Chapter One
When performing practical hours for the New York Academy of Magic, there’s a right way to slay monsters, and a wrong way.
Take a good guess which one I’m usually best at.
I barely managed to dive aside as the boar charged, slamming into the rock behind me and obliterating it. I glanced back at the dusty remnants, adrenaline pumping through my veins. A second later and that could have been me.
“You’re going to have to move faster than that!” Asher yelled. He was a near-blur of movement, taking on three of the massive boars by himself with a combination of seamlessly executed sword techniques and spells that kept Porky and friends at bay. His golden hair didn’t have a strand out of place, profile of his face nearly flawless, muscles bunching and flexing almost like the statue of a god that wouldn’t be out of place here in Greece. Basically, he looked perfect.
Ugh.
“Focus on your own fight and keep out of mine!” I snapped.
I caught Asher smirking before I turned back to my own collection of soon-to-be-bacon. The boar that’d nearly pulverized me had been joined by a couple more, each nearly as big as a cow, looming above the dusty, olive tree-strewn mountainside we’d tracked them to. Kalamata, Greece (yeah, like the olive, as if I hadn’t heard that joke from my classmates a million times before I left), was full of a lot of things: Water so blue it was criminal. Sand so white you went blind staring at it.
Also, a giant boar problem out the wazoo.
But Skylar, I hear you saying, they’re just boars, how much trouble can they be?
See, these boars were the great, great, great grand pigs of the Calydonian boar. The one from all the legends. The meanest, toughest pig around. Which was why Asher and I were up here duking it out in the foothills instead of down at the resort soaking our feet in the surf and sipping sweet tea.
The boar on my right stomped the dirt so hard the ground shook. I dropped my foot back, centering myself, waiting until the exact second it charged.
The boar took off. I kneeled and slammed my hand into the ground.
“Humak!”
The magic stirring inside me answered. It rushed outward toward my hand, flowing through my fingers and sparking as it released into the ground.
A miniature chasm split open before me. The boar’s front feet caught and it went down hard, squealing all the way. I lunged, driving Valkyrie, my three-foot long, magic-powered blade through the weakest point in its hide.
The boar squealed once more before disintegrating into dust. I stumbled as I found myself leaning into air where its body had once been.
“What the heck?”
“Yeah, they do that,” Asher called.
I shot him a glare. “Maybe tell me next time?”
“And miss the look on your face? Never.”
The next boar charged and I danced aside, unable to keep myself from grinning. A lot had changed between Asher and me in the three months since we’d started advanced classes at the Academy. For one, we didn’t hate each other anymore (though near-constant annoyance was alive and well, trust me). We’d grown closer, not just as partners, but as friends. We were more in sync. We communicated.
Except, apparently, when it came to the magically-dissolving properties of Greek boars.
I shoved strands of my black-ish, silver-ish hair out of my eyes. The last two boars squared off to run me down. Asher was nearly done fighting his. We’d driven the pests away from the ignorant Norms below and up here into the hills around Kalamata. With any luck we’d be done before lunch.
“Spectra!”
My stun spell nailed the nearest charging boar right in the snout and it practically collapsed at my feet. I plunged Valkyrie into it but forgot how fast these suckers were.
“Watch ou—”
Asher’s shout came too late. The second boar used my momentary distraction to careen in from my blind spot. I tried twisting out of the way but still felt one of its tusks tear through my jacket and slice a shallow cut across my ribs. Fire raced up my body. I went down hard as a couple hundred pounds of beast charged past.
“Skylar!”
“Fine!” I bit out. “Just a flesh wound!”
Asher tried rushing over to help, but his couple remaining boars penned him in. I shoved myself to my feet. As great as it was having someone so strong and caring as a partner, I couldn’t rely on him all the time. If I couldn’t take one stupid boar…
“You’ve grown careless without me.”
My heartbeat thumped louder in my ears. All outside noises briefly dulled as the voice echoed in my mind, wormed its way into my thoughts.
“They wouldn’t stand a chance with our combined strength,” the Dark Prince said.
I squeezed my eyes shut so hard I saw white spots. I was in control. I was fine. He didn’t have any power over me.
And yet I still felt my mind slowly slipping into that cool, shadowy place inside where the Prince lived. He’d been quiet since I’d nearly lost control of his power during my last battle with Kasia. After that I swore I wouldn’t use him.
I couldn’t break that promise now. If I did, the curse…
No. I couldn’t think about that.
“Let me give you more power than you could ever—”
“No thanks.” I threw up a mental wall between me and him, cutting off his strengthening hold. “Go play solitaire and shut up.”
The Prince’s sudden surge of rage rushed through me so fast it briefly overwhelmed my defenses. The edges of my vision turned red. Everything was mine to hurt, to maim, to kill…
“Soon, then,” the Prince whispered. “Soon.”
“Never,” I hissed.
And just like that I was back to myself.
Right as the final boar charged.
“Defendi!”
