Finn darts back, boots kicking up flurries of snow as Nyx strides forward, hood drawn low, his cloak flaring behind him like a shadow given form.

  Risa and Cassius split off to the other flank, faces obscured beneath simple cloth masks. Silent. Calculated. Each moving with purpose.

  Three new figures in the clearing, no more than a teenager and two children, draw immediate scoffs from the headmaster.

  Cedric narrows his eyes and barks, “Where did they come from?”

  When he gets a proper look, he lets out a derisive laugh. “Children? This is what they sent against us?”

  He spots Cassius through the snow-haze, recognition blooming. “Cassius. The circus has been hunting for you. Never thought you’d be tagging along with these misfits.”

  “You bastard!” Cassius snarls, steel flashing as he blocks an incoming shadow slash with his short sword. “You sold them! The orphans—you sold them like livestock!”

  “They wanted someone strong. Someone special,” Cedric sneers, arms folded, watching the chaos from a safe distance. “But you? You were a disappointment from the start.”

  Nyx, the smallest among them, draws little attention at first, until he strikes. His spells hit with surgical precision, bursting through shadow-crafted defences like thunder through mist. Each flick of his fingers dismantles barriers like brittle glass, his magic raw and devastating.

  They begin to notice.

  Shadows converge on him, one after another. More summoned by the minute. Under mounting pressure, Nyx shifts. His stance becomes tight, reserved, defensive.

  The shadows grow impatient, attacks frantic and wild, but Nyx holds his ground, cloak whipping as he weaves through spell and strike.

  On the outskirts, Cedric watches, frown deepening. His forces, conjured or not, are losing ground to a child. Unbelievable.

  Realising the fight is turning, Cedric begins to edge away, subtly lifting the two coin pouches from the snow.

  “Not a chance!”

  Cassius hurls his blade. It clatters into Cedric’s shin, sending him sprawling. A heartbeat later, twigs snake from the ground—Finn’s doing. The twigs wrapping around Cedric’s limbs, dragging him back into the frost.

  “Take the coin and let me go!” Cedric thrashes, but the more he struggles, the tighter the vines constrict.

  “Tell it to the knights,” Risa says coldly, stepping past him.

  Meanwhile, Nyx obliterates the last of the conjured shadows, their bodies collapsing into black mist. Snowflakes dance in the rising steam as silence settles.

  “They weren’t real,” Nyx says, breath fogging. “All summoned. The caster—he’s nearby.”

  A rustle. A presence. Behind the bushes, a dark figure breaks cover, retreating.

  Nyx hurls a fireball. The man halts his retreat, spinning to launch a flurry of shadow arrows with zero regard for Cedric, who screams from the ground as bolts rain past.

  Finn and Risa raise twin barriers just in time, blocking the cascading assault. Nyx follows with a larger and stronger fireball, its flames churning orange against the snow. The blaze consumes the bush line.

  A voice cries out from the inferno. “Stop! I surrender!”

  He raises both hands slowly and strolls out from behind the flaming underbrush, the orange glow licking the hems of his coat. “I’m just here to accompany Cedric,” he says lightly, as if stepping out for tea rather than a confrontation.

  “You almost got me killed!” Cedric howls, writhing on the snow-clad ground where he’s been unceremoniously dumped. His clothes are dishevelled, his once-neat hair a tangled mess, glasses crooked on his nose bridge.

  “He’s with the traffickers! Arrest him!” Cedric shrieks, his usual aristocratic poise shattered. Panic and humiliation colour his voice. His pride crumbles.

  The newcomer sighs, long and weary. “You’re just as I expected, Cedric. Predictable. So predictable it’s almost boring.” Then, casually, he turns to the group watching him from the treeline.

  “Hello, Finn, Risa, Cassius… and Nyx,” he greets them one by one with a smooth smile, as if he’s arrived for a polite afternoon meeting rather than stepping onto a battlefield.

  The squad remains motionless, but their eyes are sharpened and narrowed, the tension in their posture coils like a drawn bow.

  “Who are you?” Risa demands, her voice crisp and firm.

  The man chuckles. “How rude of me,” he says, lifting his hands in mock apology. He peels back his hood with a theatrical flourish.

  The fire crackles behind him, casting flickering shadows across his youthful face—dark hair tousled, striking blue eyes that glint with mischief, and a handsomeness polished enough to make noble daughters swoon.

