Chapter 15 Nightwielder
NIGHTWIELDER
ELYRIA
Elyria’s shadows snapped and hissed, restless vipers that coiled around her hands and wrists, eager and uneasy. She could feel them now—every filament of darkness thrumming with energy, with power.
She couldn’t get enough of it.
She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed that power, the one she’d only just begun to know, to learn, when she claimed it inside the Sanctum.
She still didn’t truly understand why it had been so knotted up, so inaccessible in the months since, nor why it had untangled with a fury the moment she and Cedric were reunited.
Or maybe she did understand, but it wasn’t something she had the mental or emotional wherewithal to investigate more closely at present.
She thrust a hand in the air, shadows coiled tight around her arm—a second skin, a layer of armor. With a snap of her fingers, they formed something solid in her hands. The long tang of a blade, the firm grip of a hilt. A sword of darkness, constructed from nothing more than her magic.
“Mmm, a longsword. Very good. Though, an interesting choice.” Tenebris Nox’s voice was full of approval as the nocterrian cocked their head at Elyria’s creation.
She swallowed, her eyes going to the intricate staff set against the wall of the training room.
The stone chamber Nox had shown her at the beginning of this week was not large.
Tall, tarnished candelabras lit each corner, while headless training dummies, long-forgotten weapons, and leftover bits of armor were strewn about the room.
Elyria might have called it cozy, were it in better shape.
Had it not been left to rot when the outdoor training rings Elyria had watched the knights and guardians of Kingshelm spar in were built.
Not that she spent much time watching, of course.
She certainly didn’t wake early each morning to observe the efforts of a particularly broody knight and his dangerously charming best friend as they trained. Didn’t put her fae eyesight to use watching them from afar.
Elyria shook her head, the shadow blade in her hands transforming instead into a perfect replica of her staff.
“Even better,” said Nox.
Elyria narrowed her eyes, her grip tightening on the shaft of the staff.
It felt solid, no different from the cool metal handle of her original weapon.
“You’re sure this room remains hidden? That some foolish servant won’t come barging in and faint at the sight of the fairy witch wielding shadow magic with abandon? ”
Nox sighed that world-weary sigh of theirs. “As I have explained several times now, this room—this very tower, in fact—remains unknown to anyone but those who know of it.”
“And as I’ve told you, that makes absolutely no sense, you cryptic bastard.”
They shrugged.
“I suppose you still won’t tell me how it is that you are one of the ones who know of it?”
Nox tapped the side of their indigo-hued nose twice, mouth pulling up into a fang-baring grin.
Elyria rolled her eyes.
“Let us try shadowstepping again.”
Elyria’s shadowstaff dissipated into the ether.
“I would rather focus on some new constructs,” she said, cursing the way the shake in her voice belied the confidence she tried to exude.
The last time she’d attempted to shadowstep had been a lesson in humiliation she was not eager to repeat.
“I’ve a feeling that perhaps I’ve been limiting myself to weapons and armor when I could be having much more fun. ”
To prove her point, Elyria called upon a kernel of her wild magic, weaving it through her shadows until a long-stemmed rose, black as night, formed in her palm.
With a proud smile, Elyria handed the rose to the nocterrian, its dark petals unfurling as she did.
Nox’s wicked grin faltered as their fingers hooked around the stem, their face taking on something that Elyria might’ve said looked almost like dumbfoundedness if she didn’t know better. There was very little that surprised them, after all.
Still, Nox seemed to need to gather their bearings for several moments before they spoke again. “Have you—have you ever tried to construct something even more alive than this?” they asked, twirling the shadowy rose between their fingers.
Elyria’s brows knitted together. “More . . . alive?”
“A creature, perhaps. Something with a whisper of life.” Their voice dropped. “Never before have I seen a nightwielder do what you can, Revenant.”
Something about Nox’s words had pride blossoming in Elyria’s chest. “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she admitted.
Nox rolled their crimson-black eyes, waving the rose in the air. “Just try.” Their tone was clipped, precise, as it echoed through the room. As though they were laboring to remove the awe from it.
Elyria let out a sharp breath, narrowing her eyes as she drew her hands together, clasping them tight.
From outside the lone window sitting high on one wall, a bird chirped a happy tune.
Slowly, she pulled her palms apart, forming a ball of shadow in the space between.
She imagined the way that bird outside might look, the barrel of its small chest, the feathers sprouting from each wing.
Envisioned it. Tried to create it. The wild magic coursing through her veins fed into her dark power, her magics intertwining until—
Until her tenuous grasp faltered, the ball of shadows dissipating in a puff of smoke. Frustration gnawed at her.
“I told you,” she spat.
“Too rigid,” Nox said, a touch of boredom in their voice now. “Shadows are freedom. They cannot be forced, only carried, molded, shaped. You are trying too hard.”
Elyria could not suppress the growl that curled up from her gut. “ ‘Just try, Elyria.’ ‘You’re trying too hard, Elyria.’ Make up your fucking mind. You can’t have it both ways.”
“I can and I do,” the nocterrian replied, and the look of typical amusement that accompanied the words only served to enrage Elyria more.
