“Do you need me here for this conversation?” Ethan asked, trailing behind me with his wand out. I was thankful he was still taking this seriously.
“No. You’re no detective, either. Not without your cheat sheets, at any rate.” I scanned the shaded ground, rocks pounded into the soft earth. I held up a finger and backtracked, hitting the tree line again and hooking my arm into his.
“It’s back on, then?” Ethan asked, but I knew he didn’t really mean it. His grip was too tight on his wand. His body too tense. He might ignore it, but he had intuition, too, and it was telling him exactly what mine was telling me.
Here. Somewhere here!
“Lovers’ stroll,” I murmured, scanning the ground as we walked, trying not to make it obvious. Three guys running through, struggling, carrying a load of any kind, would leave prints, and since there was no rain, those prints weren’t getting naturally erased. Would they think to erase them themselves? Or were they too cocky for that? “Bingo.”
Boot prints, their tread obvious. Deep marks scored the soft dirt on the side of one print, indicating the person who’d left it had held something heavy. Then on the other side, the same thing, the weight shifting. Four times they would have brought someone here. Heath. Gregory. Lisa. Mason.
I let Ethan go and followed, pointing at a disturbance in the leaves, a small drag mark, and then the continuing tracks. “They dropped him, picked him up, and kept running. Slower, though. See how the tracks change?”
“You sure you don’t change into an animal?”
“Only a she-devil in the throes of passion.” I frowned at myself. “Stop putting dirty thoughts in my head.”
Broken twigs littered the ground in one place and the tracks lightened before disappearing totally.
So someone did care enough to try and conceal where they’d gone.
“They turned through here. Through these…” A broken branch led the way. Then another. At a dead end, I looked around, momentarily lost. It was Ethan who spotted it.
“Is that stone?” He pointed through a narrow gap between two huge trunks, each fighting for space in the crowded forest.
A surge of adrenaline flooded me. My breathing sped up.
“Yup.” I jogged around the tree, feeling no warning and therefore not being as careful as I should have been.
My breath left me as I fell. Blackness enveloped me. Ethan’s fingers curled around my wrist, halting my descent with a jerk, popping my back. His strong hand pinched the skin of my wrist, and my feet dangled in the empty air.
“Help.” It was barely more than a whisper. Blackness pulsed all around me.
Chapter 10
“This is a glamour, you idiot,” he said through the strain of holding me. A second hand joined the first. All that working out served a purpose after all—he hauled me up out of the black nothingness I’d fallen into.
I clutched at the forest floor as soon as I could reach it, breathing heavily, my toes tingling. I hadn’t gotten one flare of warning. Not a twinge of uncertainty. Was it only living things that alerted my internal warning system?
“There are stairs.” Ethan, out of breath, grabbed me by the waistband of my sweats and yanked me the rest of the way up.
I slid onto my stomach and face, reaching back to shove his hand away from my half-exposed butt cheeks, but he’d already let go, stood, and flicked his wand. A few words and the ground cover cleared away, revealing a large hole in a solid mass of black stone. On the side, stairs descended into the cavern of unnatural darkness below.
“That’s dangerous,” I said, out of breath. “Someone could just fall down that.”
“Yeah. Maybe one of the missing students did.” Ethan jerked his head to get me moving. His tone suggested he didn’t believe his own words any more than I did. He descended the stairs, wand out. Clearly, he wasn’t going to make me go first, this time.
Halfway down, the darkness clung to his legs, then crawled up his body, so thick it looked like a physical thing. When it reached his waist, he lifted his arms, as though inching into cold water. He shivered, completing the image.
“Can’t you dispel that darkness?” I whispered, following him down.
“I don’t know how. I’ve had tutors to give me an edge for the academy, but I’m still freshman level, maybe sophomore at best. This is beyond me. I don’t know how they did it.”
“You need to talk to your dad about cheating a little more thoroughly,” I said as I closed the distance between us and put my hand on his shoulder. If this murky shadow blinded us, I didn’t want to get separated.
