Chapter 1

ONE

Asha

How do you pick which day is the worst one of your life when there are so many strong contenders?

Until now, I’d assumed it was the day my village was overrun by enemies and my pack members were either slaughtered or taken by the Blood Mages. The day I witnessed the brutal death of my mother and heard the screams from my sister as she took her last breath. Yet, as I stand in a blood-drenched street surrounded by shadows as dark as night, I consider today the worst day.

The day my brother said, “Like everything else that’s weak, you must die.”

An unnatural wind stirs, lifting the scents of coppery blood and death to my sensitive nose. I stand, frozen, my mind racing as every hair on my body stands on end. In the wake of the massacre, one thing has kept me going: the hope that I might reunite with the remnants of my pack. The hope that we might reassemble the pieces of our shattered lives and fit them back together again. The hope that we can heal together and rebuild.

The hope that I would find my brother, the last member of my family, and save him.

Simon.

But never could I have imagined that I’d see him again, and that it’d be like this . That he would lose himself to the dark magic and become… something so far from human he’s almost unrecognizable. Something so powerful that he used his magic to swallow an entire town in shadows and has been, apparently, using his magic to kill people to fuel himself.

My older brother. Simon. Like this…

He stands in the middle of the street ahead of me, hand outstretched, gathering magic with which to kill me. I can feel that dark magic radiating from his spell deep within my soul, including the deadly nature of it. My brother isn’t messing around. If that strikes me, I’m gone.

I watch tendrils of purple light, drawn from the air, feeding the orb held in his palm. The orb crackles, promising a slow and painful death. In that moment, the thought comes again that today is, in fact, the worst day of my life. And as it so happens, probably also the last. The hope, the glue that held my heart together, has been torn apart by Simon’s venomous words. “Like everything else that’s weak, you must die.”

I hold up my hand, preparing an attack of my own, but a veil of tears blurs my target. He’s your brother, a little voice repeats. And despite what he’s become, that fact hasn’t changed. Just like the fact that I know I could never kill him.

Even if not doing so means the death of me.

Simon tilts his forehead towards me, his brow nearly eclipsing his eyes while a vicious grin carves across his face. “ Weak ,” he repeats in a sonorous voice.

If not wanting to kill the last person I love makes me weak, then he’s right.

My arm drops to my side, the magic disseminating back into the air. The orb in his fist grows darker, amethyst to plum as the strength builds. He’s going to kill me, but I can’t stop him. Not because my magic is truly that weak, but because I can’t be responsible for the loss of another person I love.

Another person. A hundred faces flash through my mind. All dead. Because of me.

Simon has been the light in my dark life that’s kept me going. And now, without any hope of saving him? I’m done for, either way. Killing him would be killing myself anyway, so I’m not only not going to kill him, I’m not going to stop him from what he’s doing.

There’s nothing left in me to fight this, and nothing left for me to fight for.

I can feel the energy gathered in his hand like the pull of a black hole. Simon pivots one leg back, then joins his hands together in preparation to launch his assault. This is it; it’s all over . Relief and terror and sadness swirl together in a confusing mix that envelops me.

But then a dark form lunges from my periphery, a furry blur that pounces on Simon and sends him to the ground. The violet orb misfires in the chaos. I hear its deafening hum as it zooms past on a collision course with the corner store behind me. An explosion sounds, shaking the ground, and I leap from the avalanche, rolling towards safety, as debris showers the road with chunks of brick and mortar.

Lying on the ground, shocked and confused about the change of events, a familiar scent pierces the smell of death and decay pervading the town. It transports me to a cedar forest, fresh with morning dew.

Max .

I’d forgotten he was here in this cursed town with me. But now, the idea of him here with my brother makes my head spin. Max wants him dead. Simon wants all of us dead.

I need to do something.

Rising back onto my feet, I look over and realize what I’d already suspected. Simon’s attacker is Max in wolf form. The brown wolf’s jaw snaps at Simon’s face, but Simon holds him back. I watch, frozen on the sidelines, as slick, black tentacles slither out from Simon’s stomach to garrote Max.

Just as one reaches for Max’s throat, a second wolf, a black one, leaps from the foggy city, sinking its teeth into the oily appendage. Braxton . Two wolves battle against the writhing limbs of Simon’s pitch-like extension, a powerful goo that seems unaffected by their claws and teeth.

Help them , cries a voice within, but my legs are bolted to the sidewalk for some reason. I can’t move, no matter how loud the call to save them. It feels like a night terror, pinning me down while the horror unfolds.

Wake up, Asha, wake up!

One of the tentacles narrows itself into a spear and strikes Max in the shoulder. Hard. He yelps, then chomps off the end of the tentacle with his razor-sharp teeth. But with that distraction, Simon has gained the upper hand. The black mass of tentacles forms into one solid, throbbing fist that batters the both of them so hard that I swear I hear bones break as they fly backwards.

Terror stabs at my chest as I watch their bodies strike the second floor of an apartment complex, then begin to fall. They’re certain to break their necks once they hit the ground. Two tumbling masses that don’t seem to be moving, fighting, or even trying to save themselves.

The fear of losing them shakes me loose from my stupor and something rises up within me. Instinct kicks in and I extend my arm towards them. Suddenly, a silver object shimmers into being in the air beneath them. It’s like a soft shield that gathers Max and Braxton and carries them safely back to the asphalt, placing them down gently.

I’ve saved them. I don’t exactly know how, but I’ve saved them. Max looks unconscious and Braxton isn't faring much better, but a bizarre sensation chases dread away. Are the shadows my brother created running from my shield? From the light?

Save everyone. You have the power to do it.

