The Darkness of Shadoewynne: Book 3 of the Shadoewynne series

by Penelope Kein

  Then it came for us. A dark tendril whipped out, hitting Kait in the chest and throwing him toward the wall. He used his magic to stop himself before he suffered the same fate as Evalia, but when the appendage hit me, I wasn’t so lucky. I flew into the side of the machine, and blackness overtook my vision.

  Kait’s roar brought me back to my senses, but I still couldn’t move more than my eyes. The dark power surrounded Kait and Travis and neither were fighting. Travis stared unblinking at the ceiling while the dark fog rushed into his mouth and Kait had a black aura around him. The blackness pulsed at the edge of my vision, tempting me to submit. I struggled for a moment, but it seemed so pointless.

  My vision was almost all black when a bright light pushed the darkness back. It surrounded Kait and Travis, obliterating the darkness where it touched. In just a few moments, the light confined the dark fog to the center of the room in a small roiling mass.

  “I can give you everything you desire!” The slimy voice in my mind, for the first time, sounded unsure of itself.

  The bright light didn’t answer, either verbally or mentally. Instead, it just turned up the wattage, flooding the room with even more light. Smoke poured out of the fog and the voice screamed in my mind. It was over in a few minutes; nothing of the evil power that had taken everything from us remained.

  Travis and Kait slumped bonelessly on the ground, looking like a pile of clothing with their arms and legs askew with eyes that stared sightlessly ahead. I sobbed as I crawled towards them.

  I can’t be the only survivor!

  The fear in my heart ate away at me until Kait finally took a big, gasping breath as he blinked hard a few times.

  “David.” A voice I never thought I’d hear again called my name, and I turned toward it, hope blooming in my chest. The glow faded slowly, revealing Evalia, alive, standing in the middle of the room like nothing had happened.

  Chapter 29

  Evalia

  David’s eyes found mine, relief, hope, love and a few emotions I couldn’t name all running over his face almost at the same time. I reached out with my healing powers, blanketing the guys. None of them had more than minor injuries, despite looking like a bomb had tossed them around.

  David’s arms crushed me as he sobbed into my hair. I batted at his arms. When he finally let go, I theatrically took a deep breath, stifling a laugh as I did. “What’s your problem? You almost crushed me to death.”

  Disbelief poured from him in waves. “Evalia, you died. I saw you die. How are you alive? Is the baby okay? How did you beat him? What was that bright light?”

  “Whoa! Slow down!” Travis and Kait moaned and sat up. When their eyes met mine, their faces ran the same gamut that David’s had. “What’s going on, guys?” Fear seeped into me. Had there been a bright light and a voice saying it wasn’t my time? That was a dream, right?

  Kait was shaking as he slowly came over to me and ran his hands over my body, turning me around to check my back. When I glanced down to follow his hands, I noticed that the front of my shirt was stiff with dried blood. I ran my fingers over my lips, and it pulled painfully. My fingertips came away coated with dark, powdery blood. I stared at them as my hands shook. A sob escaped Kait as he pulled me against him hard, his body trembling like a leaf in the wind.

  Travis joined us, wrapping his arms around Kait and me together, then David did as well. We stood in a knot for a few minutes while everyone processed what had just happened.

  Kait eventually pulled away and said, “What do you remember?”

  “We got here and the machine kicked into overdrive. Alarr began laughing, then I hit a wall. Did you have to pull me down? I remember pain, then blackness. Then I was standing here and David hugged me. What happened?”

  They quickly filled me in. At some point in their story, my legs gave out. Kait caught me before I hit the ground and settled me into his lap as everyone else joined us on the floor. Something amazing had happened to me and I don’t remember any of it.

  “The glow that killed the darkness seemed to pull back into you, like it was your power.”

  “I don’t remember any of that.” If I had been impaled, what of the baby? With my healing power, I looked within myself, just like I had the day before. The tiny, fluttering heartbeat was still there and going strong.

  Relief made my limbs go weak. I looked at my beaten, battered guys, and whispered, “Can we go home now?”

  Kait stood up, putting my feet on the ground, but not he didn’t release me. “We just need to take care of this trash, then we can go.” He kicked Alarr’s prone body. “Let me call my soldiers in to deal with him.” We stood in a huddle, all touching each other, for a few minutes until the battalion of soldiers arrived to swarm over the room. Kait gave them orders, then we limped out to where Kait could call a gateway. We went home to the house between dimensions. A few hours later, Eir appeared at our doorstep, serenely asking for entry.