  “Elwin Sorell,” he says, offering a small bow and a playful wave. “But do call me Elwin. I volunteered to help Cedric, that’s all.”

  The inferno roars louder behind him, an ironic backdrop to his gentlemanly demeanour.

  “You imbecile!” Cedric spits, thrashing on the ground like a dying fish, his voice high and trembling.

  Elwin’s grin tightens. His patience runs thin.

  Without warning, he conjures a slender blade of shadow and sends it lancing through the barrier and straight into Cedric’s chest. It’s so sudden, so seamless, that none of them has time to react.

  The barrier cracks like glass, and the sword punches clean through Cedric’s heart.

  “You… cough—” Cedric’s words die in his throat as the weapon dissolves into mist. Blood seeps through his coat, a dark bloom spreading fast across the snow. He gasps one last time, “The Farnham family… will hunt you down,” before slumping lifeless into the cold.

  Elwin casually brushes imaginary dust from his shoulders. “The Farnhams? Please. A faded name clinging to past glory.”

  The group stands frozen, tension crackling in the air like a storm before a lightning strike.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Then Elwin turns to them with a winning smile. “Now that the interruption’s over—shall we talk?”

  Finn steps forward slowly, pulling down his mask and hood, his eyes narrowing with measured suspicion. “Mr Elwin,” he says. “I’ve never met you before. How do you know our names?”

  Elwin tilts his head. “Ah, my apologies. Sariah mentioned you before.”

  “You’re one of the Echoes of Ascendance?” Risa asks.

  “Indeed,” Elwin replies without hesitation. “A pleasure to finally meet all of you. I've been quite eager, especially to meet young Nyx.” His gaze flickers to the boy, and for a brief moment, his expression softens, like a child seeing a long-awaited toy. Curious. Excited. Dangerous.

  “Then… are you here just to meet us?” Finn asks carefully, stepping into a firmer stance.

  Elwin’s smile stretches wider. “And to see if you live up to the rumours.”

  He snaps his fingers.

  A tide of shadow bursts forth from beneath his feet, dark tendrils slicing through the snow like serpents, racing toward Finn with lethal intent.

  But Finn’s ready.

  He lunges backwards, rolling into the snow, his barrier flickering to life just in time to absorb part of the impact. The rest crashes into a conjured wall of twigs, splintering it with a dull crack.

  Nyx steps forward immediately, shadow lashing around his arms, his expression steeled, gaze focused.

  “Nyx,” Elwin laughs, “let’s see what perfection looks like in action!”

  A storm of shadows rushes toward the boy. Nyx cuts through them like they’re made of smoke and stone at once. His touch dispels them, but they keep coming, relentless.

  “This isn’t about stamina, Nyx,” Elwin calls, “let’s spice things up!”

  Finn stands at the edge of the clearing, watching as Nyx clashes with Elwin alone. The snow swirls around them in gusts, a bitter wind howling through the trees. Shadows lash out in waves, twisting and coiling like serpents from the dark.

  Finn’s fists clench. He turns sharply to the others. “Both of you—strengthen the barriers around yourselves.”

  Finn edges closer to Elwin’s flank, staying low behind the broken treeline. The air here hums with magic, heavy and cold. He draws back the energy he’d channelled into the protective barrier, redirecting it into a silent spell.

  With slow, deliberate movements, he conjures a set of thin twigs. Small enough to be invisible against the snow, strong enough to hold. They slither forward like roots, hidden under frost and debris.

  He waits while watching. Elwin’s full focus is locked on Nyx, eyes gleaming as he manipulates wave after wave of shadow to take down the boy.

  Now.

  The twigs spring up and bind Elwin’s legs mid-step.

  It’s brief. The shadows cut them away within seconds, but it's enough.

  Nyx lunges in that exact moment, his conjured blade a streak of midnight. The strike lands.

  Elwin recoils, eyes narrowing. Then, he smirks.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he purrs, turning suddenly towards Finn.

  A pulse of magic surges. Finn barely throws himself to the side as a lance of shadow tears through the space he was just in. Snow explodes behind him.

  “Finn!” Risa and Cassius cry out, darting toward him.

  “Don’t!” Finn snaps, raising a hand even as he scrambles behind a new barrier. “I can protect myself. But I can’t protect the two of you too!”

