by Lynette Noni
Just as Bear was becoming fidgety enough to consider snooping through the Shadow Walker’s belongings—especially the strange cube of swirling darkness on his desk and the black Shadow Dagger resting beside it—Caspar Lennox returned. He followed Bear’s gaze and strode across the room until he reached out and plucked up the dagger, sliding it into a sheath before holding it out.
“I want this back,” the teacher said.
Bear looked at the offering with wide eyes, tentatively taking it. At Caspar Lennox’s gesture, he hid it within the folds of his coat, careful to keep it out of sight.
Stunned—mostly because Shadow Walkers never gave away their coveted blades, not even as loaners—Bear cleared his throat and asked, “Is there a reason why you think I’ll need a weapon today?”
“Your brother has no doubt shared enough of his encounters with my race for you to know better than to ask that question, Barnold. Just as you should have known better than to request my assistance on this reckless errand.”
Bear felt a flicker of shame.
“However,” Caspar Lennox continued, “it just so happens that I agree with your objectives. And I will not be the one to stand in your way, should there be but a sliver of a chance for your success.”
Shame dissolved as hope took root.
“The dagger is merely a precaution,” the professor informed. “Just in case things… degenerate… further than anticipated.”
Bear swallowed and said, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Indeed,” Caspar Lennox said, “since not even steel imbued with Shadow Essence will save you if you find yourself facing one of my race in open combat.”
“That’s definitely not on my list of goals for the day,” Bear assured the Shadow Walker. “I promise to do my best to avoid any and all forms of combat, open or otherwise.”
Caspar Lennox’s features tightened as if he thought Bear was joking, when he was not. He might have been rated Delta in Combat, but he’d seen Alex fight Trell Roven—he certainly wasn’t naïve enough to think he stood a chance against the shadowy race.
“Let us depart,” the teacher said, “before your friends decide to wander off without us.”
That was something Bear could easily imagine Jordan and D.C. doing, so he nodded his agreement and stepped forward when Caspar Lennox gripped his arm firmly and commanded the shadows to rise around them.
All sense of time and place became distorted as they travelled across the continent through the darkness. It took considerably longer than when Shirez had relocated Bear from the balcony to the bathroom, though he still couldn’t get a read on just how much time passed as they walked the shadows.
Soon enough they came to a halt in a hidden alcove somewhere inside the dark walls of the Obscuria, arriving directly beside the relieved-looking D.C. and Jordan.
“We should not linger,” Caspar Lennox said. “Follow me.”
Bear and his friends didn’t need to be told twice, and together they followed the Shadow Walker up a narrow set of spiralling stairs until they reached the main floor of the cathedral. They hugged the walls, careful to keep out of sight of those revelling with abandon. There appeared to be some kind of celebration underway, and Bear remembered after a moment that they must be honouring Trell’s vatali targo victory. According to what Alex had shared, the festivities would continue for a whole month—ridiculous, to Bear’s mind, though he made a mental note to keep his opinion to himself.
They were but a few feet away from the private staircase that led up to the elders’ balcony when a familiar figure stepped in front of them, blocking their path.
“I should have known.”
“Well met, Shirez Ganare,” Caspar Lennox said formally, despite having seen the female Shadow Walker just yesterday.
“Is it, Caspar Lennox?” Shirez asked, her dark features arched. “Because I could swear you have three humans with you, despite the elders decreeing our borders closed to their kind for the foreseeable future.”
Bear couldn’t help looking at her with shock, his eyes then moving to Caspar Lennox only to see the professor’s expression tight—and pale. Apparently the risk he was taking in bringing them back was more than he had let on, as were the consequences that perhaps he had understated. Or—maybe there was a very real reason why he had handed Bear the Shadow Dagger, and why he had warned them numerous times about the foolhardy nature of their mission.
And yet, he’d still brought them.
Because he believed in them, and what they were trying to do.