  She glided in, then stopped to look at me, that otherworldly air strong around her. A small smile played at her lips for a moment before she said cryptically, “I will visit for your pregnancy check-ups. If you need me before, Kait knows how to contact me. Your debts to me are paid, both yours and Kaitsja. If you would like me to train the child, just call, but I doubt you will need my help.” Then she turned and walked away without another word. The door closed slowly on its own as we stared in disbelief. The magical weight of the debt lifted from my shoulders. I had gotten so used to it that it felt strange now to be without it.

  I had been listening almost constantly to the fluttering heartbeat, so I knew it was still good. We made our way back to the bedroom where we had all piled in bed before Eir knocked. We all needed the skin to skin contact right now.

  A few blissful days later, a soldier came to visit. They had successfully interrogated Alarr, who had explained everything. When he was young, he realized my great-great-grandmother did not love him, despite his great love for her. He searched for a way to make her love him as he loved her. He had come upon a cloaked being in the forest who had offered to make every wish come true in return for some help. He spent years scattering normal-looking rocks around Shadoewynne, only to never hear from the being once he finished. My great-great-grandmother pulled further and further away from him, so he spent all his time with his experiments, until the fateful day of the explosion. When he awoke, he found out it had been decades since the explosion, and his mysterious cloaked being had saved him.

  This being gave him the design for the machine and helped oversee its construction. Then it seemed to disappear, but would give him instructions telepathically. By his description, he did not understand it had taken him over, nor did he know the object of its plans.

  He did, however, freely admit to the murder of my father, and many other people, in order to further his plans. Therefore, they executed him a few weeks later.

  Shadoewynne recovered quickly, and the animals that were sick seemed to heal themselves. The remnants faded quickly from the affected animals without the source of the dark power.

  Epilogue

  Two years later.

  The little brown-haired girl ran past me quickly, giggling out loud while calling in my mind, “Catch me, Momma!”

  Her bright blue eyes that matched Travis’s practically glowed against the bronzed skin she had gotten from Kait. Her elfin features so reminiscent of David’s were set in a mischievous grin as she darted around her fathers. Then a tree reached down to pluck her out of my reach. The brat had unprecedented control over her powers. No-one could ever remember even hearing about a child so young that had access to their powers, let alone control them the way she did. In retrospect, it explained why Eir said she was no longer needed.

  “Hey, no powers, Jesslyne!” I made an ice slide for her and she laughed as she jumped from the branch to slide into my arms.

  She nuzzled her face against mine when I caught her, and her small voice in my head said, “I love you, Momma. Can we eat now?�
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  “Of course we can.” Her voice had sounded so familiar the first time she spoke to me, before she was even born. It had bothered me for almost a week. I never placed where I heard it, but I sometimes dreamed of a bright white, fog-filled room with her voice booming in my head. Somehow, it always made me grateful to be alive.

  Her cold, wet hands on my face brought me out of my thoughts and she giggled again, just before water drenched me from above. “Jesslyne, it’s too cold out for that!” I quickly used my powers to pull the water from our clothes and hair.

  Gill glided out of the trees to land on her shoulder as I put her down. She skipped to Kait and grabbed his hand before pulling him toward the house. It was all so domestic; it made me want to cry.

  After Alarr’s execution, the first couple of months were spent making sure the animals were staying healthy. Then we had nothing to do. We settled back down in the house between dimensions and had Jesslyne. Eir visited occasionally and I could finally ask her about my idea. She fixed my eyes, so I now longer needed contacts or glasses.

  Once I was about six months pregnant, Jesslyne could communicate with me telepathically. She told us, quite firmly, when she was uncomfortable or in pain. She rarely cried, and when she did, it was from an emotional pain, not a physical one. It was quickly apparent that she was no normal child.

  Janelle explained to me when I realized that she was a mix of all four of us that genetics in Shadoewynne worked a little differently than on Earth. The magic mixed traits from all the parents in the bond in every child. Her magic encompassed all of our magics, which probably made her one of the most powerful beings in Shadoewynne.

  It would be interesting raising her.

  Hey, Everyone! I hope you enjoyed the final book of the Shadoewynne series, although I have a feeling this won’t be the last time we hear from Jesslyne. I think she has more of a story to tell.

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