Page 53 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

K essara had her head tipped back, eyes closed, as she held her hands at her sides, opened wide as the shadows grew thicker and thicker around us. We were in a clearing, yes, but there were far too many shadows close by for all of them to utilize. Agria was naturally crawling with them.

There was a crashing noise heard to my right as one of the men’s shadows tried to throw something at Kessara’s barrier.

My magic was inconsolable, begging for me to enter this fight.

“Kess,” I begged at a whisper, unable to see anything save for the magic lighting up my immediate surroundings all drenched in my wife’s shadows. I wanted to light up her shadows around us, but that would only give our location away.

“You have to stop glowing,” she bit out. “They can’t see through my shadows unless your magic gets too bright. Shut it down and we can start walking toward the ship while I hold this.”

“Kess.”

“I know it goes against your instincts, Owen, just trust me. It’s either that or you have to leave now without me.”

“Like hell?— ”

“That’s what I thought,” she snapped. “Stubborn man.”

Another something slapped against her shadows, again aimed at my position within Kessara’s shadows.

I knew we had a long walk to the ship if we were being attacked. Still at a whisper, I felt the need to ask, “Can you hold them that long?”

Her lack of answer was enough of one. She needed both of her hands and all of her focus, so I stopped talking and pushed my magic down, though it fought me hard.

A phantom hand of her shadows slipped into my hand and started pulling me toward the ship.

Not trusting her to deliver me to the ship by her shadows while she might not have actually moved a foot from this spot, I moved my free hand and wrapped it around her waist, careful to position myself not to touch her hands, and whispered in her ear, “I’m not letting go of you.”

So together we began walking slowly within her shadows. I was walking facing toward the ship, my arm around her waist, while she was taking slow and steady steps backward.

Within her shadows, their shadows still attacked us in droves all around. It was darker than the darkest night. I had to rely on my other senses, hearing our steps, the smell of Kessara’s skin. The feel of her the only thing keeping my panic at bay.

I estimated we were about twenty feet away when my magic flared, and I felt Kessara shake under the weight of some sort of attack. Something sounded eerily like wood cracking and splitting.

How much was she fighting off? I was stuck in a war I was blind in. And I could do nothing, my power would only give away our location and make it easier for them to find us. I only hoped they couldn’t see from within Kessara’s thick shadows my magic flare every time they attacked.

“Let me know the moment you want to drop your shadows,” I whispered to Kessara. “I will gladly take over. ”

“This fight is mine,” she grit out.

“But you don’t have to fight it alone.” I kept my arm around her and kept walking. Kept fighting against my magic. Kept fighting against my instincts. But I’d do it, I’d keep doing it, because I loved this woman.

This was not a ruse. And I wasn’t sure it ever fully was.

She wasn’t mine. Yeah, we were married, but Kessara was a princess.

She didn’t belong with me. She had finally gotten her parents to see Damek for what he truly was.

She deserved her full freedom now. From any and all men trying to cage her. Me included.

Hearing and feeling the fierceness of her shadows as they gave back just as much as the men threw at us, I wondered how any of them ever dared to think they could tame her at all.

Kessara’s hands clenched as she groaned under the weight of yet another attack of the shadows.

“I’m ready,” I whispered. At this point trying to shove my magic down was painful. I was walking in my own personal hell. The woman I loved was being attacked and there being nothing I could do to help.

“New plan. I’m going to drop my shadows for only two seconds. Can you send out your power toward them? Everywhere there is a dense mass of shadows. Then shut it down as fast as possible and I will move us quickly away.”

“Gladly.” Finally. Finally, I could so something.

I waited and turned to face the same direction she was, willing my magic to build but not glow. Not yet.

“Ready?” she said from around her clenched teeth.

“Yeah.”

“Now,” she grunted, before removing the shadows enough that the evening sky and the docks could be spotted again.

I didn’t waste any time. I sent my magic out in obnoxiously thick strands and sent it traveling to every single pocket of perfect darkness, willed it to every threat.

Willed that it stayed low and traveled beneath the shadows, but when they found the assailants, it would reach up and cement in place one of their hands.

Hands seemed to be just as important to shadow wielders as it was to palm wielders.

I heard their curses and hisses, but I was drenched in Kessara’s shadows again, my body jerked as she moved us away.

It might not deter them for long, but at least now they had to focus on getting through her shadows and dealing with my attacks too. I might have messed up earlier today in forgetting Kessara and I were a team, but dammit if I was going to make the same mistake twice.

“Again,” she whispered, “on my count.”

The seconds ticked by like minutes, like time itself had been dipped in syrup. I loathed it. I wanted her to release me to the assailants, sure I could handle things on my own, and yet shadow magic was not something I was an expert on.

I trusted her. I trusted she knew what we needed to get out of this alive.

And then finally, “Now.”

Kessara sent her own gold magic out at the same time I sent mine.

It was wrapped up in her shadows and I didn’t fully understand how exactly Theon had used his shadow magic to move his palm magic faster until I witnessed it again, this time from Kessara’s gold magic, this time understanding what it was Theon had done.

She was vicious, splitting the shadow clumps with her shadows and gold lightning like power, then striking the men themselves.

I saw three of them spasm as bolts of her power hit them, before they regained control of their own powers and fought her off.

But by the time they had, Kessara had covered us and moved us yet again.

“Once more,” Kessara hissed .

I could feel how shaky she was. She was strong, but under the weight of an attack like this? From four or five other shadow wielders? Plus lifting and moving us around? She had to be pushing burnout. Particularly after spending months not using that Enchantment.

So I rallied my own magic, building and building. I willed my magic to specifically search out Calix’s darkness. I had seen his location with Kessara’s last attack, but I willed my magic to seek him out regardless.

