Shadow Trials

by Isla Frost

  Even so, and luckily for us, the thing did not make a concerted effort to drown us on dry land. Instead, realizing that water alone could not tug our anchored feet free, the elemental solidified.

  The watery likeness of a head morphed to one that possessed real skin, eyes, and hair the color of a dark stagnant pool. The liquid tentacles hardened into wet flesh complete with suction cups. And this time, when they wrapped around us, they did it with near bone-crushing force.

  The elemental was more formidable now, more real. But it was also something we could fight.

  I found enough breath in my lungs to gasp, “On the count of three, we strike together. Three. Two. One.”

  Bryn seared the now able-to-be-burned flesh.

  I poured strength and speed into my arms and hacked off the tentacle around my waist, then caught and stabbed the one that swung at my head.

  Ameline blasted the elemental with a mental attack that made the tentacles recoil. Only for a moment. But that was enough.

  I made the ground spit us out, and we used that moment to dash out of reach.

  The elemental emitted a gurgling shriek of thwarted intent and plunged back into the river with the crashing thunder of a waterfall.

  We stopped thirty yards from the bank and took a few minutes to recollect ourselves. We were trembling with shock and exhaustion, and none of us had much to say.

  I retrieved a third dagger from the extra sheath on my lower leg. I’d learned how liable I was to lose them and brought a backup blade for this trial. Just as well, it seemed. Though Bryn had managed to hang on to both of hers. We also splinted Ameline’s twisted ankle, the numbness from the crawler’s venom making the fiddly task difficult.

  When the shakiness had subsided and our labored breathing returned to normal, we pushed on.

  For the next mile we hid, fled, and tricked our way past a series of monsters. We weren’t trying to be heroes. We just wanted to make it to safety.

  Every one of us was weary, limping, and almost completely drained of magic by the time we saw the brilliant lights of the academy shining through the trees. I couldn’t afford to lose my night vision, so I only glanced at the welcome sight before returning my gaze to our immediate surroundings. Even from afar, the sentinel hedge cats were visible, standing out in stark relief against the bright backdrop.

  I knew better than to relax until we crossed that invisible line, but I felt the stirrings of relief all the same.

  Until Grimwort emerged through a short-distance gateway to block our route.

  “Congratulations,” he said with the enthusiasm of a kid on toilet-cleaning duty. “You’ve almost completed your final trial. But since no true mission goes to plan, you have one last challenge to overcome.”

  Then the bastard opened a gateway beneath our feet.

  We fell through it. Landing somewhere else entirely. Trees still surrounded us, stretching high overhead, but they were not the ones I was used to seeing. That together with the three inches of snow on the ground told me we’d traveled a great distance in one fleeting moment.

  Which meant we were now far, far from safety.

  Too far. A distance untraversable by foot. Especially in our current condition with no supplies.

  More snow was drifting from the sky, but my eyes landed on an old runegate in the middle of a clearing. A glowing runegate. Through its archway, I could see the inviting expanse of Millicent’s lawn.

  But no relief washed over me.

  Because prowling between us and our only way home were two lethal shadow stalkers.

  And this time there would be no way to hide.

  Chapter 28

  Fear spiked through me. Followed by anger. Followed by more of both.

  But I pushed my anger at the walkers deep down where I stored the rest of it. Anger for the destruction of our world. For the slaughter—directly and indirectly—of billions of human lives. For the sorrow and sacrifice and grief and pain of the Firstborn Agreement. For all the families that had been broken, never to be whole again. For my father, sister, brother, and mother who I’d been torn from forever. For draining Fletcher of the warmth and light that had once defined him. For forcing Ameline into situation after situation that threatened to darken her soul too. For putting our lives so needlessly at risk in this trial. Even for poor Jayden who should’ve lived out his coddled existence within the overindulgent arms of his family.

  Now was not the time to channel that anger.

  But that time would come.

  I’d make sure of it.

  However, to do that, I first had to make sure my friends and I survived.

  A task that seemed impossible. We were magically and physically spent. The runegate was in the center of a giant clearing that started just fifteen yards down the forested slope we were standing on. Which meant there would be no trees to climb this time. No cover of any kind. And there was zero chance we could sprint the eighty yards across the clearing to the runegate without the shadow stalkers running us down.

  The beasts were showing no sign of moving on either. In fact, they were behaving unusually. Like they were guarding the runegate.

  Or like they knew we were coming. That if they only waited, we’d save them the trouble of the hunt and serve ourselves up to them.

  To finish it all off, the below-freezing weather meant we didn’t have much time to plan.

  In short, we were royally screwed.

  Unless…

  The sleepwood seedpods.

  If there was ever a time of last resort, this was it.

  I checked the wind’s direction. Perhaps our luck was finally about to change. So long as the wind didn’t.

  Working slowly so as not to draw the stalkers’ gaze with rapid movement, I cut the seedpod I was carrying from my belt. My hands were too numb from the night crawler venom to bother fumbling with the fabric ties.

  I suspected if they hadn’t been numb, they would’ve been hurting from the cold. But if this succeeded, we were less than a hundred yards from home.

