TWENTY-ONE
THEY’RE COMING
“I wonder if the Shadeheart is intentionally trying to divide us. I will look for patterns tomorrow. I knew she was clever, but this could destroy us faster than the Shadow Force attacks. If the clans start to separate, we’ll all be easy targets, even with Amara’s growing power.”
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
Asudden, unnatural gust tears through the ballroom, sharp and freezing, tugging violently at my dress.
And just as abruptly, it dies.
In my chest, the bond jolts sharply. At the same moment, Thane and I lock eyes.
“Virelya! They’re coming!”
Calryx’s voice rings through my mind, urgent and edged with worry. The bond between us buzzes with her anxiety—I can feel it like a pulse beneath my skin.
I’m still not used to having a dragon in my head. I don’t have time to respond.
Thane halts abruptly and I slam into his chest, my fingers instinctively tightening around his hand.
The chandeliers above flicker once.
Twice.
Then the entire room is swallowed by darkness.
My breath trips as the temperature drops, a bone-deep cold settling through the ballroom. The once-glittering hall feels like a tomb. Silent. Suffocating.
Gasps ripple through the darkness.
Followed by frantic shouting.
“Shit,” Thane mutters, his grip on my hand like iron as he scans the dark, the fire in his eyes blazing against the inky blackness.
Dozens of fire orbs bloom to life as fire wielders and channelers react on instinct. Their flames cast wavering pools of light across the darkness while others rush to ignite the torches lining the walls.
The floor beneath our feet begins to ripple, the shadows stretching unnaturally across the marble like living things.
“What’s happening?” I whisper, though I already know the answer.
Before he can respond, the grand doors slam open with a deafening crash, and oily shadows spill into the ballroom, their forms wraith-like, dragging darkness behind them.
A wave of suffocating dread floods the hall, chilling the air, twisting it until every breath feels like inhaling ice.
The celebration splinters into chaos.
The Shadow Forces are here.
Thane moves instantly.
He releases my hand only long enough to draw a narrow blade from his waist, a sharp flare of steel catching what little light remains, before stepping directly in front of me.
“Form a perimeter!” he barks, his voice cutting cleanly through the panic. “Get the civilians behind the pillars and shields. Now! Protect them from the Fellborn!”
Warriors surge to respond, trained instinct overtaking fear even as panic spreads through the ballroom. Some guests scream. Others freeze.
The Fellborn spill into the ballroom like a living shadow, their twisted forms bleeding through the open doorway, humanoid but grotesquely wrong. Their bodies stretch unnaturally, limbs elongated beyond human proportions, their joints bending in ways that defy nature.
They move with an eerie, fluid precision. Too controlled. Too deliberate. Like marionettes pulled by unseen strings.
The flickering candlelight glints against their curved obsidian claws as they drag them across the marble floor, carving deep trenches through the polished stone as though it were soft clay.
Some stride through the doorway. Others crawl across the floor in jerking, unnatural movements, while a few seem to emerge directly from the shadows themselves. Their feet make no sound as they advance, their silence more unsettling than any battle cry.
Their mouths twitch with anticipation. Jagged, needle-like teeth gleam in the dim light as their lips peel back, revealing uneven fangs made for rending flesh, tearing bone, and feasting on whatever remains.
The air itself feels wrong around them. Corrupted. The stench is unbearable, like rotting flesh.
Their movements are calculated, each step measured as though savoring the slaughter before it even begins. They weave through the panicked crowd with terrifying grace, clawed hands striking through fabric and flesh alike.
Screams echo as the shadows move like liquid darkness, fast and relentless. They rush toward the guests.
A noble lunges with a blade, but it only gets stuck in the creature’s torso.
The man stumbles backward, his hand now empty, staring in horror at the Fellborn standing in front of him.
It rakes its clawed hand across his face.
Blood erupts along his face, deep gashes splitting skin from temple to jaw.
He screams. Then collapses to the marble floor, clutching his ruined face while rivulets of red stream through his fingers.
But he doesn’t have a chance to get up. To flee. In seconds, he vanishes beneath a swarm of Fellborn, his screams cut off abruptly beneath the writhing shadows.
A cluster of Fellborn descend on a group of guests, claws shredding flesh, teeth tearing and devouring.
Consuming.
My stomach twists violently, nausea climbing my throat at the sight, the sound, the scent of it.
This is not a battle. It’s a massacre.
