The Shadows and Sorcery Collection

by Heather Marie Adkins

  The wastelands began near the crest of the mountain and dipped into the horizon. The ground was dry and barren; grass hadn’t grown in the wastelands for years. What trees were left had died and become craggy-armed stumps. Eli thought it was almost as if the regent had sucked the energy from everything living in his quest to keep the sector safe.

  The warm sun beat down on their band of travelers as they made their way over the peak of the mountain. The top leveled out for a mile before falling over the edge and the other side of the range. The dome came to rest close to the edge, near where the land began to sink away. As they crossed the peak, they could see the glint of magick ahead—evidence of the dome still struggling to keep them safe.

  Outside the dome, ravagers stretched as far as the eye could see.

  The place where the spring rushed through the dome was close enough for them to see the source of the red. A pile of dismembered ravager corpses lay in the spring, blood pooling and spreading in the water. As they watched, a ravager slashed a second creature with his terrible, knife-like claws, cleaving arms from its body, and shoved the pieces into the water.

  Then it returned to its vigilant waiting.

  “They’re flushing us out,” Eli remarked, hefting his gun to his shoulder. “We’re the cockroaches in their house. They’re exterminating us.”

  “They’re beasts,” Coyle argued. “They have no concept of home or unity. They know nothing but hunger.”

  But as Coyle spoke, a fissure appeared in the crowd. A single ravager came forward, different from the others. He wore black clothes, and dark hair speckled the top of his head. He still had eyes, but they’d gone white. A regulation broadsword hung over his back.

  In his left hand, he carried a wand.

  Eli swallowed, nausea turning his stomach over.

  Slowly, more different, evolved ravagers emerged from the crowd. By the time half a dozen had come forward to stare unseeing from beyond the dome, Coyle and Ryan had come to the same conclusion as Eli.

  “Those are our men,” Coyle said in awe. “Those are witches.”

  “No.” Ryan shook her head violently. “No. We can’t be contaminated. We cannot become ravagers.”

  “The swords and wands suggest otherwise,” Eli said.

  “But John…”

  “We don’t know that your husband is out there,” Coyle assured her.

  “Of course he is!” she snapped, pointing her wand at Eli. “Your precious heir regent left him there!”

  A handful of Eli’s men, including Turner, stepped between Eli and Ryan’s rage. Weapons recently trained on the threat outside the dome now leveled on the threat inside.

  Ryan snarled and lowered her wand.

  Eli didn’t have a chance to speak. Far above them, back over the walls where the dome rose to its greatest height over the sector, the regent’s magick began to fail with a violent crack.

  Eli turned his back on the eerily silent ravagers to watch his father’s dome fall apart piece by piece. This wasn’t a weakening; this wasn’t a paper-thin breach in the dome. This was it—the final stages of collapse.

  Coyle gripped Eli’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Your Grace.”

  One by one, the men and women around him fell to one knee, their wands pointed at the dry, barren dirt as they bowed to their new regent.

  29

  Eli

  “What do we do, Your Grace?”

  Eli watched the steady destruction of the dome a second longer. “It’s slow. It isn’t failing completely. It’s falling apart. We have a little time. We need to go back.”

  “What about the ravagers?” Coyle asked.

  Eli turned to gaze over the sea of monsters waiting for them outside. “They can’t get in yet. We need to get behind the wall and prepare to fight.”

  They’d only just traversed the land to the edge of the dome, but now, they headed back the way they’d come at a much faster clip. Eli’s men knew safety would be found, if only temporarily, behind the physical walls once the dome fell completely. If they had any chance of staving off an invasion, it was to ensure the ravagers had no chance to breach the walls as they’d done twice before.

  “Was the new breach sealed this morning?” Eli asked. “In 3?”

  Coyle nodded. “They were working on it after the ravagers were contained. We can only hope they managed to seal it fast enough.”

  “Send a man ahead,” Eli told Coyle. “Warn the sector what awaits outside the dome. Ask for volunteers to fight from the walls.”

