Page 3 of Storm of Shadows

“Last chance, you little slut.”

I snort.

And he slams his fist right into my face. I hear my cheek crack and pain spirals right across my face and into the recesses of my skull. My mouth fills with the warm coppery taste of blood and my vision multiplies.

Despite the pain, I wrap my arms tightly around my bag and clutch it to my chest. He tugs on it, but I cling all the harder, refusing to let it go.

“You’re going to regret this,” he snarls, swinging his fist into my ribs and then against the side of my head.

I expect him to keep swinging, to beat me until I’m unconscious and he can take the bag from my limp arms. He doesn’t. He stops and stalks away with his treasure, the carriage door slamming shut behind him.

He knows I’m not lying.

There may be something hidden in my bag, but it isn’t lunch.

Chapter Two

Briony

I wait for everyone else to shuffle off the train, then stand and swing my rucksack up onto my shoulder. The action makes my bruised ribs ache and I wince against the pain, my head still pounding from the two punches I took to the skull.

It’s fine. Sure, my reflection confirms my left eye’s all puffed up and slowly turning blue, a cut striping across my cheek bone where Stanley caught me with his ring. But it will heal. It always does.

I lift my chin, walk to the train door and descend the metal steps out onto another platform.

This one’s not covered in snow, but it’s as cold and bleak as home, a frigid wind whipping around all the kids already lined up for some kind of inspection, the sun hanging low in the sky and shadows already descending.

I join the line, standing beside some girl who used to be in my woodwork class back at school. I lower my bag to the ground, positioning it between my feet, and wait.

There must be several hundred of us at least and we’re the last ones to join. Not surprising. We had the furthest to travel because, of course, they’d build the academy closest to Onyx Quarter – can’t have all those spoiled bastards traveling too far, can we? Plus, I suspect our train was the oldest and most decrepit. In fact, I bet most of the shadow weavers were driven in fancy cars by goddamn chauffeurs.

It’s easy to spot who they are and an extreme sensation of disgust, hatred and fear spirals in my empty stomach.

They’re furthest down the line from us and dressed in clothes that weren’t handed down or retrieved from thrift stores. They’re made from bright, expensive-looking materials and they actually fit them. Although, that isn’t the only giveaway. There’s something about the kids – an air of self confidence and arrogance that’s discernible even over the distance.

Then there’s the actual shadow magic – some of the kids tossing balls of it up into the air or at each other, making it clear to all of us losers just how special they are.

I run my gaze over the other soon-to-be students lined up along the platform – kids from the white-collar workers in Granite Quarter or the soldiers and athletes in Iron Quarter. They aren’t as extravagantly dressed as the shadow weaver kids, but they still look a hell of a lot better than us.

It’s why any one of the kids I traveled up with in the train would give their right arm to come out of the academy and all its trials and testing and be designated one of the other quarters, escaping a lifetime of hard labor in the factories, fields and mines of Slate Quarter. A better life for them and their family – if they choose to take them. Not all do. Some want an entirely clean break. I can totally relate.

These Granite and Iron kids are ordinary, though, not a lot different from me and the others from Slate Quarter, and as aconsequence, and to my utter shame, my gaze is pulled back to the shadow weavers.

To the magic. To the bright clothes. To the sense of power.

They are beautiful, all of them. And well fed and healthy.

It makes me hate them all the more.

They have so much — everything anyone could ever dream of — and yet they took the only thing I ever cared about.

Suddenly, my eyes meet the gaze of a boy peering along the line in our direction. For the briefest of seconds, we simply stare at each other – both stunned to be caught gaping.

Everything about him screams strength – from the way his shirt tugs across his muscular chest, to his square jaw and sharp cheekbones. He looks like he could crush me with his bare hands. Even his eyes are intimidating – an unusually pale color I can’t make out over the distance, that contrast – startling so – with his dark brows and the dark hair that hangs to his shoulders.

For a moment, it’s like everyone else around us melts away – all the noise, all the commotion – and it’s just me and him staring at each other across the distance. A strange sensation shivers down my spine and I wonder if we know each other, if I recognize him from somewhere. Is that what this is? Or is it his magic? I’ve never met a shadow weaver in real life before – although I’ve heard a fuck-load about them.

But then the spell is broken.