Page 26

Chapter Twelve

ARABELLA

“ G et your ass up,” Jessamine hissed. “We’re being hunted.”

Arabella shook her head, trying to collect herself. Trying to recall not just who she was, but where she was.

That dream…

It had felt far too real.

Blinking, she glanced at the trees all around them. If she squinted, she could pretend she was in the forest outside of Shadowbank with its massive interlocking branches blocking out the sky. But when she looked closely, these trees were a few shades darker green than those in the mortal realm.

Nothing moved in the space between the trees, and a strange silence hung in the air.

A few feet away, Breckett and Hadeon were on their feet, blades drawn and backs pressed to nearby trees.

Jessamine crouched above Arabella with her own blades in hand.

“Demon?” Arabella asked as she hauled herself to her feet. “Or something else?”

She didn’t dare to hope it was the shadow fae.

Slowly, she pulled her blades free, but they felt strangely heavy in her hands. Hunger burned in her stomach, and her mind swirled. It was an effort to remain upright.

Rising, Jessamine pressed her back against the nearest tree, peering around it. As she did, an unnatural wind shuddered between the trees, carrying a keening cry that emerged from the ground itself. The inhuman sound hung in the air for what felt like an eternity.

Something had awakened.

Jessamine straightened. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound friendly.”

Arabella staggered to the tree beside Jessamine, pressing a hand to the rough bark to steady herself.

“Are you well, Enchantress?” Hadeon asked from where he stood, his wings tucked tightly to his sides.

“I’m fine.”

For several moments, the trees were utterly still, the silence like a physical weight.

The shadows stirred beneath her feet as though sensing the oncoming conflict.

While her shadows had changed since her memories had returned, they were even more different in this place. They weren’t simply a part of the world—dark extensions of anything blocking the light. Her shadows were the world.

There was no day but endless night. Without a natural predator, the shadows hovered over the world as though preparing to engulf it.

Darkness reigned supreme.

Whatever creature stalked the shadows was a part of the deep black as well.

The darkness around her swirled, and her heart hammered against her ribs.

While facing death down wasn’t new, this time, she felt very exposed.

It was as though something was lurking just out of sight, and no matter where she looked, something always pricked at the back of her neck.

Her arms started to tremble, and it wasn’t entirely due to fatigue.

“It’s feeding on our fear,” she realized.

Veins bulged in Breckett’s jaw. “How do you know?”

“ Breckett ,” Jessamine hissed. “Quit pissing your pants. If I can’t protect you, I promise I’ll kill you before it does.”

“I’ve walked this world longer than you’ve been alive—” Breckett began but stopped short.

A sound like the fracturing of the earth’s core ripped through the oasis followed by a sudden gust of wind. Shadows roared as the trees shook as though in the middle of a hurricane.

Jessamine’s back was pressed against the tree. The rise and fall of her breathing never changed, even as another bellow sounded in the space between the trees.

Arabella allowed Jessamine’s steadiness to give her strength, willing her limbs to stillness.

Slowly, she reached for the shadows.

As she summoned them, they were… sticky. Strands of darkness wove up her arms, but most of them hovered above the ground, plopping back down as she tried to will it into submission. She wasn’t the only one commanding them, she realized.

The shadows were uncertain who to follow.

Then darkness shook as though stirred in a sudden wind before retreating into the trees.

Slowly, Arabella leaned toward the edge of the tree, glancing around it.

A body peeled from the shadows between the trees.

The creature was as tall as the surrounding trees with limbs that were the length of a house.

Its thin body was made of a dark sinew that was both flesh and shadow.

Long, thin legs stretched upward to a torso that was unnaturally small and formless.

But rather than a head atop shoulders, tendrils of shadow extended into the air dozens of feet above where its neck should be, arcing and hissing.

At the end of its unnaturally long arms were four clawed fingertips.

“Oh fuck,” Jessamine muttered, her body shifting—flinching away.

Arabella’s stomach plummeted into her boots.

Months ago, she’d battled a horde of the soulless, creatures of bones and hunger. Those demons roamed the lands, consuming any living creature unfortunate enough to stumble into their path. All to try to reclaim a soul they’d never again find.

The first soulless had once been a human whose soul had been taken by one of the zaol.

A greater demon.

Greater demons were the first generation spawned from the darkness. They’d made the lesser demons who threatened the very existence of Shadowbank.

