Sealed inside the towering city walls of Acadia, magic users known as Wielders are feared and hunted for the abilities they have been blessed with. They're living in hiding, terrified of revealing themselves to the Authorities that hunt them.
But w...
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"I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us."
- Veronica Roth
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Soren swept his gaze up the black wall in front of him. Even though he wasn't touching it, the kraenite reached for him, for his powers. The stone was like a living creature, scraping its claws down his spine.
He should have feared of the dread that tried to seep into him the closer he got to the Wall. His knees should have quivered, his chin wobbling as his eyes burned with tears.
Instead, he was as emotionless and still as the stone before him.
He knew fear-it was like an old friend. He remembered how it struck him when the shadow loomed over Adira in the dream, how it paralyzed him when it wrapped its tendrils around him. When the shadow pulled him out of her grasp, the fear had devoured him.
When he woke up in the backseat of one of the vans with Grimm gripping the back of his neck, it was over. It was all over. Grimm knew-he was the shadow in the dream. There was an angry fire blazing in his eyes. Soren attempted to shrivel away from him, but the fingers at his neck squeezed tighter in response.
A familiar cold swept through his skin, down his spine, into his head, through his heart. He had one last moment to realize Grimm was once again sweeping away his emotions, the very thing he was just starting to get back. Then it was gone and he was numb.
Now, Soren smirked at the Wall in triumph. The sheer size of it, the metallic smell that reminded him of blood, the blunt power it exuded-it would have sent him, the scared little boy, running back to the van.
Grimm had made him a man once more. He was stronger than anyone of Grimm's crew that skirted Soren's sides. They all knew fear, but unlike him, they still had to feel it. He could practically smell Elian's terror from a few yards away.
"Company," Grimm said, stepping forward from the line of Wielders. He spun on his heel, turning to face the group with his hands clasped behind his back. "Today is the day in which we change the tide. Wielders will once again take their rightful place at the top of Evaros. No longer will our friends and family be trapped within this forsaken city."
