“The thing that bothers me more is where that object was hidden,” I said. “Isabelle’s clone was thoroughly searched before she was taken into custody.”
“I can’t believe it was inside of her. It must have been lodged deep, since Claudia killed her in order to retrieve it. Under better circumstances, I assume she might’ve undergone surgery. But then I have to ask how that thing got inside her to begin with… We’re missing pieces of the puzzle.”
“Okay, let’s keep moving,” Jericho interjected, motioning for us to follow him. “The training halls should be about a mile in that direction. Another fifty yards beyond, and we’ll have reached the armory.”
We continued our journey, constantly surveying our surroundings and taking care with our steps. It was eerily quiet, and chills occasionally danced down my spine with the rising breeze coming from the North. This fake Shade felt colder than the real one. In my mind, I kept going over possibilities as to who might be behind it all—who had the power and the ability to craft such a world, and how big could it be?
The logistics alone were daunting to consider, not to mention the task of covertly gathering DNA samples from The Shade and building the doubles to populate this island. The natural elements intrigued me. How had some of them turned out so differently? Were the colors and the specimens the result of nature, or were they the creative whims of a magical entity?
A low growl to our right made me freeze on the spot. Suddenly, the prospect of reaching the armory was no longer as positive as I’d thought, especially since I immediately recognized the sound. I’d heard it before.
“Stop,” I whispered, my muscles hardening as I braced myself for the worst. Slowly turning my head, I saw the flaming blue eyes first. Big and round, like sapphires. There were no irises. Nothing to tell me what sort of creature this was, only that it was made of icy shadows, and it was prowling in the darkness just a few feet away.
“We’re not alone anymore,” Astra whispered, then slowly raised her hand. Her palm glowed pink, the light intensifying as she cast it in the direction of the moving shadow. The fiend hissed and ran from its path. It snarled and continued to circle us, looking for another attack angle.
“Jericho, you know what you have to do,” I said, my claws and fangs coming out. If these entities wanted a war with us, I was fine with that. As long as this journey ended with us breaking into the armory and getting everything we needed, I was fine with pretty much anything. This was but one of the challenges we were bound to face.
The dragon fae ignited two fireballs in his hands, augmenting the light that Astra had already released. We’d agreed on a protocol in case we ran into these shadows again—create enough light to daze the monster, then move quickly so as not to draw the clones in our direction. It wasn’t a surefire way to survive, but it was our best option.
“It’s not going to come any closer,” Astra said, eyeing the creature carefully. It had shifted to our left, still snarling, furious that it couldn’t get to us. Above, the deep indigo night sky turned suddenly black, and a cold wind blew ferociously through the forest, battering Jericho’s fires. The lights flickered, and the shadow creature managed to get closer.
“Let’s go!” I said, taking the lead as we ran farther up the narrow path.
Other shadow beasts joined the trail, coming from different parts of the forest. It was clear that if one caught our scent, more would always join the hunt. Astra’s hands burned bright and pink, casting enough light to keep the fiends at a safe distance, but it was only a matter of time before one of them would try something else.
“We have to push them back and lose them, otherwise they’ll follow us all the way to the armory,” Jericho warned as he threw a few fireballs. They landed with bright bursts of orange, scaring away several shadow fiends.
It wasn’t enough. Nothing in our arsenal would be enough, especially if we wanted to maintain a low profile in these woods.
“Thayen, we’ve got a huge problem,” Soph said, beckoning me to look behind us. The blood in my veins ran cold as I saw exactly what the issue was.
“Damn,” I said. There wasn’t just a dozen or two of these creatures trying to take hefty bites out of us. There were over a hundred of them, swarming the woods around us and inching closer with every second that passed. “They’re adjusting to the light,” I realized. My conclusion made me shiver, but it was undeniable—I was watching it happen with my own eyes.
Jericho’s fire and Astra’s pink light wouldn’t hold them back forever. I wasn’t even sure what the light did to them, I was simply grateful it had kept them away thus far. We were forced to stop as more shadowy monsters cut off our path forward. I couldn’t see them clearly, but the sounds they made were painfully and terrifyingly real, their jaws snapping and their fangs clattering.
“We need to do something,” Astra said, intensifying her pink glow until it filled her from head to toe.
“If we keep this up, the clones will find us before long,” Soph replied, her brow furrowed. She was constantly looking around, her red eyes sparkling with daemonic ferocity. She would take no prisoners. “There are too many of these freaks already, and they’re starting to adjust to the damn light, so there goes our main weapon.”
“Hold up, I’m not done yet!” Jericho exclaimed, then proceeded to hurl a few more fireballs. I wasn’t sure he’d hit anything, but a few of the creatures whimpered, and I caught sudden movement at the corner of my eye. Only then did I see the tall figure up the path, coming into view.
“What the…” My voice trailed off, quivering in the pitch black of this fake Shade. The guy coming toward us was enormous—at least seven feet tall and as wide as a pair of double doors, nothing but solid muscle. His posture came across as hostile, and he held something in his right hand, something slender and malleable, like a whip. He stopped thirty feet from us and raised it over his head, clicking his teeth.
It was enough to send the shadow creatures into a frenzy.
They attacked, forcing Jericho and Astra to use their powers to their full extent. Fire flashed past me. Shimmering pink barriers rippled through the night—a new skill Astra had developed, apparently. They acted like regular sentry barriers, but they carried bits of pink light in their invisible mass, light that exploded upon impact. Every explosion revealed a gruesome and skeletal silhouette of one of the shadow monsters, and it was horrifying. They appeared to be made out of darkness. There was no flesh or bone, or any other physical feature. Just the idea of a moving creature.
“It’s not going to work,” Dafne said, dodging one of the fiends and ducking as another jumped toward her. It ended in Jericho’s crosshairs, and he launched a fireball that hit the monster in its chest, throwing it backward. It screamed as it scuttled away, sparks flying off its razorback. I still couldn’t see any indication of animal or humanoid features—only flitting darkness that was hungry to eat us.
Astra froze when she saw the massive figure behind us, his whip still above his head. “Whoa. Thayen, who the hell is that?”
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet he’s anything but friendly,” I replied, glancing at the path ahead. It had been completely obscured by the shadow fiends, and the wheels in my head weren’t turning fast enough to produce a solution. This was a nightmare, and no one would be able to wake me from it.