That was enough for Bear to stand taller and, despite knowing that it was considered impudent to speak to a Shadow Walker without first being invited to do so, he took a step forward and said, “Shirez Ganare, you must know the elders made a mistake.”
Her onyx eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth, most likely to rail at him, but he continued before she could.
“Please, just listen,” he said, holding up his hands. “You heard Alex’s story—you know she wasn’t lying. But for whatever reason, your elders weren’t willing to listen to her. So please, let us try.” He indicated to the nodding D.C. and Jordan. “One chance to share what we know, what we’ve experienced. One chance to set this right.”
A flicker of uncertainty flared in her dark gaze, enough for Bear to think she might be about to give in.
“Please,” D.C. whispered. “Please let us through.”
Shirez looked from D.C. to Jordan to Bear, and then finally settled her eyes on Caspar Lennox. Sighing loudly, she said, “Con arta pos te vardi.”
Bear exchanged uncertain looks with his friends, none of them having any idea what she’d said in her native tongue. He was surprised—and amazed—however, when he noticed the smile curling Caspar Lennox’s mouth.
“We’ve years of friendship between us, Shirez Ganare,” the professor responded in the common tongue, his amusement brightening his mottled features. “We both know you could never hate me.”
Bear noticed Jordan’s eyebrows shoot upwards and D.C. covered her mouth to hide her grin.
Shirez’s gaze narrowed—again—as she turned back to them and said, “For the grace of the shadows, do not make me regret this.”
And then she stepped aside. Not only that, she fell in beside Caspar Lennox as he started leading the way forward again.
“Thank you, Shirez Ganare,” Bear said, wholeheartedly. “I promise we’ll—”
But he never got to finish his promise, because at that moment, a sound unlike anything he’d ever heard came from all around him. It was a high-pitched keen, a shrill ringing in his ears that had him clamping his hands over them and bending at his waist as if it would help block the painful tone. All around him, the celebrating Shadow Walkers came alert at once, all signs of revelry disappearing in an instant as they turned their eyes to the stained glass windows, looking out at the dawning sky as if it were offering a message only they could interpret.
“What is that?” Jordan gasped, his hands pressed over his ears just like Bear.
D.C. also showed signs of feeling the same agony, while their two Shadow Walker escorts—and indeed, all the Shadow Walkers around them—appeared to be unaffected.
But—no. Bear realised they weren’t entirely unaffected. They might not have been debilitated by the piercing tone, but they were reacting to whatever it meant. Both Caspar Lennox and Shirez Ganare’s faces had drained of colour, their skin now an ashen, chalky grey. They stared at each other with wide, horror-struck eyes, communicating silently before their gazes landed on Bear and his friends again.
In the space of a blink, the sound ended as quickly as it had begun, and as soon as there was silence around them once more, Shirez disappeared in a cloud of shadows.
She wasn’t the only one—the entire cathedral erupted in darkness as every single Shadow Walker vanished, from those on the ground to those high up in the overlooking balconies. Bear didn’t need to look to know that even the elders were now gone from the Obs
curia, the whole building cleared of its inhabitants.
Still experiencing a light ringing in his ears—a lingering echo that was slowly fading—Bear lowered his hands and straightened just as Caspar Lennox pointed a grey finger to the ground.
In a voice Bear had never heard him use before, the Shadow Walker commanded, “You three—do not move from here until I return. Is that understood?”
“What’s going on?” Jordan asked. “What was that awful noise?”
“It was an alarm,” Caspar Lennox answered, the shadows already beginning to rise around him. “A city-wide warning.”
“What kind of warning?” D.C. asked, her voice shaking, as if somehow she already knew—and dreaded the answer.
Bear, too, felt it deep within him. The sense that something was very, very wrong. And his feeling was confirmed with Caspar Lennox’s next words, four of them uttered in the instant before he vanished from within a cloud of darkness.
“Graevale is under attack.”
