Shadeslinger Novels & Stories

Vic started. “We’ve checked their home, there is no scent of them anywhere, at all.” Mimi continued. “It’s like…they never existed. Vic finished. “Are the teams ready?” Kydence asked as they walked down some stairs and into a huge conference room and there stood fifty Shadow warriors dressed in black from head to toe, the only part of their body to be seen was their eyes, even then they used black contacts. They couldn’t allow anyone to know who they are and what they look like. Any little thing could identify them. They took no chances.

The shard’s remnants cling to her, faint silver veins under her flesh. “Look.” Silas points to the horizon. A city glimmers there, unfamiliar but alive, wolves and humans moving in the distant streets. A new realm. A fresh start. Ryland kneels beside us, his good hand resting on Selene’s brow. “She needs a healer.” “We all do,” I murmur. But as I lift Selene, her breath shallow against my neck, I feel the weight of the shard’s echo. The Architect’s final words, hissed as he dissolved: **“You cannot kill a shadow. Only scatter it.”**

Warriors of light, eyes glowing like stars, waiting. We were waiting. For him. Across the field, the shadows thickened. From them emerged a figure cloaked in ash. Logan. But not Logan. His form towered and twisted, obsidian wings unfurling behind him like night itself. His eyes blazed crimson. His voice, when it came, cracked the sky: "Little flame. You always burn brightest before you're extinguished." I kicked my horse forward. The charge felt like thunder. Like purpose. Like all the broken pieces I’d ever hidden inside me had been melted and reforged into something stronger. I rode like I was born for it. Like the earth bent to hold me steady and the sky opened just to watch.

Lila’s voice was steady, her hazel eyes scanning the shades, her charcoal stick sketching a rune on the ice, the dim light illuminating her face, the ice crunching under her knees, the marrow shades closing in, the plateau a battlefield, the chill a constant threat. “Sam, the shades—they’re tied to the runes on the ice shards!” Lila called, her voice steady despite the chaos, her hazel eyes glowing with focus, the blue glow casting an eerie light on her face, the wind howling across the plateau, the frost dusting her cloak, the blue glow a constant threat, the plateau a battlefield, their bond a warmth in the cold. “Destroy the shards, and they’ll weaken!” She sketched faster, her silver run

“That’s what makes this worse.” The shades struck. One vaulted the wall, its body flickering in and out of form, and landed inside the stronghold with a soundless impact. A wolf lunged at it, blade high, but the creature dissolved to smoke around the strike. When it reformed, its long fingers closed on the wolf’s throat. The soldier fell, gasping, before Kaelen severed the shade’s arm with a brutal swing. The limb dissolved like ash, but the creature only laughed—or something like it, a rattling sound that clawed the ears.

Not a major threat, but enough to verify we could handle standard deployments while preparing for more dangerous targets. The anomaly was a Shade—darkness that moved with purpose, that could blind and disorient but wasn’t particularly lethal if you knew what you were doing. We hunted it through abandoned buildings until Amon’s shadows pinned it long enough for me to end it with Eugene’s device. The device worked perfectly. The Shade dissipated without drama, its parasitic structure disrupted by the resonance frequencies. My tattoo pulsed with credit recognition, and we collected our payment like any other Hunter team. “That was almost boring,” Fabian said afterward. “Is this what success fee

He looked at the woods, his face pale, his varsity jacket suddenly looking like a costume on a stranger. "Elara?" he whispered, his voice trembling. "What is that? Why is the sky... breaking?" "Don't look at the sky, Julian," Elara said, her voice dropping into the rasp of the Alpha. "Look at the trees." Emerging from the shadows of the "Perfect Oaks" was the Vantablack Shadow. It was Julian’s silhouette, but stretched and distorted, its edges flickering with high-frequency static. It didn't walk; it glided across the manicured lawn, leaving a trail of dead, grey pixels in the grass. Its eyes were two horizontal slits of Neon-Blue—the cold, unfeeling light of a system that had finally found

The baton connected with the back of my neck, hard and final. Pain exploded through me, fast and blinding. My body gave in instantly, strength draining out like it was never mine to begin with. My knees buckled. The wall slipped away. Voices turned distant. Blurred. And just like that... Darkness took over.

she screamed. He swung his blade, a streak of violet energy tearing through the darkness, but the light only illuminated the horror: the shadows weren't just surrounding them”they were becoming them. The shades were molding themselves into the shapes of the people they had been before the deletion. She saw a version of herself, one with eyes of liquid data, reaching out to tear the locket from her hand.

"The fourth Aspect is Shadow Claws, which allows you to draw the darkness in around you and use it as a weapon. If there are any flaws in your opponent's armor, then the shadows can bypass it. It's incredibly powerful if you're fighting at night, like all your Aspects are. The Shadow Aspects were given by a creature of the night." "What's the fifth Aspect?" Shamira asked. Clara was actually trembling, so Shane had to speak. Shamira was scared by her friend's reaction. What could be so bad --