The festive atmosphere of Elysia’s streets had evaporated in an instant, leaving behind a palpable tension that set Nora’s nerves on edge. As rays of sunlight stretched across the roofs overhead, casting long shadows across the cobblestones, Nora felt Evie trembling behind her. The siren’s ragged breathing served as a stark reminder of what was at stake – Evie’s freedom, and quite possibly both their lives.

  Nora’s hand instinctively reached for Wavebreaker, finding only empty air where her trusted sword should have been. She gritted her teeth, acutely aware of her vulnerability as the circle of armed men closed in. Without her weapon, outmatched and cornered, Nora knew this fight would push her to her limits.

  The tension shattered, and everything happened at once.

  One of the men lunged for Evie, managing to grab her wrist. Without hesitation, Nora lashed out, her hand striking his elbow with pinpoint precision. There was a sickening crack, and the man howled in pain, releasing Evie as he clutched his now-useless arm.

  Another brute seized Evie from behind, and Nora reacted on pure instinct. Grabbing the man’s shirt, she pivoted, using his own momentum to hurl him over her head. He sailed through the air and crashed head-first through the tavern’s wall.

  Oops.

  What remained of the crowd scattered. Nora fought like a woman possessed, her body a blur of motion as she struck out at any who dared come near.

  But for every attacker she felled, two more seemed to take their place.

  “I really need to get a new sword,” Nora growled through gritted teeth as she ducked a slash from a nearby man’s blade. She drove her elbow into yet another leering face.

  Despite her skill and ferocity, Nora knew she was fighting a losing battle. Without Wavebreaker, she felt off-balance, vulnerable in a way she hadn’t experienced in years. The press of bodies was overwhelming, rough hands grabbing at her arms and legs as they tried to subdue her.

  Powerful as she was, even she could be outnumbered—and the odds of her winning this weren’t looking great.

  Through the chaos, she heard Evie’s terrified scream. Looking up, she saw three of the men dragging the struggling siren away. Evie’s eyes were wide with fear as she reached out desperately towards Nora.

  “Let me go!” Evie cried, her voice cracking.

  Oh, hells no.

  Something inside Nora snapped. The frustration, the fear, the sheer rage at seeing Evie in danger—it all came boiling to the surface and threatened to consume her. She felt the familiar stirring of her shadowy magic deep in her bones, and without Wavebreaker to quell the surge, the power she had worked so hard to control now bubbled just beneath her skin.

  Without the enchantments on her sword to channel and focus her abilities, Nora felt herself slipping. The carefully maintained barriers between her conscious mind and the swirling chaos of her magic began to crumble, and she lost control.

  To her astonishment, a part of her felt an odd sense of relief as her final walls fell.

  “Hurry up and knock her out!” one of the men shouted, panic evident in his voice. “The city guard will be here any minute!”

  But it was too late…

  …for them.

  The world around Nora seemed to slow, each heartbeat stretching into an eternity as she felt the last threads of her control snap. The rage that had been simmering beneath the surface erupted, a volcano of dark power that could no longer be contained.

  With a primal roar that shook the cobblestones beneath her feet, Nora surrendered herself to the magic that coursed through her veins.

  Shadow and darkness poured from her body in great, roiling waves. The air itself seemed to thicken, light bending and warping around her as if trying to escape the maelstrom of power. Tendrils of inky blackness coalesced around her, writhing like serpents eager for the kill.

  And with the darkness, all the color drained from her surroundings.

  Nora’s world turned into grays and blacks. The late afternoon was gone, and in its place a midnight deeper than a starless sky.

  The nearest attacker, a burly man with a scarred face, lunged forward with a length of rope. Nora’s hand shot out, faster than a thought, her fingers curling into a claw. A tendril of shadow followed her movement, wrapping around the man’s throat and lifting him off his feet. With a flick of her wrist, she sent him hurtling into three of his comrades, their bodies crumpling in a tangle of limbs and curses.

  Two more rushed her from opposite sides, no doubt trying to overwhelm her with sheer numbers. Nora dropped into a low crouch, the shadows laced with silver around her condensing into a swirling vortex. As her attackers reached her, she exploded upward, her body twisting in a graceful pirouette. The shadow followed, forming a lethal spiral that caught both men mid-stride. They cried out in pain and terror as the darkness seeped into their skin, leaving them writhing on the ground.

  A glint of steel caught Nora’s eye—one of the smarter thugs had drawn a sword, its edge gleaming in the fading light. He approached more cautiously than his fellows, blade held at the ready.

  Nora’s lips curled into a feral grin. This, at least, was familiar territory.

  She feinted left, shadows flowing around her like a second skin. The swordsman took the bait, committing to a powerful slash that would have cleaved her in two had it connected.

  But Nora was no longer there.