As the feeling swells within me, the silver shield expands, pushing back against Simon’s shadows. Light filters through the black fog like a beacon, revealing the city for what it was before my brother let the dark magic take it.

I tell myself not to question it. Let it save you, Asha. Let it save Max, Braxton, and the people of the town. But how do I do that and still save my brother?

A thought occurs to me then. Maybe if I focus the energy on Simon, I can banish the darkness from his soul. The moment the thought comes to me, I cling to it in desperation. This could be the answer to everything, my strange new powers from the Blood Mages shaped into something new.

I turn my attention to Simon, sprawled out on the road, struggling to regain his strength in the wake of the wolf attack. His eyes—or, rather, the sickly green eyes of the dark mask covering his face, regard me with fear. Simon is mine, not yours , they seem to say.

Hell. My hand curls into a fist. He won’t be for long.

Focusing on the strange feeling I had before the silver light appeared, I watch my hands begin to glow. I bring my arms together and focus a concentrated beam of silver magic that fires on Simon. To my shock, it works. The light shines so brightly it’s painful to see, but I don’t look away as it blasts the tar-like substance cocooning him.

He screams, and the substance begins to shake. To weaken. I can feel it.

As the seconds pass, the dome capping the city trembles, the fog slowly begins to thin, and the mask peels away from Simon’s face — my brother’s face. Sweet, innocent Simon. The desire to just run to him flares inside of me, but I can’t stop. Not yet. I press on, funneling all my strength into the beam of unknown magic, intent on banishing the shadow from his soul.

Maybe I can actually free him from the dark magic. Maybe I can save him.

But then Simon starts to weep. His face twists with pain as rivulets stream down his cheeks. I watch him crying, my heart aching, but don’t falter. The darkness clinging to him is disappearing. Off his neck. Off his chest. It… it seems to be working.

Above the roar of my magic, I hear his pleading voice calling out to me, “Asha! It hurts! You’re killing me! Asha!”

It’s a trick , I think, but doubt hollows the assumption. It sounds like Simon. I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I am hurting him.

“Are you… okay?” I call, my voice trembling.

He cries harder, the darkness nearly gone from his body. “It’s too much! You’re killing me! You have to stop!”

My magic is wavering. I’m trying to save him, but what if I’m not? What if by doing this I kill him anyway? I couldn’t live with myself.

I’d rather die than lose my brother.

It’s enough uncertainty to make me stop. I drop my arms and the silver beam relents, allowing the dark slime to creep over him again. It’s slower now, weakened by my attack. It only manages to coat his legs, animating them to flee.

And I don’t stop him as he goes. I just watch. Not knowing what to do. Feeling lost.

Half a block away, he pauses, turning back. His face is awash in pain and fury. His voice floats the distance between us and reaches my ears, almost as though he’s whispering beside me. “We’re far from the end,” he says. Then, Simon turns and runs again, disappearing from my view.

No, I can’t lose him again. I have to follow him. I have to find a way to help him, even if he doesn’t want my help.

I take one step towards him, then pause. Something holds me back, but I don’t know what. That’s my brother. The person I’ve been looking for. Shouldn’t I go after him?

The last of the shadow shrinks away from the town, permitting daylight to flood the town once more. It illuminates the blood and gore and horror left in Simon’s wake. A shudder rolls through me. My brother did all of this. He was capable of… this.

What does this mean?

“Asha!” Braxton’s pleading voice snaps me out of my daze and I turn to find him and his brother in their human forms again.

Braxton has Max propped up against the side of the apartment complex. Neither of them looks good, but Max looks really bad. He’s pale, and his face is twisted in pain. The cut-off black tentacle that pierced his shoulder now wriggles to drive itself deeper. Blood leaks from the wound, and I get the terrible feeling that if that thing gets fully inside of him, he won’t survive it.

Braxton is trying to pull it out, but he doesn’t look exactly steady on his feet. Braxton’s pale blue eyes are filled with desperation, and for a minute, I can picture him out on the battlefield. He’s already seen some terrible things. He doesn’t deserve to see this too.

They’re family. If I don’t help, they’ll lose each other. As much as it pains me to turn away from my brother, it’s not forever. Something inside of me tells me I’ll see him again. This isn’t over. But right now, these men need me more.

I rush to Max’s side and let instinct guide me again. Placing my hand on Braxton’s arm gets him to stop tugging on the severed tentacle. I wrap both hands around it and feel an almost painful tingling sensation, like my fingers reawakening after having fallen asleep. A silver light emits from my touch and as it glows, it steadily shrivels the tentacle. The oily limb fades, becoming ashen as it shrinks and finally dies.

I pull it from the wound, and it turns into a shriveled, useless thing. I toss it on the ground before grinding it with my boot. Looking back, I study the bloody hole in Max’s shoulder. It’s deep, gushing, and his blood is black. Then, he seems to stop breathing.

For a split second, I fear I’m too late, but then his eyes flit open and his chest inflates with a deep breath. He’s pale and sickly-looking, but he’s alive. This cursed magic the Blood Mages created within me seems to have done something good, for once.

Smiling, I glance up at Braxton, but a strange look crosses his face. It’s almost an accusation. A silent fear whispers through my thoughts. Did he see you let Simon go ? Did he see me give up in that moment of darkness? Did he know I was willing to die?

I hope he doesn’t ask me questions I don’t know the answers to. Like what that silver power was that banished the darkness. Whatever that was scared me too, and it felt like no magic I’ve used before. It didn’t call the darkness to me. It didn’t make me feel like I was paying for it with my soul.

But more than that, more than anything, I hope he didn’t see my moment of weakness and know what it was. Because I’m ashamed. There’s a fight I have to finish, but I was weak. I gave up.

I can’t be weak again. Not until my work is done.