Shadows flood across the floor in violent waves, swallowing fractured moonlight, crawling up the pillars, the walls, the shattered pews, until the entire arena seems to plunge into night. I leap backward on instinct, but the darkness moves faster than thought itself, coiling around my ankles before I can clear the ground.
It yanks.
I hit the marble hard enough to crack it.
Before I can rise, the shadows slam into my limbs and pin me spread-eagle against the floor.
My muscles strain violently. Nothing gives.
Eragon strolls toward me through the unrelenting black with ease.
“This,” he says, “is why imitation without mastery is pathetic.”
The shadows around his feet begin to rise. At first I think they are forming blades. But then, they take shape.
My shape.
W-what?
My lips tremble. My eyes twitch from the shock. I’d read something about imitation in regards to the Shadow Domain, but this…
No…
One after another, figures peel themselves from the darkness—black, featureless replicas of me, each one holding a weaponfashioned from surrounding shadows. There’s five of them. No… Ten… More?
My stomach twists.
He has not merely surpassed me. He has taken my own abilities and elevated them into mockery.
The first duplicate lunges.
I wrench one arm free through sheer force and bring my shadow up in time to block, but a second slams into my side before I can recover, then a third crashes into my jaw hard enough to send me skidding across the floor.
They descend together.
Every strike comes with my own fighting style—every lesson I’ve learned from Lis.
I barely manage to keep up.
Shadow blades crash against mine in showers of black sparks. One duplicate ducks low while another comes high, and I recognize the combination a heartbeat too late—because I mastered that recently.
A blade cuts deep across my stomach. Another tears through my shoulder. A third shadow drives its knee into my spine and sends me sprawling face-first into the floor.
Blood splatters across the marble.
Is there anywhere I’m not bleeding from?I no longer know…
Above me, Eragon watches with detached amusement.
“You are not simply outmatched,” he says. “You aremirrored.”
His eyes darken and the shadows surrounding him surge inward, folding over his body.
My chest tightens.My body feels…wrong. It’s wrong in a way I cannot explain.
My limbs are heavier. My reactions slower. My thoughts half a beat behind where they should be. When the next duplicateattacks, I move to counter exactly as I always would realize too late it has already anticipated me.
The blade punches through my forearm.
