The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 2 by Bella Forrest (top ten ebook reader .TXT) 📗

is created, something has to fill it. Something has to restore the balance.

When the last of us falls, I wonder what will come to balance the scale?

Alex flipped the page over, finding it to be the very last one. He had never thought of it like that before, in terms of a balance that needed to be kept even. Nor could he imagine the terror of knowing his time was running out. And yet it seemed he and Leander had something in common. The tragic title of Last they shared.

We are desperate.

The daughters of House Volstag have sacrificed themselves in the hopes that we may hold out a while longer. I begged them not to, but they used the last resort of their death magic. They could not be stopped, and though it broke my heart to watch them, their last moments proved a fantastical sight. To see their bodies shimmering with bright, blinding silver light as they stormed across the field, channeling their souls into a single pulse of raw destruction, was something I shall never forget. Still, we miss their presence more keenly for their loss. I wish they had not done so, but they were as desperate as I am now, as I write this. It is no easy task, to use one’s death magic, and I wish there had been another way. But those ferocious Howling Valkyries would not be swayed. They did not wish to end their days cowering behind rocks, as we do.

I envy their courage. We all do.

I heard the others talking of performing a similar ritual, but I know they will not.

The aura of the Volstag sacrifice still ripples across the field like ice on a river, almost liquid to the touch, evaporating any Mage who sets foot on it. But they will wait us out. The aura will not remain forever, and they will come for us before long.

I do not wish to use the essence of myself in battle, yet I know I will, should they push me to it. I will take down as many as I can before the end, though I do not imagine the end is far off. We are so very few now. Dillane of House Copperfield fell yesterday, and his sons are bereft.

All hope is lost.

We are the final players in the game of life and death. We are the final weights holding everything steady, before the scale tips. We are all that stands between balance and the void.

I hope they are ready to pay the price for what they have done. May their wrongdoing haunt them to the ends of the earth.

There were only four more words on the page, with the date written rapidly at the very bottom right corner. 1908. Alex’s heart was in his mouth as he let the words sink in. He knew the outcome of the story, and yet Leander had still been alive when he had written those sentences. Leander could not have known what would happen to him. The ambush, the scaffold, the death by magical firing squad. He pictured Ellabell’s description of a burning silver light in the eyes of Leander Wyvern and wondered if it was the same silver light the daughters of House Volstag had radiated as they had walked to their deaths. A flicker of a Spellbreaker’s essence.

It was the first Alex had heard of this mysterious death magic, though he guessed it to be similar to the life magic of the Mages. Everything in balance. Every magic having an anti-magic counterpart. A kind of dark magic that took something from your soul in order to use it—a high-stakes, high-cost power. One to be used only in desperation.

Elias’s words came creeping back—“a desperate Mage will do anything to win a battle”—though relevant, it seemed, for Mage and Spellbreaker alike. It had certainly sounded like desperation in Wyvern’s description of the Volstag women. A last-ditch effort to buy time for the others by using their essence. By bartering their souls as payment. Alex shuddered.

His eyes prickled as he read Leander Wyvern’s final words, feeling them resonate powerfully within the depths of his own heart.

I am the last.

Chapter 19

“Are you ready to go?” asked Alex as he sat down opposite Jari and Natalie in the mess hall, taking a small bite out of a rosy apple.

“What?” Natalie replied sleepily, looking up from her plate of congealed lunch. Her eyes, so dark brown in color they were almost black, were bloodshot, and the bruised-looking bags had reappeared beneath them.

“Are you ready to go to the cellar? We’ve only got about forty-five minutes,” clarified Alex, checking the clock on the wall.

Natalie shook her head. “I am sorry, Alex, but I cannot go today. I have a session arranged at half past with Professor Renmark.” She stifled a yawn as she pushed the remains of a mushroom through the gelatinous mass of cream sauce with the prongs of her fork.

“But we said we’d meet today,” said Alex, crestfallen.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” repeated Natalie, her brow furrowed in apology.

“Can’t you just brush Renmark off for once?” Alex tried a different tactic, trying to keep the annoyance from creeping into his voice. “You’ve been spending too much time on these extracurricular things, Natalie. You’re exhausted. Come on, just take some time off and come with us to the cellar. You don’t have to spar or anything, just sit with us for a while.” His gaze fixed on Natalie’s so she might see the concern that lay there.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot go today. I really cannot.” She sighed wearily. Alex knew she had seen the look of worry in his eyes and heard the troubled note in his words, because she would not look him directly in the eye. Her shifty gaze only added to his concern. It was as if another curse had settled over her, except Alex could not feel the physical presence of a coiled snake gripping her insides as he had