Page 14 of A Dawn Of Blood

She glances around the table, exchanging looks with the senior Embers. “The Academy’s magic mostly,” she says with a touch of bitterness in her voice. “Whenever it’s on the verge of being destroyed, it...” She pauses, seemingly searching for the right words. “Disappears.”

“Zaps itself to another dimension,” de Groot cuts in. “That’s what we believe the magic does. In any case, the underground part of the Academy — the castle itself — stops existinghereand appears somewhere else, where it’s safe.”

Frowning, I exchange a surprised look with Raven and Lorcan. How have I never heard of this magic, let alone the possible existence of another dimension?

Just as I’m about to ask these questions, Nuala gets up. “Now,” she says as she gets up and starts pulling stuff out of a table drawer, “as the newcomers, you’ll be asked to get familiar with your uniforms, learn our enchanted graffiti means of communication and undergo our defense against Mind Magic training.”

She passes a uniform around and then demonstrates the use of enchanted graffiti on the blackboard behind her.

“That’s all fine with me,” I say as soon as she’s done, eager to get to what really interests me. “But what exactly is your strategy? What is this mission you’re going on? I understand you need to lay low, but how are you recruiting, liberating shifters, fighting the army…?”

There's silence in the room. Nuala shakes her head. “We don’t do any of those things. The Empire is too powerful for that. Right now, we go on missions to try to find information on how to kill Baldur himself.”

Sad, that’s just sad.

Nuala just continues. “Butthismission in particular… It’ll be about trying to stop the shadow curse from being released.”

I frown.

Raven asks, “Shadow curse? What is that?”

Dryden shakes his head. “We don’t know yet. All we know is that Baldur is in the process of devising it to help him conquer the rest of the world within the year.”

What the… “Alright,” I say with eagerness in my voice, “I’ll go on the mission with you.”

I feel Dryden’s eyes on me and hear De Groot let out a scoff.

“That’s not happening,” Jaeger speaks with anger in her voice.

I frown at her and turn to Nuala, who’s shaking her head as well. “I’m not asking you to let meleadit,” I protest.

“This is much more dangerous than the stuff we normally do,” Nuala explains. “If anything goes wrong, there’s a chanceCainwill show up.”

My frown grows deeper. “Who’s that?”

The senior Embers around me all exchange glances. “Cain is Baldur’s general,” Nuala replies.

“Cain who?”

Dryden lets out a laugh. “Just Cain. As far as we know, he has no last name, but it’s not like he needs one. In that regard as well, he’s a lot like his father.”

What the… “Baldur has a son? With whom?”

“Word is he’s sort of… adopted. Despite being a vampire, we don’t believe he’s his biological son. But heisin status.”

I lean forward in my chair. “Could he be a weakness of Baldur’s?”

Nuala shakes her head. “I don’t think either of them have weaknesses.”

“Still, we could use this,” I insist. “If we get our hands on the general—”

Jaeger appears in front of me. “Let’s make one thing clear. All of us here, every single one of us, we’re all willing to give our lives to this cause, but heroism is one thing and idiocy a whole other.”

For a moment, I just look at her in surprise.

“It doesn’t matter that you’re the Aurora. Regardless of whether you choose to join us or go your own way… Cain, he’s the most powerful shadow wielder alive, he controls the hounds of Nasgard,andhe commands the biggest army the world has ever seen, with such skill it took him less than three years to bring half the world to heel. To make it even worse, he—is—ruthless. He’s a weapon the likes of which I’ve never seen. Some say he’s more powerful than Baldur himself. Wherever he goes, death follows. You don’t golooking for Cain…”

She holds my gaze. “Yourun from Cain.”

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