The Secret of Spellshadow Manor by Bella Forrest (classic english novels txt) 📗

who had become a teacher, had challenged him. Known he was an easy target. Cast him down as Elias had done to his master, once.

And how it hurt. The ache of his essence peeling from his very being was an exultation of pain. It made him giddy, made him laugh, feeling the lightness of his body, the fire in his breast, the hurt, the hurt, the overwhelming hurt.

His hands were moving. Forming signs he had told his students never to use, focusing his energy into all the right shapes. His arms were bound above his head, and his motions were far from perfect, but his mind was an anvil against which he tempered his will, and the spell took form. Derhin’s eyes widened. He said something. The Head gave Elias a sharp look with his piercing eyes.

And then, Elias was a shadow.

In the hallway, Elias tried to pant, but he had no lungs. He tried to stand, but he had no legs. He was magic, and he was lifeless. He was formless. He was nothing, and yet he was Elias. The memory he had been hiding within slowly melted, crumbling down around him like ice before a flame. He kept moving.

The gardens of the manor were in fine disarray today. The snags and brush cast wicked swaths of shadow for Elias to tread between, and he practically zipped across the grass, the blades not even trembling at his passing. He was not many things anymore, but he was fast.

The cemetery was in shadow. The sun had slipped behind the manor, and Elias noted with approval that the little golden line that blocked off the catacombs had been broken, leaving nothing but a tangled wreckage of ice.

The Breaker was coming into his own. If Elias could just give him the right information, he would be the perfect dagger.

Slipping over the snow and grass, Elias came to a headstone. There had never been a name there, but as he pressed his shadowy form into the stone, he could feel it all the same.

Elias Olkrum.

“Ah,” Elias panted, a heat blazing through him. He contorted into the form of a man, kneeling on the grass, his hands balled into fists as he heaved with pain. His name reignited his power. It gave him strength.

Beside his grave was another. It was newer, but no less blank. If he didn’t visit the little stand of headstones every day, he might not have even noticed it appear, but he did, and it had.

The image of a boy with glasses, staring at Elias as he thrashed in his chains, flickered through his mind.

In a flash, Elias was back in that room. His wrists chafed against the cold manacles. The magic burned at his fingertips. The Head held his silvery knife while Avery Derhin took a step back, his eyes wide.

The Head was a powerful magician, but an old man. He’d swiped the dagger down toward the crimson thread he’d pulled from Elias’s chest, but he hadn’t been fast enough. Elias had let out a hiss, his eyes open, his mouth moving in a single command as a shadow had poured from his fingertips which had formed the sign of anima. Elias the shadow had been born, and had flown across the room, sliding from shade to dark. Then the Head’s eyes had stared coldly as he’d slashed with the blade, and the little red cord emerging from the human Elias’s chest had been severed neatly at the base. The Head had stood there, and as shadow-Elias had fled, he’d seen the man sliding the life magic into a little black bottle. In his chains, hung from the ceiling, Elias had shuddered once, and then gone still.

And so, shadow-Elias had watched human-Elias die.

He’d fled out into the hallways. His memories had fallen apart. His emotions had died with his life.

His entire existence had begun to revolve around a single, simple mantra. The words that had been burned into him by his dying breath.

Elias got to his feet in front of his grave and looked up at the tall walls. Slowly, he let his form dissolve, sinking back into the shapeless mass of darkness.

He knew he wasn’t a man anymore. The Breaker had called him ‘homunculus’; perhaps that was correct. Elias didn’t even have the capacity to care.

What he knew was that he had been killed. His last words burned inside him, the only thing that mattered, the command to be carried out at all costs.

Destroy this place.

Without a sound, Elias vanished back into the manor.

Ready for the next part of the story?

Dear Reader,

Whether you’re a fan of my Shade series, The Gender Game, or brand new to my books, I want to thank you for your time in taking a chance on this book. I haven’t worked on a story quite like it before, so it’s been a new experience for me—and I hope I managed to entertain you!

If you did enjoy it, it would be awesome if you could leave a review on Amazon — even if it’s just a sentence or two. Every review makes a difference to an author and helps other readers discover the book. :)

As for Book 2 of the Spellshadow series, it’s called The Breaker, and is available now from Amazon!

Here are the links so you can download your copy and continue reading:

If you’re in the US, tap here.

If you’re in the UK, tap here.

Australia, tap here.

For any other country, tap here.

And here is a preview of the cover (you may need to turn the page for it to be visible):

I’ll see you there. :)

Thank you again for your time.

Love,

Bella x

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