Shadowseer: Paris Read online

  SHADOWSEER:

  PARIS

  (SHADOWSEER, BOOK TWO)

  MORGAN RICE

  Morgan Rice

  Morgan Rice is the #1 bestselling and USA Today bestselling author of the epic fantasy series THE SORCERER’S RING, comprising seventeen books; of the #1 bestselling series THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS, comprising twelve books; of the #1 bestselling series THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY, a post-apocalyptic thriller comprising three books; of the epic fantasy series KINGS AND SORCERERS, comprising six books; of the epic fantasy series OF CROWNS AND GLORY, comprising eight books; of the epic fantasy series A THRONE FOR SISTERS, comprising eight books; of the science fiction series THE INVASION CHRONICLES, comprising four books; of the fantasy series OLIVER BLUE AND THE SCHOOL FOR SEERS, comprising four books; of the fantasy series THE WAY OF STEEL, comprising four books; of the fantasy series AGE OF THE SORCERERS, comprising eight books; and of the new fantasy series SHADOWSEER, comprising five books (and counting). Morgan’s books are available in audio and print editions, and translations are available in over 25 languages.

  Morgan loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.morganricebooks.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, download the free app, get the latest exclusive news, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!

  Select Acclaim for Morgan Rice

  “If you thought that there was no reason left for living after the end of THE SORCERER’S RING series, you were wrong. In RISE OF THE DRAGONS Morgan Rice has come up with what promises to be another brilliant series, immersing us in a fantasy of trolls and dragons, of valor, honor, courage, magic and faith in your destiny. Morgan has managed again to produce a strong set of characters that make us cheer for them on every page.…Recommended for the permanent library of all readers that love a well-written fantasy.”

  --Books and Movie Reviews

  Roberto Mattos

  “An action packed fantasy sure to please fans of Morgan Rice’s previous novels, along with fans of works such as THE INHERITANCE CYCLE by Christopher Paolini…. Fans of Young Adult Fiction will devour this latest work by Rice and beg for more.”

  --The Wanderer, A Literary Journal (regarding Rise of the Dragons)

  “A spirited fantasy that weaves elements of mystery and intrigue into its story line. A Quest of Heroes is all about the making of courage and about realizing a life purpose that leads to growth, maturity, and excellence….For those seeking meaty fantasy adventures, the protagonists, devices, and action provide a vigorous set of encounters that focus well on Thor's evolution from a dreamy child to a young adult facing impossible odds for survival….Only the beginning of what promises to be an epic young adult series.”

  --Midwest Book Review (D. Donovan, eBook Reviewer)

  “THE SORCERER’S RING has all the ingredients for an instant success: plots, counterplots, mystery, valiant knights, and blossoming relationships replete with broken hearts, deception and betrayal. It will keep you entertained for hours, and will satisfy all ages. Recommended for the permanent library of all fantasy readers.”

  --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos

  “In this action-packed first book in the epic fantasy Sorcerer's Ring series (which is currently 14 books strong), Rice introduces readers to 14-year-old Thorgrin "Thor" McLeod, whose dream is to join the Silver Legion, the elite knights who serve the king…. Rice's writing is solid and the premise intriguing.”

  --Publishers Weekly

  Books by Morgan Rice

  SHADOWSEER

  SHADOWDEER: LONDON (Book #1)

  SHADOWSEER: PARIS (Book #2)

  SHADOWSEER: MUNICH (Book #3)

  SHADOWSEER: ROME (Book #4)

  SHADOWSEER: ATHENS (Book #5)

  AGE OF THE SORCERERS

  REALM OF DRAGONS (Book #1)

  THRONE OF DRAGONS (Book #2)

  BORN OF DRAGONS (Book #3)

  RING OF DRAGONS (Book #4)

  CROWN OF DRAGONS (Book #5)

  DUSK OF DRAGONS (Book #6)

  SHIELD OF DRAGONS (Book #7)

  DREAM OF DRAGONS (Book #8)

  OLIVER BLUE AND THE SCHOOL FOR SEERS

  THE MAGIC FACTORY (Book #1)

  THE ORB OF KANDRA (Book #2)

  THE OBSIDIANS (Book #3)

  THE SCEPTOR OF FIRE (Book #4)

  THE INVASION CHRONICLES

  TRANSMISSION (Book #1)

  ARRIVAL (Book #2)

  ASCENT (Book #3)

  RETURN (Book #4)

  THE WAY OF STEEL

  ONLY THE WORTHY (Book #1)

  ONLY THE VALIANT (Book #2)

  ONLY THE DESTINED (Book #3)

  ONLY THE BOLD (Book #4)

  A THRONE FOR SISTERS

  A THRONE FOR SISTERS (Book #1)

  A COURT FOR THIEVES (Book #2)

  A SONG FOR ORPHANS (Book #3)

  A DIRGE FOR PRINCES (Book #4)

  A JEWEL FOR ROYALS (BOOK #5)

