The Shadows were spawns of nightmares. Almost invulnerable. Their claws could rake through stone and flesh as if both were made of nothing. Yet, they had one simple weakness that David was able to exploit, but at a price. He didn’t want to think about it at the moment though. Not with six hulking Shadows bearing down on him and the high priests behind them conjuring some kind of spell.

  Ruler Skill: Sovereign’s Domain

  David gasped, flinching from the spear of sharp pain he felt. His authority met a wall of force and shattered. David scowled. Delon was right. The Watcher was helping the temple of Balek.

  “Zoey, the Watcher is blocking me,” David called as he charged forward. Zoey drew her bow, letting three arrows go.

  Zoey hissed when the Shadows blocked the arrows from reaching the priests, but David expected that. Essence throbbed within him and he felt Ignis’ excitement. His sword lit up with blue flames and the blade vibrated.

  Sword Skill: Flash Echo

  The flames vanished, drawn into the blade. The white turned a dark shade of blue with veins of red. A ruler skill would ordinarily help him here, but the Watcher would only push against him again.

  The first Shadown lunged and David sliced through its arm. It hit the ground with a squelch and rolled into a squat. Three golden arrows plunged into its head from behind and Zoey pulled her bow again.

  “Orna, it’s core!” David yelled behind him. He sensed Elisha coming too and soon Delon would join in the fight.

  Be careful with your swings, Ignis warned and David glanced up where three more slash marks had eaten into the stone above.

  Five more, David thought. The next Shadow was a large beast. A blot of dark fur and a blank, large head. It swung its claws at him and David chopped them off. The beast staggered back as three more cuts tore at its chest.

  David cursed as its body formed again. Alicia had warned that they could regenerate, but it was still annoying to see. He lunged for it, looking past the Shadow beast to the five others behind it. They blocked the priests, protecting them. But David sensed the growing power of the spell those two were chanting. Essence collected in that area, gathering mass.

  “Elisha,” David called as he dodged the beast’s claws again, blinking to focus on his immediate enemy. The echo strikes cleaved the Shadow’s head, then tore into the face of the monster behind it. Their lack of response to damage was underwhelming, but David was moving too fast to care.

  Before the head could regrow, he made a diagonal slash, opening up what should be the thing’s gut. He crouched down once he heard Zoey let her bow go. Arrows pierced into the beast and exploded, shattering its torso.

  Black splashed on the passage floor. David looked up to the next, but none of the four moved. He knew why immediately. The patch of black on the floor rolled like pebbles gathering together to form rock. Slowly, they attacked the beast’s feet and the beast formed again.

  David snarled in frustration.

  “You know what you have to do,” Aza said. David groaned. Pitting his will against the Watcher was one thing, but what they were suggesting might be a problem. He wasn’t sure they could pay that price.

  Still, there was no choice.

  Summoning Skill: Left Hand of Chaos

  David let his sword disappear as he flexed his left arm. Essence rushed through him, and he calmed it abruptly. He needed control or what he was about to do would explode in his face. Weeks ago, before he became the Ruler of the first tower, he wouldn’t have dared to do this, but now he had no choice.

  “Elisha,” David called again. His younger brother walked out of a swirling mass of blackness on the left wall. His armor moved about him as if alive. Elisha gave David a small nod to confirm that he was ready.

  “You have to be fast,” Elisha said. “I don’t know how long I can hold them.”

  David nodded.

  Strands of thick, black threads shot out of the walls on both sides, wrapping around the Shadows. They tore at it, but more wrapped around them. Binding them to the wall. David finally saw the priests. They wore the same uniform as him, but their collars were different.

  They had no hoods on. In their hands were what looked like artifacts. Arrows flew past David, but something stopped them from reaching the priests. Some kind of barrier.

  David walked to the first Shadow. It tore at the binding, then tried to swing at David, but Elisha pulled its arm back, holding it in place. Its face was roughly made to look like that of a dog’s.

  David placed his gauntlet on its chest and tamed the chaos in it. The spell holding the Shadow’s existence together trembled, fighting against David’s attempt to tame it. Aza was right after all. So, he did the next best thing.

  The beast’s body trembled and its constitution failed. It was exhilarating to watch. The top layer of the beast’s dark skin sloshed down, dripping off it as its body was unmade. Its regeneration tried to fix the disruption of essence, but that wasn’t possible. Slowly, the beast became liquid as the spell was disrupted. David glanced at the priests and noticed their shock.

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  Gotcha! David thought. Then he saw the bone floating just below the beast’s waist’s side. He didn’t have to be Alicia to know that was the core. It was more like an anchor, feeding off the essence in one of those artifacts in the priests’ hands.

  [Arcane Magic: Dragon’s Breath]

  It was a smaller version of what he used when he fought the ruler, but it was just as powerful. It consumed the bone, burning it to nothing in a moment. The beast Shadow disintegrated into a pool of black that dissolved into the stone floor. David wasn’t sure it had died, but it had no anchor, so it wasn’t coming back.

  He walked over to the next, enjoying the look of terror in the eyes of the priests. For once, he was glad they didn’t die.

  Stretching his hand to the Shadow, a thought occurred to him and David grinned. He wheeled on the priests, leaving the Shadows. They writhed and wriggled in their bondage. David envied their loyalty. If he could have soldiers like them, fighting the tower gods would be easier.

  “I thought this would be difficult,” David said once he stood before the barrier protecting the priests. He scowled at the door to the room to the left, then at the priests. “For a moment, you all seemed like insurmountable foes.”

