I heard Dafne gasp. Turning to make sure she was still with us, I found myself breathless at the sight of a powerful light coming from the East. No, not coming—flying. Shooting toward us at an incredible speed. The closer it got, the brighter everything became. It made my eyes hurt, so I squinted, peeking just enough to make out the hundred or so shadow figures that became almost translucent in the face of such celestial shine. With effort, I kept my eyes on the tall human-monster with the whip, and my heart stopped for a second. Darkness danced around him like tiny tongues of black fire, but I could tell he had a head and a humanoid form.
His eyes twinkled a strange hue of blue, but with the added intensity of neon. He seemed to be smiling, and I caught a glimpse of sharp fangs. He was smiling—not at us but at the incoming light.
“Cover your eyes!” Astra shouted. It was more warning than suggestion. The light was getting too bright, so I brought my forearm up to shield my vision. My heart thudded wildly as I listened to the cacophony of shadow monsters running away—branches and twigs cracking, heavy footsteps fading away—that had to be the blue-eyed behemoth leaving as well.
The silence that followed made me feel as though we’d been entombed, like we’d already met our end but weren’t fully aware of it. The white light that had engulfed us began to fade, its sun-like warmth gradually replaced by the coldness of the alt-Shade’s night. There was a metallic jingle that sounded familiar. Peeling my eyes open, I dared to look around, only to find us alone. Our attackers had gone. Astra’s breathing was erratic, but she seemed okay, and Dafne had ended up in Jericho’s arms at some point. He must’ve wanted to protect her from the incoming light, but now their positions were awkward. Dafne scoffed and took a few steps away from him. She sucked in a breath when she finally saw who had delivered the light to us.
We’d reveled in the silence the shadow monsters had left behind, failing to notice her—the woman who’d brought the blinding light to us, who’d been standing in front of us for the better part of a minute.
“Hi, there,” Dafne managed, her tone flat and her eyes round with a mixture of shock and fear. “What the heck are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the woman replied. But it did. She was an astonishing sight to behold.
She was tall, almost as tall as me. Her shoulders were broad, her legs long and muscular. She looked born for battle, strong yet elegant—a warrior queen of sorts. Her hair was long and blonde, flowing down her back like liquid gold. Her eyes were like blue fire, something I’d seen only once before—on the giant man with the whip. They were the same. Strange, without pupils—only flaming azure irises.
“No, seriously. What are you?” I half-whispered, realizing that I could barely hear my own voice.
Her armor was made of a gold alloy, with elegant curves and a brilliant sheen. It covered her torso like a perfectly cut bodice and extended down her right arm from shoulders to fingers in an interesting mechanism that didn’t appear to impede full range of motion. Her knees, calves, and feet were protected by the same type of metal, and she held a sword in her left hand. Gold, leaf-shaped blades protruded from behind her ears, continuing in a string pattern down her back. I wondered what purpose they served? Maybe they were merely decorative.
But the sword—the sword was out of this world. A mixture of steel and gold sinuously danced through the long blade. The hilt was made of some kind of bone, polished to perfection and enriched with precious diamond, steel, gold, and mother-of-pearl inlays. It was a work of art, and its shine was gradually dimming. I was willing to bet it was the source of the powerful light that had just saved us.
“Seriously, it doesn’t matter,” the tall woman said, her voice as smooth as honey. There was something about her that arrested me, demanded my full attention—causing everything else to fade into the background. The shadow monsters and their blue-eyed leader no longer mattered. Nor did my jumbled thoughts. Not while I beheld this strange, wondrous creature before us.
Damn the clones, too, I thought. Damn them all to hell, because I knew I wouldn’t be leaving this place without understanding who and what she was. The woman clearly didn’t belong here. Everything about her felt foreign, not of this world. Much like us, she had to have stumbled upon this nightmare.
And now our paths had crossed.
Sofia
Six hours had passed since we’d reached the troubling conclusion that Thayen had managed to take his small crew through one of the shimmering portals. The Shade had been combed twice by vampires and witches alike, and we’d found no sign of them anywhere else. That, along with the sand tracks near the Port, confirmed this theory.
We weren’t any closer to a useful answer. The Shade was still sealed off, but not intentionally so. The clones had somehow disabled the portal near the Great Dome, and it would take a while before Corrine and Arwen could get it back up and running. At least the Reapers were around to help—in case we needed them to bring someone over from across the GASP federation.
But if there was a positive aspect to all of this—Derek and I had agreed—it was that our son was getting closer to revealing the mystery. Our faith in his strength and resilience were immutable, further reinforced by the support he was getting from Astra, Jericho, Dafne, and Soph. If anyone could navigate enemy territory and investigate something as complex and as confusing as this clone issue, it was Thayen. I was only sorry that we couldn’t send more people over to help him. We had yet to figure out a way to open a shimmering portal of our own, and since we didn’t have a known destination or coordinates to work with, there was little chance we’d succeed.
“How is the tally on our Shadians looking?” I asked Rose as Derek and I returned to the Great Dome. We’d turned it into a temporary command center, protected by a circle of vampire and werewolf guards surrounding the structure.
“So far, only five missing,” Rose replied, giving me a worried look as she and Caleb turned away from the main screen where regular updates from GASP agents across the island flickered, one after the other, like the end credits of a bad movie. “Isabelle, Viola, Richard, Voss, and Chantal. We still haven’t been able to find them. No Telluris connection. No answer on the comms. No heat signature anywhere.”
“Had any of them gone beyond The Shade, we still would’ve been able to reach them,” Caleb said as he rubbed the back of his neck. He’d been up for hours, and dark shadows had settled beneath his tired eyes. “And given what the clones have done so far, we’re almost positive the missing people are also in that realm, wherever it may be.”
Everybody was doing something at this point. Corrine and Kailani were working with the witches, trying to devise a series of spells to cast over The Shade—protective shields and alarms that would sound when a portal opened—anything that could aid us in case of another clone invasion. Unfortunately, they weren’t making much progress, though their efforts were otherwise highly appreciated. We knew almost nothing about the enemy’s foreign magic, but Lumi and Phoenix had begun studying every single piece of equipment salvaged from the doppelgangers, with additional support from Soul and Kelara. Seeley, Nethissis, and Sidyan had added death magic of their own in and around the island in an effort to slow the enemy down. Everyone was trying to do something—anything, to help.