  The next wave comes crashing. Finn summons barrier after barrier, but they crumble under the force and barely slow the magic down. He dodges more than he blocks, breath ragged as he rolls and scrambles across the slick ground.

  The shadows are relentless. For every one he deflects, two more spiral toward him.

  And Nyx, he’s pinned. Caught in a swirl of summoned shadows that claw at his cloak and limbs, slowing him just enough to keep him out of reach.

  Risa watches helplessly. Her shoulders tremble, then square.

  “I can’t just stand here anymore,” she mutters. “I’m not a bystander.”

  She breathes deep, the cold burning her lungs. Elwin is too focused as his attention is split between Nyx and Finn. He doesn’t see her. Not yet.

  She thinks back to Finn’s lessons. Control. Spell compression. Precision over power.

  “Shrink the size, keep the weight.”

  “Less flare, more force.”

  “I’ve only got one shot.”

  “At this distance,” Risa whispers to herself, “I can’t hurt him. But I can interrupt his casting.”

  She carefully conjures a subtle gust of wind on Elwin’s right. And then, with a focused breath, she compresses every ounce of her magic into a single, powerful burst.

  A spear of wind tears through the air from Elwin’s blind spot.

  It hits him square in the side. He barely staggers, but the interruption is enough.

  Finn gasps, finally catching his breath.

  “Nyx—now!” Risa shouts.

  Nyx moves.

  Shadow blades rise in his wake, clawing at him, trying to stop his lunge, but he pushes through them, ignoring the pain as they bite into his arms and sides.

  His eyes burn with focus.

  One clean strike.

  A shadow-forged blade slashes through Elwin’s flank.

  Elwin collapses to one knee, breathing hard. Blood spills fast, staining the snow beneath him.

  And yet—he laughs.

  Dark crimson drips from the corner of his mouth. His smile is wide, maddening, victorious.

  “Guess…” he coughs, “guess when the illusion began.”

  His body ripples, folds, and unravels into mist. A swirl of distorted space takes his place, then vanishes altogether.

  What’s left behind stills the world.

  It’s not Elwin on the ground.

  It’s Finn.

  Blood pools beneath him, soaking into the white. A deep, jagged wound mirrors the one Nyx had just inflicted on Elwin. The same location. The same shape.

  Nyx freezes. His hand reaches out in disbelief.

  “...Finn?” he breathes.

  “Stop!” a voice bellows across the clearing.

  Knights pour into the glade, swords drawn, their cloaks snapping in the cold wind. Aurelien leads them, jaw tight. They encircle Nyx.

  Risa and Cassius are already under their protection.

  “Nyx wasn’t trying to harm Finn!” Risa shouts. “He was aiming for Elwin. Nyx could be confused!”

  “There could be a misunderstanding,” Aurelien adds, raising a hand to keep the knights at bay.

  But Nyx doesn’t hear them. Doesn’t see them.

  His gaze is fixed on the blood spilling from Finn’s side, running like red ink across the snow.

  He crouches, knees deep into the blood-soaked snow.

  “...Finn,” he whispers again.

  No answer.

  He leans closer, his face pale in the reflection of the snow.

  “Finn.”

  No response.

  Seconds stretch, heavy and slow, until they feel like minutes. The circle of knights tightens around him, their shouts fading into a distant hum. The world narrows.

  In Nyx’s eyes, the dark smoke churns restlessly, spiralling, a storm gathering behind thin glass.

  Then, finally, a sharp cough breaks the silence.

  Followed by a low, pained groan.

  Finn wheezes, eyes fluttering open. “My head…”

  “Finn!” Risa and Cassius break through the line, dropping beside him in relief.

  “W-we don’t know why Nyx attacked you, or how Elwin vanished from the scene!” Risa’s voice cracks as she tries to explain.

  Nyx just stares. Frozen.

  Finn squints. “Risa… Elwin… wanted to pin it on Nyx. Shadows—damn things can cause hallucinations if they touch you.”

  His voice grows weaker, each word more of a struggle.

  Risa nods, tears welling. Cassius grips Finn’s shoulder, silent.

  Aurelien pushes through the knights to kneel beside them. She inspects the wound, face grim.

  Still, Finn forces one last sentence from trembling lips.

  “Nyx… It’s not your fault.”

  The snow falls in heavy silence.