Six #2
The other two press him hard, bolts of shadow cracking through the air around them, dark and fast enough that my eyes struggle to follow. One misses Kael’s head by barely an inch. He only grins at the near miss, flashing white teeth before launching himself forward again.
They are performing. Not openly. Certainly not theatrically. But everyone in the Dome is watching them while pretending not to.
I realise, uneasily, that I am doing the same.
One of the Shadowborn finally slips past Kael’s guard. The pommel of his sword cracks hard against Kael’s jaw and the sound echoes across the Dome—the sickening crunch of bone.
Kael stumbles sideways, catching himself against the impact, one hand flying to his face as blood spills bright between his fingers.
My stomach drops. That hit should have put him on the floor. Instead, he straightens almost immediately. Too quickly. I am already moving before I understand why.
Somewhere behind me, Marissa says my name, but it barely registers. The entire world narrows to Kael standing across the Dome with blood running down his mouth.
My pulse kicks violently against my ribs as Mana stirs low in my body in sudden answer.
A sharp pop cuts through the Dome, like wood splitting down the middle.
I stop dead as Kael’s jaw shifts grotesquely back into place. Skin ripples faintly along his cheek as bone knits itself together beneath it, the injury disappearing in seconds.
A chill crawls down my spine.
Kael slowly lifts his head, black flooding his eyes.
Not the iris.
Everything.
The colour spreads outwards until no white remains at all, his gaze turning utterly inhuman. He bares his teeth slightly, chest heaving once, and something changes in the air around him so suddenly that the entire room seems to tense in response.
The Shadowborn who struck him takes a stumbling step backwards.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Kael, it was an accident.”
“Spectacular, Nyxen,” the other snaps.
Kael doesn’t answer.
His body shudders once, sudden and violent, muscles in his neck tightening hard enough to stand out beneath his skin. Shadows writhe around his fingers like living things searching for purchase.
He snarls and the sound barely resembles anything human.
Conversation dies instantly across the Dome.
The Overseers descend at once, drifting silently towards the Shadowborn trio as the temperature plummets around us. Their humming swells louder, voices layering together in strange reverence.
Bright Mother, see us. Bright Mother, save us.
The air thickens as metal floods the back of my tongue.
Shadows erupt from the floor beneath Nyxen and Vaelis without warning.
Not smoke. Not darkness. Something denser.
It looks alive.
Ink-black tendrils lash around their legs and drag them violently to the ground.
Nyxen curses as he hits the marble hard, hacking at the shadows with his blade, but they only tighten further, pinning him in place.
Vaelis fares worse. The shadows wrench his arm brutally behind his back, forcing him flat against the floor with enough force to crack stone beneath him.
No one moves.
No one even breathes.
I cannot stop staring at Kael.
The sheer force of him is terrifying. Another crack splits through the Dome and Vaelis screams.
His wrist bends at a sickening angle, bone forced through skin as blood spatters across the floor.
The noise seems to break something inside Kael, and the black vanishes from his eyes almost instantly.
Horror replaces it.
The shadows collapse back into nothingness as though they were never there at all, and Kael crosses the distance in seconds, dropping hard beside Vaelis.
“I—fuck—”
His voice sounds different now. Shaken.
He reaches for Vaelis carefully, hands trembling as he grips the ruined wrist.
Vaelis’ injured arm spasms violently in Kael’s grip. The sight is almost worse than the break itself.
Bone shifts beneath skin with a wet, grinding pop. Vaelis gasps through clenched teeth as the arm jerks once before snapping cleanly back into place. The wound seals moments later, leaving only blood behind as evidence it ever happened at all.
Healing. Or whatever passes for healing inside this place.
The Dome remains deathly quiet.
Kael kneels motionless beside his friend for several long seconds, staring at his own shaking hands like he no longer trusts them.
Around me, people slowly begin moving again, murmurs spreading cautiously through the chamber as the Overseers drift back towards the edges of the room.
Only then do I realise how close I am standing to them. Too close.
I step backwards immediately, pulse still hammering.
I do not understand why I came over here in the first place. One moment I had been training beside Marissa and Callen. The next, my body was already crossing the Dome towards Kael like something inside me had moved without permission.
The thought unsettles me more than the violence did.
Before anyone can notice me lingering there, I turn and head for the exit.
I need distance. I need air. Most of all, I need to stop thinking about the look on Kael’s face after the shadows disappeared.
I head for my room with my thoughts still tangled around Kael and the terrifying thing that had looked out through his eyes.
The corridors beyond the Dome are quieter, though the low hum of the Overseers—or maybe it’s the Mother Shard herself—follows through the walls, constant enough to settle beneath my skin. By the time I reach my door, exhaustion presses heavily against the back of my skull.
I nearly bump into someone standing outside my room again. This time it’s the Waterborn boy.
His back faces me, pale blond hair damp against the collar of his tunic. He sways slightly where he stands, not enough to seem unstable, but enough to remind me of long grass blowing in the breeze.
“Excuse me?” I ask carefully.
He doesn’t respond.
I slow as I approach him. Up close, his clothes are visibly wet, fabric clinging darkly to his skin without dripping a single drop onto the floor. Even the air around him feels cooler somehow, damp enough that it prickles faintly across my arms.
Something about it unsettles me. I reach out cautiously and touch his shoulder, but he still does not react. Moving around to face him, I immediately wish I hadn’t.
His eyes are clouded over completely. Not blind, but moving.
The pale blue of his irises churns slowly like a rainstorm trapped behind glass, unfocused and distant.
A chill crawls over the back of my neck.
“Are you alright?”
Nothing.
Then suddenly his body goes rigid.
“There are whispers in the water,” he says softly.
The words leave him strangely, delayed somehow, as though his voice is travelling from somewhere very far away before finally reaching me.
“Some currents do not drown,” he continues. “They wait.”
The corridor feels colder and his voice reminds me too much of the Mother Shard from my dreams. That same awful sense that something ancient is speaking through a human mouth.
“You do not feel empty,” he murmurs, the words thick and distorted, almost gargled. “The Veins stir within you.”
My heartbeat batters painfully against my ribs.