The boar collided with my conjured shield, the force of his blow throwing me back. I cast a slicing spell as I hit the ground, but it glanced off the boar’s thick hide, not slowing it one bit. I hurled Valkyrie. The blade actually flew straight, the tip puncturing the boar’s shoulder. Its front legs gave out, but its momentum kept it careening my way. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the impact.
“You could roll out of the way, you know.”
I opened my eyes. Asher’s sword was sticking from the boar’s body, stopping it inches from colliding with me. He pulled the sword out and the beast poofed to dust. Asher smirked down at me, the sunlight haloing his face, and my stupid heart tripped over itself. It’d been doing that a lot lately. Mostly around him. I told myself it was just because we were getting along again and not any other reason. Because the thought of Asher and me…me and Asher…it was crazy. Insane.
Asher held out a hand and I grudgingly took it, letting him pull me up until we were side by side. Neither of us let go for a moment, our bodies resting close to each other, the space between us almost non-existent. I had to swallow to clear my throat. I was the tallest girl in my class, but Asher still stood a head above me. We’d been in close proximity like this more and more often lately thanks to the Academy’s practical hours. With him, my mutinous thoughts went wild on a regular basis. Especially now. I’d be totally lying if I said I hadn’t thought of closing the distance between us and…
“Skylar?”
I jerked and looked up into his eyes; deep ocean blue flecked with a bit of gold. Eyes that were searching my face, though I wasn’t sure what for.
“Yeah…?”
Asher slowly broke out into a smile. He let my hand go and brushed off the layer of dirt that’d caked my shirt.
“You hesitated.”
“I…what?”
“I saw you freeze up when that second boar charged. Are you…” He paused again, and this time it seemed like he was choosing his words carefully. “That’s not like you. Is something wrong?”
I was suddenly on high alert. He’d asked me almost the exact same thing a few months ago, right after we’d fended off Kasia the first time. I’d been forced to borrow the Dark Prince’s power to defeat her and nearly lost myself in the process. Asher had arrived at the last minute, but I wasn’t sure if he’d seen me consumed by the Prince’s power. That would have been catastrophic. I couldn’t tell anyone about the Dark Prince. Not Asher, not my other friend Colson, not even Mia, my best friend. I wanted to tell them. Badly. But if I did then whatever the Dark Prince was, whatever Kasia was planning when she’d cursed me with him, could put them all in danger.
I couldn’t bear that.
I forced myself to grin back at Asher. “My only problem is I’m doing most of the work around here. Let’s see, I took out six of them, and you took out…” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Only four. Somebody’s slacking.”
Asher didn’t smile back. He continued staring at me until, almost reluctantly, he sheathed his sword and took a look around, hands on his hips. “That’s how it’s going to be, huh?”
My chest tightened. “What do you mean?”
“You completely miscounted. I took out eight to your six. Means you’re two behind.”
I relaxed. Not that I felt much better. I might have gotten away with lying to him this time, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stand it. Emotionally or physically. If I kept having to hold my breath every time I thought he was growing suspicious then I might as well start wearing a corset.
“Skylar.” Asher knelt beside the mound of dirt that the last boar had turned into. “You know you can talk to me, right?”
The tightness in my chest was back. I crossed my arms. “Of course I know that.”
“Hmm…” He looked up at me, then back to the ground. “I know we had a…rough start to the year—”
“You mean the last few years,” I pointed out.
Asher let out a sigh like a man under serious duress. “I said I was sorry. Anyway, I just wanted to remind you in case you forgot.”
I slowly let myself relax. He wasn’t attacking me. He was genuinely trying to make sure I was doing okay. And I appreciated that. More than he knew. “Thanks, Asher. I just have a lot on my mind and—”
A loud squeal cut me off. Asher and I whirled in time to see two more boars we’d somehow missed race off. One split toward Kalamata while another took a narrow path between the mountains, soon vanishing between the trunks of scraggly trees. I groaned.
“I’ll rock paper scissors you for which one I get,” Asher said, holding out his hand. I waved it aside with a sigh.
“I’ll take the mountain one.”
“Shame. When I’m done, I’ll be thinking of you as I soak my feet in the pool.”
“Ha ha. Try not to do anything too stupid.”
“I’d say the same, but that would mean you couldn’t do anything.”
I gritted my teeth as Asher laughed and jogged off after his boar. That left me Fugitive #2, Mr. Soon-to-Be-Skewered. I stopped channeling my magic through Valkyrie, sheathed the blade-less hilt, and took off after it.
I couldn’t complain much. As un-fun as this mission was, it was a nice distraction from most of the Academy classes. Not that anything at the Academy was boring, but it was nice to get out and stretch my legs. In Greece. With giant pigs.
Hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
But for me, the missions were more of a reprieve. I loved the Academy, the wide hallways and vibrant, bustling classes. I loved hanging out with my friends at the Smoking Lamp coffee shop and eating lunch with Mia beneath the giant oak tree in Remembrance Hall.
