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Suspicious—in my experience Noctus and Charon were both honorable, but unbelievably conniving—I made a run for the rock formation again.
“But still inclined to run rather than fight, I see,” Charon said.
I backed into a small space that was just big enough for me to change in, swapped into my human form, then crouched, waiting for a chance.
Noctus drew even with my hole, and I lashed out, stabbing my sword through the greaves of his metal boots.
“Maybe not so inclined,” Noctus said. He stabbed his sword straight into the rock formation. I heard a click, and then a blast went off.
I curled into a ball and covered my head as rocks and pebbles pelted my body.
When everything had settled—except for the cloud of dust—Charon called out to me. “Do you know what you did wrong there?”
I uncurled, then staggered out of the cloud of dust. “I didn’t follow up my attack, so Noctus had plenty of time to counter?”
“Indeed,” Charon said. “It was a good initial attack, you just need to be fiercer.”
I made a noise in the back of my throat. “Fierce. Right. That’s me, the fierce housecat.”
“You were fierce when you took down Harel and Darina,” Charon said. “I saw the footage.”
“You can be very fierce.” Noctus rested the point of his sword on the ground. “The problem is you constantly underestimate your skills in comparison to your enemy’s, and you only truly go for it if you feel backed into a corner—something that happens to you with shocking frequency.”
“I imagine it would be easier to be fierce if you could wield a royal heirloom,” Charon said with too much complacency for it to be an offhanded remark.
“He has a point,” Noctus said. “Since we renewed the bond, you could try reaching for a royal weapon again.”
“Oh, because I haven’t already failed enough today?” I asked.
“It seems you must learn the lesson that a poor attitude begets poor results,” Charon said.
“Fine. Fine. How do I do it again?” I asked.
“Follow the sensation of my magic through the collar, back to me,” Noctus said. “Through me you should be able to access the gate to my weapons—it’ll feel different from my magic because the weapons have powers of their own.”
“Okay.” I squeezed my eyes shut, and followed his magic.
It was easier, this time, to trace his magic through the collar back to him and find the gate to his weapons. I don’t know if it was experience, or just because I knew him even better now.
My shadow instincts started rolling around in my gut, but I ignored it as I reached—both physically and mentally—for the gate.
I felt magic engulf my hand—a prickly sort of magic that was even sharper than the general sensation of elf magic.
I pried an eye open and saw my right hand was thrust into a tiny portal that glowed white. My hand had that weird topsy-turvy sensation portals always produced, but when I opened both of my eyes and crouched like some kind of swamp creature I could look inside, where I caught sight of shadowy shapes that I recognized as Noctus’s various weapons.
“I know you have hundreds of them, so statistically there should be one that likes me, but I think they can tell I’m a shadow,” I said. “They don’t seem very keen to approach me. None of them are even getting close this time.”
“Can you hear anything different?” Noctus asked. “Not in an auditory sense, but rather something you feel?”
I tilted my head sideways as I struggled with the concept of hearing without my ears. “No. Nothing.”
“Perhaps with time they will grow more accustomed to you,” Charon suggested.
I shook my head as I pulled my hand from the small portal.
Just before I pulled my fingertips free, I heard it.
Truck.
