Shadowborn Academy: The Full Collection

by G. Bailey

  “No,” I sigh, knowing she would give another monologue before we start fighting. She really does love the sound of her own voice too much. “But I have a feeling you’re about to tell me, Eva.”

  She roots to the spot, and a scathing snarl stretches over her thinly pressed lips. “Father never loved me because I was never you!”

  Her outburst takes me by surprise. I thought the king loved her and that was why he wanted me to bond with her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bothered asking me to cut her some slack. He wouldn’t have tried stopping us from fighting all the time.

  “From the day I was born,” Eva continues, pacing in front of the throne again, “the king saw me as nothing more than a disappointment. Nothing I ever did impressed him. I was never enough. I didn’t understand why until the Titans showed me a vision of a girl with blue hair, a girl who was born before me out of darkness and light. It was then I realised my father rejected me because I could never be who he truly wanted—his firstborn child.” Her eyes narrow into icy shards. “My mother knew the king would never accept us, and that is why she took her own life! All—because—of you!”

  She lunges, her sword pointed at my throat.

  I block her, pushing her back when our weapons meet. She just manages to nick my shoulder.

  “I can’t be blamed for who the king did and didn’t love, Eva!”

  Apprehension fills me when I see that my magic doesn’t heal the wound. Either my body is too exhausted to heal itself, or these swords are specifically designed to kill magics. My money is on the latter.

  This is it. It’s either kill or be killed.

  And I will not leave my loved ones without putting up one hell of a fight!

  Our swords collide, then, again and again, each blow harder and more desperate than the last. I cut through the flesh on her thigh, tearing through her filthy dress, and she catches the side of my stomach, just under my ribs. Sweat trickles down my spine as I pivot on my heel, meeting each and every one of her strikes. My rapid breathing matches her own. She’s growing exhausted, too, unable to hold her sword without trembling.

  “The first day…I saw you,” she pants, wiping the blood oozing from her shoulder with the back of her hand, “I couldn’t believe someone as pathetic as you would dare sit on the throne. You know nothing of our world, and yet, Father wanted you to rule it! He might as well have set fire to the forest and watched it burn to ashes.”

  “I know more…more than you think…” My own reply comes out just as breathless, just as exhausted.

  “Really?” Eva rubs the blood off her hand on her dress. “Like how to unleash the Titans?”

  I shake my head, barely able to hold my sword at this point. The pain tearing me asunder is becoming unbearable. If one of us doesn’t kill each other soon, we’re going to die from exhaustion.

  “Then enlighten me,” Eva snarls, “what does the almighty Corvina Charles know that I do not.”

  We circle each other, waiting for the other to strike first. In the corner of my eye, a trio of small dark figures fly onto the throne behind Eva. A grin threatens my lips. I need to keep her distracted.

  “I know you loved our father and it was his death that did this to you,” I say, pretending not to notice the shadows. “I know that you didn’t want Narah to kill him. You just wanted him to accept you for who, and what, you were, and give you the throne.”

  “Lies! Father despised me from the day I was born and I wanted him to suffer just like Mama and I did.”

  “But you still loved him, didn’t you?”

  I work my way closer to her, preparing my sword for the final blow.

  “And I know that deep down, Eva, you’re afraid of all this. You didn’t want things to happen this way. You just wanted someone to love you, but you knew as much as I did that you’re unlovable because of the things you’ve done. No one will ever accept or love a monster like you, and that’s what you’re afraid of—being alone.”

  “Nooooooo!” Eva pounces on top of me, knocking me onto the floor. “It was you who made me this way! You took everything from me. My mother—father—Ronan—the throne!”

  Each exclamation is punctured by the sounds of her fist slamming into my face.

  I reach out blindly, my eyes too swollen to see through and grab whatever I can. I hear her choke and I know that I’ve got her throat, so I dig my nails in as deeply as possible in an attempt to thrust her off me. When the sound of glass shattering and Eva’s screams bellow around me, I’m able to see again. The tattoo on my arm glows like a beacon as Eva, running backward, swats my raven friends away from her. Wren, Crowe, and Rook peck at her face and wounds, and I know this is the only opportunity I’ll have if I want this to end.

  As my friends fly away, I scramble to my feet, summoning the sword within me. It materialises into my hand, instantly healing all my wounds and giving me strength again as I run over to Eva.

  A quick, tactful stab to the heart is all it takes.

  Eva clutches at her chest, her mouth gasping around silent words, and falls back. I catch her before she hits the floor and I stay there with her. An unexpected pity takes hold of me as I watch her die. A small part of me wishes that it didn’t have to come to this. I may not have liked Eva from the get-go, but I never wanted her to become…this.

  “I just—” The words catch in Eva’s throat as she chokes on blood; the liquid oozing from her mouth is black instead of red. “I just wanted to be remembered.”

  I don’t tell her that her kingdom will remember her, for all the wrong reasons, because I know that Eva wasn’t always like this. She wasn’t poisoned or corrupted right from the beginning. It was the lure of the darkness that did this to her. It twisted her pain and rejection into something so sinister that she became unrecognisable, perhaps even to herself.

