For about three seconds, I felt like some kind of supernatural goddess. The shadows held my weight, lifting me slowly off the ground, and I had a moment of pure exhilaration as I rose above the forest floor.
Then gravity remembered I existed.
The platform wobbled like a drunk person trying to stand, and suddenly I was tumbling through the air, arms windmilling uselessly as I crashed back down into a pile of leaves with all the grace of a falling brick.
"Ow," I muttered, spitting out pine needles and trying to untangle my hair from a low-hanging branch.
I pushed myself up, brushing dirt off my clothes, and couldn't help but chuckle. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Nothing in my life had ever been that simple, why would mastering shadow magic or whatever this was be any different?
Focus, Maeve. People are in danger.
