by G. Bailey
To start off, anyway.
The headmaster heads into the depths of the tunnel and I follow, only pausing for a moment to look around at the brilliant lights. The entire roof of the cave looks like a million stars have taken up residence there, but actually, I suspect they are enchanted crystals. The blue light blasting off them guides our way until we step into a massive cave where the bottom half of the castle is hidden.
And it’s nothing like I expected.
Despite being underground, this part of the castle has been extremely modernised, filled with windows that make it airy and light. Black brick walls can be seen through the glass, as well as the light blasting from inside. The cavern has one large gap at the top where a stream of moonlight bleeds onto the academy, bathing every nook and cranny in a uniquely beautiful way. I never expected the castle’s bottom half to be built into a cave. You would think the area would be cold and dark, but everywhere is floodlit with candles and crystals and trees that gleam in the pale light. Interspersed with the trees, giant luminous mushrooms tower over the walkways, and small creatures hop and buzz between them.
A dozen outbuildings surround the grounds of the castle, with sapphire fire pits that illuminate the many benches and flowerbeds around them. I expected to see quite a few students but this fraction of the castle is eerily silent and empty, and it puts me further on edge than I thought I would be. So many glowing white flowers litter the ground around the pathways between the academy and everywhere else that it hurts a little to look at them directly. I’m not sure how many tunnels exist down here, but I suspect one could easily take a wrong turn and get lost for several hours, maybe even days. I make sure not to dawdle and keep up with my new headmaster.
He marches down the centre path, and as I follow his heavy footfalls, I glance down to see the ground is made of pure black crystal that has been cut and shaped into large squares. The surface reflects the lights, much like everything else in this academy by the looks of it, and the crystals ripple under my boots with each step. It must be another enchantment.
After a brief walk, we reach the front doors of the academy, which are made of solid ebony wood, and they creak as they swing themselves open. I expect to see someone else on the other side, but it’s empty as we step into a warm corridor. The entrance hall stretches endlessly down the length of the castle, and it’s old, almost a little musty at some places. Everything from the rough timber floorboards to the scratched blackstone walls screams this place has been around for an extremely long time. Old paintings of strange people and objects decorate the walls, and their eyes seem to follow me as I continue to echo the headmaster’s steady footfalls.
When we arrive at what I assume is the back of the underground castle, I finally hear hushed whispers and people shuffling their feet, and someone else is here. A guy stands by the doors, and he bows his head in a respectful way to Mr Greyhorn, who all but grins at him. The guy has thick long hair, the silver locks falling all over his shoulders and onto his forehead, stopping just above his bright, cornflower blue eyes. Along with his five o’clock shadow, and the tattoo on his neck that is just like mine, he looks damn attractive.
But he seems more like a teacher’s pet and I deeply despise suckups.
“The second student has arrived, but she cheated, so you are the clear winner, Mr Vincent,” the headmaster claims smugly, and Mr Vincent smirks at me. I can already tell he’s an asshat just by the way he sneers. “As for you, Miss Charles, stay here with Mr Vincent while I collect the rest of your year for the welcoming assembly.”
I nod once and carefully watch as Mr Greyhorn disappears into a puff of purple smoke. Damn, I forgot to ask him about the tattoo and what the hell it’s supposed to do.
And why it hurt so much.
“Cheating is a sin, you know?” Mr Vincent leisurely comments and I turn to see him leaning a shoulder on the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he looks me up and down.
“So is murder. Clearly I like to sin, so why don’t you shut up and not push your luck?” I retort, expecting him to be shocked, but instead he just laughs. He straightens and walks right up to me, close enough that I can smell his aftershave. It invades my senses, the strong scent of leather mixed with something floral, and I hate that I’m not repulsed by it.
The boy’s eyes glisten, and he curves the edge of his lips. “I would love to see you try, Miss Charles.”
I pull my lips into a similar scathing smile. “Step any closer and you will.”
