade.
Absolute darkness.
Shadows lashed toward me like ropes and slammed into my ribs. I flew sideways, skidding along the floor while the crowd roared. Pain burst through my side. I gasped and staggered upright.
She was already circling, already calling the next strike. A tendril of shadow shot for my legs. I barely dodged it. She never made a sound. Just lifted her hand and the dark obeyed like it had a will of its own.
I reached for light. Begged for it. Nothing answered. My rune stayed cold. Another blow hit my shoulder and sent me reeling. The crowd wasn’t laughing anymore. Neseryn fought like someone who’d done this a hundred times and never lost.
I was losing.
Fast.
A shadow clipped my ankles as I jumped. I hit the ground in a messy roll, grit scraping my elbow raw. When I pushed up, I caught the small twitch of her lips. A smile. “Try harder,” she murmured. Her voice was soft. Beautiful and cruel. Heat tightened my jaw. I charged her.
She slipped aside with infuriating ease and sent a ribbon of shadow right into my chest. I hit the stone hard enough to see white.
Blood filled my mouth.
Get up. Keep going. My hands shook as I shoved myself upright. My legs trembled. My rune stayed silent.
Neseryn tilted her head and finally met my eyes.
“I expected more from the Sanctum’s charity case.
” Heat flared beneath my ribs. I lunged again but she kept circling, slow and predatory.
“They say you came from across the Veil,” she went on.
“That your little village burned when the wraiths slipped in.”
I froze.
Her smile sharpened. “Is that why they brought you here? A pity project? A way to soothe their guilt because they didn’t stop it in time?”
The gallery went dead silent.
“You destroyed them, didn’t you?” Neseryn whispered. “Burned the wraiths to ash. How tragic, then—” She stepped closer, her violet eyes burning. “—that you weren’t strong enough to save anyone else.”
The last of whatever had been holding me together split open.
A break splintered open by grief and rage and fire.
I screamed, and the Light answered. It tore out of me in a blinding silver-blue flare, raw enough that the nearest ward snapped bright around the ring.
Neseryn threw up one arm against it, her shadows surging instinctively around her, black ribbons racing over the stone to swallow the glare. Then the balance shifted.
One of those shadows turned. Not toward me.
With me. I barely noticed at first. There was too much magic, too much noise, Neseryn’s darkness tangling through the silver-blue Light until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
The gallery erupted. Someone shouted for the Overseers to reinforce the wards.
Neseryn struck again. Her shadow snapped toward my throat. Another caught it.
I froze.
Darkness twisted around darkness, one strand wrenching the other sideways before both disappeared into the black spreading across the floor.
Neseryn’s brow furrowed. She looked at her hand.
So did I. She lifted two fingers. The shadows nearest her moved.
The one beside me didn’t. My pulse stopped.
I took one breath. It tightened. No. Another. It curled closer. My stomach dropped.
Mine.
The thought came with the certainty of a blade sliding between my ribs.
I had Shadow.
Neseryn attacked again, her darkness colliding with the part of it I could suddenly feel answering me. To anyone watching, it was one mass of Shadow tearing through my Light. I knew better now. I answered with a spear of light that sent her stumbling back. I didn’t wait. I pushed forward.
Strike. Burn. Block.
Instinct took over. My body moved faster than my mind could follow. She recovered just as fast and came at me with renewed ferocity. Spiked shadows. Whips of darkness. Blades made from night itself.
They hit my shield of light… and the shadows that weren’t hers hit back. Neseryn stumbled. Her eyes flashed down. Confusion. Only confusion. She thought it was hers. Everyone did. I could hear them shouting her name from the gallery as though she had somehow lost control of her own magic.
But I felt the darkness waiting beneath my Light. I didn’t know how I was doing it. I didn’t know how to stop. I only knew it answered when I needed it. The Overseers threw a second containment ring around us as light and shadow tore at the Crucible.
I didn’t know how long it lasted. I just knew I was burning from the inside out.
Light ripping through me. Shadow pouring from somewhere deeper.
Then a blast of force slammed between us.
A ward snapped down. Match over. The crowd erupted.
Shouts. Confusion. Awe. My hands were still glowing when I lowered them.
My knees shook. Sweat and ash clung to my skin.
The shadows around my feet curled once, almost gently, then vanished. Gone like they’d never been there.
I hardly heard the Overseers shouting orders. Across the ring, Neseryn stared down at the darkness settling around her boots. Her jaw was tight. Not afraid. Angry. Like the only thing bothering her about the match was that for several seconds, her own magic had appeared to disobey her.
The walk from the ring blurred. The crowd parted.
My name echoed in hushed voices but I didn’t hear any of it.
All I could feel was the lingering snap of that magic.
The shadows curling inside me like they belonged.
Inside the infirmary the others were already waiting.
