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With small movements of my hands and twitches of my fingers—following the techniques Eamon had shown me—I started to work. We’d set up targets across the training ground, and, one after the other, I unraveled my pack of shadowy serpents and sent them curling up, over, and through these targets.

It was excruciatingly difficult, even with the progress I’d made. They were more contained compared to the past, but the darkness still resisted being directed; it felt like trying to adjust a dozen different sails at once, all while battling a storm-tossed sea. My balance swayed and my arms ached. Sweat dotted my forehead, dripping into my eyes.

Red—whose true name was Brynn, I’d learned from Eamon—watched from the edge of the training yard, one hand absently rubbing Phantom’s belly. Her gaze was wide as it followed me and the shadows, little gasps escaping her every time I managed to successfully hit a target. Her brother regarded mewith a similar, reverent kind of interest. I tried to soak up their enthusiasm, letting it chase away some of my foul, frustrated mood.

Stop thinking about Aleksander, I commanded myself fiercely.You have bigger problems.

If I was going to raise an army worthy of marching into Nerithys and dealing with the Aetherstone, I had to be able to direct these shadows as if they were an extension of my own body. This was the first part of the grander plan we were working on: Guiding my magic—the very lifeblood of Noctaris—into a ghostly army of shades with a precise hand. Reviving those shades. Then, there was the matter of sustaining their revival. Bastian, Thalia, and a few others were working on siphoning and refining some of Luminor’s power into a smaller weapon, creating something that I could safely wield. Searching, as Aleksander had predicted, for some way to balance out my powers without relying on him.

Stop thinking about Aleksander,I ordered myself.

Again.

Giving my head a hard shake, I sent the last strand of my shadows into the final remaining target. They all hovered abovetheir respective marks, darkening the light filtering down from a glowing, periwinkle sky.

“To me,” Eamon commanded.

I brought the separated strands back together into one churning mass. Widening my stance, bracing myself, I stretched my fingers forward, sending the mass firing toward Eamon with the motion.

He halted it in mid-air with rapid, exact gestures of his hands, twisting it a few times above him and studying the billowing black cloud before lowering his gaze to me.

“Now,” he said with an encouraging smile and a challenging gleam in his bright eyes, “bring it back into you.”

My heart skipped several beats. This was always the most difficult part—trying to settle the shadows back inside after they’d been given a taste of the world at large.

I beckoned. The tumbling ball rolled quickly toward me.Tooquickly. It slammed into my chest like a pouncing beast, and the collected shadows threatened to unravel. They always felt like they were at their most sentient during this part of the training—resisting my command to return, trying to assert their dominance over me.

It was violent and messy, but I ultimately managed to draw them in with only a few new bruises on my arms and chest to show for it.

As they settled back inside of me, my weight felt like it was doubling. I staggered for a few steps before dropping to one knee. My balance teetered further. I was on my back before I even realized I was falling, pain shooting down my spine and dots dancing in my vision. The sky rushed overhead, a canvas that someone had recklessly dumped paint onto—a messy swirl of purples and blues and whites.

Eamon was leaning over me a moment later. “You were brilliant, Highness.”

I felt like I was cracking into a thousand pieces, but I forced a smile as I sat up, trying to catch my breath and stay upright despite my dizziness. “If you say so.”

(I thought you were astoundingly average,) Phantom informed me from his place at Brynn’s side.

“Thank you for that,” I muttered, knowing that his sensitive hearing would still be able to pick up my words, even from a distance.

He responded with a yawn, and then burrowed himself into Brynn’s arms, nibbling on the buttons of her dress and making her giggle.

Eamon beamed at me for a moment more before walking over and grabbing a drink from the canteen he’d left beside his sister. A thoughtful expression settled onto his boyish face as he drank, wiping the sweat from his forehead and surveying the targets across the grounds. They were still mostly intact—evidence that I was getting better; my first attempts had resulted in my over-eager shadows obliterating several of them.

Despite all my progress, however, it still didn’t feel like enough. The days were moving too fast. The amount of hopeful eyes watching me increased by the hour, the weight of their growing expectations piling onto my shoulders. And targets were one thing, but the shades—thepeople—were another. If my shadows moved too recklessly against them…

Eamon strode back to me, offering me my own canteen, and asked, “Shall we go once more?”

I stood on wobbly legs, taking the water and sipping it slowly, trying not to think about the chance of my darkness doing more harm than good. Images of the damage I’d done on the night of my birthday continued to haunt me, even now. And in spite of how desperately I needed practice, I didn’t think my mind was going to cooperate.

“…I might need a break,” I admitted, reluctantly.

Eamon looked as though he was considering sweeping me off my feet and carrying me to safety before my dizziness could get the better of me. But before he had a chance to do anything of the sort, I stiffly made my way over to a bench on the edge of the yard.

He followed dutifully. “May I take you to lunch?”

“I’m not really hungry at the moment, but thank you.”

His grin never faltered. “Next time, then. I’ll be looking forward to it.” He gathered up his things and turned toward his sister. Glancing over his shoulder at me, he added, “And you trulywerebrilliant—an honor to practice alongside. We’ll be moving on to practicing with Grimnor, and the full expanse of your power, in no time at all, I’m certain.”