The screams from earlier eddied around her mind. Innocent people slain. Her people terrified and slaughtered, and for what?
She could feel herself changing. Feel her light magick smoldering. She met the Asgardian’s haughty stare, taking satisfaction in the flicker of fear that sparked behind his peridot eyes.
They both felt the darkness inside her awaken, stretching out its tendrils of power as she loosened her hold over it.
Her lips tipped up in a grin.
“Why are you smiling?” Sand crunched as the nearest male slowly drew closer. Centuries of defending the floating city of Tyr, of being heralded as legendary warriors who fought against the Noctis in the Shadow Wars, made him foolishly disregard the power he’d sensed. “Or are you enjoying the thought of what the Sun Sovereign is going to do to you?”
“Mortal whore,” the other one spat. “No daughter of the Goddess would be in league with the Lord of the Netherworld, nor be foolish enough to stumble right into Death Raiders’ arms.”
Warmth kissed her palm, sending golden light dancing over the sloping steel of his breastplate. His eyes flicked lazily down to the magick dancing just above her fingers as he slid to the left, the fluid stealth with which he moved driving home these were Sun Lords, powerful ones. Used to killing monsters bigger and scarier than her with ease.
Well, if that’s what they were used to . . .
Distracted by her light magick, both males missed the faint flicker of fiery blue twining between her fingertips. And when they did see it, see what it was becoming . . . when their eyes stretched into all white orbs of surprise and then filled with fear—it was too late.
Serpentine shadows writhed and churned around the Asgardians, a cruel cage greedily devouring their light magick. Sucking it from them with startling efficiency.
The portal guttered and then died, its magick feeding her monster.
Their skin turned ashen and sickly as they swung their weapons. Over and over and over. Slicing uselessly at the dark magick that was slowly, methodically killing them.
She could see it in their desperate faces: they knew their fate was sealed. They would die on this rocky coast for the promise of powerrunes and greed.
Their eyes jerked wide as the shifting obsidian cage began to change. Solidifying as its sinewy body curled outward, tendrils of darkness sprouting into the air.
Something about its intelligent movements were different than all the times she’d practiced this trick before.
What in the Netherworld?
A strange panic skipped in her chest. Despite the cool storm winds, a trickle of sweat slid between her shoulder blades as she watched her dark magick take shape, torn between fascination and horror.
It was becoming something. Stretching and pulsing through the air, limbs slowly appearing from the nebulous shadows—
Goddess Above.
Stolas had warned her there was a small chance this could happen, but seeing it now . . . the terrible brutality seeping from its form . . .
She stumbled back as shards of ice burrowed into her core.
Every Seraphian had a Shadow Familiar, a creature born of dark magick that eventually manifested itself outside its host. The third night here, during Archeron’s first wave of attack on the island, Haven had spotted a massive shadow blotting out the stars as it circled the night sky.
Its bellows were loud enough to wake the entire city.
Assuming the thing was sent by Archeron, she’d alerted Stolas.
Only to discover it was Nasira’s Shadow Familiar, a firedrake dragon.
And that’s when Stolas had mentioned the possibility that Haven might also have a familiar. He’d said it so casually that she had assumed the possibility was dismal at best.
Which is why she hadn’t paid much attention when he explained what that meant.
In his words, the moment she entered the shores of Shadoria, if the Shadeling had passed on the same gift to her, the sacred transition might be awoken.
Whenever she had entertained the possibility, her mind had conjured a sleek, beautiful dragon, ferocious yet majestic.
This—this thing growing before her eyes was anything but majestic.
She shuddered as a long snout sprouted from a massive head, the darkness condensing into legs and talons and a serpentine tail that whipped with enough force to crack boulders. Skeletal wings sprouted from its misshapen back and sent shadows skittering across the sand. Horns grew and twisted like snakes all over its muscular body.
Bellowing snarls ripped from the crooked, bent creature, the gut-curdling sounds straight from the Netherworld.