  She ducked under his guard, her body moving with inhuman speed. As she rose, her elbow connected with his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs. Before he could recover, Nora’s hand closed around his wrist. With a savage twist, she forced him to release the weapon.

  The sword clattered to the cobblestones, but it never reached the ground. Tendrils of shadow wrapped around the hilt, lifting it into the air. Nora stepped back, her eyes never leaving her opponent as the blade began to orbit her body, picking up speed until it was nothing but a blur of deadly motion.

  From somewhere deep within the folds of darkness, a gruesome shriek not of this world echoed through the alleyway.

  Nora’s blood turned to ice.

  She knew that sound, knew what it belonged to.

  Her limbs moved faster as the object of so many of her nightmares approached through the unspoken invitation of her shadows.

  She didn’t have long now.

  Three more attackers charged forward, emboldened by desperation or sheer stupidity. Nora’s stolen sword lashed out, guided by will alone. It danced between the men, a whirlwind of steel that left cuts and gashes in its wake. They fell back, clutching at wounds that seemed to appear as if by magic.

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  But Nora was far from finished.

  She reached out with both hands, fingers splayed wide. The shadows responded, stretching and growing until they formed massive, clawed appendages that dwarfed her own. With a roar of triumph and rage, she brought these shadow-hands together in a thunderous clap.

  The shockwave rippled outward, a visible distortion in the air that sent the remaining attackers flying. Bodies sailed through the air like rag dolls, crashing into market stalls and slamming against stone walls. The sound of splintering wood and shattering pottery filled the air, punctuated by groans of pain and terror.

  As the dust began to settle, Nora stood at the epicenter of the destruction, her chest heaving with exertion. The shadows around her writhed and pulsed, eager for more violence.

  And Nora stood there, lost in the bloodthirsty fog that always befell her when her dark magic took over. She hadn’t let it roam free in years, and it was making up for lost time. The heretic paladin listened for any hints that her nightmare was any closer, but thankfully, none presented themselves.

  Maybe it had lost interest.

  She doubted it.

  Most of her attackers lay still, unconscious or too badly injured to pose any further threat. A few of the luckier ones were crawling away, desperation lending strength to battered limbs as they sought to escape the demon they had unwittingly awakened.

  Nora took a step forward, the cobblestones cracking beneath her feet. The part of her mind that still clung to reason screamed for restraint, and a piercing bolt of pain shot through her skull. She winced, the two parts of her dueling for control, but she refused to surrender to the darkness.

  She was a protector.

  It was in her soul, a part of her identity, even though the desire for even more of this intoxicating power swam through her veins.

  This was a war she had waged so many times before, but she always felt dread at the thought that she might one day lose.

  The tendrils of darkness retracted, slithering back beneath her skin like reluctant serpents returning to their den. The stolen sword clattered to the ground. Nora staggered, suddenly feeling the full weight of exhaustion pressing down upon her.

  But she wasn’t done.

  She still had to save Evie.

  As the last wisps of shadow faded away, Nora looked around at the devastation she had caused. Color slowly returned to the world, but that only made the wreckage stand out further.

  The once-bustling square now looked like the aftermath of a small war. Market stalls lay in ruins, their colorful awnings torn and fluttering in the breeze. Unconscious bodies were strewn about like discarded dolls, and the few bystanders who hadn’t fled stared at her with a mixture of terror and awe.

  Shame and regret washed over her in equal measure. This wasn’t justice—it was unbridled destruction, the very thing she had sworn to protect others from.

  Exhausted though she was by the onslaught, she grabbed the sword off the ground and staggered in the direction Evie’s captors had taken. Her grip on the sword’s hilt was weak, but she managed to hold on to it. She picked up speed the longer she remained upright, until she was sprinting through the increasingly crowded road. Passersby stared at her as she plowed through the throng of people, and most of them were smart enough to step out of her way.

  “Evie!” she shouted, too weak and exhausted to care if anyone else heard.

  The siren’s muffled scream reached her ears, and Nora’s resolve hardened. The paladin could feel her silver-ranked core slowly refill its reserves from the ambient magic, but it wouldn’t be ready even if she had the courage to use it so soon again.

  Breathing labored, she skidded to a stop and darted toward the sound, her ears attuned to Evie’s voice as she followed it through the marketplace.

  They were moving fast, but Nora was moving faster.

  She rounded a corner in the alley and, there at the far end and backed against a wall, was a towering brute of a man. One massive arm held Evie to his chest, and he held a chipped sword in the other.

  Before she could even speak, Nora’s world exploded into white-hot agony as something hard slammed into her back. The impact sent shockwaves through her body, stealing the breath from her lungs and causing her vision to blur. The clatter of steel on stone pierced the air as her weapon fell from her grip. For a moment, time seemed to stretch, her body suspended in mid-air before she fell to the ground.