  As the Princess of Helios dies in my arms, I sing to her the first song Pitch ever sang to me—the one about the girl and the Wishing Well—and I tell her to make a wish.

  This time, it will come true for her.

  Leaving my sister’s dead body on the ash and rubble covered floor, I slide my sword from her heart and stand up tall. The sword whispers into my ear as I drag my bruised and sore feet to the balcony that overlooks the city. The war zone. Screams and cries of pain that I will never forget linger in my ears as the smell of blood and magic attacks my senses. Dragons litter the skies, some of them slamming into the Titans and biting them in any place that they can. But they don’t stand a chance. It’s evident when two dragons are punched out of the sky by a Titan.

  My hand shakes around the sword as it starts to glow black, radiating power up my arm.

 

  Together.

  The word seems strange as I stare out over the city and close my eyes, letting the sword’s power mix with my own. It makes me stronger and so much more powerful than I ever thought imaginable. My feet leave the balcony as black, white, and grey magic swirl around me in crackling waves, never touching my skin but destroying everything around me.

  This is my fate.

  The sword increases whatever magic is in your soul—the magic you are made with. My existence was made by the mirror and I am all the power there is in the world.

  I am a light fae.

  I am a dark fae.

  But my heart and soul will always be shadowborn.

  “LEAVE!” I scream to my people, to anyone that fights on my side. “Fall back! Fall back now!”

  I use my power to echo my voice into all their ears. The Titans notice me at the same time the final word leaves my lips, and they storm my way, desperate to stop me before it’s too late.

  the sword tells me and I laugh. Yes, we will. Then we can never be stopped. No one will ever cause pain or suffering to my people again.

  Portals open everywhe
re on the battleground, and those on my side step through them. I hear my mother’s voice on the wind, commanding everyone to leave. I take my eyes off the Titans for a moment to see Sage in David’s arms, fighting him to get to me, but he forces her through a portal. My mother rides through the chaos towards me on a black-winged chariot, and right behind her are my mates.

  My mates…

 

  The sword’s power is addictive, far more than any magic I have ever experienced, and it lifts me higher into the air. I forget everyone in the world but the sword and the Titans who are my enemies. I can’t fight this kind of magic, not anymore. It’s too much, too connected to me, too powerful and seductive. As its sweet, sinister whispers fill my mind, I realise that this sword, this mark branded into my flesh, was the true enemy all along. It will destroy the world and reshape it how it likes.

  I’m just a host.

  For a fleeting moment, I see a vision of the future in the swords eyes; the pain and misery it wants the fae and shadowborn to feel for locking it away.

 

  I scream as the sword forces me to send out shockwaves of power, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Light, dark, and shadow magic leaves my body in waves as I stretch my one hand up in the air with the sword in it. The sword glows so brightly as I let it take over me fully, and for a moment I forget who I am. All I can see is black, and all I feel in my heart is darkness.

  Other than the sword and the power…what is there?

  “Vina!” A woman’s voice desperately shouts, and I open my eyes to see a light fae floating in front of me, the power bending around her like she isn’t even there. Her long white hair flows around her shoulders and waist, and she wears a strange white jumpsuit. Broken handcuffs hang from her right wrist and her eyes lock onto me like we know each other. My magic attacks her, wanting her to get away from me, but she only flinches as she holds my gaze. Why is she so familiar?

  the sword snarls, and I want to believe it.

  Only the girl moves closer, crying out as my power flickers over her skin off her shoulder, cutting her deeply. She just smiles at me and places her hand on my cheek as if she isn’t being hurt by my magic.

  “Sister, you know me. You know who you are. Don’t let the magic take you away. We have lost our father, our kingdoms are ruined, but we have each other. Come back to me.”

  “Izora?” I croak out as a flood of memories surge back to me. Izora is my half-sister, my friend and I have missed her. What the hell am I doing? I’m hurting her. I’m hurting those I love.

  Izora desperately reaches for me but my power doesn’t let her get any closer, spinning out of control.

  “Yes. Yes, it’s me,” she says. “I’ve opened the portal for the Titans and they are gone. It’s just you and me, sis. Give me the sword.”

  “It’s mine!” I scream at her, tears falling and sizzling on her hands, but she doesn’t even flinch. A voice, sounding nothing like my own, speaks from my lips. “The princess is mine. You cannot stop me. She is mine to control!”

  “No, Corvina Charles is my sister. My blood and she belongs to her mates and family. Remember them, Vina? Pitch, Jonah, Zander, and Gage,” Izora growls at me and reaches for my sword. She screams in pain as the sword shoots dark webs at her, covering her hand and making her bleed.

  “The sword has killed them with your power,” Izora screams. “Don’t let it kill me. Stop it, Vina. Only you can!”

  They’re dead? No! No, no, no, no, no!

  I search my soul for the connection I’ve always felt to Pitch. I search for my other mates, for anyone, but it’s empty.

  I’m alone.

  For the first time in my life, I’m completely alone.

  And it’s the sword’s fault. It did this…and the sword will fucking pay for it.