“Apparently so,” he said, and I didn’t think he was kidding.
The inky fingers reached his chest, then inched onto his neck. Right behind him, it slid over my breasts, dousing me with a chill that couldn’t be explained by a mere change in altitude.
“Here we go,” Ethan said softly as the darkness slid over his full lips. “Gregory better be worth—”
The shadow cut off his volume, or maybe stole his words. I dug my fingers into his muscled shoulder and pushed up close, my front glued to his back. Black slid up my nose and then stole my sight.
“Oh God,” I said, clutching Ethan with two hands now, both of us stopped dead still, the warmth between us the only thing grounding me. I didn’t hear the words I’d just uttered. I was either deaf or mute, and we were both trapped in our fear of the unknown.
I came to first, fighting through the paralysis. Fingers relaxing on one hand, I shoved him with the other, forcing him to move forward. He staggered, clearly missed a step, and fell, yanked from my grip. My heel hit the step I’d been steering him toward, and I careened forward.
His body hard but thankfully not bony, a prone Ethan caught my fall.
“Oomph,” I grunted, and thankfully heard the noise. He groaned and I rolled off, allowing him to sit up. Blood dripped from his nose. The ground wasn’t as forgiving as the backside of his body had been.
We’d reached the bottom.
Darkness pressed in around us, but it was the kind caused by an absence of sunlight, brightened only by a small glow from a distant torch flickering from its bracket on the stone wall. A narrow corridor into the earth led away from us and a funky smell tickled my nose—stagnant water, mildew, and gym socks, if I had to guess. I leaned closer to Ethan to inhale his pleasant-smelling cologne and dispel the stink of the place.
“Whatever this place is, it isn’t open to students,” Ethan whispered, wiping his nose and standing slowly. “They wouldn’t have hidden it so well if it were.”
“Thank you, Professor, for your fantastic insight.” I moved around him, peering down the long corridor and spying three more flickering torches perched against the wall, two on the left, and one on the right. Green lined the cracks of the old stone, pock-marked and dingy, which looked like it predated the mansion. Who’d built this place, and why? “Shall we?”
“I don’t think winning the trials is worth all this,” Ethan murmured under his breath, but he started forward anyway, his wand slightly shaking. Entitlement wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good down here and we both knew it.
“The director must know this place exists,” I said. “It’s old—really old—and it wasn’t hard to find.”
“It wasn’t hard to find for you,” he replied as we inched down the long corridor. The dank surroundings seeped into my bones, sending a chill down my spine. “You’ve already set a record at the school. You’re the first female to win three trials, and the second person to do so in history.”
“We all won.”
“You’re the driving force. I won’t admit it in public because—”
“Your reputation, yeah.” I rolled my eyes.
“What everyone has said is true—you’ve brought us together as a unit. Even with my cheat sheets, I wouldn’t have been able to get through some of those challenges. And you would’ve knocked out four, not three, if it wasn’t for that ambush yesterday, which was...”
His word
s died away.
“What did your father really say about it? Not what you told everyone in public, but what he really thinks?” I finally asked as a gap in the stone came into view on the right, draped in fuzzy lines of deep shadow. A familiar warning vibrated through my body, slowing my forward progress.
“He’s looking into it. No one knows who is behind it, which usually points to one person.”
“Who?”
He made an exasperated sound. “You really don’t know anything about this world, do you? We’ll just say, a very bad dude.”
“A very. Bad. Dude.” I nodded sarcastically, which was probably lost in the dim light, as I pulled my knife from its sheath, not having done so before now because Ethan had been leading and I hadn’t wanted to accidentally stab him. Which would’ve happened when I’d fallen.
“The Shadowkiller.” He breathed the name and it ghosted down my spine like cold fingers. Shivers ran through me, and I had to work to force my body to stop.
“Regardless.” The word barely made a sound. My shoulder blades itched, like someone was watching from the many shadows. “The director at this school should know of this place.”