“Like this?” He leans down, bringing his face just inches from my own. His warm breath tickles my flushed cheeks. “My name is Jonah Vincent and you best stay out of my way, shadow raven, or you’ll regret it. Understood? Alrighty then.”
After delivering such a vague little threat, he returns to his spot by the wall and tilts his gaze away from me. I frown at his comment. Only two people in this world, and the mortal world, know about my preferred shift, and those are Sage and Pitch. How in the name of Selena does this boy know anything about me? One thing is for sure, I don’t want anything to do with him.
If Jonah Vincent values his life, he’ll stay away from me too.
I don’t like people who throw useless threats around, and if he’s not careful, I just might let my demons out to play for a while.
The second I see Sage, I have to hold in the urge to run to her, especially when I see she is covered head-to-toe in dirt. She looks like she’s just been dragged through a bush with twigs and leaves embedded in her hair. Thankfully, the other fifteen or so students gathering outside the assembly hall seem to be in a similar state. Mr Greyhorn walks past me just before Sage gets to my side, her worried eyes saying everything.
“How did you get here so quick?” she hisses in a whisper.
I wait to answer until a few more students step in front of us, gathering around the doors.
“A wisp,” I say, and she pouts.
“Lucky you. I was dragged here by trees most of the way,” she grumbles, just before the doors open, and I try not to laugh at Sage’s pissed off expression.
Travel by trees, that’s certainly new.
And painful.
There must be an easier way to travel around here. Mr Greyhorn clearly translocated earlier when he fetched the others. While I do know how to shapeshift, I don’t know how to disappear into thin air just yet. I’ve never needed to until now. Maybe Pitch can teach me, or Ambrose.
Not even Pitch knows about him.
He’ll probably just say Ambrose is a figment of my imagination. But he’s not.
Ambrose only ever appears in my dreams.
He first came to me when I was twelve and planned to do something stupid—something that involved jumping off a cliff to escape my demons. The most breathtaking white owl with sapphire eyes convinced me to keep fighting. Ever since then, Ambrose has guided me in my dreams, appearing in different animal forms that are always white. I bet he’ll know how to translocate. He’s already taught me so much. The best thing I’ve learned from him is how to wake the dead. Necromancy is the darkest form of magic, and not many can successfully do it without it ending in a disaster. I may only be able to resurrect animals but at least it’s a start.
It’s also how I became friends with my crows.
I found Wren dead in a hunting trap some years ago, and later that night, Ambrose helped me resurrect him. Ever since then, Wren, Crowe, and Rook have never strayed far from my side, always guarding me from a distance. I wonder if they managed to get into the academy somehow?
Leaning over, I pick two twigs out of Sage’s hair and she smiles thankfully at me.
The doors open and Mr Greyhorn ushers everyone inside. Moonlight bleeds into my eyes, pouring through gaps in the cave walls, and endless rows of gold benches stretch down to the stage at the far end of the room. There’s a gold podium shaped like a three-headed dragon. I know from research that the dragon is the sigil of Draconia, one of the largest cities in Zorya, second only to the capital city of Lun
a.
Most of the benches are already occupied by other students. They watch us shuffle down the steps towards the stage, each of them wearing black cloaks draped over their school uniforms. The different glowing crystals hanging around their necks catches my eye, and the second we reach the empty row at the front, a young teacher hands each of us an empty vial with a small scroll inside.
Sage ushers me over to the far end of the row and we sit down in our seats. While Mr Greyhorn strides onto the stage, I tilt the vial into the palm of my hand. Unrolling the scroll gently, I read the incantation written in bold crimson ink.
I exchange a worried glance with Sage. First the protection spell, which was excruciating, to say the least, and now a binding spell? A nervous lurch twists through my stomach. I don’t like binding spells. We were forced to make one the day we arrived at our foster home and it prevented any of us from stepping over the barrier to the outside world. It bound us to the foster home’s grounds and was supposed to protect us, but it felt just like a cage. It wasn’t until Sage and I realised the spell didn’t apply to our shifter forms did we gain some freedom. Even then, the Keepers always tried to keep us grounded. Spoilsports.