Lately, though, a shadow had fallen over all that. Most of the students were blind to Kasia’s near-successful attempt at taking out the Academy. I wanted to pretend like there was no way she had the kind of manpower to almost pull it off again, but one thing I’d learned about the Society of the Fallen Star was to never underestimate Kasia Armani and her acolytes. The woman was seriously messed up, seriously powerful, and had a serious grudge against my mom. Which, of course, was why she wanted to use me to get her revenge.
The Dark Prince had been—and still was—part of that plan. Kasia might have cursed me with him, but the guy was…actually useful. I might be forced to resist his influence, but there were some perks to having an immensely powerful, unbelievably good-looking, arrogant-beyond-all-belief curse lodged somewhere in your chest cavity. Go figure.
“Here, pig, pig, pig…” I stopped to get my bearings before I kept jogging. There weren’t any walking paths this far away from the tourist spots, so I was forced to pick my way along the game trails and space between the rocks and scrub brush, following the hoofprints of my quarry. The ground grew steep. The mountains rose and closed in on either side. I paused again to make sure I was going the right way.
I nearly missed the cave.
It looked as though the outline of a door had been carved straight into the mountain’s wall, everything beyond it pitch black. I carefully approached. I couldn’t help being wary. The shape looked too perfect, kind of like the Farcast portals we used to travel across the world. Why on earth would anything like that be out here?
I stepped inside, trying to reassure myself that there was nothing too out of the ordinary about it. There were pockets of hidden magic all over the place. Maybe this was one. Maybe it was an extremely eclectic tourist trap not marked on any maps. Maybe I was being overly paranoid and just needed to suck it up and stop being a scaredy cat. The hoofprints led in here, after all, and I wasn’t going back to Asher without a job well done.
I drew Valkyrie again, the blade’s glow creating a small circle of light around me while I made my way through the narrow tunnel. The farther in I walked, the brighter it grew up ahead.
As the tunnel continued narrowing, I was forced to lean against the wall, struggling to breathe. My heart pounded in my chest. My eyes swept every corner.
“Keep moving,” I growled. “Just keep walking.”
But my body didn’t obey. I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out, until the images of the caverns beneath New York slowly faded from my mind. I wasn’t there right now. Kasia wasn’t bearing down, trying to kill me and Asher and everyone I loved. She wasn’t here and I was safe.
I opened my eyes again. The cave was just a cave. It looked beautiful, not dark and dismal and potentially full of death.
“Look at you sniveling. You’re weak without me,” the Prince whispered.
I ignored him.
I heard a pig’s distant squeal as I emerged from the tunnel into a larger cavern. The enormity of it nearly took my breath away, as though the entire mountain had been hollowed out, leaving a space the size of a football stadium in its place. Thin waterfalls of sun-kissed sand cascaded from holes in the ceiling, puddling in piles below. Groundwater had collected into shallow pools between, creating islands of dirt.
More squealing from across the cavern. I took off after it at a run. I could play gawking tourist later.
I waded through one of the shallow pools and onto the next island of sand, eyes scanning for the boar. But something else stuck out to me instead, something I couldn’t believe I’d missed before. I squinted, expecting it to go away like some crazy mirage. It didn’t.
It was a mansion, smack dab in the middle of the cavern. It looked like it wouldn’t have been out of place in a German fairy tale; you know the ones, the kind where everyone dies and there’s pretty much no life lesson except that life sucks and you should never leave your bed. This house even fit the vibe: dark and gloomy, crawling with vines and crafted with worn brick, rounded arches above the windows, the works.
I took a hesitant step closer, as though doing so might finally break the enchantment I must have set off. The house still didn’t go away. And now I’d spotted something else. No, someone else.
Someone was standing in one of the windows.
It was like my eyes were drawn to them, a faint figure in white, blurry at this distance. As I watched, they waved at me. A chill ran down my arms at the same time I felt an inexplicable pull toward the front door. The entire experience was eerie, but there was something else tugging at me; something in that house I couldn’t help but want to reach for.
I took another step.
Squeeeaaall!
I must have been more out of it than I realized because the boar had snuck up on me like a ninja. I didn’t move in time, taking the full force of its charge that sent me flying. Water and grit splashed in my mouth when I landed. I sputtered and spit. I was ninety-nine percent positive I’d have a boar-faced dent in my ribs tomorrow morning.
Wheezing, I forced myself to standing as the boar circled back around. It lined itself up with me. I leveled Valkyrie, risking a quick glance back at where I’d seen the house.
It was gone.
Zilch. Kaput. Nada. Like it’d never been there at all, as though taking my eyes off of it for even a second had broken whatever spell caused it to appear in the first place. An uncomfortable sense of loss welled up inside me. I whirled back to the boar.
“You’re going to pay for that, hammy.”
The boar let out an angry squeal. I didn’t wait for it, raising Valkyrie and lunging—
Right as the ground shook and the earth collapsed beneath my feet.
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