Rian’s voice cuts sharply through the maelstrom. “Protect the civilians! Don’t let them get overwhelmed!”
“Get them to the outer rooms! We need to evacuate them now!” Rowena shouts, her voice slicing through the roar of battle.
Several thunderous roars split the sky.
All around me, guests freeze instinctively, heads snapping upward. I look up toward the ceiling.
A masterpiece of glass and light. The domed ceiling stretches wide above the ballroom, a seamless curve of stained crystal and woven lead, an intricate mosaic of fire and water, air and stone.
Each panel tells a story, etched in color and light: a dragon curled around a mountain, a rider reaching for the storm, the Elements cast in sweeping arcs of gold and sapphire and crimson.
By day, the sun pours through it like a blessing.
By night, the stars shimmer faintly behind the glass, a hundred stories held above our heads.
But tonight, through that art, through that beauty, I see movement.
Blurs of color circling overhead. The white and black streaks across the glass high above are what my eyes lock onto—Calryx and Xaroth, moving too fast to track but impossible to mistake. The dragons come to protect their riders.
The castle trembles beneath us, deep rolling rumbles moving through the stone as dragons begin landing along the outer walls.
“The dragons!” someone shouts, their voice high, desperate.
“They’re here to protect us!” another guest cries, hope blooming desperately through the chaos.
“But they can’t get in!” a woman shrieks.
She’s right. I glance up at the great stained-glass dome overhead, still miraculously whole. Still beautiful. Still deadly.
If the dragons break through it, thousands of jagged shards of crystal will rain down onto everyone trapped below. And the opening would never be large enough for dragons their size.
My mind races, heart pounding.
Could we shield the ceiling? Could we catch the falling glass with magics? Or could we change it? Transform it before it falls. Bend it. Shift it. Turn it into something that won’t tear the guests apart.
Like sand.
The bond with Calryx thrums urgently against my senses, power coiling just beneath my skin, ready and waiting.
“Thane!” I shout over the crashing, the screams, the violent shudder of dragons circling overhead.
“I can change the glass! Turn it into something else. I can let them in!”
Thane glances sharply toward the ceiling, his expression already grim.
“No.”
I blink, startled.
“We can’t!” he shouts back. “There’s not enough space in here for them to safely navigate. Not with this many people. If they breathe fire—”
He cuts himself off, shaking his head once.
“It could kill everyone.”
Shit. He’s right.
But before I can respond, I see it. The sudden shift in his focus. He’s communicating with Xaroth.
Seconds pass. Then Thane turns back toward me, already moving, already decided.
“They’re going to patrol the area,” he says, already scanning the ballroom again. “See if there are any other Shadow Forces around the castle or inside the capital.”
Around us, guests continue scattering while the guards struggle to rally, bodies either fleeing or lying still on the floor.
I force myself to look away before I lose my nerve entirely.
“Our guards are already outside,” Thane says quickly. “Heading into the city itself. Xaroth can see them.”
Several of the Fellborn snap their heads toward me, their movement too inhuman. Their hollow eyes lock onto mine as if something signaled to them who I am.
The room tilts. The air thickens. Dread coils around my ribs, suffocating.
With a sharp flick of Thane’s wrist, flames roar to life in his palms, golden fire exploding against the encroaching darkness. The blaze reflects violently in his eyes as he turns toward me.
“Stay close,” he orders.
His voice is even, but something lethal lurks beneath it as he grabs my hand again. More to himself than me, he mutters, “How the fuck did they even get into the city, much less the castle?”
But I’m already moving.
I thrust out the hand not gripping Thane’s, calling the wind to me. It answers instantly.
Air whips violently around my body in a furious gale, my skirts and hair snapping wildly around me. Torches lining the walls flicker and bow toward me as though drawn by my presence.
Four Elements. Four weapons.
A shadowed figure lunges. I twist sharply, sweeping my arm through the air. Wind slams into the creature, hurling it backward into a marble column with a sickening crunch.
Where is Lyra? Garrick? Valen?
My heart clenches, but I don’t have time to search for them. I have to trust they’re fighting. Surviving.
Thane hurls a stream of fire into an attacker. Flames engulf the creature instantly, but five more surge through the smoke completely undeterred. He snarls low in his throat, shifting his stance as fire ignites across his forearm, blazing up his skin in a violent arc.
Dropping my hand, he moves. Faster than a thought. Faster than fear. A weapon forged for this very moment.