As if Mr Greyhorn senses my uneasiness, he holds his own crystal out for everyone to see. It’s filled with a swirling black ink that shines like a beacon of darkness.
Mesmerising.
Mr Greyhorn stands by the podium, and he doesn’t even need to speak to silence the chatter. Just a simple glance around the hall is enough.
“Welcome to my academy, a place where darkness is celebrated and shadowborns bask in the light. Before we begin, it is important that each and every one of you understand why you are here.” Clearing his throat, he continues calmly: “Long ago, the Enchanted Forest was a place of wonder and starlight. It was not until our almighty Selena’s darker half, Hades, the Dark God, used the Fountain of Mene to send her a cloak of darkness that things began to change. Selena wove this into a blanket of stars that became known as the night sky. Now the moon had stars as companions. Selena told her people to use them as guides and sources of light within the darkness, for neither of them should be feared since they cannot exist without the other, just like how Selena’s kingdom could not and cannot exist without Danica’s.”
A round of applause carries through the hall, and the older students burst into cheers.
“Quiet down, for now comes the most important part,” the headmaster resumes, lifting a hand ever so slightly for silence. “Many decades later, a strange presence crept into the forest. Eris, Persphone’s half-sister, had grown jealous of the Zorya sisters and she planned to spoil their New World. First, she unleashed monsters into the Enchanted Forest. Desolation. Depravity. Darkness. Wolves. Dragons. Daemons.”
More cheers. Both Sage and I roll our eyes so far I glimpse the back of my skull. He’s literally reading the text from the Book of Zorya, word by word.
Another shush from the headmaster and silence descends again, allowing him to continue with the story we all know too well.
“These creatures of the dark spread like wildfire, breeding chaos everywhere and anywhere they could. Danica tried to chase them back whence they came, but Selena grew to adore them. As she welcomed them into her kingdom, Eris sent Danica a golden apple supposedly from Ares, which poisoned her.
“Hearing of her sister’s illness, Selena rushed to her side. Nothing could be done to heal Danica. Eris watched from the shadows as Danica’s sun waned in the sky. But then something extraordinary happened. Selena ripped out her own heart and pressed it into Danica’s chest. Thus it was to be that Danica should live and Selena was to fade and join her stars in the sky, becoming one with the Evening Star and the Moon.
“When the Dark God learned of her sacrifice, his anger shook the realms. He used the fountain as a portal to kill Eris, but without his moon to bring out the stars within him, Hades’ grief drove him to insanity. He and the God of Life waged war on the kingdoms of this world. Hades slew Eris, but now that Danica had her powers as well as her sister’s, she was able to injure the Dark God so much so that he was sadly forced to retreat back to the underworld and was stripped of his ability to return.
“Peace settled among the forest for a time. Sunlight filtered through the trees on what was called the Red Dawn, the day in which no evil lurked within the shadows. Danica passed the Throne of Luna to Ares, who was quick to succumb to the allure of darkness, and he became the first Dark Fae in existence and our very first king.”
The assembly hall goes wild.
Mr Greyhorn watches everyone cheer and applaud him like he’s Ares himself, and the way he lifts his chin and curls his lip into a tight smile is unsettling. Something seems to catch his attention and he narrows his eyes into sharp slits.
I follow his gaze to the girl at the end of our row, and though I can’t hear her over the noise, I can tell she’s trying to grab his attention. He lifts his hand once more, just an inch, and the voices settle.
“Yes, Miss Wringley?”
All eyes turn to her.
The poor girl’s face turns beetroot and she squirms in her chair. “I… I was just wonderin’, sir, how shadowborns came to be? Was it because o’ the Dark God like some o’ the ancient text suggests?”
