Page 54 of A Curse So Cruel (Fated Mates of Shadowbone Academy #1)

The queen looks like she’s considering this, and her top lip curls as she flicks a glob of murky white goo from her shoulder. It flies onto the original standing to her left, flinging onto his face and hanging from his nose.

A laugh threatens to burst out of me, but Galen subtly shakes his head, and I press my lips tightly together, even as the glob drops to the ground.

“Well yes, I suppose you might be right,” Queen Krosia concedes. “Which is what I was trying to tell you earlier. For whatever reason, the Xalgrith have increased their forces and are becoming much more brazen. We need more warriors.”

“Without proper training, the students will be as good as useless on a battlefield,” Thane counters.

“More useless than the ones who died at the hands of the Xalgrith today?” the queen drawls.

No one answers.

“That’s what I thought,” Queen Krosia says coldly.

“When this academy was built and the graduation proceedings for the students was discussed, the war in the shadow realm was in a different place. We must adapt. We need more warriors with immortality and the power to fight. You must speed up the process.”

“The third years may be able to graduate early,” Thane concedes. “But the rest…they need more training.”

“You’re not hearing me, Thane,” Queen Krosia snaps. “If we don’t get more warriors, we may lose the war we’ve been fighting all these years. Despite our soldiers, we’re struggling to keep the Xalgrith at bay, and something has to change.”

Knox clenches his jaw. “What are you saying?”

Queen Krosia gives him a dark smile. “You have a few weeks to get the new students ready, and then all must participate in the graduation games.”

Raith curses under his breath.

“You risk losing more students,” Thane points out.

“Then you’ll have to work harder to teach them the skills to survive,” the queen says.

“Maybe if we weed out the weak faster, fate will select more students from the human world ahead of time.” She gestures to me.

“You did say she only arrived some time ago, did you not? Already, that’s a good sign. ”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we will get more students sooner,” Galen says.

“Then we shall have to hope for the best. Either way, I will end up with more warriors in the near future to help us fight this war,” Queen Krosia states. Even I can see she’s being short-sighted about this, but her mind is obviously made up.

“You have weeks, my darlings,” the queens says, waving her hand in the air.

“And then we’ll be back for the graduation games.

By the time this is over, I expect more warriors who won’t die the moment they look death in the face.

For without us…There will be no times at all.

” She quotes the last lines of the prophecy, and a cloud of shadows appears in front of her.

“Oh, and make sure you don’t get too attached to your…distraction,” she says, pinning me with her gaze. “She won’t be staying here for long.”

I try not to let her words get to me, but my heart sinks.

With a cackling laugh, she steps into the shadow pathway, and the two originals barely acknowledge my guys before following after her. In a matter of seconds, they’re gone, and once again it’s just me, my guys, and their creatures.

Knox stares into the trees behind him with a frown, and I wonder if my creature is still out there, but Knox turns his attention away quickly.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Raith says, rubbing my shoulder like he thinks it’ll calm him. “This is goin’ to be interestin’.”

“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” Thane growls, looking like he wants to destroy something.

“She’s not wrong about needing more warriors, though,” Knox concedes. “The barrier around the academy walls wasn’t weak. The dark entities know how important this academy is. Whatever is happening out there, I suspect the queen hasn’t told us all of it. She’s afraid.”

Raith curses again.

“Yes well, I suppose we’d better mend the barrier, and start preparing the troops as she says,” Galen adds. “Looks like the graduation games are going to come early this year. For everyone.”

All four pairs of eyes go to me, and I squirm at the attention.

“We can’t let Shade compete,” Raith says protectively.

“She has the queen’s attention now,” Knox replies, his expression hard. “There’s nowhere in all the realms she could hide that Queen Krosia wouldn’t find her eventually. If you want to keep her safe, she’ll have to earn her immortality.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Or you know, I could die,” I point out miserably.

“We won’t let that happen,” Galen says soothingly.

I think of my backup plan to hide with Blake in the demon realm, and I play with the portal ring on my finger. Looks like that backup plan is out the window.

“So I guess we have weeks then, huh?” I mumble.

“That’s right, sweetheart,” Thane says with a fierce expression, and I can just imagine all the ways he’s going to torture, ahem, I mean train me. “It’s time to turn you into a shadow warrior.”

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