“Your shadows are decidedly different from mine. The way your wild magic works in tandem with them is truly something incredible. But it leaves your power even further untrained, uncultivated. I believe this to be why you have not yet been able to shadowstep. You cannot leash them the way others might. They won’t be controlled that way. ”
“We are done here.” Elyria thrust her hand out, fingers splayed, ribbons of shadow bursting from her palm to lash at the lit candles in each corner of the room, snuffing them out in a single, violent sweep.
“Effective,” Nox noted, though their tone said they were anything but impressed. “But you only serve to prove my point.”
“How’s that?”
Nox only dipped their chin as one of the wrought iron candelabras crashed to the floor with a deafening clang, having been sliced clean in half.
Stubbornness was the only thing keeping an “Oops!” from slipping off Elyria’s tongue. Instead, she said, “Maybe your point is stupid. Had that been Varyth Malchior, we’d all be rejoicing over my uncultivated power.”
She crossed her arms, trying to hide the uneven rise and fall of her chest. The effort of wielding that last bit of magic shouldn’t have exerted her so fully. She felt at odds with herself—stronger and more powerful than ever, but also . . . not.
Perhaps it was only that her shadows were stronger, just as they were more tangible, more flexible than they had been before she went through the Crucible.
Perhaps it was just she, herself, who had not yet caught up.
There was still something unwieldy about the power coursing through her veins—something missing.
She would never admit it, but Nox was right. And at least in this room she could attempt to master this power. She could test her limits. Limits that, every day, felt like they were expanding.
Even if she was fucking powerless outside of this room. Even if she had no role to play other than the pleasant, acquiescent, pliable visiting Victor of Nyrundelle.
The arguments she’d had with Kit over how long they were to go along with this farce had been long and loud, but the duchess’ daughter had emerged victorious.
“Just a little longer,” Kit had insisted the last time they spoke of it. “The alleged rest of the delegation arrives soon. The king’s council has agreed to let us move forward with starting the search for Varyth Malchior in earnest once they get here. The end is in sight, Ellie.”
“Easy for you to say when you’re not the one on display,” Elyria had spat back.
“It can’t be all bad. I don’t see you complaining about the company, at least.” A knowing grin had broken across Kit’s face at the flush that immediately crept into Elyria’s cheeks, and that had been enough for Elyria to shut down the conversation entirely.
She didn’t know how to feel about this time with Cedric.
She hated the pretension of their dual roles as victors, hated being bound by these supercilious duties.
At the same time, she craved his presence, the way his gaze bore into her when she wasn’t looking.
Like he thought she wouldn’t be able to feel him staring.
“Avoiding it won’t change anything, you realize,” Nox said, prying Elyria’s attention back.
“What are you talking about?” she spat back, even as the memory of Cedric’s heat flashed across her mind, the way his lips had seared themselves on hers. Her memory went further, back to the feel of his golden flames intertwining with her shadows in the Sanctum.
Elyria’s chest throbbed, a gentle tug of the tether that connected them—that bound them together.
There was no denying the bond between them, whatever it was. A replacement for whatever had been formed, then snapped, during the Crucible? Or something new entirely?
She did not want to admit that her power felt sharper, steadier whenever he was near.
Did not want to admit to the hum of recognition, of belonging, she felt whenever his own power flared.
Even now, her power flickered under her skin at the thought, as if her shadows, too, yearned to reunite with his fire.
Nox said nothing else, just observed her with that keen crimson gaze until Elyria couldn’t stand the pregnant silence any longer.
She shot the nocterrian a withering look.
“My priorities haven’t changed, Tenebris.
Malchior. The crown. All of it. That’s why I’m here.
No other reason. It’s why I allow them to make me part of their parade—my contribution to this tenuously brokered peace.
So that we have the opportunity to make good on said priorities. ”
“And yet, every moment you are not being ‘paraded around,’ you spend here, sequestering yourself in this chamber day and night rather than—”
“You’re the one who brought me here!”
“To give you a place to train, yes. Not to hide.”
“I’m not hiding. And I told you I’m done with this conversation.”
Nox raised an eyebrow. “You know, were you able to shadowstep . . .” Elyria didn’t get the chance to hear the end of their sentence, their point immediately proven as the nocterrian stepped into a pocket of darkness and faded away.
The amusement they clearly felt at being able to steal the final word lingered in the air.
Elyria groaned, suppressing the sudden desire to claw her fingers through her hair, to tear out the frustration from her very scalp. Instead, she walked over to the wall and pressed her forehead to the cool stone.
She inhaled. She exhaled.
She didn’t have time for this. She needed to don that mask again. To pretend she cared about this performance of unity the human king was so hell-bent on maintaining. To pretend like she wasn’t affected by being in his vicinity, by feeling the thrum of his power so close to her.
At least today’s event was to be different.
A charitable visit to the children of the Walk.
Elyria had overheard Kit remarking on it with some satisfaction that morning. If Kit thought it worthy of note, Elyria supposed it couldn’t be all bad. And that would have to be enough to keep her from losing her entire stars-damned mind.