The same sniggering students cackle again, deepening the girl’s blush. A surprising rush of anger surges through me. As I turn to glare at them, Mr Greyhorn answers her.
“It seems not everyone did their research accurately before coming here.” He huffs under his breath, encouraging those dickhead students to sneer and laugh again. “The short answer is no. Those claims are merely speculation. Shadowborns are an amalgamation of dark and light magic, which is why you are here, child, to learn how to harness your powers instead of fear them. Now, with all that said, it is time for you to take the Sacred Oath.”
Holding his crystal out again, he pushes his finger onto the pointed tip, drawing a single droplet of blood.
“Once your blood infuses the magic inside this vial, you must cast the spell written on the scroll. The incantation will ensure your safety here at the academy for as long as you remain within the forest. It will heal and guide you in moments of darkness, for each crystal contains a flicker of starlight, and it’ll be entirely unique to the blood holder depending on the strength of one’s powers, Now.” He casts a cold stare around the students in front of him. “Who would like to go first?”
Nobody dares volunteer.
A few students at the back snigger at the lack of courage.
Sage rolls her eyes and raises her hand. “I’ll go, sir.”
“Very good, Miss Millhouse. Do read the spell out loud for all to hear.”
Sage stands and uncurls her scroll. Clearing her throat, she reads the words clearly, her voice confident just as I knew it’d be. The second she drops her blood into the vial, the crystal changes into a luminescent green. With a reassuring nod from her, I go next, and my crystal is the same colour as hers.
I whisper the incantation. My crystal changes to a deep emerald, and a warm sensation spreads through my chest, followed by pain. Sharp, blinding pain that snatches the air from my lungs. Nobody else apart from me seems to be feeling this and I know it’s because of Pitch.
He’s recoiling at the spell, tightening the air in my lungs, just like he did with the protection spell. I lean over in my chair, trying to catch my breath. Sage touches my shoulder and asks if I’m okay, but I can only answer with a nod. Tears prick my eyes, and I blink them away, trying to appear perfectly normal.
When I look up at the stage, the headmaster’s eyes are on me, cutting through to my core like shards of ice. It’s like he can see what I’m trying to hide, the demons within me that I call by a name.
Pitch.
As quickly as the pain surfaces, he pulls back, loosening his shadow from around my heart and restoring my breath again. This always happens whenever light magic touches me. It’s like I’m being burned from the inside out.
>
And the headmaster can apparently sense that. I can see the realisation gleaming in his shrewd eyes.
With tremendous effort, I lift my head and try to compose myself. It kills me to know that even if I touch a droplet of light magic, Pitch suffers.
He scalds.
When a late night spell backfired and sent me twenty feet into the air, Pitch shot out from my body, screaming and covered in burns. He healed quickly, but it’s still hard to watch him writhe in agony like that, so I always try to avoid using light magic as much as possible. How I’m going to do that here with my studies, I don’t know, but I will find a way. Nothing is impossible.
Besides, I’ve spent too many years playing in the dark with my demons. I’m not sure I’d be able to survive without them.
“There was another twig,” I explain, pulling on Sage’s hair a little as we all stand up at the end of the ceremony.
I drop the twig into my pocket as we walk off the stage, but then I knock into Sage’s back as she comes to a cutting halt. Her composure is uncharacteristically rigid. I walk around her to see what she is looking at, what has made her so…cold. The other students seem to move out of the way like a path cutting through the ocean, parting so that only one man stands in the middle of them. His messy hair is black as night, tied back from his strange pink eyes. I would guess he’s about five years older than us, and with his crisp white shirt and tight black trousers, I get the feeling he’s a teacher.
He certainly isn’t a warden.
When I spot the shadowborn crest pinned to the collar of his shirt, I’m certain he’s a teacher. A handsome one, at that, but maybe not so much at the moment since he looks like a fish just jumped out from the sea and slapped him in the face. Some other students stop to see what’s going on and their expressions look as clueless as I’m feeling.