 

  The sword screams in my mind as I slowly pry one finger at a time off from the sword, every movement hurting deep within my heart. Hurting my soul, cracking it into a million pieces. I grit my teeth and think of my mates. The sword hurt them. It took them and it won’t win against me.

  Izora’s hand covers mine and she smiles at me for a long moment, both of us glowing as we float high in the air, a mixture of light and dark magic, covered in shadows. Time stands still as tears fall down my cheeks and I embrace my power. The magic I was born with. As my last finger rests on the sword, nearly letting Izora take it from me, I whisper one last message to the sword as a goodbye, it screams at me.

  “You might be powerful beyond comparison but you are not us. We are the children of gods and shadowborns, and you will rot back in the sea you came from and never, ever rise again!”

  The second I let go of the sword, the magic booms so loud that I can’t see anything but light and flickers of darkness as I fall down in tremendous pain. My body crashes onto the hard ground below and the darkness I know so well takes me under, soothing me before I have to face reality.

  “It’s time to wake up, sleepyhead.”

  “Dad?” I open my eyes to a room full of darkness. “Where are you? I can’t see anything.”

  A silver flame drifts towards me, growing brighter and larger until it forms the shape of my father. “Hello, Button.”

  “Dad!” I jump into his arms, inhaling his familiar peppermint scent with the tinge of tobacco. His beard scratches my cheek as I hold him close. He’s exactly as I remember him, tall and young, with his blonde hair swept back and his blue eyes weary but kind. His arms wrap around me and he runs a hand through my hair, just like he used to do when I was little. “I can’t believe it’s you,” I say. “Where are we?”

  He holds me back, a pained smile on his face. “We are in a place you’ve got to leave.”

  “Leave?” My throat tightens. “But I don’t want to leave you. Is Mum here, too?”

  I barely finished speaking when a warm breeze drifts over me.

  “Darling,” my mum says, and I turn to see her beautiful smile.

  The tears in my eyes fall down my cheeks. “I’ve missed you both so much!”

  My dad hugs me to his cold chest and I feel my mum’s similarly cold arms wrap around me. The three of us embrace for a moment that I never want to end.

  I commit the weight of their arms around me to my memory, desperate this time to not forget. For so long, I have wanted to hug my human parents. I wanted to hear their voices and breathe in their scents, and now that I’m finally able to, I don’t want to let go.

  “But you need to,” my dad whispers.

  “We love you so very much, Corvina.” My mum smoothes a hand over my face, brushing my hair away from my eyes. “But you don’t belong here. You belong with the fae. You always did.”

  More flames flutter down around us—five in total. They each flicker around me, but their glow is dim and quickly fading. It makes my heart clench in my chest and the air constrict in my lungs, though I can’t tell why. It’s not like the flames are people.

  “Am I dead?” I croak out, looking back at my parents. “I let go of the sword.”

  “You are not dead, but yes, you dropped the sword,” Dad says with a proud smile. “Your mother and I knew you were destined for greatness from the moment we first held you.”

  I let my tears roll down my cheeks. “I’m so sorry for what I did. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  “Oh, my darling, no!” Mum turns me around and forces me to look at her. “Everything happens for a reason. Just like these flames, we can’t burn forever. There will come a time when the flame is blown out, but that doesn’t mean it is gone for good. It simply gets ignited elsewhere.”

  “But I—” I choke on the words, a sob tearing from my throat. “I’m the one who blew yours out.”

 
“And by doing so, you let us burn a new flame,” Dad says, his hands falling onto my arms.

  Another flame appears, this one brighter than the others, beaming like a star in the night sky.

  “What are these?” I ask, reaching out to touch it, but it flickers away.

  “These are your way home. You must return to the living world,” he answers softly.

  I look between my parents, watching the glow in their faces fade like the flames dying around us. Panic grips me as I realise they’re returning to the spirit world.

  “Please don’t go—I need you!”

  I reach out to grab them, but my hand falls through, causing my panic to soar.

  “Never forget how much we love you,” my mum whispers, fading into a silver flame that merges with the others.

  My dad vanishes with her, but his voice still carries to me ever so faintly.

  “It’s time to wake up, Corvina.”

  And with a blast of light, I fall back into a warmer embrace, the darkness vanishing.

  “Wake up, Corvina!” Narah screams, rocking me in her arms. “Wake up, we don’t have time!”

  I blink at her, my body shivering in her tight grasp, my head resting against her chest covered in blood that sticks to my hair. Ash and dust brush my lashes and I look up at the sky, knowing even though it is clear and full of stars, my world is about to crash and burn.

  Flickering my eyes from my frantic mother, I notice the mess we are sitting in, the rumble of the palace around us. We’re still on the battlefield but there are no more Titans, and whatever followers Eva had fighting with them are no longer here. There is a silence—a quiet after the storm. When Narah sees my eyes open, she presses my face to her chest.

  “Oh, thank Selena! I thought I lost you too.”

  “What…happened?” I croak out, wincing at the pain seizing my body.

  “When you let go of the sword, your magic shattered it into pieces.” She pauses, her arms tensing around me. “Corvina, it… it killed them before making itself whole once more. I sent it away with the last of my magic, thankfully it was weak from losing its connection to you.”