Page 205 of The Shadow Wand

“I know,” he says, lethally calm, as he takes in the night-camouflaged beasts.

I glance back at the bat things, desperately grateful for the shield. “Are they wraith bats?”

“They are,” he states, loosening his hold on me a bit.

“I think they’rehuntingme.”

Lukas studies them. “They’re drawn to prey that cowers easily. And they can sense fear and amplify it.”

The creatures bare their daggerlike teeth, and gooseflesh breaks out along my neck as Lukas’s hands slide away from my arms. I turn to face him. “So theyarehunting me.”

Lukas’s voice is unsympathetic when it comes. “Because you cower when faced with a physical threat.”

Ire rises, cutting through the edge of my terror. “Fear is a reasonable response to them, Lukas.”

“No, it isn’t,” he counters. “Not with your aim. And you’re armed with one of the most powerful rune blades in existence. You’re thinking with your fear. Not your common sense.”

“So, if there was no shield, you wouldn’t be the least bit afraid of them?” I hate that I can’t keep a tremor out of my voice.

“I don’t fear them in the slightest.” Lukas eyes them coldly. “I see them like I see most enemies. As a puzzle to pick apart. To find the best way to dominate.”

He sets his relentless gaze back on me, and I hold his formidable stare. It’s brutal, the way he looks at things. But I realize, in one all-encompassing swoop, that I need to learn to think like a warrior.

“How do you manage to be so fearless?” I ask him, frustrated tears glazing my eyes as I wrestle with my terrified awareness of the bat things.

“Control,” Lukas says. “And skill. You have vast power, Elloren. The reasons you cower are your lack of control and skills, and your lack of belief in yourself. You need to strike away this weakness, or your enemies will take advantage of it.” He glances pointedly at the lurking bat monsters, and my fear spikes anew at the sight of their dark forms. A heightened tension shivers through my body as their thrall worms its way into me, seeking to break down every last shred of my resolve.

To immobilize me.

My airway constricts.

“Lukas...” I force out through the rise of a swamping terror.

Lukas flashes me an intense look, then walks past me toward the edge of the ledge. Without breaking his stride, he throws his palm out toward the shield, blue rays of light flashing from the contact, and then he moves straight through the translucent dome wall.

My fear explodes as he walks over the remaining ledge and stops at its cliff-edge, right in front of the wraith bat–infested treetops.

Breaking through my terror, I rush toward the shield as another wave of horror explodes through my knotted lines, constricting my lungs anew and halting my steps.

I struggle to pull in air, paralyzed to the spot, as I shiver with terror for Lukas.

The wraith bats grow agitated as they watch him, rustling in the trees and snapping their jaws threateningly. Getting no reaction from him, they begin to sniff at the air with their flat, slender nostrils, making wet, snuffling sounds.

They draw back, as if fearful of Lukas’s scent. Four of them flap their powerful wings and fly away.

Lukas draws two rune blades and hurls them forward with sudden, violent force.

I flinch as both knives impale the trees’ trunks with whiplikecracks, thin white lightning exploding from the blades sideways in a burst of light that startles the remaining creatures.

Disoriented and enraged, the beasts let out low, snarling growls as they struggle to keep their balance on the jostled branches and Lukas holds out his rune-marked palms, his blades flying back into his hands.

Snarling and snapping teeth, the bats launch themselves from the branches and fly away.

Lukas resheathes his blades, turns, and holds up his palm toward the shield, then strides back inside it in a flash of blue light.

He stops before me, a challenging look in his eyes.

I gape at him in amazement as the bats’ psychic effect on my fear dissipates like a vise slowly releasing, but my own underlying fear remains, its daunting echo racing through me.

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