Here in the underrealms, even shadows had a face.

This was no ordinary demon. The power rippling off it meant one thing.

“Zaol!” Arabella shouted.

She’d never seen this kind of greater demon, but she’d seen illustrations and read about them. It was her job to know about all types of demons. But she had no idea if Breckett or Hadeon could identify it on sight.

And if they knew how royally fucked they were.

“A greater demon?” Breckett shrieked.

As it turned out, he did know about them.

Drawn to the sound of his voice, the creature of flesh and shadow swiped an arm out toward the erox. She threw up a wall of shadow in front of Breckett, which sent the zaol’s arm flying upward at an unnatural angle. It made a strange cawing-like sound before its other arm lashed out.

An idea struck her, and she made several pools of shadows between her and Breckett.

“Jump!” she shouted.

Eyes locking with hers for the briefest moment, he nodded before stepping between the shadows. It was one of the gifts of the erox—one that Elias had used at the castle. A breath after Breckett disappeared, the zaol’s shadow blasted where he’d been standing.

Breckett’s body flashed in and out of existence as though his body was a skipping stone across the pools of shadow over to where Arabella and Jessamine stood.

“Thanks,” Breckett gasped. “Good thinking.”

While the Abyss was a realm of shadow, she didn’t know the depth the darkness had to be for erox to jump between them.

Maybe he could’ve done it without her assistance if he’d thought of it.

But if he couldn’t, she knew with sudden certainty that neither she nor Breckett had the strength to use their combined abilities to leap through shadows hundreds of feet at a time across the desert.

They’d fatigue too quickly, especially with Hadeon and Jessamine, and they all had to save their strength.

The zaol made its strange cawing sound again, lashing one of its arms out across the entire space—slashing into the trunks of trees.

Hadeon blasted his magic before him. The power sent him backward and out of reach of the zaol, and he flapped his wings to steady himself. But with the heavy tree coverage, he couldn’t take to the sky.

There was a loud cracking sound as a tree split in half. Chunks of dirt, grass, and other debris flew through the air.

Arabella rolled sideways, landing on her feet. But the world continued to spin after she was upright.

Fuck.

Why was she so weak?

She glanced over her shoulder long enough to see the zaol's fingers dig into the earth as Jessamine leapt out of the way and Breckett flickered between shadows. The zaol pulled its limb back in. As it did, it seemed to growl. But it was hard to tell without a face.

Unlike the soulless, she thought this being was intelligent. It might be driven by hunger—by the need to consume—but it did so with purpose and strategy.

There was a swelling of the shadows, and she watched as the darkness leached from the ground, flowing toward the zaol like water rolling down a cliffside.

It’s gathering power, she realized.

“Run!” she shouted, grabbing Breckett by his shirt collar and shoving him in the direction of the desert—away from the oasis. Jessamine and Hadeon turned at once, hurtling themselves forward.

Arabella threw every ounce of strength she had into each stride, willing her legs to move faster. As they all ran, the shadows trailed along the ground beneath their feet—toward the zaol.

Behind them, the greater demon bellowed.

“How do we kill it?” Hadeon shouted.

Arabella shook her head. “No one knows.” Greater demons were creatures of legend in Shadowbank. No enchantress texts detailed how to end them since no one had faced them and lived to talk about it. “We could try decapitation, blasting through its heart, burning its body…”

“In case you haven’t noticed, it doesn’t have a head,” Breckett snapped as he ran.

“Fair point,” Arabella said, her mind reeling.

Her strategy in Shadowbank had always been to get behind the ward. So long as the demons didn’t punch a hole through it, that kept everyone safe. Eventually, the demons lost interest and returned to the forest.

Without a ward, it was fight or die. Or outrun it.

And they were in the demon’s territory, which put them at a disadvantage.

Hadeon ducked beneath a low branch—his wings barely fitting through.

She opened her mouth to speak when there was a shift in the shadows. Glancing down, she noticed the ground had turned to an ashen gray. Something rumbled beneath her feet, and she knew with sudden certainty that the zaol was about to unleash the gathering shadows.

“Behind me!” she shouted, pivoting in the underbrush and skidding to a stop.

Hadeon, Breckett, and Jessamine stopped at once and flung themselves behind her as a torrent of energy yawned open in the trees in front of them.