SHADOWVictory wasn’t sure, at first, whether she’d opened her eyes.
When she blinked, the view didn’t waver. A solid gray sky, like the thickest fog reflecting street lamps on a winter night. She blinked again, but the scene didn’t change. Definitely not the depths of Limani’s mage school. A hard surface supported her, and she raised herself on her elbows. Grit from the ground beneath her coated her bare arms. She dug her fingers into the surface, but they met bedrock under a fine layer of gray sand. Everything was flat, like the surface of a smooth lake. No breeze disturbed the scene, and the only difference between ground and sky was a thin line in the distance.
Her body ached when she pushed herself to her feet, as if she’d run for miles. She turned a slow circle while brushing sand f
