Chapter 3
Chapter Three
THE SHADOW
Cliff’s Edge
Waiting in the darkness, The Shadow looked at the congregating class of Sir Edmund University. The upcoming graduates were celebrating their last night of school at the bonfire below, while an unseen predator stalked from the dark.
The Shadow was here tonight to watch the newly selected initiates, waiting to see which ones stepped forward and accepted the rite into the games—The Guilda’s first ever Viperae Rosarum Ludi.
Nobody ever suspected that The Shadow could be one of the worst monsters The Guilda had ever had the privilege of training. The golden child of one of the most influential families, one rumoured to have ties to the mob. The heir that stayed hidden in the dark.
The Shadow was here to do a job: tick names off the list and go home. But his mind wandered elsewhere, focus honed in and unrelenting on one initiate in particular.
The Ellsworth princess. The crowned queen of her group of heirs and town royalty.
Audrey Yates.
The girl who brilliantly puppeteered the sheep not only in her year, but in all the years she attended the academy and university, ever since she stepped her dangerously spiked heel onto the cracked stone paths of campus.
Tonight, The Shadow was watching her.
Waiting to see what she had chosen for herself.
Hoping she was smug enough to accept her own rite.
Praying she would step into the games and show this town, this university, and this country what happened when you pushed someone who lost nearly everything in one night to the edge of their breaking point.
Drawing back to reality, he checked his watch. The Shadow made note that there was less than a minute until midnight. As the seconds ticked down, he fixed his gaze on the five heirs of the upcoming class.
To his deep satisfaction, not one, but four stepped forward. Silently looking back, the four most dangerous initiates The Guilda had selected for possible induction this year curiously awaited their queen’s decision.
Locking gazes with Audrey, The Shadow waited silently on the edge of the forest—just deep enough in the trees that she could only sense the eyes of a predator on her.
Tapping his fingers on his pant legs, The Shadow anxiously awaited her decision.
Seeing the wariness and brief flash of fear streaking across her aristocratic features, most would have chalked it up to her being prideful…
The Shadow knew her type enough to know there was something the orphaned heir didn’t want to be found out.
It made him salivate to know that he would be the one to pull it out of her.
The secret she guarded so close, not even her trusted Sextum Secretum knew.
Whether it was about her, her adoptive family, or the tragedy that struck her birth family at age six, The Shadow did not know.
But one thing was for sure—he was going to find out, and Audrey better had hoped she could toe the line, because The Shadow was the one no one ever saw coming, and the only one she could truly never hide from.
Just before the deadline passed, Audrey blinked and took a hesitant step forward, sealing her fate as the last true heir in the games.
Smirking to himself, The Shadow turned to his partner in this madness, the life they were both born into.
The Sun. He noticed that The Sun was grimacing at two of the initiates in Audrey’s circle of friends.
Swinging an arm over The Sun’s shoulders, The Shadow gave him a brief squeeze—as much emotion as they ever let themselves show—and quickly led The Sun to the waiting vehicle on the other side of the cliffs.
Because while the world saw The Shadow as the untouchable heir—the would-be ‘golden son’ if his bloodline had gotten their riches and power innocently—of the richest man in the world, The Guilda knew him as the most ruthless Shadow to ever haunt their inner sanctum.
And the man by his side? He was the singular hidden crack that one of the founding families of this town had in their armour—a dangerous skeleton, an erased identity.
A truth that could never be unveiled, least of all to him.
The Sun was the abandoned child of one of Alabastor Cove’s founding families and The Shadow’s other half.
The secret brother that was smuggled away at birth, the one who had the unfortunate fate of being paired with him.
The eternal light to The Shadow’s everlasting dark. The one shred of humanity that kept his sanity in check.
“Are you ready for the first game to begin?” The Shadow asked, glancing over at The Sun. Looking up, The Sun grinned, quickly pocketing his phone before moving his focus to the man beside him, the one still donning The Guilda’s sinister mask and cloaks.
“They won’t see me coming.” His answer was quiet as he finally removed the ornamental mask that portrayed his darker side.
A relieved breath broke the silent pause after his words, before he turned to glance at the figures quickly taking an ant’s form on the cliffside.
A frown tugged at the corner of his lips as The Sun pondered how The Shadow would complete his assigned mission during these trials, startling from his thoughts only once his partner finally deigned to reply.
“No,” The Shadow said. “No, they have no idea what The Guilda has planned.” Chuckling, The Shadow glanced at his watch again.
No.
Little Audrey Yates had no idea what was in store for her, and she had no clue what monster just locked his sight on her with her agreement to enter the inaugural games this summer.
“May the strong survive…and the weak turn to ash,” The Shadow mumbled to himself as ways to break into every aspect of Audrey’s carefully constructed veneer of a life began to wrack his brain.
“You know she will, brother,” was The Sun’s quiet reply to the unasked question The Shadow didn’t have to voice. The one that had been refusing to leave The Shadow’s mind since they both received orders for The Guilda this year.
Silently, the car made the final turn into the holding cell for those like them. The Shadows of the most revered secret society in the country and the rays of light they select for us at birth.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” The Shadow was prepared to undertake the first trials the Initiates had to complete. “That’s my one true fear.”
Because while Audrey considered herself The Viper, The Shadow was her newly minted monster, and nothing would prepare her for the absolute devastation that he had planned for her in the upcoming weeks.
Let the games begin, Audrey. I’ll be awaiting your appearance in hell.
All the fun happens here.