Vareena. Emrin. Lidia. Dax. Raiden leaning against the doorframe. No one spoke at first.
Then Dax exhaled. “Holy shit. You nearly blew the ward.”
“She nearly blew three,” Raiden said from the doorway.
Lidia was staring at the burn running along my sleeve. “You went from nothing to that?”
“Apparently.”
“That’s not how Light usually works.”
“I’m beginning to gather that.”
That night I couldn’t sleep. Vareena didn’t push when I pretended to pass out early.
She just blew out the lantern and rolled over.
The room faded into dark silence. But sleep didn’t come.
Not with Neseryn’s voice ringing through my head.
Not with the crowd’s gasps echoing. Not with the feel of shadow crawling beneath my skin.
So I got up. The halls were colder than I expected. I hadn’t bothered to change, only pulled my cloak over the thin nightdress I’d worn to bed. I hadn’t fastened it properly or bothered with shoes.
The Archives hummed as I approached, the doors glowing faintly. They opened before I touched them. Inside, dust hung suspended in silver light. Books seemed to lean toward me, listening. I didn’t look for the Codex.
I didn’t need to.
It waited where I’d first found it, resting on the stone pedestal at the center of the alcove, silver-blue light breathing beneath its cover as though it had known I would return.
I stepped closer. The cloak slipped farther down my shoulder but I didn’t fix it. “You knew,” I whispered. “Didn’t you?”
The pages rustled once. A quiet breath.
“I fought with shadow today,” I said. “And light. At the same time.” The glow pulsed. “No one else wields two. No one can. It tears you apart. Everyone knows that. Nirael—”
The name caught in my throat. I remembered the lecture now. Nirael, the warrior-saint of light. Touched by the stars. Corrupted by shadow. Her gifts had split her soul in two.
“I’m not her,” I whispered.
But you are a daughter of light and shadow.
The Codex’s voice drifted like fog across my mind, soft and old.
I stiffened. “How can I be both?”
I told you Starborn, you wear your mother’s face but your father’s power seeps beneath your bones.
I stepped closer. The book hovered at eye level now, its glow brushing my cheek like wind.
“I want nothing from them. And the last thing I want is to be some watered down version of the only recorded dual wielder in the history of Alareth. Especially when the original was killed for it.”
The Codex opened slowly, the pages turning themselves. A single line glowed across the parchment:
Wanting means little to fate.
Another followed beneath it, older and worn:
Nirael broke because she was never taught how to bend.
I was so sick of the riddles. “You and Nirael can shove it.” There was a low hum of magic.
Then, a voice sounded behind me. “You shouldn’t wander the Archives alone at night.”
I spun.
Kieran stood in the aisle’s mouth, half in shadow, half in moonlight. His hair was rumpled like he’d been dragging his hands through it. His shirt hung loose at the throat. His eyes took me in piece by piece.
My trembling hands. My uneven breathing. And gods, my nightdress. Heat flared across my cheeks. It wasn’t indecent, not exactly, but it was sheer in the wrong light. The cloak I’d thrown on before sneaking out hung crookedly off one shoulder, the clasp undone and useless.
His jaw flexed once. “You’re injured. You shouldn’t even be walking, much less wandering out here dressed like—”
“I’m fine.” I yanked the cloak tighter. “I just needed air.”
“Liar.” His voice dropped. “You can hardly breathe without wincing.”
“I’m managing just fine, thank you.”
He stepped closer. “What happened in the Crucible?”
I stiffened. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I got my ass handed to me by your girlfriend.”
He gave no reaction. “Neseryn isn’t the problem.”
“Didn’t feel that way from where I was standing.”
“I’m talking about the Shadow. They were not hers.”
My stomach lurched. “They were. Everyone said she’s—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Lie badly.”
My pulse thrashed. “I don’t know what you think you saw.”
“Oh, I know exactly what I saw.” His gaze pinned mine. “I’ve trained with Neseryn enough times to know the shape of her magic. How it moves. How it answers her.”
My mouth had gone dry. “You saw her lose control.”
“Neseryn doesn’t lose control.”
“Everyone else seemed to think she did.”
“Everyone else doesn’t know her Shadow.” He stepped closer, voice dropping. “One of those strands answered before she commanded it. Another moved against her.” I said nothing. “And every time you panicked, it got stronger.”
My stomach dropped.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
My fingers curled. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Maybe not,” he said quietly. “But I know what happens to wielders who deny what’s theirs. It destroys them.” My cloak slipped farther from my shoulder.
His gaze dropped before he could stop it. Just once. Then his jaw tightened and his eyes returned to mine. I pulled the cloak closed. The air between us tightened. Kieran took a step back as though distance had become suddenly necessary. “Go back to Luminari.”
“You don’t give me orders.”
“No.” His gaze dropped to the ordinary darkness beneath my feet. “But if someone else sees what I saw today, you won’t get to decide what happens next.”