Page 70 of Monster's Melody

As I sang to the shadow army that had been haunting my dreams for months, lights started to appear inside every shadow.

Lights inside my shadow-beast friends.

Lights inside the shadows that made up my shadow army.

Even the light inside Lydrel Zowen—deep,deepinside—was still there.That tiny spark of light that was the love he’d once held for his shadow-beast mate.

I continued to sing, coaxing the timid shadows back to the world, to become the shadow army I’d dreamed of, to fight for justice for the millions of victims Zowen had claimed in his raging loss and to fight for their own freedom from the shadows that had caged them for so long.

Leave the shadows behind,

Come into the light.

The world is calling you back

Stand up and fight.

Come into the light!

Slowly at first, then with growing momentum, shadows poured from the Shadow Realm.

Shadows upon shadows upon shadows filled the room, the shadow army that had once terrified me so marching into Blackthorn Academy and filling it with their sorrow and their pain, with their demand for justice.

I shifted my song once more, singing to Zowen one final time,

Look around!

See the ones you have wronged.

Your rage has no place here

Your time has come and gone.

Look around!

Peace is waiting for you.

Stop fighting your fate.

The end is here.

Look around!

Justice has come for you.

Stand your ground.

Accept your fate.

Return to the light.

My song reverberated through the room and the battle slowed, then stopped, as the students and professors of Blackthorn Academy and Lydrel Zowen all yielded to its power.

Frozen in place, his shadow wings flickering behind him, going back and forth from shadows to flesh and blood, Zowen did what my song commanded.

He gazed around the room, eyes roaming over the shadow army until they stopped on one particular shadow that stood apart from the others.

While Zowen stared at the flickering light deep inside that shadow, the rest of the shadow army marched forward once more.