  A KISS FOR QUEENS (BOOK #6)

  A CROWN FOR ASSASSINS (Book #7)

  A CLASP FOR HEIRS (Book #8)

  OF CROWNS AND GLORY

  SLAVE, WARRIOR, QUEEN (Book #1)

  ROGUE, PRISONER, PRINCESS (Book #2)

  KNIGHT, HEIR, PRINCE (Book #3)

  REBEL, PAWN, KING (Book #4)

  SOLDIER, BROTHER, SORCERER (Book #5)

  HERO, TRAITOR, DAUGHTER (Book #6)

  RULER, RIVAL, EXILE (Book #7)

  VICTOR, VANQUISHED, SON (Book #8)

  KINGS AND SORCERERS

  RISE OF THE DRAGONS (Book #1)

  RISE OF THE VALIANT (Book #2)

  THE WEIGHT OF HONOR (Book #3)

  A FORGE OF VALOR (Book #4)

  A REALM OF SHADOWS (Book #5)

  NIGHT OF THE BOLD (Book #6)

  THE SORCERER’S RING

  A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1)

  A MARCH OF KINGS (Book #2)

  A FATE OF DRAGONS (Book #3)

  A CRY OF HONOR (Book #4)

  A VOW OF GLORY (Book #5)

  A CHARGE OF VALOR (Book #6)

  A RITE OF SWORDS (Book #7)

  A GRANT OF ARMS (Book #8)

  A SKY OF SPELLS (Book #9)

  A SEA OF SHIELDS (Book #10)

  A REIGN OF STEEL (Book #11)

  A LAND OF FIRE (Book #12)

  A RULE OF QUEENS (Book #13)

  AN OATH OF BROTHERS (Book #14)

  A DREAM OF MORTALS (Book #15)

  A JOUST OF KNIGHTS (Book #16)

  THE GIFT OF BATTLE (Book #17)

  THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY

  ARENA ONE: SLAVERSUNNERS (Book #1)

  ARENA TWO (Book #2)

  ARENA THREE (Book #3)

  VAMPIRE, FALLEN

  BEFORE DAWN (Book #1)

  THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS

  TURNED (Book #1)

  LOVED (Book #2)

  BETRAYED (Book #3)

  DESTINED (Book #4)

  DESIRED (Book #5)

  BETROTHED (Book #6)

  VOWED (Book #7)

  FOUND (Book #8)

  RESURRECTED (Book #9)

  CRAVED (Book #10)

  FATED (Book #11)

  OBSESSED (Book #12)

  Did you know that I've written multiple series? If you haven't read all my series, click the image below to download a series starter!

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  Copyright © 2021 by Morgan Rice. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or r
etrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Viacheslav Lopatin, used under license from istockphoto.com.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER ONE

  Amelie de Fiaux put her all into her final monologue, her last before she was due to lie upon the bed, set up in the middle of the stage at the Theatre Rue St Germain in Paris, and play at being dead.

  In those moments, Amelie was Juliet, golden haired and beauteous, ready to pretend death if it would let her be with her love. There was one more speech to come, before she stabbed herself and lay down atop Romeo’s body to die, but this was the moment Amelie loved. This was the moment when Juliet was trying to make things better, rather than lying down and dying for her lost love.

  It was a beautiful moment, and in it, Amelie held the watching, packed audience alone, keeping the attention of the men and women of the common seats below, the gods above, and the expensive boxes in between. She loved moments like this, loved the adoration that came from being someone else.

  She shone there like a jewel, and the Theatre Rue St Germain was about as glorious a setting as any jewel could hope for. Stucco and marble figures decorated every column and cornice, balcony and arch. Gilding and paint lit by gas lights turned the whole thing into something that seemed to amplify the beauty of her movements the way the acoustics amplified her words.

  Now for her grand moment: as the drug she claimed to have ingested was supposed to take hold, Amelie lay down upon the broad expanse of the bed. She closed her eyes, but not completely, because she wanted to see them rapt as the next part happened.

  Slowly, with the musicians in the pit playing furiously to cover the sounds of machinery, the bed started to descend through one of the theatre’s trapdoors. In the operas the theatre usually put on, such things were reserved for the appearance of gods and monsters, but the fashion was for grand moments like this. Juliet would disappear through the floor in a bed, rise up on the slab of a tomb, and that was where Romeo would find her.

  Applause drifted in as the bed dropped through the floor. Amelie drank in that applause the way another might have drunk in wine or opium. She felt hollow without it, while the moments when the audience’s love poured down onto her were like… well, they were the only moments when she truly felt alive.

  Amelie removed her blonde wig as the bed got below the level where anyone could see her, revealing darker hair beneath. She wiped away a little of her makeup, not caring that she would need to put it back in place before her cue to rise out of sleep and find her Romeo dead. Already, she could feel the rush of adoration fading, leaving her empty inside again.