  Hard.

  She crashed face-first into the cobblestone, and the taste of copper flooded her mouth as her teeth cut into her cheek. The once-festive streets of Elysia now felt like a battlefield, the cobblestones slick with spilled blood.

  Her own blood, she realized dimly.

  Through the haze of pain, Nora forced her eyes to focus. She no longer held the sword, and she had no idea where it had gone. Ahead, she caught a glimpse of her friend wriggling in the burly man’s grasp. He was laughing as he looked down at Nora.

  That bastard.

  With a growl that was equal parts determination and pain, Nora planted her palms against the ground. Her arms trembled with the effort of pushing herself up, muscles protesting every inch of movement. She made it to her knees before a boot caught her in the ribs, sending her sprawling once more.

  “Stay down,” a gruff voice snarled from above. “You’ve lost, girl. No guards patrol this quarter. No one’s coming to help you.”

  But Nora wasn’t listening. Her entire world had narrowed to a single point: Evie’s helpless form. Nothing else mattered—not her blurred vision, nor the splinters of pain crackling through her body, nor even the warm trickle of blood she could feel running down her temple.

  She dragged herself forward, fingernails scraping against stone as she clawed her way across the ground. Each movement sent fresh waves of pain crashing through her, but she pushed it aside and locked it away in a corner of her mind.

  With a strangled scream that tore at her already raw throat, she surged to her feet. The world tilted dangerously, black spots dancing at the edges of her vision, but she remained standing through sheer force of will.

  Two of her attackers stood between her and Evie, their expressions a mixture of surprise and begrudging respect. Nora’s lips curled into a feral grin, and she could taste blood.

  “You want me?” She swayed on her feet but raised her fists nonetheless. “Then come and get me.”

  The men shared a sidelong glance that was equal parts bemused and afraid.

  “Enough!” the burly man holding Evie said. “You’re done, little girl. Surrender, or I’ll slit this one’s throat!”

  “No, you won’t,” a buttery voice replied.

  Nora frowned and looked over her shoulder toward the voice. She squinted as she tried to make out who’d said that.

  A man peeled from the shadows, his blonde hair catching the light from the slowly setting sun. He strolled forward slowly, hands in his pockets. For some reason, despite his nonchalance, the man reminded her of a cat preparing to pounce.

  It was the walk, she realized. His gait. It was a lazy saunter, like a predator stalking its prey.

  “What’s to stop me from slitting this bitch’s throat here and now if you take another step forward?” the burly man demanded.

  The blonde man halted, and Nora caught the white of his teeth as he smiled. It was a cold, vicious thing.

  “Because you’re already dead.” Another man’s voice rang out through the dark alleyway, and the glint of an orange blade shimmered through the air behind the ringleader.

  It slashed cleanly through the wrist that held the dagger, expertly missing any part of Evie’s frightened form. Before the brute could even scream, the shadowy man stabbed him clear through the heart.

  The two surviving goons yelled in surprise. When they met the dark assassin’s eye, they both turned tail and ran as fast as they could out of the alley.

  With the threats gone, Nora stumbled forward. She was at Evie’s side in seconds, and though she registered the possible threat from the newcomers, she let her guard down for just a moment.

  They had helped her, after all.

  “Birdie, are you okay?” Nora asked, her breath uneven as she took in the various cuts and bruises her best friend had collected.

  “I’m fine, Nor. Thank you. I… I thought…” Evie started, but her words were replaced by sobs.

  Nora held her close and let the siren weep for as long as she needed, but there was still the threat of possible danger looming over them.

  She glanced up at the blonde man as the shadowy assassin walked to his side.

  “My name’s Cade,” the blonde man said. “Cade—”

  “Stormhollow,” Evie said through her tears with a gasp of awe.

  Nora groaned. “Of course we had to find him on the tail end of an ass beating.”

  Cade’s smile faltered, and he threw his hands up at the sky in apparent frustration. “Are you serious? We save someone and they’re part of the thieving guilds, too? All we want are some teammates to—”

  The shadowy assassin elbowed Cade in the gut, and Cade let out a guttural grunt.

  “We’re not in any guilds,” Nora said firmly.

  “What do we do now?” Evie whispered, just loud enough for Nora to hear.

  “No idea,” Nora whispered back. “It’s not like we can just say, excuse me sir, but the stars said to find you, so you’re stuck with us now.”

  Despite the bruises and scratches on her face, Evie giggled.

  Then, behind all of them, a handsome gentleman arrived and leaned lazily against the grimy wall. Evie froze in place when she saw the final arrival, and her eyes gleamed with something Nora could only describe as unadulterated desire.

  “So,” Cade said with a casual shrug. “Is there any chance you two need a job?”

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