You never know what a void will do, but the vacant-headed creatures are always mad with rage. The younger students might not even have trained with smaller animals yet.
I’ve never heard of anyone tangling with a bear—not in the city, anyway.
The void creature lets out another roar and barges toward me. The smack of its paw reverberates through my shield, but the layer of condensed ephemera deflects the blow.
“We go for the head,” Asher calls out.
Yes. The fastest way to stop a void is to remove its head from its body. You can’t knock it out or injure in any other way that’ll end its rampage.
Once something’s gone void, all the ephemera gone from its body and mind, there’s no saving it.
I don’t have Salvatore’s knife-turned-katana. None of us has any weapons at all.
Keeping myself between the bear and the younger students, I aim a bolt of pure magic at the creature’s neck.
Blood wells up amid the matted fur. The bear grunts but barely wavers before pounding on my shield again.
Asher has taken a different tactic, probably because he’sso used to working with a sword. A beam of collected energy glimmers in his hands, forming its own sort of blade. He jabs at the bear’s legs, attempting to weaken it so it drops to all fours and leaves its head vulnerable.
I reach toward the ephemera around me again. Before I fully grasp hold, a sudden force slams into my own legs from behind.
The impact reverberates through my knees. I stagger, my grip on my magic wobbling.
The bear lashes out and rakes its claws right through my shoulder.
At least, that’s what it looks like happens. Pain lances through my flesh. But as I wrench myself backward with a whimper, my school shirt remains pristine white and un-gouged.
I stare at my shoulder and then at the bear. Understanding clicks into place.
“It’s only an illusion.”
Of course. How would a grizzly bear end up in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the country?
At my proclamation, the rest of the group surges around me. It takes less than a minute of hasty strikes and dodges before the bear slumps downward and Asher slices his conjured sword through its neck.
The furry head hits the ground, and both it and the body vanish into thin air.
I step back, exhaling shakily. The searing sensation in my shoulder melts away too.
Professor Jovak nods at all of us, but I can’t help thinking his eyes linger on me. “Very good.”
Was it? If it’d been a real void bear, I might have lost my arm.
Until my glim regrew it by stealing someone else’s.
That sickening thought keeps my gut clenched tight through the rest of our trek around the Beacon Prep grounds.Shockers go off two more times. We set off a few more magical traps, but nothing as unnerving as the bear.
By the time Jovak announces that our session is finished, a yawn is tugging at my jaw.
We tramp back toward Luminary. As we cross the street to our usual campus, my sense of Byron’s presence drifts farther away. He must reunite with his assigned group, because he’s standing there with a cluster of other students when we reach the green.
Captain Ross waits for the last of the groups to return and then launches into a short speech about the importance of staying on guard. I give my best impression of an avid pupil.
I watch Byron ease over to Asher and murmur a couple of comments I can’t make out. Asher nods.
When Ross dismisses us, my two matches slip away.
Curiosity itches at me, but I can’t go after them where everyone else can see.
