Shadow's Savior: A Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance (Pyromancer's Path Book 5) by Cassie Cole

Author:Cassie Cole [Cole, Cassie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Juicy Gems Publishing
Published: 2022-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

31

Ryon

Like runetracing, few men and women were born with the ability to shadow-slide. But unlike the sorcerous predisposition of Pyros and Magi, shadow-sliding was more difficult to coax out of a child safely. Runetracers often felt the need to trace like a physical addiction. A sickness would come over a child, complete with chills and fever, that would only stop when put in proximity to a runestone.

Shadows discovered their ability more randomly.

I was thirteen years old. A long-limbed boy with no muscle on my frame. My friends were fond of calling me a tree sapling. It was a cool spring evening when we were playing at the edge of the woods, pretending our sticks were swords. I was good, but not the best of my group; that was Brannill, who was small but quick. The bully came upon us while the sun was setting. I don’t remember his name, an embarrassing realization for someone who inadvertently played such a large role in my life, but he was always skulking around our village looking for a fight. He was big for his age, and mean-tempered. Dumb, too. A dangerous combination.

He didn’t target me that night. Brannill was the source of his ire, for something he’d done earlier in the day or week or some other time. It didn’t matter. The bully backed him into the corner behind the farrier’s shop with violence on his mind.

The stone flew from my hand with the same automatic instinct I would later use against the Archon, striking the bully in the side of the head and knocking him into a crate of farrier nails. Even now, so many years later, I could remember the murder in his eyes when he looked at me.

I ran like I was going to die. He was larger, and faster than he ought to be. I was still awkward in my gangly body, with no chance of outrunning him, so I sprinted into the woods in the vain hope I could lose him there. But he matched my every step, gaining on me quickly, and I could hear his determined panting as he closed in on my heels, fingers stretching forward to snatch my collar…

I darted behind the shadow of a tree, and then I was somewhere else.

Not a great distance: only a few paces. It was the same forest, the same trees and tilt of the dying light through the canopy. Yet slightly different. I slowed to a stop and turned to see the bully twenty paces behind me, standing still and looking confused. One moment he’d been close enough to touch me, and the next moment I was out of his range.

It was disorienting for both of us. We stood there staring at each other for a long moment, and then he turned and ran home, screaming at the top of his lungs that I was a demon.

The adults in town knew better, and my father enrolled me in the Academy the next day.

Now, shadow-sliding came as easily as blinking my eyes.

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