Blood dripped from my fingertips. Not Viola's poison, but my own. The black scales spreading up my wrist itched like fire ants under the skin. Price of power, I thought, ripping a strip from my ruined silk skirt to bind the oozing cracks.
Chaos still echoed from the ballroom down the hall. Shouts. Shattering glass. Prince Theron's roar that sounded more beast than man. Good. Let Lysandra sweat.
I slipped into the servants' stairwell—and froze. A girl in a scullery maid's apron lay slumped against the wall. Not dead. Worse.
White roots grew from her ears and nostrils, pulsing with the same sickly green light as Theron's suppressor. Her hands clawed at stone, fingers fused into shovel-like bone spades. Lysandra's cleanup crew. The Queen Mother was turning servants into living tools.
The maid-monster lunged. I dodged, but her bone-shovel grazed my thigh. Pain flared—and with it, a surge of her terror. Sour and metallic. My magic gulped it down greedily.
Black veins spiderwebbed up my arm. The scales thickened. Too much. Too fast.
I slammed my palm on her forehead. "Sleep!" The command tore from me, fueled by stolen fear.
Her green-lit roots dimmed. She crumpled, bone shovels scraping stone. For a heartbeat, I saw the girl beneath—maybe fifteen, freckles dusting her nose. My stomach twisted. Is this what power costs? Turning people into nightmares?
A whistle cut the air. Three inches from my eye, a dart quivered in the wall. Its tip glowed with familiar poison—Viola's signature brew.
"Still breathing, cockroach?" Viola leaned against the far doorway. No foam at her lips now—just a sickly sheen to her skin and eyes like cracked emeralds. The poison hadn't killed her. It changed her.
She flicked her wrist. A drop of venom hit the floor. Stone sizzled. "Turns out your little trick improved my recipe."
I reached for the fear in the air—but tasted nothing. Viola's emotions were… hollow. Like licking glass. The poison burned out her humanity, I realized. No fear to harvest.
She shot another dart. I rolled behind a barrel of lamp oil as it thudded into wood. My magic churned uselessly inside me. Need new ammunition.
My gaze fell on the unconscious maid-monster. Her root-tendrils still pulsed faint green. Lysandra's power source. I jammed my bleeding hand onto the glowing roots.
Pain.
Not just physical. It was the scream of starved children, the whimper of tortured prisoners—thousands of crushed souls poured into me. The Queen Mother's "fertilizer" for her machines.
I screamed. My blackened arm glowed radioactive green. Scales split open, oozing light.
Viola hesitated. "What dark shit are you—"
I pointed at her. Not with a finger—with a beam of condensed agony. It hit her chest, not burning, but rotting. Her fancy lace bodice withered to dust. Skin beneath turned gray and cracked like dry mud.
She stared at the decay spreading across her ribs. For the first time, I saw real emotion in those poison-green eyes. Horror.
My magic pounced. Sweet terror flooded my veins. The black scales receded, sealing cracks with obsidian sheen. Human pain fuels her machines. But it supercharges my magic.
"Stop!" A new voice echoed in the stairwell. Hooded figures emerged from shadow—robes stitched with silver gears and crescent moons. The leader pulled back her hood. Ebony skin, eyes sharp as scalpels.
"Director Veridia," Viola gasped, clutching her rotting chest. "She attacked me!"
The woman ignored her, studying me like a specimen. "Feeding on agony? Unorthodox." She flicked a device on her wrist. Holographic text flashed:
SUBJECT: ELARA THORNWOOD MAGIC SIGNATURE: VOID-CLASS THREAT LEVEL: DRAGON
"We've been monitoring the palace's energy spikes," Director Veridia said. Her gaze dropped to my half-scaled arm. "Come to Obsidian Academy. Or Lysandra will peel that power from your bones."
A mechanical screech tore through the palace. Outside the window, clockwork soldiers scaled the walls, joints spewing green steam. Lysandra's personal guard.
The Director pressed a gear-shaped token into my hand. "Whisper to the shadows at moonrise. Or die here." She melted into darkness with her retinue.
Viola crawled toward the exit, decay still eating at her flesh. "This isn't over, witch."
Alone, I clutched the token. Cold metal bit into my palm. Distant shouts grew closer. Academy or grave? The choice wasn't hard.
I whispered to the gathering shadows. They coiled around me like smoke—and the world dissolved into ink.