Page 178 of Elven Crown

Even while she pinpointed the type of this new magic, she couldn’t spot the source. That immediately became her most pressing issue, because that dark energy was only growing. She could feel it.

And when it grew enough to be unleashed on her and her team, it would already be too late for anyone to do anything about it.

Whoever they were, Rebecca had to find them now.

Then her first beneficial window of opportunity presented itself when she realized her team were all too busy trying not to die and exchanging fire with the new group of enemies on the ground floor—while also avoiding the scattered magitek shots from above—that no one paid attention to anyone who wasn’t screaming at them about where to aim next.

It was the perfect opportunity for Rebecca to slip away, which she did, firing her weapon at any enemy target who leapt at her.

She slinked along the left-hand wall toward the front of the auditorium, taking out two other attackers who’d posted up beside the double-doored entrance. Then she burst back into the lobby, which was fortunately empty, and made her way around the perimeter, hoping to reach the back of the building.

On her first try, she found the door leading directly into a staircase up to the balcony wings on the second story.

Bingo.

She launched herself up the stairwell, refusing to stop even when the old door crashed back against its frame so violently, it ripped itself off half its hinges with a grating shriek. It banged shut repeatedly, now hanging steeply crooked in its frame.

The feel of that dark, growing energy right here with her in this building only intensified the higher she climbed. This was intense magic, hardcore shit, almost of the same caliber as her own abilities she’d sworn she would always keep a secret.

It was magic she could probably handle on her own and would simply have to, because she was the only one who stood even half a chance.

The call of that magic to the darkness inside her—the one thing that made the Bloodshadow Heir such a valuable and highly sought commodity among certain old-world circles and now probably even Earthside as well—flared and rippled in response. It made her want to both near the source of that dark power and flee from it at the same time.

The only reason she let herself give in to that pull was the knowledge that if she didn’t, even if she was only a few seconds too late in finding the magical who wielded it, her entire team was going down. Rowan, Diego, Maxwell, all of them.

Even Rebecca, if she didn’t do this right.

The mastermind behind this entire assault was absolutely that—a mastermind. The Shade team had been lured into such an effective bespoke trap like this, it had almost rendered them completely hopeless.

Almost.

That was what she intended to fix.

The pull of darkness only intensified, taking her breath away as she pushed herself ever higher up the stairs.

Above her at the top landing, another door swung open and crashed shut again before the stairwell echoed with desperate footsteps thumping down toward her.

For as disoriented as she’d already been tonight, and for all her necessary urgency to get this done, she still couldn’t help a surge of overwhelming relief and giddy gratitude when she realized one more opportunity here.

An enclosed stairwell separating her from the balconies above, and three hulking, leering, magicals—two brainwashed trolls and a blackhorn with scars crisscrossing his already mottled red-and-black flesh.

And no possible way for Rebecca’s team to see her now.

Meaning no more restrictions on her current combat response.

Gritting her teeth until it felt like she might have been grinning as she stomped up the stairwell, Rebecca conjured an orb of swirling mercurial silver in her right hand just as the enemy turned a corner on the narrow staircase landing to face her.

One of the trolls snarled and leapt at her.

Rebecca was always faster.

With a quick flick of her wrist, the swirling silver orb in her hand flashed and materialized as her Bloodshadow spear. Its otherworldly blade winked beneath the stairwell lights as she hefted the weapon in her hand, switched her grip on the shaft, and threw the spear at the first troll heading toward her.

Her weapon hit him through the center of the chest, just as she’d intended, skewering his straight through.

His shocked grunt served as his dying words before an equally surprised groan arose from just behind him.

The first troll’s knees buckled, his life’s spark already gone. As he fell, Rebecca got a clear view of her Bloodshadow spear having punctured straight through the first troll’s back and into the middle of the second’s gut.

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