Nine
‘Graevale is under attack.’
Bear heard Caspar Lennox’s parting statement repeat across his mind as he took in his friends’ anxious faces.
“Aven?” D.C. asked.
“Must be,” Jordan said, looking to the upper windows, though there was nothing to see save for the slowly lightening sky, overcast as it was. The Shadow Walker half of Graevale was covered by unceasing storm clouds, so even the rising sun was having trouble breaking through the gloom.
“What do we do?” D.C. asked, shifting from foot to foot and glancing nervously towards the huge, double-arched doorway on the far side of the Obscuria—the exit that would lead them outside.
Despite Caspar Lennox’s order to remain where they were, the temptation was strong to go and see what was happening. Too strong.
“We need to know what we’re dealing with,” Bear said, nodding his head towards the impressive doorway.
“If the city really is under attack, we can’t just stay in here,” Jordan said. “We might be able to help.”
Bear decided not to point out that if it was Aven who had set off the alarm, he likely would have brought his Claimed army of Meyarins with him. Three humans would pose little threat to them, especially when they were armed with only one Shadow Dagger between them. Instead, Bear nodded his agreement, knowing that despite their lack of weapons—or immortality—they weren’t entirely useless.
“We won’t last five seconds in a battle against immortals,” D.C. said, having no problem saying what Bear had decided to ignore.
“Would you rather we just wait for Caspar Lennox to return and whisk us back to the academy?” Jordan asked, a challenge in his tone.
He knew his girlfriend well, since while her features were pale, her eyes narrowed and her spine straightened with determination. As heir to the human throne of Medora, this was not her first test of courage—nor would it be her last.
“Let’s go,” she said, striding forward with purpose.
Jordan stepped in line with her, threading their fingers together as if to offer her comfort Bear knew she didn’t need. D.C. was in princess mode now. With her head held high, she epitomised the future monarch she would one day become—a young woman who would do anything to protect her people, her world.
Princess mode or not, Bear could see that she still gripped Jordan’s hand tightly, giving him a small smile as the three of them walked the long path across the empty, echoing cathedral towards the exit.
Bear had no idea what to expect when they pulled the heavy doors open, but his first glimpse outside left him staggering.
A wave of sound crashed over the trio—metal against metal, roaring voices, hideous gurgling sounds of agony. Barely minutes had passed since the alarm had sounded, and yet the sight laid out at the base of the staircase leading down from the Obscuria made it seem like hours had gone by.
The immense cobblestone square was flooded with people. Meyarins, Shadow Walkers and Dayriders were blurring around each other too fast for Bear’s eyes to follow. The Shadow Walkers were swirling through clouds of darkness, while the Dayriders, having crossed over to the shadowy side of the city, were appearing and disappearing in sudden, bright flashes. The latter were throwing spears of lightning at the Meyarins, who must have been travelling on the Valispath because Bear couldn’t keep up with their seemingly invisible movements.
Jordan cursed loudly as he took in the view, and Bear couldn’t help repeating the exclamation. Because looking down on the battle that had begun barely moments earlier…
It was already a bloodbath.
And the sounds that were reaching their ears—not to mention the sight of such gruesome, unrestrained violence—it was like nothing Bear could have ever imagined. Nothing he’d ever wanted to imagine.
In the face of this, he had been naïve to think they might be able to help. D.C. was right—they wouldn’t last five seconds if—
“BEAR, LOOK OUT!”
Bear ducked just in time after hearing D.C.’s shrill cry, and he spun around to find a stunning male Meyarin with a Myrox sword embedded into the door right beside where his head had just been.
With no time to think, Bear’s four years of Combat training kicked in, and he drew the Shadow Dagger from its sheath, holding it up before him. The weapon was like a toothpick in comparison to the Meyarin’s sword, but it was better than nothing. And when the male swung at him again, Bear thought he was ready to meet him blade against blade. But he’d forgotten to factor in the immortal speed, and as the sword streamed towards him too fast to see, Bear knew he wasn’t just in trouble—he was about to be dead.
