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CHAPTER FOURTEEN ▪▫▪▫▪
MORANA COULD FEEL THEM CALLING. She could feel the shadows wanting to surrender to their familiars; it was taking everything in her to keep them under control. They were attacking anything that moved and they were coming her way.
"Get everyone out!" Morana shouted to Nikolai as she took a step towards the nichevo'ya just as Adrik and Nadia hit them with wind, causing holes to open up in their chests. Nikolai grasped her wrist.
"What're you doing?"
"Nikolai, get everyone out," Morana said, "Just go!"
Nikolai's mouth opened to protest but in the next moment, he was being pulled away by his screaming mother who'd just witnessed her oldest son being ripped apart. Morana looked back to the monsters and walked towards them; calling them just like they called her, trying to gather all of them beside her as screaming echoed through the halls.
Fighting the nichevo'ya felt like fighting the Volcra in the Fold; she could feel them, she could sense their movements. Only now she felt no hostility towards her, they weren't trying to kill her they were trying to corrupt her.
The two still in the ballroom were trying to get to her; embrace her, plunging her into the night and Morana was calling every bit of light she had inside her to the surface, to keep the monsters at bay. She shoved her hands forward, a rope of light and shadows wrapping around both the shadow monsters, a screeching sound leaving them both as the light burned through their shadows.
Gritting her teeth together, Morana forced another wave of light, of the power inside her to travel through the rope, and then the nichevo'ya dissipated. Shadows went back to their corners and Morana didn't know if she'd defeated them or if they merely hid away.
Panting Morana looked around, through corpses, overthrown tables, and pools of blood. She could feel them still, further away but still in the Spinning Wheel but there was something else. Another pull towards the monsters, a feeling similar to the one she got in the Fold. And she knew it was him, her father.
With a deep breath, Morana began making her way toward the creatures calling her. What if they'd found Nikolai? What if—
A cry made Morana halt in her steps. Her brows furrowed as she looked around the hallway she'd just entered and saw a little girl hiding behind a curtain. She couldn't be more than five years old. Her light blue dress was stained by blood and her face was red, and tear-stained, her bottom lip quivering as her eyes met Morana's.