  Coyle nodded and jogged forward.

  Turner took his absence as an invitation to join Eli. “You okay?”

  “No, I’m fucking pissed.” Eli gripped his gun, swinging it around his shoulder and into a more comfortable position on his back. “My father was nothing but a child who didn’t want his toy taken from him. I don’t think he ever even wanted the sector to survive his death.”

  Turner took a breath. “You think he meant it to fall with him?”

  Eli nodded. “I’m starting to. Why else get rid of the most powerful allies? Why else set it up for failure?”

  “Set you up for failure.”

  “No kidding. Let your asshole kid take the fall.”

  The wall was within sight now. Sentries had begun to crowd the top, which meant the messenger Coyle sent had reached the sector and started spreading word of their impending doom.

  The earth shook beneath them.

  Eli fell to his knees, barely catching himself with his free hand. Another boom knocked him on his ass, and suddenly, the sky flared as white as if every star in the night sky had coalesced into a giant, burning meteor.

  A new dome slipped into place, melting like butter from the mass of raw, white energy above Sector 14. Before Eli or his men could move, the new dome hit the grass, bisecting their group in two. The magick glanced off one man’s boot, and he cried out at the electric sizzle and scrambled backward.

  Eli breathed hard, staring at the translucent dome that separated him from half his men and the safety of the wall.

  Ryan laughed maniacally and climbed to her feet. Eli looked back at her to see his father’s magick crumbling in its final stages on the horizon.

  The ravagers were coming.

  “Now we’ll see how you like it.” Ryan cackled again. She shouldered her gun and turned to walk back to the ravagers.

  “Where are you going, Commander?” Coyle asked coldly.

  “To find my husband.”

  Coyle looked at Turner, a grim set to his thin lips. “Shoot her.”

  “General!” Eli barked. “We can’t turn on each other!”

  Turner, who had notched his rifle against his shoulder and taken aim on Ryan, lowered his weapon. Coyle may have been his general, but Eli was his regent. And thanks to his father’s two-decade-long manipulation, the majority of regulators were loyal to Eli first.

  Coyle lifted his pistol and shot, but Ryan had always been quick. She ducked and the shot missed her. She took off running, a slew of curse words in her wake.

  Eli stepped forward, noticing for the very first time how his lean, lithe form towered over Coyle. How the lines had grown deep at the corners of his eyes. Eli trained his wand on Coyle and deepened his voice. “General, I will disarm you of that weapon and let the ravagers eat your bowels if you attempt to murder one of our people again.”

  Coyle holstered his gun, contrite. “Yes, my Lord.”

  Eli tried to not cringe at the “my Lord.” Fuck, he didn’t want to be the regent. He didn’t want this responsibility on his shoulders, to die a failure who couldn’t protect his people.

  “Any idea who is capable of this?” Coyle asked, motioning to the new dome. “We’re not going to get through. It’s even stronger than the previous barrier.”

  “It almost took my gods-damned foot off,” Kwan added.

  Eli looked at Turner, who grinned and winked.

  “Yeah, I know who did it,” Eli said with a sigh that was part longing, pa
rt irritation at her bad timing. “Thank the gods for Dajia Bray.”

  30

  Dajia

  Dajia was high on power.

  She led her coven from the dungeons at a dead sprint. She’d left the teenagers behind to coordinate getting the survivors to the surface, because that seemed safer than allowing them to sprint after the grown-ups into the wastelands.

  Her only thought now was to get to Eli.

  Her father’s wand still glowed high above the cages, even after her covenmates stepped to the stone floors. So she had opted to leave it there in case it would have some kind of staying power for the dome. She had a feeling it no longer belonged to her. The stone that carried a fracture of her father’s soul now belonged to the sector. It felt like a bittersweet victory for her father’s memory.

  She held her mother’s wand in her right hand as she raced across the courtyard. It didn’t feel the same in her palm: the way an ill-fitting jacket settled in all the wrong places. She had never even practiced with it. For all she knew, her mother’s fractured soul had long since died from lack of use.