“The director of the elite graduate academy probably does. But if it is top secret, or a school secret, he wouldn’t pass that info on to a bunch of low hanging fruit, like Director Frost or the staff for the trials.”
Derision dripped off of every word. Clearly, he thought the trials were run by a bunch of lackeys. That didn’t make me feel any safer.
Your number is up, and your protection is dead. Best thing you can do is run. Get out of the trials and don’t come back. Run.
I pushed Adam’s voice out of my head.
“Well then, wouldn’t the elite director check it out if he heard about the disappearances?” I asked.
Ethan snorted. “The graduate director is on vacation. He takes one every year during the Culling Trials.”
I pressed my lips closed. There was no point in arguing further. It wasn’t going to get us anywhere.
At the end of the corridor, more shadows cut across stone, almost making another corridor. Warning blared at me from all around. I clutched Ethan’s sleeve. Gregory was down here somewhere, I could feel it, like a direct connection to him.
“Get ready for defensive spells,” I murmured, steeling my courage and stepping forward. “Maybe strap on Captain Entitlement’s cape too. Couldn’t hurt.”
A glint made my heart lurch, and I was twisting and then bending to the side before it registered as a throwing star. The metal flashed as it sailed past my face and clinked against stone at my back. A flurry of movement caught my attention from the way we’d just come. A man running at us.
“Move!” Ethan shoved me aside and blasted a stream of red from his wand.
The man, dressed in black and blending with the shadows, turned his shoulders just enough that the flare of magic zipped harmlessly by. His movements, lithe and graceful, barely hitched as he righted himself and kept on coming.
In the gap we’d been facing, light bent and pulled away as a face inched into view. Sweat glistened within overgrown sideburns. My heart lodged in my throat.
“The Sandman,” I uttered through numb lips. His hand came up, another throwing star between his fingers.
Adrenaline flooded me as Ethan got off another shot at the guy creeping at us. New Guy dove gracefully to the side, Ethan barely missing him that time.
“Come on!” I yanked Ethan toward me, bent, and snatched up the throwing star that had tinkled to a stop five feet away. I spun and threw it at the Sandman. The weapon flew through the air, smoothly as though I’d been doing it all my life.
The Sandman batted it away lazily, close enough now that I could see the two pricks of blood welling up against his skin. He stepped out of the gap.
Ethan zapped off two more spells, one for each man. Both men moved like they were on liquid joints, making me feel like a rusty tin man in comparison. New Guy pulled a knife out of nowhere and sent it flying from his gloved hand.
The Sandman—crap, when had he reached us, I hadn’t even seen him move—shoved at Ethan to further expose me. Thankfully, it also cut me off from the airborne knife. Unfortunately for Ethan, the knife dug into his shoulder.
He cried out, clutching at it. A throwing star zipped by my head, slicing my earlobe.
I gritted my teeth and spun away, pain flaring from the wound. A touch said my ear was still there, so I ignored the throbbing as another knife appeared between New Guy’s fingers. The Sandman pivoted, throwing star in hand one moment, launched the next. The man moved like a striking cobra. The star caught the light as it flew at New Guy, who pivoted on a dime to twist away.
New Guy’s next knife wasn’t aimed at us.
They probably both wanted me dead, but it seemed they weren’t on the same side. I’d take it as a win.
“Come on, Ethan.” He grunted when I grabbed him, his fist around the knife hilt, ready to pull it out. “No.” I stopped him. “Leave it in. It’s plugging up the hole—”
The stranger reached the Sandman and warning prickled every inch of my body, raising the small hairs on my arms and back of my neck. I couldn’t move, I had to watch the two masters meet. The Sandman threw a punch he didn’t seem to think would land, because he was prepared when it didn’t—the second the stranger blocked him, the Sandman jabbed forward with a knife in his other hand. The stranger blocked that with two arms before flourishing a knife he seemed to have grabbed from empty air. He struck to the side, but the Sandman was already moving, their dance as beautiful as it was lethal. These guys were unbelievably skilled.