  “If I lob this close, do either of you have enough magic left to crack it open?”

  Ameline nodded. “I do.”

  “Great.” I checked the wind again. Still blowing toward the shadow stalkers and away from us.

  Lucky it was only a faint breeze since that meant we were downwind. I wasn’t sure how well our vinegar moss perfume would be holding up after our encounter with the water elemental and the sweating we’d done before and since.

  In any case, it didn’t need to hold up much longer.

  I eased myself down the slope to find a vantage to throw from. My friends followed just as cautiously. When I stopped, Ameline surveyed the nearby trunks.

  “If this doesn’t work, we’d better be prepared to climb fast.”

  “Good point.” I located a good climbing tree just to my left, then sent a tiny trickle of magical strength down my right arm. I was usually a good throw, but with so much riding on this, I was worried.

  I checked my friends were ready, checked the wind a final time, and threw the seedpod into the clearing.

  My aim was near perfect. It hit the ground ten feet in front of the closer shadow stalker, bounced once, and came to a stop.

  The monster snapped its head around.

  Ameline aimed her wand arm, and the seedpod broke in half.

  Maybe the shadow stalker recognized the threat for what it was. Or maybe it was the beast’s go-to method for dealing with any unknown, but it unleashed a torrent of flame from its dragon-like jaws. When the flames cleared, nothing but ash remained.

  We held our breath. Not because we worried the spores would reach us but because we were hoping that despite the miniature firestorm, they might yet reach the nearest shadow stalker.

  Nothing happened.

  Apparently the flame had incinerated or neutralized the paralyzing spores.

  I closed my eyes for a few seconds, failure and cold and fatigue dragging at me, willing me to lie down and give up
. I kept my eyes closed a moment longer so my friends wouldn’t see my despair.

  Our last resort had failed.

  I tried to rally myself. I was not going to stand here on the perimeter of this damn clearing, so close to safety, and die of exposure.

  Despite the fire show, the shadow stalkers were showing no sign of hunting us down. They were sticking close to the runegate.

  “Ameline, can you communicate with them?”

  She shook her head. “No. I think… it’s like their minds have been messed with. They’re protecting the runegate like it’s a third life mate. And they’re operating on pure instinct. Furious instinct.”

  Fabulous.

  Shadow stalkers were notoriously protective of their life mates. If you messed with one, you’d better be prepared to deal with the wrath of both.

  Oddly enough, they were far less attached to their offspring.

  “All right.” I temporized. “You stay back and do what you can to mentally distract them whenever we need help.”

  Ameline bit her lip. We both knew the shadow stalkers were no mere night crawlers. That if Bryn and I walked into that clearing, we probably wouldn’t return. But I turned my back on my childhood friend before she could object.

  I shifted to focus on Bryn, to learn whether her bravado, her sense of adventure, her reckless courage was somehow still with her. Whether she would go with me into battle. I could use a dose of her feisty, irrepressible spirit right now. “How do you want to—”

  Except she wasn’t there.

  She was running. Down the slope. Into the clearing. Toward the shadow stalkers.

  What the hell?

  Then I saw the item she was concealing from the monsters and realized what she must be intending. Behind her back, she clutched the second seedpod.

  Bryn was planning to take down one of the stalkers. And she would take down herself with it.

  At first the nearest shadow stalker only stared. Too stunned to react—like I was.

  Her plan, her running off without consulting us first, only made sense if she didn’t intend for us to tackle the second monster. Which could mean only one thing.

  She was sacrificing herself to bring down one of the shadow stalkers in the hope that its life mate would be so distracted that Ameline and I could reach the runegate.

  I would never have expected Bryn to do something like this. She was street-smart, independent, and she put herself first. She’d had to do that to survive her upbringing. It didn’t mean she didn’t care about anyone else. She did. I’d seen that. But this was something else altogether. She was throwing her life away for Ameline’s and mine.

  The shadow stalker recovered from the shock faster than I did.

  Bryn, who was getting close, slowed to a casual walk. Probably trying to encourage the beast to eat her rather than incinerate her.

  The shadow stalker lifted its head to catch her scent, then dashed forward.

  “No!” The word tore from my throat.

  And then I was running too. Already knowing that I was too late to save her.

  Time slowed to a crawl.

  I watched in horror as the monster bore down on my friend. It was so enormous that it would take just two bites to devour her.

  Only one to kill her.

  The reptilian head reared back in preparation to strike, the fearsome maw opening wide to reveal long rows of serrated teeth.

  Bryn waited until that moment to slam a blade into the seedpod and hack it open.

  Time slowed further, crawling now like a dying insect dragging itself over viscous mud.

  The giant head snaked toward her.

  She tried to throw the seedpod to meet it, but she was already swaying from the spores’ effects.

  The seedpod slipped from her fingers and tumbled to the snow.

  Bryn and the shadow stalker followed an instant later. Only luck and inches preventing the monster from crushing her beneath its weight.

  Time snapped back.

  The paralyzed stalker’s life mate let out a cry that rent the air before it charged into action. Vengeance.

  That was when I realized Ameline was running beside me.

