The next few weeks flew by for Nox like one compressed, brimming moment. By day, he was an ordinary Noxspire student: attending lectures, completing practical assignments, having lunch with Kane, Iris, Eveline, Ren, and Mira, pretending that his power was limited to the modest abilities of a dark mage with a blurred aura. He even allowed himself to relax a little in their company, though for Nox the word «relax» meant only that he did not keep his hand on his dagger every second. But at night, when the academy fell asleep, he descended into the catacombs and became who he truly was. Nox Endragon. The last of the Shadow Dragon bloodline. The Lord of Echoes.
His shadow army grew. After the first four goblins, he found and killed several more groups of those creatures lurking in the far corners of the underground. The goblins were weak but numerous, and now Nox had about a dozen shadow servants who tirelessly patrolled the catacombs, explored every nook and cranny, and reported everything they found. They discovered old storage rooms with decayed supplies, forgotten alchemical laboratories full of broken flasks and exhausted reagents, several skeletons in tattered robes, likely students or teachers who had gotten lost here many years ago. They even found a small underground spring of clean, ice cold water, which Nox marked as a potential refuge in case he needed to hide.
But most importantly, they found other creatures. Deep crawlers, giant centipedes with chitinous armor and poisonous mandibles, inhabited the darkest, dampest corners. Nox tracked one down, engaged it in battle, and though the beast proved a formidable opponent, fast and armored, he won, using Shadow and his increased speed. The crawler's echo became his new servant. A giant shadow centipede, capable of moving across walls and ceilings, slipping into the narrowest cracks, and attacking from unexpected directions. It was slower than the goblins but far more dangerous in direct combat. Then came swarms of subterranean rats, not ordinary ones, but mutated by the residual magic seeping from the catacomb walls. Nox did not kill all of them, only a few, and now he had a pack of shadow rats that could go where even the goblins could not, serving as ideal spies. The rats did not speak but transmitted images, smells, sensations, and Nox was learning to understand this language, so unlike human speech.
He experimented with his new power, trying to understand its limits. He discovered that he could maintain no more than twenty active servants at once, and the stronger the creature, the more Shadow it required to sustain. Goblins barely drained him, the crawler took noticeably more, and when he tried to create an echo from an especially large rat, the pack leader, he felt Shadow inside him strain, like a muscle forced to hold too much weight. There was a limit, and he had found it. That was good. Knowing his boundaries meant knowing when he could take a risk and when it was better to retreat.
He also learned that his servants were not fully independent. They followed simple commands, could act on pre programmed routines, such as patrolling a specific area and attacking anyone who entered it, but they could not make complex decisions. They were tools, extensions of his will, not independent beings. And each time one of them died in a skirmish with underground creatures or fell into a trap, Nox felt it as a faint sting, the loss of a tiny part of himself. Not painful, but unpleasant. He learned to protect his servants, to use them wisely, not to throw them into hopeless attacks. An army, even a shadow army, required strategy.
One night, as he sat in the round chamber before the altar reviewing the images transmitted by the rats from the far reaches of the catacombs, one of them sent back something strange. A vast hall, much larger than the one he was in. In the center of the hall stood an altar, unlike any he had seen in the temple. This one was made of bone, or something very much like bone, and was covered in faded runes that, even in the image transmitted by the rat, made Nox's Shadow pulse with unease. Around the altar stood figures in robes, their faces and bodies completely hidden. They did not move, as if they were statues, but the rat felt a threat emanating from them, ancient and patient.
Nox opened his eyes and sat for a long time, contemplating what he had seen. The catacombs beneath the academy held many secrets, and this was one of them. Who were these figures? Guardians? Priests of a forgotten cult? Or something else, inhuman, waiting for its hour? He did not know, but he marked the place as dangerous and forbade his servants from approaching it. Someday he would explore it himself, but not now. For now, he was not yet strong enough.
Days passed, and his life at the academy became ever more intense. He continued to study, absorbing knowledge like a sponge, and the instructors, sensing his hunger, treated him with particular attention. Master Crow, the old expert on magical forces, often kept him after lectures to teach him things beyond the curriculum, about rare hybrids, forgotten techniques, about mages of the past whose names had been erased from textbooks. Master Vellan, the fiery haired artificer, allowed him to work in the workshop after classes, showing him how to create simple amulets and charge them with Shadow. Master Grave, the historian with the deeply wrinkled face, once invited him to his office, packed floor to ceiling with books, and showed him an ancient folio in which the Endragon bloodline was mentioned.
«You know,» Nox said, looking at the faded lines in which his family name was written with respect and awe.
«I know,» Master Grave answered. «Lady Morvane has confided in me. Your father was a great man, Nox. And your mother as well. I will tell you everything I know about them when you are ready. But not now. Now you must focus on your studies and on not drawing undue attention. There are those in the academy who serve the Moon Goddess, even if they do not know it. Spies, eyes and ears scattered across all the educational institutions of the continent. Be careful.»
Nox thanked him and left, feeling the tension inside him grow. Spies of the Moon Goddess. Here, at the academy. He had to be even more careful, even more unnoticeable. His shadow army, his nightly forays into the catacombs, all of it had to remain absolutely secret. One wrong step, and the hunters would know where he was. And then the hunt would begin.
He told only Kane about his new abilities, and even then not everything. They sat in their room late one evening, after the others had gone to sleep, and Nox, after hesitating, showed him a shadow rat he summoned from his pocket. Kane looked at it, at how it moved, how it obeyed commands, and there was not fear but respect in his eyes.
«This is incredible, Nox. I have heard of mages who summon familiars, but this is different. This is… part of you?»
«In a sense. They are echoes of creatures I have defeated. I do not fully understand how it works. It came on its own, after I… after an event in the catacombs.»
Kane did not pry about the event. He respected boundaries, and for that Nox was grateful.
«You need to be careful with this. If anyone finds out you can create servants like these… this is dangerous power, Nox. Very dangerous. It frightens people.»
«I know. That is why I am only showing it to you. And I hope you will keep it a secret.»
«Of course. We are friends.»
Friends. The word still sounded unfamiliar to Nox. But it seemed that was what it was. He had gained friends. People who knew him not as a nameless orphan from the slums but as Nox, just Nox, and accepted him as he was. It was strange. And precious.
Several more days passed, and the academy announced the first major trial for first year students. A tournament. Not to the death, but at full strength, using magic, under the supervision of instructors and healers. Students were to fight each other, demonstrating what they had learned in the first months. The winners would receive not only recognition but also access to rare resources, additional lessons with the masters, and other privileges that the academy valued like gold.
Nox stood in the common hall, looking at the list of participants, and felt everything inside him tighten. His name was there. And opposite his, in the very first pair, stood the name of Reinhart van Drake. The aristocrat he had humiliated before the entire academy had been given a chance at revenge. Official, in the arena, in front of everyone. It was a trap, and Nox understood that. If he lost, his reputation would be destroyed. If he won, using his true power, he would be exposed. He needed to find a third path. To win without revealing everything he was capable of.
He turned and walked to his room. Ahead lay night, the catacombs, and his shadow army. He needed to think. To prepare. And to find a way to win this battle without losing the war.