“Now,” Kessara commanded.

Together, gold and green lit up the dark spots. The shadows lingering places they shouldn’t be able to reach. Except this time, there was one less pocket of darkness, which had to mean one of them had already retreated.

I heard rather than saw Calix cry out in pain.

Good. The prick deserved every bit of what my magic was doing. I knew Kessara was about to move us again, but I sent a few more strands of power out, a second attack to Calix.

Between the rolling darkness heading toward the ship alerting them that something was up, and the yelling I heard in the distance, it was safe to say Kessara and my fighting back was not unnoticed.

I sank down to the dirt and willed my magic to travel unseen through it to the men, pissed at myself for not considering it sooner.

The flash of my power leaving my fingertips may give our location away but would be a sneakier way to attack them.

They wouldn’t see the vine of magic I had willed in their direction until it was too late.

Kessara moved once more, just as someone with an authoritative voice rang out, “Stop! Stop it immediately.”

Kessara made no move to reveal us.

“The queen demands it. The princess is the only one who knows a hint of the location of Prince Artem. You hurt her, and we lose him.”

Kessara must have felt the threat around her lessen, my magic seemed to burn less also, and then all at once Kessara dropped the shadows.

As everything came back into sharp focus, it took me a moment to realize we had moved far closer to the docks than I first thought.

Molly and Wren were there, veins glowing, ready to help. If they hadn’t already.

Three of the five men remained where they had last attacked us. The man yelling at us to stop was one of the queen’s personal guards she had likely sent to make sure we arrived at the ship without issue.

I wasn’t prepared for Kessara to march straight toward Calix, Calix still locked in my vines of magic, and send her own gold magic out to join, wrapping and squeezing around and around him.

Her magic held him in place as she slapped him. Hard. “I never want to see your face again. If you ever attack my husband like that again, I will end you. Do you understand?”

He fought beneath our magic. “Your husband doesn’t possess shadows. You haven’t bonded.”

This again?

“You haven’t bonded because you know we were supposed to. He isn’t your soulmate, I am .”

“I will never bond with you,” Kessara bit out. She released shadows around the two of them and I heard Calix cry out in pain.

Was she trying to hurt Calix or was she going to kill him?

Without being able to see, I had no idea.

And though killing him might fix a rather annoying problem I currently held, I wasn’t sure Kessara would ever forgive herself for it.

She was already carrying the weight of too many deaths as it was .

No, that wouldn’t do.

I stepped into the shadows, surprised to find they allowed me to, and by feel alone, grabbed her waist, and pulled her away from him. It startled her enough that the shadows around them fell.

Calix’s nose was gushing blood.

“He isn’t worth it,” I whispered to her. Without another word, she turned and stomped in the direction of the ship.

“This isn’t over,” he called to her. “You can’t just run away when it gets difficult and erase our entire history like this.”

“Watch me.”

He tried to say more, but Molly moved, stealing the air right out of his lungs.

Three Agrian guards moved in to apprehend him, our magic staying where it was until we were sure they had him.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Molly.

“Learned that from you,” she whispered back.

The queen’s guard personally escorted us to the ship. The crew were busy pulling the anchors and getting us ready to sail.

“Stay safe, Princess Kessara,” the guard said with a nod to her as he stood on the docks and the ship started to move away.

“Thank you,” she bit out, the surprise on her tone easy to hear.

Sam had apparently been sitting in the crow’s nest on the ship and had been the one to see our scuffle, sending us help.

I asked her to stay up there, then spoke with Amos and barked orders at the team, wanting Wren, Molly, and Viv to stand ready, watching for any pockets of darkness that tried to attack us as we left.

Calix was being detained, but what of all the others who’d attacked us? Specifically, the two who ran off?

Tensions were more than running high, we’d had to fight our way out of Agria.

“And get us the hell for home,” I finished my directions to the captain. “Let those three,” I pointed to Wren, Molly, and Viv, “know when you’d like a little extra wind. ”

“Owen,” Kessara whispered.

I turned to her, magic still churning and lighting my veins, ready to finish whatever fight I had to in order to get us out of there.

She wiped at her nose and reached for me.

I caught her before she went down, both of us falling to the deck of the ship. I pulled her across my lap and held on to her. “I’m sorry.”

“Make sure Amos checks the ship,” she told me as she rested her head on my chest, ignoring my apology. “In case any others decided to hide aboard.”

She was losing consciousness, but was still with it enough to consider that?

“I will. I’ve got you.”

“He tried to kill you,” was the last thing she got out before she passed out, her body rushing in to begin healing her.

Amos put a hand on my shoulder. “Stay up here with her awhile longer before you take her to her room. Nightfall casts the most shadows. True shadows help our burnout.” He pointed to a spot where the sunset cast a large shadow of the sails over the deck. “Over there, yeah?”

“Thank you,” I told him. “You heard what she said about checking the ship?”

He was already moving but said, “Yes. Trust me, if anyone was stupid enough to get on this ship concealed in shadows, they will be found. I know exactly what to look for.”

I turned my attention back to Kessara. I’d thought she’d been emotionally burned out before the attack even happened. How could a single day be so successful and also such a mess?

And possibly the worst part to swallow: that Calix had a point.

Though married, we weren’t bonded. If we had been, it would have been far easier to help her back there.

He saw that as her secretly longing for him, but in actuality it was for me and the fact that Jorah had insisted we not, in case my soulmate was out there somewhere.

Guilt was consuming me. What if I had found her and just failed her?

“This is all my fault,” I said quietly to her sleeping form. “I had Keir and Zaire land us in that clearing because I wanted a moment alone to speak to you. It almost got us killed. It won’t happen again.”