Page 147 of Riftborne

I reached down, feeling for the dagger I kept secured to my thigh. My mind seeped with a delicious flavor of rage as my hand found the hilt and tore it from the strap.

My powers didn’t matter.

I’d slit his throat.

Either he was going to die, or I was going to fight until he dragged the life from my very bones.

My feet hit the floor with a newfound purpose and started towards the door when a glimpse of white hair stopped me in my tracks.

It was a mirror… Me.

But something was off.

I tilted my head to the side, inspecting it, slowly moving closer. My hair was still in ringlets from the ball. The shadows surrounding my eyes did appear darker, but still, that wasn’t it.

I crawled onto the bed, placing my face directly opposite the glass. And stared. My skin was the same ivory hue. I moved my face closer.

My heart stopped.

The opal eyes I had always known. The ones that glowed with white light anytime I used my focus. My one defining trait that had never changed–never faltered.

Those were gone.

Replaced by something haunting.

Something sinister.

It was as if ink had been dropped into my eyes.

My hand shot over my mouth as I backed up, and my gazedarted across the room. I felt my pulse begin to race. I had seen this before. In Mercer’s classroom.

The way he had poured the ink into the water, the twists and turns, the blackness spreading out, taking over, colonizing the clear liquid within.

It swirled in the corners of my eyes, past the opalescent irises. Like a battle for control.

And then the realization flooded me…

The darkness around my eyes… growing deeper since being in the West… The shadows I’d seen since arriving to Emeraal…

Wraiths could only use their abilities when close to their homeland. This was the first time I’d ventured outside Luminaria. The first time I’d ever neared the tear between worlds.

The void, the shadows, the lawn slammed into my mind, memories tearing through walls I had built to protect myself.

He had called me a shadow wielder.

Shadow wielder.

My heart froze. Whispers of a name echoed in the back of my mind.

One I had heard in a dream.

Fiandrial.