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

vile bottle and its abhorrent name. Shaking off his anger, he stood at one end of the cellar, close to the old indentations on the ground, and let the anti-magic flow through him. The tendrils of black and silver rippled smoothly around his fingertips, awaiting instruction. Pinching the vaporous substance between his fingers, he forged shards of glinting ice that shone with dark menace in the torchlight. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he sent the shards hurtling toward the bottle on the floor, creating a whoosh of air as they shot across the room.

With some disappointment, Alex saw they had missed the bottle, but pride washed over him as he noted the shards sticking out of the ground nearby, holding their form for a moment or two before they began to melt. The savage tips had been sharp enough to cut into the hard ground, where before they would have shattered and snapped before they had even reached it. He was definitely making progress.

His confidence boosted, he kept his eyes on the bottle as he forged a dense shield around it, using the inverse technique he had figured out from Gaze’s class. Once he was certain it was strong enough, the anti-magic pulsing and crackling with vivid silver sparks, he held the shield steady with one hand as he conjured the body of an ice spear with the other. Brow furrowed, he focused on how he wanted the weapon to look, the anti-magic flowing and shaping with each turn of his fingers and each instruction from deep within his mind. The triangular point sharpened as he turned his fingers anti-clockwise. The tip of the long, shimmering rod glowed with an almost pearlescent quality as Alex held it in the air above him.

Still holding the shield steady around the bottle, Alex launched the icy spear with full force at the thrumming barrier, watching as it rebounded, the spear shattering into a million glittering pieces that fell to the ground in a shower of diamonds. The shield had held, protecting the object within. Alex grinned, feeling a trickle of sweat running down the side of his face from the exertion of performing two complex anti-magical tasks at once. He had focused his energies, and he had done it—he had performed two things at once, protecting and attacking at the same time.

It felt good, and he knew he had the notebook to thank for it. The ghosts of his heritage had steadied his hand and focused his mind. It occurred to Alex that Leander might’ve used those very skills on the battlefield, perhaps even in the final moments before the ambush that sealed his fate.

As Alex imagined the carnage, he felt a pull of somber empathy, and the shield around the bottle grew suddenly stronger, pulsing with a vibrant silver energy that rippled across the room in shimmering waves, like heat rising up from desert sands. The almost-liquid current undulated from the glittering barrier. His emotions, he realized, were tied to the fabric of his anti-magic, making it stronger and more potent, depending on how he channeled it and how keenly he felt that emotion.

Alex dropped the shield from around the bottle and set about attempting to make a barrage. He had done it by accident when trying to forge a shield for the first time, but wanted to see if it could be done more powerfully to create a useful tool in a fight.

The anti-magic swirled in the air as he lifted his hands and forged a ball of silver and black, the glinting sparks making the energy resemble a faraway galaxy. Alex slowly let the anti-magic slip back inside his body, one wisp at a time, feeling the peculiar sensation of it running through his veins, piggybacking on his blood, as he held it inside for a moment. Moving his hands sharply outward, he focused on the power of the barrage, his muscles tense, and released the fury of his anti-magic out into the cellar.

A rush of cold air whipped up about him as the wall of snow and ice surged forward in a dense mass, more of a blockade than a simple barrage, and exploded with a bone-shaking bang against the far wall, the small room filling quickly with a blizzard of detonated flakes. Alex whooped with excitement, punching his fist into the air as he felt some of the snowfall land on his cheek, the cooling sensation welcome as it melted against the heat of his sweaty skin.

Sitting down to take a breather, Alex flipped through the pages of the notebook, considering what else he might like to try while he had the time. He paused on the note about death magic. He knew the basis of his ‘essence’, but wondered how it could be physically used, when it was tied so intrinsically to the inner soul of a person. For a brief second, he thought about reaching inside himself and trying to find the corners of this ‘essence,’ but couldn’t bring himself to do it, feeling a tremor of fear shiver up his spine as he recalled the sacrifice Leander had mentioned, in using this mysterious death magic. It was a valid fear—one Leander had shared.

Alex stood back up and held out his palms, contorting his fingers to conjure the body of a sword. He started with the blade, shaping it to his requirements. It emerged from the twisting energy of black vapor and silvery shards, the edges thinning to razor-sharp points that seemed to tremble with power. A radiance shone through the length of the blade, glinting almost like real steel as it stretched out from the bare bones of a hilt.

The notebook had mentioned a focus technique in which the Spellbreaker pinpointed the very center of the object and forced the mind to feel the weight of the weapon it wanted to manifest. Alex concentrated on the sword until he imagined he could see the icy radiance firming up, becoming more tangible. Grasping the