Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

" T o choosing peace," Esta declared as she signed her name on both copies of the treaty and dropped the hot wax bead onto the paper for the seal of Dra Skor to be pressed in.

"To being brave enough to right wrongs," Malachi stated while putting his drink in the air to me.

I raised mine back to him. "To choosing our own enemies, not inheriting them." My eyes went to the other advisors. "To weeding out evil in the realm, no matter where it resides."

"To eradicating evil," Amory agreed.

Esta pressed the seal into the final parchment copy, the treaty officially signed. "To a better future for all."

Jagen put his drink in the air as did Esta's father, which surprised me.

Esta handed one copy back over to me. For the first time in all my barging into the war room for these meetings, I officially had my own chair. One that had been added for my presence. Though John and Emric were still standing off in the corner, the fact remained that there was a seat for someone from Wylan at Dra Skor's war table .

I gestured for Emric, who was already instructed to give our copy of the treaty to Owen to take back to Wylan. I also had a letter for Krew already prepared. Whit and Owen would make the trip out to the Wylan boat as soon as our meeting here was done. And as soon as Owen and Dex were done pounding on each other.

Just as Emric turned to leave the war room, the doors opened and a guard that I knew served under Morana came running in.

"What is it?" Morana asked.

"Shadow magic," the man panted. "Shadow magic in Dra Skor."

My eyes went to Esta. Dra Skor and Wylan had finally reached peace for the first time in decades, and Agria came to shore? What were the odds?

Within minutes the sky was full of shifters, the ground below equally teeming with them.

Malachi was furious he couldn't shift and join them, the winged lion shifter Zaccai gracious enough to offer him a ride. Whit and Owen had delayed the treaty getting returned to Wylan only until we knew more about the shadow magic seen in Dra Skor.

"It was an inky magic, thick shadows that sprawled along the ground in the direction of The Drak," Morana's guard had explained. But then he had confused us when he added, "The shadows specifically went around the Dragon lairs. Like it was simply passing through and knew to stay away from them."

Still, Agria knew better than to show up unannounced in Dra Skor. I knew firsthand how that was not welcomed. Yet the bigger issue at hand which had everyone tense was how in the hell someone from Agria still had use of their shadow magic at all.

"Is it possible that Jorah and Krew's healing in Wylan and yours in Dra Skor has unleashed the hold the poison had on the other countries?" Owen asked me from astride Nyx.

"No. Too easy." Esta was flying even with Nyx, Owen and I yelling theories to one another when the speed allowed it. The shifters below us were moving together like one large creature, the winged and land shifters staying together.

Warrior formation. Protect from the skies and from the land.

Not for the first time, I was reminded how powerful Dra Skor was. How their creatures were designed as an army of protection.

"Also," I added, "the forest in Wylan is somewhat sentient. It punished my father for what he did. The poison itself is not. We will have to go country by country to unlock them all."

"Then how in the hell does someone from Agria still have their powers?" Owen asked.

It was Esta who responded to us both. They must not have been in Agria to be poisoned when all hell broke loose.

Which meant they could have only been one place in order to retain use of their magic. Wylan.

I looked to Owen and he to me. We needed to speak to whomever this was. We needed answers.

Esta had instructed Malachi's men to watch the sky and patrol the border of Agria and Dra Skor. The river which separated the two countries was vast, but Agria was by far the closest country to Dra Skor.

"What was that about brute force being more fun?" I hollered at Owen as we raced toward The Drak.

They're near The Drak, if they enter our sanctuary, we've got the brute force handled, Nyx chirped in.

Owen grinned, his magic flaring in excitement. "Like I said, more fun."

Amory has a scent, Esta told us, and I looked beneath her wings to see the shifters circle around the area. Up until this point, I had mostly seen the winged shifters and their strength, but as feline and canine worked together to form a working barrier and then send four of their strongest out hunting around the barrier, I was discovering the land shifters had a skillset all their own.

Together they were brutal. Ruthless.

The shadow wielder didn't stand a single chance with the barrier I could see beneath me.

Esta let out a loud roar, one in warning.

If I was the shadow wielder, I'd be damn scared at this point.

Esta turned and hovered, watching the mass of darkness from the sky. I had never personally seen shadow magic before, though I vaguely remembered the Agrian diplomats staying at Kavan Keep when I was roughly Warrick's age. I had left a lamp on when I slept the entire time they were visiting, fearing they would find me in the dark. I had nothing to fear though, their Enchantment was not all that different from my own, but a thick darkness in place of my bright lightning.

As the Agrian Enchanted continued to use their powers, the person was enveloped in a dark mass not all that different from what the poison looked like in the lakes when we took it out of the shifters, just denser. Like smoke. A writhing and moving spot of darkness crawling along the shadows. Anywhere within twenty feet of the Enchanted, the spots of shadows between trees seemed to pull inward toward the mass of black joining it, as if the person had called them.

I could see no human from around it, only the mass of black, as if darkness itself had grown legs.

It reminded me so much of the color of my father's magic, that for a moment my own magic flared. A threat immediately identified.

Amory lunged into the darkness, only to whimper in pain and draw back before trying again. I was about to send my magic to somehow help her, trying to decide what to envision to get through it, when she latched on successfully. One minute we saw only dense shadows moving throughout an area big enough for ten men. The next, we saw a human arm.

Esta dived downward to help, the steep dive making my stomach drop even as I kept my eyes on the hunt going on below us.

Amory tugged and tugged until the person was fully in the sunlight, the shadows which seemed to fuel his power falling away. And there the man was, face down in the grass, a very large and angry pure white tigress paw at his back, her nails out but not sinking into skin. Yet.

Whatever you do, Esta rang out loudly to everyone, all the shifters listening, do not kill him. He is our only lead.

I slid off Esta as she shifted back to her human form to approach with me.

"I am going to have Amory here remove her paw from your back only for you to face us," Esta explained calmly. "It is in your best interest not to even attempt to run. No shadows can save you from the power of shifters surrounding you right now."

Amory sunk in her claws gently, as if to prove the point.

"I just wanted to see it for myself," the muffled voice defended as he gasped out in pain.

My eyes went to Owen's. I recognized that voice. I wasn't sure from where.

Without delay I walked over to the man, pulling his face up from the ground by the hair. "You."