Page 11 of Heir of Shadows

I couldn’t trust my eyes. Couldn’t trust any of my senses after what he’d done to my mind. But the dead things—they’d broken through his enchantment. Maybe they could tell me what was real. So I watched them, and took a step toward one of the halls.

A skeletal mouse squeaked a warning. One of the Elios transformed into a snarling lion, massive and golden. Real or not, my body reacted with pure terror as it lunged. I stumbled back, a scream catching in my throat.

Raw power surged through me in response to my fear. Tiny skeletal defenders erupted from the stones—not just mice this time but rats, squirrels, birds, anything that had ever died in these halls. They formed a barrier between me and the lion, their bones clicking and chattering with shared purpose. I swallowed, my heart still beating frantically. I had no idea how I’d done that, or if I could do it again. Just like the mice at the Conrads, they’d responded to my emotions.

“Fascinating,” Elio purred from the other corridors. Both versions of him watched with predatory interest. “Such power, even if it is crude.”

Heat prickled down my spine, and I spun to find the copper-haired guy from the airport—Cyrus. Gone was the expensive jacket from the airport; now he wore a fitted black tee and dark jeans—simple, but somehow more dangerous. Like he didn’t need designer layers to look lethal. The casualness only emphasized the coiled strength in his broad shoulders.

His amber eyes reflected very real flames as he studied me. “Playing games, Elio?” His voice was deep enough to feel in my bones.

“She needs to learn her place.”

Fire erupted from his hands, and this, I knew was real. The heat seared my skin as flames circled me, creating a ring that began slowly closing in. My skeletal defenders scattered, their tiny bones blackening in the intense heat, and it was just me and the flames. I curled in on myself, trying to keep my body away from them. Smoke filled my lungs, and I coughed.

I reached desperately for more dead things, panic giving my power an edge. They answered—a wall of bones rising between me and the fire. But the flames kept coming, eating through my defenses. Real danger, not just illusion.

“Interesting pets you have,” Elio purred, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere. “Let’s see how well they follow orders.”

Something moved in the shadows beyond the flames—too fast, too fluid to be natural. Red eyes gleamed as pale figures emerged, inhumanly graceful. Vampires. Like the ones from the Conrads’. But were they real, or just more of Elio’s tricks?

The vampires blurred forward with supernatural speed. I tried calling more dead things, but between the closing ring of fire and my own terror, I couldn’t focus. The power was there, raw and desperate, but I couldn’t control it.

Then cold fingers seized my arm, grip like iron. Fear shot through me as fangs gleamed inches from my throat. My necromancy exploded outward in pure panic—and suddenly every dead thing in the building seemed to answer at once. The walls themselves groaned as centuries of tiny skeletons burst forth, a tsunami of bones drowning everything in their path.

“Enough.”

A shimmering window appeared—like Ms. Parker’s portal from earlier. Through it stepped another boy—lean and intense, dark hair falling into storm-colored eyes. A spectral fox curled around his shoulders, its misted form flickering with quiet menace.

Silver light exploded from the portals around him, flooding the hallway. The vampires recoiled—then shattered like glass, dissolving into mist and shadow. Illusions. Every last one.

My breath caught.

Of course they weren’t real. Just more smoke and mirrors. More magic thrown in my face without warning.

My hands were still shaking. My magic buzzed wild under my skin, raw and twitchy like it hadn’t figured out the threat was over.

I didn’t know what kind of test this was supposed to be, but I was already over it.

Raw power still surged through me, making the dead things chitter and swarm protectively. I couldn’t control them, couldn’t stop them—wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

“She’s an heir,” the new boy said quietly. “You can’t actually kill her.” He said it in such a casual way as if they could murder me if I’d been anyone else and I wasn’t sure which scared me more.

“Just teaching her where she belongs,” Cyrus snarled.

“Seriously?” My voice wavered, but I didn’t care. “That’s your idea of a lesson? Mind games? Monsters? Fire?”

Elio’s mask cracked for just a moment. The corridors melted back into one.

“Brave little mouse, aren’t you?” he asked with a sly smile. “Even when you’re clearly outmatched.”

His words stung more than I wanted to admit. My pride wanted to spit something back—but my magic was still fizzing under my skin like a live wire, and I didn’t trust my voice not to shake.

Then the quiet one spoke.

“I’m Keane Alstone, and I’m also an heir,” he said, blue eyes locking on mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. “The royal dorms are this way. I’ll show you.”

Another heir. Of course there was another one.Because apparently one smug firestarter and a smirking demigod weren’t enough—I needed the full set. Each of them impossibly powerful. Gorgeous. Unbothered.

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