  The new dome looked magnificent. The translucent white had begun to fade, and the sky left behind seemed so much bigger and brighter. Dajia wanted to howl with pleasure at their accomplishment. She may have supplied the wand, but the real magick had come from them all.

  Up the mountain, through the trees, Dajia took the most obvious route to the wall. When they arrived, it was to a state of mass mayhem.

  Regulators swarmed the wall, passing through the open door, decked in armor and weapons. Dajia exchanged glances with Cora, and then grabbed the sleeve of a slender brunette woman in uniform.

  “What’s going on?” Dajia asked.

  The woman tugged her broadsword higher. “The new dome closed a group outside the safety zone. Nobody can penetrate it; it’s a gods-damned forcefield. Word is, Heir Regent Pierce is one of those trapped on the other side.”

  “He’s regent now,” Dajia said. The statement was asinine; who cared at this point? Regent or not, he was in danger.

  As the regulator fell back into the moving crowd, Dajia addressed her covenmates. “We cut a door, we get them through. Quickly and cleanly, and nobody steps foot outside the dome. Got it?”

  Cora saluted. “Aye, aye, captain.”

  “The proper title is ‘High Priestess,’” Jove offered.

  Dajia hadn’t heard that archaic term since her early childhood. Even back then, the title had been old and had fallen into disuse. Sector 14 had always been a solitary zone. No covens allowed. High Priests went the way of the dinosaur the moment Regent Pierce took control.

  “No. No one is above anyone in this partnership,” Dajia disagreed. “We are a team.”

  “A team you brought together,” Cora reminded her.

  Sheila patted her shoulder. “We could vote, if that would make you feel better.”

  “We don’t have ti—”

  “All in favor of High Priestess Dajia?” Jove boomed.

  The coven raised their voices in a resounding Aye.

  “Liam and the other teens aren’t here,” Dajia pointed out.

  “Minors don’t get a vote,” Cora said. “All in favor?”

  Another unanimous Aye.

  Cora winked. “All right, High Priestess. Let’s go save your priest.”

  SEVEN PEOPLE HAD BEEN TRAPPED beyond the barrier when the new dome was erected. Dajia recognized both Eli and Turner.

  The men and women on the other side had their backs to the dome—close, but not touching the magick. They held their guns ready; their gazes were trained in the distance.

  Dajia ran straight to the barrier behind Eli, her wand aloft to cut a door. As she gathered energy, her mother’s wand glowing a dull, milky purple, the last of the regent’s dome disappeared in the distance, and the ravagers fell into motion.

  Dajia cried out and fell back, shocked at their unnatural speed. One launched itself at Eli, who jumped to the right to avoid its razor-sharp claws. The ravager hit the dome with a sizzle and the smell of frying bacon. Through the haze of the barrier, Dajia locked eyes with Eli. A brief second of connection, and then Eli leapt back into action.

  “Get them through!” Dajia screamed. Her coven had made the dome as strong as possible; but it was their magick holding it together, which meant they could open doors.

  She scrambled to her feet and cut the door, snarling the word to open it.

  “Praemius!” she cried and sent a massive ball of flame through. The fire plowed over three ravagers like a wrecking ball. The creatures ignited, their screams filling the air.

  “Turner!” Dajia put the entire range of her voice into his name.

  The lanky redhead whipped around, saw her and the opening, and held up a finger as if to say, One moment.

  “Oh, hell no,” Dajia muttered. She trained her wand on the ground near his feet and blasted a hunk of dry soil into his face. “Now, Turner!”

  He shot a ravager in the face, staring at her as if she were a crazy person. But he grabbed the regulator closest to him, throwing the butt of his gun into the face of her shark-toothed opponent, and they ran for Dajia.

  “I’m going for Eli,” Turner said, shoving his comrade into the dome.

  “I’ve got Eli,” Dajia argued. “Get in here to safety. You guys can’t win this fight.”

  “But—”

  “I will knock you out.”

  Turner looked at her askance, as if he didn’t really believe her.

