After my torturous workout was over, Slade led me outside before abandoning me to what looked like a large fenced in dirt yard. The walls of the keep were tall and imposing, only a short distance from the training area. It was a harsh reminder of just how trapped I really was.
My body ached, still humming with bruises and failure, but I was upright. Barely.
Phoenix waited for me near a scorched stone pedestal, the dim sun catching the copper strands in his hair and making him glow like something from a myth. Where Slade was earthy and solid, Phoenix was fire—literal and otherwise. His smile was sharp and lazy, like he knew exactly how dangerous he was and didn’t mind reminding the world.
He raised a hand in greeting as I approached, his amber eyes flickering over me.
“You look like hell,” he said cheerfully.
“Feel like it too,” I muttered.
“Good.” He tossed a small flame into the air, letting it dance along his fingertips. “Means you're warmed up.”
The flame vanished with a snap. He gestured for me to come closer.
“Slade will help teach you to survive and build your strength,” Phoenix said. “I’m here to teach your magic tofight back.”
He stepped behind me without warning, his presence a radiant heat at my back.
“You have shadows in you,” he murmured, voice low. “Deep ones. They cling to you. That’s rare. Most people repel shadow magic—it’s ancient, volatile. Dangerous.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve felt them.”
Phoenix circled me, his fingers trailing the air around my arms, my sides—not touching me, but drawing something unseen.
“You don’t control them yet. Youreactwith them. It’s instinct. Power without will.”
He stopped in front of me. “So, let’s change that.”
He lifted a hand and fire bloomed in his palm—a swirling orb of molten orange.
“Now cast.”
I stared at him. “It’s not that easy.”
“Doesn’t matter. Do it anyway. Feel them. The shadows. Pull them up.”
I closed my eyes and reached.
There was a familiar sensation—a cold silk sliding through my veins, coiling in my spine. The pressure. The hunger. The power that had slipped through my fingers earlier when I’d tried to escape the shifter’s strike.
I reached harder, digging into it—
A flicker. A pulse. The shadows stirred at my feet.
“That’s it,” Phoenix said, voice edged with excitement. “Nowwillthem. Smother my flame.”
I clenched my jaw, focusing. The shadows thickened like smoke, whispering around my legs—but the moment I tried to shape them, tocommandthem, they slipped through my grasp.
They vanished.
The fire in Phoenix’s hand flared, bright and hot.
“Again,” he said.
I gritted my teeth and reached again, sweat breaking out along my back.
“You’re trying to dominate them,” Phoenix said, pacing around me. “Don’t. Shadows aren’t fire—they don’t obey force. They respond tointent.To need. So, tell me, Elira—what do youwant?”