Only, that’s not what happened, because before the Meyarin’s sword could finish its downward strike, he lost his balance, stumbling to the side.
“Terin—”
Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off when his sword-arm rose and the pommel of his own weapon smashed into the side of his temple—hard. And then it did so again once more, even as he was crashing to the ground.
The next second, Jordan materialised beside the Meyarin, having used his gift to save Bear. His face was pale but triumphant, the sword now gripped in his hands. The victorious expression didn’t last long, since the Meyarin might have been dazed by Jordan’s unanticipated transcendence, but it would take much more than two knocks on the head to take him out.
Noticing that, Jordan handed Bear the sword and grabbed hold of both Bear and D.C., reactivating his gift to cover them all just as three more Meyarins arrived at the top of the Obscuria. With their immortal senses, they wouldn’t need to see Bear and his friends in order to engage them in combat—something he, Jordan and D.C. all realised at the exact same moment.
Because of that, none of them hesitated when Jordan cried, “RUN!”
And together they bolted down the jagged stone staircase and into the nightmare of what lay waiting for them at the bottom.
Jordan couldn’t cover D.C. and Bear with his gift indefinitely—the energy required eventually became too much for him. As it was, they were fortunate for the long minutes he managed while they struggled their way through the warring races to the side of the square. It was there that they found an alleyway tucked into the shadows, one that offered a modicum of protection from the madness occurring across the cobblestone space—madness that had only increased when Aven himself arrived, landing at the top of the Obscuria.
… Right where Bear, Jordan and D.C. had been standing just minutes before. Had they not left when they did… there was no telling what might have happened to them. What would have happened to them.
But they had survived, and they had escaped. And now that they were safe—or at least, relatively—Bear took a moment to berate himself for having dropped the sword during their mad dash across the square. He’d been forced to block a stray blow from a passing Meyarin whose blade had been on a path straight for Jordan’s head—a lucky strike on the female’s part—and when Bear had met her weapon mid-air, he’d felt the
collision so sharply that his whole arm had been jarred and the sword had clattered from his grip. Fortunately, his pitiful attempt at blocking had given Jordan the time needed to moved out of the line of danger and shove Bear and D.C. forward before the Meyarin had figured out where her invisible opponents were.
While Bear lamented having left the sword behind, he had saved Jordan’s life—and thus paid his friend back for his earlier rescue—so the trade was well worth it.
“Look!” D.C. cried, drawing Bear’s gaze from where he’d been watching Aven overlooking the battle. But what he saw upon D.C.’s exclamation stole all of his attention—just as it stole Aven’s attention, too.
Scuttling to the edge of the alleyway, as close to the end as was safe, Bear looked on in wonder at the sight of hundreds, if not thousands, of coloured Bubbledoors opening up all around the square. Out from each ran a stream of humans—black uniformed militia and Wardens, all of whom had come to lend their aid to a race who, only one day earlier, had been willing to leave them for dead.
“Bear—is that—” Jordan sucked in a sharp breath. “It is! It’s your dad!”
Bear’s neck swivelled so fast that it cracked, his eyes locking on the figure battling on the far side of the square. There was no mistaking the familiar form of William Ronnigan commanding a small unit of Wardens. At once, Bear felt both the warm touch of pride and the cold prickle of fear flooding his veins.
“Dad,” he choked out, even knowing there was no possible way for William to hear him. Jordan and D.C. were only feet away, and he doubted that they could hear him over the clamour of the battle. There were too many people. Too many Dayriders appearing and disappearing in flashes of light, too many Shadow Walkers surrounded by darkness, too many Meyarins using the Eternal Path, too many humans running around with bursts from their Stabilisers adding to the confusion. Yelling, screaming, shooting, stabbing—there was too much happening for William to even know Bear was there.