  Dajia pointed her wand at his freckled face. “Wanna test me?”

  Turner bowed sardonically. He hefted his gun and started to pick off ravagers from over her shoulder.

  To Dajia’s left, Jove and Sheila were pulling a terrified, bleeding young regulator to safety. Past them, another handful of Dajia’s people knelt over yet another injured man. To her right, Cora launched fireballs into the swirling mass of ravagers.

  “Eli!” Dajia couldn’t see him anymore. He’d become lost in the crowd.

  The bad news wasn’t just his disappearance. At her panicked yell, several ravagers turned and seemed to realize more prey waited.

  And the buffet was open.

  Dajia had done a lot of acting on instinct in the past forty-eight hours, and some of it had probably been dumb as shit.

  She wasn’t about to quit now.

  Dajia launched through the door, leaving safety behind. She sealed it shut. The ravagers, bless their black souls, weren’t smart enough to recognize the other open doors went to the same place. Dajia ducked around them, casting a simple spell to mask her scent. They crowded around the space where her door had been, the first few sizzling against the magick as the rest shoved them forward. Turner stared at her in shock from the other side. From safety.

  With the masking spell in place, none of the beasts seemed to know she was there unless she bumped into them. She did her best to navigate around them, avoiding flailing arms and big hips as she searched for Eli.

  The moment she spotted him, she felt dizzy with relief. He was still standing, his body seemingly still operable. She raised her wand, preparing to throw a fire bomb at the ravagers surrounding him.

  Claws raked her skin. Pain lanced up her arm, and Dajia collapsed to her knees.

  A strange ravager looked at her with unseeing white eyes. He wore an all-black uniform ripped and torn to expose swaths of pale skin mottled with bruises. He almost looked like a human-turned-ravager.

  The creature reached for a weapon on its back: a hatchet. Instead of immediately going for Dajia, it turned the hatchet on her wand. Her mother’s wand exploded in a shower of sparks and crystal. If it had been Dajia’s own wand, infused with a fracture of her soul, the destruction might have seriously wounded her or even killed her.

  But Vanele Bray had died fifteen years before, and Dajia was unRecorded, all pieces of her soul firmly intact.

  Which was fine and dandy, except she was now completely defenseless and surrounded by ravagers
.

  “Dajia! Catch!” Eli yelled. He tossed an underhanded pitch, and his wand flew through the air toward her.

  She caught it; the smooth wooden handle warm from Eli’s skin. What the hell? she thought, staring at the tool. She had no connection to this wand. It wouldn’t answer to her.

  “Try, princess!” Eli whipped his sword around. “You’re not like everyone else!”

  He had too much faith in her. She took a step forward, but a ravager flew from her right and took her to the ground.

  She reacted on pure instinct. “Praemius!”

  Her fireball steamrolled her attacker and half a dozen other ravagers with amazing force. She giggled madly and launched to her feet, using the wand to pick up a discarded hatchet and toss it through a ravager’s neck.

  Eli’s wand reacted to her commands as if it hung on her every word, desperate to prove itself to her.

  Dajia cloaked herself and resumed her stealthy wading towards Eli, who had turned his gaze—and his sword—on the beasts. So he didn’t see the warrior sneak up behind him. He didn’t see the way the light glinted off the silver in her long braid, nor the way her knife flashed in the sun.

  The blade drew across Eli’s back, swift and true. He fell to his knees with an agonizing scream, blood oozing from the wound.

  The woman turned. And it was a woman, not a ravager. She had hard eyes and a sneer that transformed her face into madness.

  Fury felt like a living thing inside Dajia. She opened her mouth and screamed—loud, high, a battle cry.

  A warning.

  The woman ducked at the sound, glancing around for the source.

  Dajia threw a fireball in a wide arc, bowling over every ravager within range so that she stood in plain view of the traitorous regulator.

  Then she let the fireball loose.

  It hit the woman just under the chin and snapped her head back. Her feet flipped up from the force of the blow, and she landed on her head and shoulders in the dirt.