  The space beneath the theatre was a tangle of brickwork, metal and piping. It was as brutish as the rest of it was beautiful, shadowy where the rest of it was brightly lit. It reminded Amelie far too much of herself: beautiful out on the surface where everyone could see, but then everything all tangled up underneath.

  She made her way back towards her dressing room. Not that she got a dressing room to herself, but Henriette would be performing in the brief ballet between acts, and Suzette’s part was done for the evening. She should get a dressing room to herself, shouldn’t she, when she was the lead?

  Doubts filled Amelie, because it was almost impossible to avoid them, working in the theatre. A few weeks ago, and they’d been talking about the Emperor himself maybe coming down to see the play. Now, no one knew if it would last another month, and Amelie wasn’t sure what she would do next.

  The old doubts ran through her head as she stood in front of the mirror in the dressing room, starting to reapply her makeup, trying to look as corpselike as possible. She’d come to Paris determined to be the grandest thing she could in the theatre, and she’d made it up into this role, on this stage, but it didn’t seem like enough now.

  Nothing seemed like enough. Not the admirers who sent flowers or notes of admiration. Not the applause, or the adulation, or anything. Here, in the half dark beneath the stage, it felt like there were cracks in her soul as deep as the ones in her makeup.

  Then something rose up and started to flow into those cracks.

  It was like a shadow rose up around her, darkening the room.

  In an instant, that shadow was pouring into her, pushing against her mind and then finding a way into it. It expanded within her, and Amelie didn’t even have a chance to scream before it claimed her completely.

  *

  One moment, the shadow was a thing in itself, free to move as it wished so long as it kept to the dark. The next, it had shape and form, solidity and depth. It had the freedom to touch the world directly, but also limits that hadn’t been there before. Skin was a thing that could touch, a thing that could protect from the light, but it was also a boundary, almost a prison wall.

  Getting into this shell of meat had been easy enough; with most humans, their defenses were too much, but this one had so many cracks and weak places that it was easy to push through them and take what remained.

  Now… now they were one. The shadow was Amelie de Fiaux, and Amelie was the shadow. The shadow had access to her memories, and could see all the hurts that had made Amelie into the fragile thing she was: the men who had seduced and left her, the difficulties of living life in the midst of Napoleon III’s Paris, the fact that she was poorer than she wanted, less sure of herself than she wanted, less beautiful, less talented…

  The shadow spent several minutes simply adjusting to this new existence. It went through the memories it found, turning them around and examining them the way some collector might have examined a fossil in a cabinet of curiosities.

  For the first time in her life, the young woman who had been Amelie felt complete. She felt as if she had a purpose in her life, because she did have a purpose. She knew what she was there to do, what she had to do. She would be as important as she had always wanted to be.

  “Amelie! It’s your cue!” a voice from beyond the dressing room called.

  Amelie remembered that there was somewhere she was meant to be, something she was meant to be doing. She stepped away from the mirror, moving to the door. There was a woman there, looking agitated.

  “Hurry, Amelie! They’re waiting for you. And you forgot your wig!”

  Amelie looked round, trying to make sense of that, and saw the wig sitting there, abandoned in the dressing room. She could hear the sounds of the stage off to her left.

  She turned right instead, ignoring
the shout of protest that came from behind her.

  “Amelie! Where are you going?”

  She kept walking, the shadow inside her propelling every step. She had things to do, far more important than some foolish play.

  Very important things.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Her sister.

  Kaia stood there, in the cells beneath Scotland yard, and stared back at Xander, hardly able to process what he had just said.

  Hardly able to catch her breath.

  Could it be?

  In all the years in the orphanage, Kaia had somehow sensed…something. Another person. A connection. Sensed she wasn’t alone somehow, in a way she couldn’t describe.

  But never did she allow herself to actually dream she truly had a living sister.

  “What sister?” Kaia dared to ask, her voice barely above a whisper, her hands trembling, wanting to reach out and throttle him until he gave her an answer. “What sister, Xander?”

  He didn’t answer, just shaking his head.

  “I’ve said all I can. You have to go. Go Kaia.”

  Kaia knew from the look in his eye that he would give no more.

  She felt at once elated and crestfallen.

  It felt like the world around her didn’t make sense as she staggered up from the cells below Scotland Yard. It felt as if everything she thought she’d known had been shaken underneath her, all in one short conversation.

  It must have showed, because the policemen on the main floor of the station, in their blue greatcoats and top hats, stared at her as she came up onto it. Perhaps that was just due to the effects of having fought a shadow possessed killer earlier. Her blonde hair was tangled beneath her hat, while dirt from the chapel where the fight had happened smeared her heart shaped face.

  Several of them looked at her as if they were waiting for her to cause trouble. Kaia was short and slight for her seventeen years, and dressed in an elegant, brightly colored dress that was a long way from the grey shifts of the orphanage she’d grown up in, but probably they all still remembered the way she’d fought to escape in this room before, and the way she’d sent peelers like them flying in the street.