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He stepped carefully over the airtram rails, gripping his sword and resisting the urge to let his aether flare. The light would give his position away. It was the same reason he hadn’t been given a torch.

Another step—he was aware of every muscle, every nerve, as he moved with the kind of preternatural quiet that only a shadow mage could manage. Ivain had taught him well, though Skye couldn’t help but wonder if Ivain would have allowed him to do something as dangerous as scouting an abandoned airtram tunnel if he knew that it was a dream that had led him down here in the first place.

Skye still had no explanation for the dream—couldn’t be sure if it was coincidence or if Taly really had found a way to warn him. But there would be time for those questions later. Right now, the only thing that kept him moving forward was just not thinking about it.

About Taly and if she was alive or dead. If it was possible for a human to walk through dreams. He wanted to hope, but… something held him back. His own fears, perhaps. If he allowed himself to hope, his rational mind said, it would be that much more painful when those hopes were crushed.

A shadow lurched toward him, and Skye dodged. Adjusting his grip, he flicked the switch beneath the hilt of his sword. Flames danced along the blade, releasing a gust of smoke as he sliced along the creature’s groin. It shrieked, the sound echoing through the tunnel. Two more swipes—one at its belly, the other its neck. The creature fell, and he used the heel of his boot to crush the shadow crystal sputtering in its chest.

Skye stood there for a moment, working to slow his breathing. Listening for any other movements in the dark.

All he heard was a faint scurrying—rats. Nothing larger.

“This area is clear,” he called back. Up ahead, he could see the iron grating that had been lowered to block off the tunnel. It was still intact, which meant the shades weren’t coming in through this line. The ones he’d spent the last hour cutting down had been nothing but wandering stragglers, not the main force.

Footsteps approached, accompanied by the flicker of torchlight. Moments later, Ivain and a small contingent of mages emerged from the darkness, all looking as haggard and tired as Skye felt.

Ivain gave him a nod as he passed, crouching to inspect the shades Skye had found lurking in this section of the tunnels. After securing the entrance, they had methodically worked their way through the subterranean network, trying to find which tunnel was allowing the shades entrance into the city. It was slow work. The airtram system had been built in layers, some of the tunnels almost 300 feet underground, and they were having to clear out the shades one area at a time.

From what they had been able to gather so far, several stations just outside the city had been excavated after the Gate Watchers sealed them off, the shades allowed to enter and roam aimlessly underground. When it was time for the attack, bait had been set to lure them into the city.

And the guards… Skye still shuddered at the memory. They had found the guards that had been stationed in the tunnels a few nights ago scattered along the airtram tracks in pieces, a trail of freshly slaughtered breadcrumbs.

“More light,” Ivain said. He gingerly gripped what was left of the shade’s jaw, turning its head this way and that. Another mage held up a torch, a single fire crystal flickering at the heart of the flame. “Human. Female.”

Brown eyes. Not Taly.

The comparison was instinctual, though Skye knew it was unlikely that Taly would be down here, even if she had been… turned.

Ivain prodded at the waxy skin, slightly bloated with a sickly green tint. “I’d say she’s been dead a month. The magic used to reanimate them slows the decay, but it can’t stop it.”

“Look at this.” Kneeling, Skye used the tip of a dagger to prod at the shade’s hip. There were the cuts he had made to fell her, each one oozing rotted blood. Countless other gashes peppered the whole of her body. But the cuts on her hip, visible beneath what was left of her clothing—they were clean and neat, sutured shut.

Ivain looked to where he was pointing. “Her legs were removed.”

“And then reattached?” Skye asked. “Why? I thought shades could reform themselves.”

“They can,” Ivain said. “You experienced this with the abomination in Ebondrift, and that’s what seems to have happenedhere.” Grabbing the woman by the shoulder, Ivain turned her over. Skye had to swallow back bile at the row of bones protruding from her back like spikes.

Shades needed aether to thrive, and the more they decayed, the stronger their thirst became. It drove them to hunt anything they could find so long as it contained aether, consuming blood andflesh and scavenging parts to augment and reform their own decomposing bodies.

One of those spikes still had feathers, another looked like a child’s arm, and still others were unrecognizable in their decay.

Demons fashioned from rot and pain. That’s what these things were. That’s what would have come surging up from beneath the city, pouring into the streets, if the tunnel gates had been left unlocked and unguarded.

“This, however,” Ivain said and turned the woman back over. He gestured to the hip bone and the neat row of sutures. “This was done purposefully. See how the bone has been fit back into the socket? If I had to guess, I’d say that this woman’s legs were not serviceable, even for a creature that cares nothing for pain or balance. She was pieced back together by a surgeon, likely with parts taken from another specimen. Then, she was released and allowed to scavenge.”

Ivain spoke with clinical detachment. He had served during the Shade Rebellion. He had seen these tactics before.

Skye wished he could be so unaffected. The smell alone made him want to retch.

“Take this one back to the city.” Ivain rose, gesturing to one of the three mages standing around him. A Lowborn woman with dark hair and light eyes stepped forward. She held a rag dipped in perfume over her nose and mouth. “I want her dissected and studied. See if there were any more modifications made, and, if so, compare them to the other bodies we’ve taken. Also, there’s still enough of her face intact—we might be able to identify her. If she has family, let the healers decide on how to inform them.”

The woman nodded, gesturing for the men behind her to get to work.

“Those spikes,” Skye said, watching as the mages began laying out a tarp, rolling the shade on top of it. “The placement seems too even, almost…”

“Intentional?” Ivain offered. Skye nodded. “That’s because it likely is. The first step in creating a shade is procuring a soul, one that’s been harvested at the moment of death. During the Rebellion, we often observed shades ornamenting themselves. We don’t know how much of the individual remains, but there is evidence to suggest that they retain a portion of their mental faculties, even pieces of their personality.”