  “Stay back,” I snapped. “I can’t protect you both!”

  But she didn’t stop running. And despite her injured ankle, she was almost keeping up.

  Her jaw was set. “Getting yourself killed isn’t protecting me, you idiot! Having you around will always be more important for my well-being than anything else.”

  Geez. Her words hit me like a physical blow.

  “Give me a weapon,” she demanded.

  There was no time to argue. I gave her the dagger already in my hand.

  But I did find a moment to feel guilty for committing the same sin as everyone else. For underestimating Ameline.

  For underestimating Bryn too.

  It only made me more determined to save them…

  The second shadow stalker was barreling toward Bryn and its mate. I sprinted to intercept it.

  The sleepwood paralysis did not knock you unconscious. She was lying there completely aware of what was happening. Of what she was sacrificing. Of her imminent death. And she was unable to move so much as a finger to prevent it.

  Tears I did not have the liberty for blurred my vision.

  Dammit, Bryn. What a time to choose to become a martyr.

  I’d started running without a plan. Now I had one, but it wasn’t much of one.

  Wilverness had taught us the only place where heavily armored shadow stalkers could be taken down with an ordinary weapon. It was just impossible to get to. Tiny ear holes located way up on the side of their giant snake-necked, sharp-toothed, fire-breathing heads.

  The shadow stalker saw me coming and veered to meet me.

  I dashed right, felt its jaws snap inches from my back, and flung myself at its leg. This particular specimen was about the size of a bus. But the armored plates, which would deflect almost any weapon, also provided something to cling to.

  My arms all but wrenched from their sockets as the beast’s momentum met mine. But it was slowing to turn and charge after me, and all that exercise on the tower trial and under Cricklewood’s tutelage had done me some good, because I didn’t let go.

  Instead, I clambered my way up to its knee and then its shoulder. And then I was on its back. There was just enough room between the spikes for the width of my body.

  I flattened myself to its armored ridges as the sledgehammer of a tail swung at me, the force of its passing whipping my hair around my face as it missed me by a mere inch.

  Crap. I hadn’t counted on that complication.

  The shadow stalker evidently did not appreciate me on its back. It bucked and spun, and it was all I could do to hold on, then flatten myself again as the tail took another swing.

  I had to get out of range. But the tail was long. Maybe there was no such thing as out of range.

  I scrambled toward the beast’s head. The spikes on its back grew longer and more closely packed as I inched toward its neck. Dodging them as well as the swinging tail while holding on for dear life was going to be problematic.

  The next time the sledgehammer tail whipped around, I dodged a fraction of a second too late and it caught the back of my left ankle. Pain exploded on impact. Probably bone too. And if it weren’t for the remaining numbness from the damn night crawlers, I might’ve blacked out.

  Instead, I dragged myself toward the creature’s neck, staying low and keeping as much of myself pressed against the shadow stalker as I could.

  Ameline was on the ground, yelling and waving her arms, trying to split the beast’s attention between her and me and definitely not Bryn, who lay motionless in the snow.

  To my relief, the stalker seemed more preoccupied with me than either of them. I hauled myself forward another few inches. Those neck spikes now represented safety. It wouldn’t be able to wield its tail against me if I could squeeze between those longer spines. Not unless it was prepared to d
amage itself to get to me.

  I grasped the blunted base of the first spine. The point was sharp, but the lower half I could grip without cutting myself. My other hand wrapped around the next one, and I used them to haul myself up its neck like some sort of dangerous playground equipment.

  That was when the stalker slammed its head up and back. Driving one of those spikes into my gut.

  I screamed. The sound went on far longer than I wanted it to. And time slowed for a second instance.

  I saw Ameline’s eyes widen in horror. Then narrow with something else altogether.

  I saw that Bryn’s face was now dusted with snow that was still falling from the sky. The image oddly peaceful in the roaring pain and chaos and the blackness encroaching at the edges of my vision.

  And I saw that I was now only two feet from the shallow indentation that indicated the ear hole. My target.

  I shoved myself off the spike.

  My front was cold and hot and wet and numb and on agonizing, endless fire all at once.

  But my friends were relying on me. My friends who were risking their own lives for mine. And dammit to hell if I would let the walkers win.

  I forced my leaden limbs to move. It was like slogging through cold molasses. Only with more pain and a violent, bucking beast beneath you.

  Ameline ran forward screaming a war cry—armed only with a useless dagger, her ineffectual wand, and a love greater than I could bear.

  I dragged myself another foot.

  The stalker’s attention was—momentarily—fixed on Ameline. Its body briefly still as it calculated how best to kill her.

  My own limbs were trembling. With pain or blood loss or fear and fury for my friends, I did not know. But I made that moment count. I forced myself across that last seemingly insurmountable distance, grasped my remaining dagger from its sheath, and sent the last trickle of energy I had into my right arm.

  The edges of my vision darkened further. Unconsciousness beckoning.

  I felt rather than saw the shadow stalker’s muscles bunch beneath me as it prepared to snap Ameline in half.

  I struck first. Driving the dagger into its ear and hoping desperately the weapon would be long enough to reach its brain.