I snapped out of it. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.” I dragged Ethan to the end of the corridor, ignoring his pained protests. Flickering light played across the cracked and scarred ground, as though centuries of moving heavy things through here had taken its toll on the stone. Or maybe it had been a lifetime of duels like the one behind us. Warning still bled through my body, but it felt nothing like what was going on behind me, so I pressed on, eyes peeled.
“Did your dad teach you to cheat while injured?” I asked in a hush, turning right with the corridor.
“No,” he ground out, his voice soaked with pain.
“And now we know the limits of entitlement, eh?”
“Stop. Saying. That. Word.”
I chuckled, giddy in my terror, as I saw a gap in the stone away to the left.
“Light.” Ethan struggled to point ahead of us, to a soft glow that chased away most of shadows. It wasn’t daylight, though. Logic pointed to a guard’s station or office for whoever came down here. We didn’t need to run into any more magical people if we could help it. Or get stuck in a dead end.
“Here.” I yanked him with me, his forward movement greatly hampered by the pain in his shoulder. “You need to work on your pain tolerance.”
Only one torch lit this corridor, and in a dozen or so feet, I saw why. Bars lined the right side, separated by columns of stone blocks. Benches were pushed up against the opposite wall, as though for viewing.
We inched closer and movement caught my eye, someone stirring from behind the bars. A girl, my age, with an oval face, large blue eyes, and scabbed-over bite marks on her neck.
“Hello?” she asked in a small voice.
A foot scraped against stone. Fingers wrapped around the bars, just visible down the way. A longish nose pushed out and my heart leapt.
“Gregory?”
“Wild?”
My heart swelling with excitement, I started down the line of occupied cells, but didn’t get far. Gregory was in the first one. A smile took over his face, big and broad and so relieved.
“You came! You found me! How’d you find me?” he asked, words tumbling over each other.
A strangled sound dragged my focus back the way I’d come. There, filling the gap posing as a doorway, short and compact and sporting those hideous sideburns, was the victor of the battle of masters. The Sandman. And now, not
hing stood in his way.
Well, nothing except a wounded mage in training.
“Ethan—”
I didn’t get to finish the command to move.
The Sandman charged so fast, I lost track of his limbs. Ethan cried out and an axe went flying, revolving end over end until the gleaming edge crashed against the only torch lighting the area. The blade sliced off the flaming top, sending it fluttering to the floor. Once there, it dulled before going out.
Darkness washed through the room—the only light coming from somewhere deeper in the tunnel—and the last thing I saw was Ethan sprawled across the floor, curling around his hurt shoulder. A spear of pain drove through my thigh, a knife blade. Another embedded in my upper arm, shallow but no less painful for it. My knife clattered to the ground, having fallen from suddenly relaxed fingers.
“No, Wild!” Gregory yelled, his voice weak. Shouts and screams echoed off the walls and chased each other around the room. A blur of movement made me flinch, the pain throbbing, dulling my reactions. A fist came around, aiming for my cheek.
I pulled back at the last second. The fist smashed into the wall beside me. The Sandman cursed, but he didn’t stop. His leg whipped out, unreal fast, clipping my ankles. My legs went out from under me, my balance already in jeopardy from my wounded leg. I struck out with my good arm as I went down, hitting the second crotch that day. This time, I put a lot more strength behind the punch.
The breath gushed out of the Sandman and he doubled over. I snatched my knife from the ground even as my hip crashed into the stone. Pain rolled through my other side, vibrating through my body now, hard to ignore. I did my best, lashing out with my knife and catching his shin.
The Sandman swore, his voice rough, and pulled his foot back. Adrenaline blasted me one moment before the boot hit my face and darkness stole my consciousness.
Chapter 11
Sleep peeled away slowly, and soft warmth greeted me, cushioning me on all sides. I blinked my eyes open into an unfamiliar room. The beds were arranged in rows, all of them empty except for the one I lay in. Etched into the wall across from me were the words:
Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials, Book 3 Page 8