Page 63 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

T here was one moment of stillness. A moment between when the cage of roots closed back around us, and we sized one another up.

Bram had been cemented to the ground by Kessara from the looks of it.

Calix was standing, and though he looked tired, he looked in better shape than she did.

Had he been tied down by her magic somehow, or merely contained by the cage?

I barely registered that warning in my head before Bram scrambled to his feet right next to me. He put his hands up in surrender. “I’ve been helping.”

“Helping who exactly?” Miles seethed.

His attention stayed on me. “Your wife was leaving us clues, but I was finding them before he did and destroying them. Burning them with my power.”

Which likely only further delayed this confrontation we found ourselves in.

Didn’t he understand that she had done it for a reason?

How in the hell did he think that excused his actions?

Actions that not only attacked my wife, but the queen of Wylan also.

But no, I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t have time to stand here arguing with Bram with Calix Cyncrest still within reaches of shadows.

“You’re still complicit.” I tightened my core and shifted my weight before moving toward him and punching outward, all my force with it.

He didn’t fight back at all, so I connected brilliantly with his temple, and Bram immediately slumped to the ground.

I was fairly certain he was losing consciousness, but I didn’t have time to confirm that with my eyes.

Before I was even done punching Bram, I sent out strands of my power toward Calix, but they were met with a wall of shadows.

Shadows I expected would rush in once Kessara’s fell.

But, seeing how exhausted she was, I couldn’t ask her to keep her hold on these men a minute more.

Seconds from burnout, her hold was guaranteed to falter.

Kessara had said Calix was nearing burnout, but with the strength and burn of his shadows along my skin, I wasn’t as certain.

She had been leading them on this cat and mouse chase and from the sounds of it, both had been the mouse at some point.

While Kessara had been utilizing both Enchantments to trap them, Calix had only used one.

And likely not enough to truly harm Kessara.

He didn’t want to kill her, he just wanted her as his.

That thought had me lighting up.

“Back-to-back,” I commanded Miles, handing him over Calix’s weapon.

Miles was immediately at my back, ready.

While I was well trained in using double swords, we were both protected better if we each had one. If we kept our power building, we would both glow within the pressing darkness of Calix’s shadows, but we’d also need to be positioned to seek him out from within it.

Giving us each a sword only increased the chance of us connecting with Calix. Our cage would only let him go so far. Though it seemed he was trying to use his power to break through the cage, it creaked but somehow held .

I knew Calix was from the strongest bloodline in Agria, but we also had his weapon. He had only his shadows to fight us with, and nowhere to run.

“Rally your power to press outward on the shadows, see if you can shove them all beyond the barrier of the cage,” I quietly told Miles.

“What’s your plan here?” I called over to Calix. “Even if you manage to kill me, you are not going to end up with Kessara in the end.”

His cruel voice seethed back far too close to my ear, “Won’t I? Isn’t she unconscious just outside this silly barrier?”

“She is,” Miles gritted, swinging out with a sword in the direction of his voice. “But so is a Wylan team. There is no escape for you.”

“The shadows will find a way,” Calix argued. “Maybe I was waiting for her burnout to settle in.”

“Now,” I told Miles.

He shoved, crackling strands of pure white sending the shadows crashing through holes between the woven roots. And there, just for a glimpse, I saw Calix’s location. I moved outward and brought my sword around, just missing him, the sound of his shirt tearing music to my ears.

Miles grunted as Calix increased the weight of the shadows around us, trying to put us back under darkness. A darkness where he could see us, but we couldn’t see him. The one and only advantage he had.

I struck out again, this time at his stomach, and Calix ducked, rolling along the ground.

As he rose to his feet, faster than my eyes could comprehend, he reached into his boot and released a dagger flying in Miles’s direction.

I moved, knowing that he was trying to make Miles’s attention falter. If Miles shoved those shadows out of reach, Calix was done .

I spun and caught the dagger by the hilt midair, immediately sending it flying the direction it came in, the weapon finding purchase in Calix’s thigh.

His shadows faltered with his pain, allowing Miles to finish ushering the shadows away from him.

