They shrugged.
“I suppose you still won’t tell me how it is thatyouare one of theones who know of it?”
Nox tapped the side of their indigo-hued nose twice, mouth pulling up into a fang-baring grin.
Elyria rolled her eyes.
“Let us try shadowstepping again.”
Elyria’s shadowstaff dissipated into the ether. “I would rather focus on some new constructs,” she said, cursing the way the shake in her voice belied the confidence she tried to exude. The last time she’d attempted to shadowstep had been a lesson in humiliation she was not eager to repeat. “I’ve a feeling that perhaps I’ve been limiting myself to weapons and armor when I could be having much more fun.”
To prove her point, Elyria called upon a kernel of her wild magic, weaving it through her shadows until a long-stemmed rose, black as night, formed in her palm.
With a proud smile, Elyria handed the rose to the nocterrian, its dark petals unfurling as she did.
Nox’s wicked grin faltered as their fingers hooked around the stem, their face taking on something that Elyria might’ve said looked almost like dumbfoundedness if she didn’t know better. There was very little that surprised them, after all.
Still, Nox seemed to need to gather their bearings for several moments before they spoke again. “Have you—have you ever tried to construct something even more alive than this?” they asked, twirling the shadowy rose between their fingers.
Elyria’s brows knitted together. “More . . . alive?”
“A creature, perhaps. Something with a whisper of life.” Their voice dropped. “Never before have I seen a nightwielder do what you can, Revenant.”
Something about Nox’s words had pride blossoming in Elyria’s chest. “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she admitted.
Nox rolled their crimson-black eyes, waving the rose in the air. “Just try.” Their tone was clipped, precise, as it echoed through the room. As though they were laboring to remove the awe from it.
Elyria let out a sharp breath, narrowing her eyes as she drew her hands together, clasping them tight. From outside the lone window sitting high on one wall, a bird chirped a happy tune. Slowly, she pulledher palms apart, forming a ball of shadow in the space between. She imagined the way that bird outside might look, the barrel of its small chest, the feathers sprouting from each wing. Envisioned it. Tried tocreateit. The wild magic coursing through her veins fed into her dark power, her magics intertwining until?—
Until her tenuous grasp faltered, the ball of shadows dissipating in a puff of smoke. Frustration gnawed at her.
“I told you,” she spat.
“Too rigid,” Nox said, a touch of boredom in their voice now. “Shadows are freedom. They cannot be forced, only carried, molded, shaped. You are trying too hard.”
Elyria could not suppress the growl that curled up from her gut. “‘Just try, Elyria.’ ‘You’re trying too hard, Elyria.’Make up your fucking mind. You can’t have it both ways.”
“I can and I do,” the nocterrian replied, and the look of typical amusement that accompanied the words only served to enrage Elyria more. “Your shadows are decidedly different from mine. The way your wild magic works in tandem with them is truly something incredible. But it leaves your power even further untrained, uncultivated. I believe this to be why you have not yet been able to shadowstep. You cannot leash them the way others might. They won’t be controlled that way.”
“We are done here.” Elyria thrust her hand out, fingers splayed, ribbons of shadow bursting from her palm to lash at the lit candles in each corner of the room, snuffing them out in a single, violent sweep.
“Effective,” Nox noted, though their tone said they were anything but impressed. “But you only serve to prove my point.”
“How’s that?”
Nox only dipped their chin as one of the wrought iron candelabras crashed to the floor with a deafening clang, having been sliced clean in half.
Stubbornness was the only thing keeping an “Oops!” from slipping off Elyria’s tongue. Instead, she said, “Maybe your point is stupid. Had that been Varyth Malchior, we’d all be rejoicing over myuncultivatedpower.”
She crossed her arms, trying to hide the uneven rise and fall of her chest. The effort of wielding that last bit of magic shouldn’t haveexerted her so fully. She felt at odds with herself—stronger and more powerful than ever, but also...not.
Perhaps it was only that her shadows were stronger, just as they were more tangible, more flexible than they had been before she went through the Crucible. Perhaps it was just she, herself, who had not yet caught up. There was still something unwieldy about the power coursing through her veins—something missing.
She would never admit it, but Nox was right. And at least in this room she could attempt to master this power. She could test her limits. Limits that, every day, felt like they wereexpanding.
Even if she was fucking powerless outside of this room. Even if she had no role to play other than the pleasant, acquiescent, pliable visiting Victor of Nyrundelle.
The arguments she’d had with Kit over how long they were to go along with this farce had been long and loud, but the duchess’ daughter had emerged victorious.
