Page 39

It’s not really an answer to her question, but she lets it go.

“What did you do to make them hunt you?”

Not an unexpected question.

“I opposed their purges. I fought against their efforts to eradicate those with natural abilities. For that, they labeled me a heretic, dissident, enemy of the natural order.”

Not the whole truth, of course, but enough to establish my position without frightening her away. The full extent of my resistance—the army I commanded, the territories I controlled, the Authority strongholds I destroyed—those can wait for another time.

“So, there are others like you?”

“Not like me, but others with powers, yes. Many died in the purges. Others went into hiding, suppressing their abilities to avoid detection.” I keep my eyes on her face. “Some may still survive, in remote regions or even in disguise among normal society.”

“What will you do now that you’re free?”

The question is dangerously direct. I have no doubt the truth would terrify her. I have plans for vengeance, for reclaiming what was taken. She wouldn’tunderstand.

“First, we survive. We get to Ravencross. After that, I’ll need to see what the world has become in my absence.”

She doesn’t appear entirely satisfied with this answer, but doesn’t press further. Instead she wraps her arms around herself, and rests her cheek against her knees.

I lift one hand toward the far corner, and draw shadow into shape. A resting space. Warm, enclosed, safe.

“Sleep. Tomorrow will be another long day of walking.”

She stands and walks over to it, testing it with one hand, then lies down, facing me. It doesn’t take long for her to fall asleep. Once her breathing slows and deepens, I stand up and step outside.

Here, under the sky, with no witnesses, I can finally do what I have ached to do since first setting foot outside of the tower.

I lift my arms, palms up in silent invocation. My eyes close as I reach out, not with sight or sound, but something deeper. Toward a presence carved into me long before chains and bindings.

My shadow familiar. My other half. My most loyal servant and closest companion.

Forced into exile when I was bound, surviving somehow in the darkness between places, while I languished in my prison.

“Find me,” I whisper into the darkness. The words carry power, vibrating through the shadows coalescing around me like ripples in still water. My voice, unused to commanding rather than surviving, cracks with emotion I will never allow anyone to witness. “Return to me.”

I pour my will into the command, every fiber of my being focused on sending it racing through the night. My call passes farbeyond physical limitations, beyond mere distance, reaching into spaces where darkness holds dominion. Wherever my familiar has survived all these years, whatever form it has taken to endure, it will hear me. It will feel the sundering of my chains. It will know its master is free once more.

For a moment nothing happens. Just night sounds and distant stars. Then the night shifts, almost imperceptibly at first, then with undeniable intent. The sky itself seems to shudder in response, stars briefly dimming as though something has passed between them and the earth. Something stirs in the vast darkness. Distant yet, but aware now, awakening to my summons.

I feel an answering pulse, faint but unmistakable. Like a heartbeat synchronizing with my own after years of separation.

Recognition. Acknowledgement. Longing that mirrors my own. After all this time, I am no longer alone.

I lift my hands, and darkness answers. Shadows pour from every direction, gathering around me in a swirling vortex of pure night. I shape it, mold it, command it to take form after form. Weapons. Creatures. Structures that defy normal physics. The power builds, flowing through channels long denied, filling with me its presence.

It fills me. Not fully. Not yet. But enough. This is the threshold, not the summit.

By the time we reach Thornevale Ridge, I will be close to my former power.

And then …thenthey will remember why they feared me.

The Authority believes they have neutralized me. That I am no longer a threat to their order.

They are mistaken. They merely delayed the inevitable.

Their purges. Their persecution. Their attempts to erase magic from this realm. All of it will be answered for.