Calix cursed me and tried to pull his dagger back out but couldn’t.

I’d thrown it hard. And he was a scrawny little shit.

He’d counted on his shadows to do all his heavy lifting his entire life.

A lazy complacency I’d seen again and again in the Enchanted.

“Hurry,” Miles bit out. Still pressing against the weight of the shadows with his dome of white lightning around us.

I immediately sent my power into the ground. It popped back up in vines tying his feet.

The prick used all of his power and moved his upper body toward the root barrier of our cage, grabbing a hold of root and reaching for the shadows just outside of it. He couldn’t get out, but he didn’t need to get out to reach shadows.

He managed to beckon them to his fingers.

For the next few moments, shadows pulsed and fought against what looked like lightning until Calix’s shadows came rushing in.

He made quick work of using his shadows to cut through my vines, freeing himself.

Just before he covered us again, I saw him use the shadows to yank the dagger out of his leg.

We were covered in darkness and back to square one, Calix having unlimited access to his shadows. Miles and I moved to be back-to-back again.

“Team One or at least part of it has arrived,” Miles panted. “I can hear them conversing. Should we—should we ask the tree to release us?”

It would give us help, but without being able to see beyond our cage, I had no way of knowing if one man or ten were there waiting. A confined space limited what Calix could do, it removed his escape route. That cage holding him was the only thing saving us right now.

No, I wouldn’t take for granted this gift the tree had given us. “This ends here and now.”

“Got it,” Miles agreed.

“I’ll push away the shadows this time,” I told him. “You get him out of reach of the shadows.”

Without another word, I released my green magic to the shadows, driving and pushing them away from us.

They were heavy and burned against my skin, but slowly, inch by inch, I got them away from us.

First a small little pocket free of shadows formed around us, and then I shoved that outward just as Miles had.

Calix was a smart man, so he stayed close to the edge of the cage, this time ready to break through my barrier and bring the shadows crashing and careening back in.

Miles and I had both sent out an attack to move him away from the edge, but we’d been too late by mere seconds.

He hadn’t even removed his hands from the shadows this time, he’d kept a hand out of the cage, strengthening them by calling more toward him, toward us.

Calix stood there, hand reaching outside of the cage and pressed on the cage itself with more shadows. It was still dark enough that he had more than enough to work with.

He was trying to crush the cage itself again.

I saw a blur of Miles moving, lit up by his power, as he rushed and tackled Calix. He couldn’t see him until he got close enough to illuminate him with the light of his own skin but still managed the feat.

They went rolling, a sword swiping, a dagger jabbing. A grunt was heard, but I wasn’t sure which man it came from. At one point they tripped over Bram’s still unconscious body, causing him to groan.

I kept shoving my barrier outward, using the distraction of Miles to our advantage.

Calix was no longer holding onto the shadows.

Nor was he trying to crush our cage. With a final grunt, I drove my weight into my heels and shoved, removing them entirely, keeping them out of our cage. Giving the advantage of sight.

“Owen.”

I could hear her concern, her pain. My head snapped in Kessara’s direction.

And only for that brief second, did I falter.

But it was distraction enough for one side of my dome keeping the shadows at bay to bend.

A slight amount of shadows came pouring in, as if a small leak, before I was able to stop them.

I sent thick chains of my magic to fix that breakage, not allowing any more shadows in.

We needed to only separate Calix from his power source.

Half of the cage was now dark, half light.

“Does it eat at you?” Calix asked. “To always know in the back of your mind that I know all her breathy sounds too?”

Miles looked to me, wondering what our plan was.

The answer was murder, obviously.

I sent out more and more thick strands of my power, making sure the dome stayed strong and no more shadows than Calix already had would enter. “Keep an eye on Bram.”

And then I took a step, veins still pulsing with power, begging to be used. I wasn’t afraid of the dark, never had been. So I stepped into the dark chaos, the shadows immediately stinging and gnawing at my skin.

Calix and I began a vicious dance, one that would end in one of our deaths. He used the shadows to shove and toss me, delivering one punch to the side of my jaw before I managed to get a hold on one of his wrists, cementing it down, and rendering it useless.