  “You think you’ve won?” one of the priests sneered. He was the oldest of the two, but they were both far down in age. The stench of his breath was a heavy thing to perceive. But nothing could reach the glaring hate in his eyes and pinched face.

  “No,” David responded, reaching with his gauntlet for the barrier protecting them. Their dread became physical. The younger priest twitched, shifting back.

  Chaos has been tamed!

  The barrier shattered. David imagined Alicia would have seen lines of essence frayed and breaking. All he felt was a small gust. He took a step forward and touched one of the artifacts with the gauntlet.

  The artifact resisted his gauntlet.

  Of course, David thought. If he could destroy this, it would have been easy to destroy the Shadows.

  He pulled the artifacts from their grips. They smelled foul. Perhaps because they had been part of the circle of eight before this. He didn’t care. Once the artifacts were in his hands, the Shadows began to dissolve. The spell stopped feeding the Shadows any essence and their anchors floated where the shadows had once been.

  [Arcane Magic: Call of Wrath]

  The spell brought dark memories, but David blinked Liam’s face away. Four balls of flames formed in front of him. They shone with the rage of his new power. They split apart and flew toward the anchors. One was a vial of red liquid and another was a wooden comb.

  The last two were some kind of fabric tied together to form small masses. David knew what the tokens meant, but he willed the thought away. This was no time to rage about Balek’s cruelty. He’d known the tower god was wicked, but this was a new height of disregard for life.

  “Alicia was right,” Orna said, appearing beside David. Elisha and Zoey marched over too. David turned to her with a brow up. Orna grinned and she seemed younger. “She said you were strong enough to make this easy.”

  “We are not done yet,” David said, placing his gauntlet on the door. “I didn’t know the Shadows were conjured creatures. She didn’t either.

  The stone door groaned, and cracks appeared on the surface. They stretched the entire length of the door, then widened slowly until it caved in.

  David waved his hands in front of him to clear the dust. They crossed the small heap of stones to get into the room. It was dimly lit.

  Two floating anchors hovered near the door. More Shadows. A small, rusty fork. And a blood-stained scarf. David burned them all.

  “I guess you beat them already,” Dellon said, joining them in the room. David looked up, stretching his innate senses. The cavalry was coming, but they didn’t need saving anymore.

  In the middle of the room were the priests. All eight. Suffering under the weight of duty. Of loyalty and faith. Their god was spending them like they existed to be extinguished so flimsily.

  To Balek, they were nothing but tools.

  He ignored the stench and concentrated on the chain linking them. Elisha crouched near one of the priests.

  “We can wait it out and let them die,” Elisha suggested.

  “Th…No!” Orna said.

  David ignored them. He crossed over the chain. He’d expected some kind of force to push back against his intrusion. But nothing happened. He saw their faces now. Not clearly, but enough to give him a clear picture of their suffering. They were in pain, but they couldn’t even cry out. He sat down, crossing his legs in front of him.

  “You want to break them out of it?” Zoey asked.

  “That’s the only way to get them out without killing them.”

  “Why do we care about them?” Elisha asked. David winced. Once before this life, Elisha would have been interested in saving anyone—ally or not. “This is not some punishment, Dave. To them, it is piety. They are doing this for something they were promised by their god. They were willing.”

  “They were lied to, manipulated. Just like Balek tried to manipula—”

  “Shut up, Elisha,” Zoey said, her eyes fixed on David. “What’s the risk?”

  “To me? None. Not from this,” David lied. “But it might pull the Watcher from its perch.”

  “That might kill us all,” Elisha said. “Just let them die.”

  “Then that makes you any better than Balek?” Orna asked, her eyes heavy with accusations. It surprised David. “And Alicia doesn’t think the Watcher will intervene.”

  “They already did,” David said. He peered at the priests, trying to glean any sense from their murmurs. “Earlier, I could have used my domain, but the Watcher blocked it.”

  “You see what I mean?” Elisha asked, his voice grave through his helm. “We don’t owe these vultures anything.”

  “No,” David agreed. “I am not trying to save them. This is the only way I know to break the spell without ruining anything. Unlike Alicia, I can’t connect to essence. But I can touch and manipulate it better than she can.”

  Ruler Skill: Sovereign’s Domain

  David was ready for the push-back. The pain pierced through him—a burning in his chest. It worsened the damage he suffered before. But he wasn’t weak anymore. And he had realized something. The Watcher was trying to minimize its involvement.

  David grinned.

  He pushed his influence. Essence bubbled and popped around him. The room trembled as their wills carved at each other. It was surprisingly exciting to war against something or someone of such power. David chuckled. He heard the walls crack around him, the ground vibrated and an electrifying rush made him shudder.

  Sovereign’s Domain established!

  You have complete control over the reach of your domain!

  [The Watcher sees you!]

  As they should, David thought. He shoved against the flow of essence moving from one priest to the other. The connection was tenuous, but that was only because the vessels were weak.

  One by one the priests fell, breathing their last as the power they controlled erupted within them.

  David sprung up and stumbled back. He needed to see Chloe soon.

  “Are you alright?” Zoey asked. “Is it done?”

  David nodded. “We have to go.”

  “Selaa is not back yet,” Dellon said.

  David pulled Zoey with him, walking out the door with Elisha right behind them.

  “They are not coming,” David said. “The task starts now, Dellon. We have to survive the night!”