This isn’t Ronan.
I recoil from the stranger, stumbling back into the tomb as a hand reaches out and grabs me, keeping me upright.
Their image appears in the darkness, faded in the way all images look to me in the darkest of my shadows but clear enough for me to make out.
It’s…no, it’s impossible. It can’t be.
It’sme.
It’s me as I am right now—burnt section of dark hair, Seth’s tunic, sickle in my belt. I don’t understand it. If this chamber is meant to relate to light magic, the image of myself must be an illusion, but this image has form. I felt it. It grabbed me; it pulled me.
Even when Ronan disguises himself, his illusions don’t have form. I can feel the truth of his body beneath whatever my eyes are seeing.
This isn’t just light magic. It’s shadow too. It’s the power of the tendrils of shadow combined with the trick of the light.
Which means it’s real.
Which means it can hurt me.
The illusory Sylvie smiles at my realization. She reaches for the sickle in her belt, and I mirror her and do the same.
If it’s a fight she wants—if it’s a fight this place requires—so be it. I’m ready to fight.
Gods, I hope Ronan isn’t facing the same thing. If he’s fighting himself in an area this small, there’s a chance we’ll impale each other by mistake.
I have no way of knowing what he’s facing, no way of communicating with him at all.
And I have no choice about what happens next. The illusory Sylvie makes that choice for me, raising the sickle to attack.
I’ve never fought with a sickle before. It’s not much longer than a dagger, meaning we’ll both need to come in closer to make an attack than I’d prefer. Like dagger fighting, I won’t be able to parry effectively with the blade. I’ll need to use my free hand to try and control her.
But it’s hard to talk myself into grabbing my own hand swinging a deadly weapon wildly in my direction. Instead of grabbing, I step back and out of the way. Other Sylvie stumbles forward, and I slash at her with my sickle, slicing through her tunic into her arm.
She doesn’t bleed.
Can she be hurt? Am I hurting myself by hurting her? I check my own arm and find it unharmed, my tunic undamaged. Maybe it’s not enough for me to just cut her. Maybe I need to kill her.
But can she even be killed? If whoever made this place wanted to keep people out of it, why allow the traps to be defeated at all?
Unless they intended this as a test of some kind. Something that only the shadowbound could defeat.
I don’t have time to think of an answer before she strikes again, this time cutting my arm with her hook before I jump out of the way. The slice stings, blood dripping from the wound as I turn to face her once more.
If she can hurt me but I can’t hurt her, I’m in trouble.
What is it about being shadowbound that could help here?
The shadow tendrils, I realize. I reach out with them, drawing on the sickle’s magic. I grasp the sickle in the other Sylvie’s hand and pull as hard as I can.
She laughs soundlessly, her grip on the other sickle iron-tight. She sends out tendrils of her own—dozens of them. Hundreds. They’re invisible after they leave her, binding me, wrapping around my arms and legs and body, twisting and turning around my throat, tightening their grip until I’m choking.
I can’t breathe. The shadows are suffocating me. They tighten on my chest as I reach for the ones around my neck, and then the shadows holding my wrists yank my arms back until I’m standing spreadeagled, the sickle falling from my grasp and soundlessly hitting the floor.
The other Sylvie smiles as she approaches, her large brown eyes menacing. The shadows emanating from her chest shift, tightening as she closes the space between us.
This is it. I’m defenseless here. I have no magic; I have no sickle or torch. No Ronan to pull from, and no idea if he’s even still alive to help. I can’t reach my dagger. I can’t do anything but stand here and wait for her to cut my throat.
And then I feel it. A spark within my chest. Magic, but not any magic that I’ve felt before. This isn’t my own magic, shadowy and secret, as dark as night. And it isn’t Ronan’s magic either, the light and heat of the sun. This is something different. Something else.
