Free The Shadow Prince by Bree Despain

director of the program prefers. I don’t know if any of my three outfits are fit for auditioning at a private school.
    I take two deep breaths and tell myself not to freak out. I’d already prepared a song for the Teen Talent Competition that I had planned on attending this evening.
I am ready for this.…
    “The other students in the program auditioned at the end of last year, and school has been in session for almost three weeks. If it hadn’t been for a sudden opening in the program, you wouldn’t be getting the chance at all. Mr. Morgan is holding preliminary auditions for this year’s musical tomorrow. He said he would allow you to audition for the program and the play at the same time. You are supposed to prepare three songs.”
    Three
? I’d spent all month perfecting my one song for the competition! “What play are they doing?” Hopefully, it was something I already knew a couple of songs from.
Les Misérables. Carousel
.Seeing this town’s apparent love for all things Greek, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was
Mamma Mia!
    “He wouldn’t say. It’s supposed to be three songs of your own choosing.”
    “But I have no idea what else to sing.”
    “I don’t see what the big deal is. Sing a few of your father’s songs,” Marta says, like it’s a definitive solution to all my problems.
    “Not in a million years,” I mumble as she leaves and closes the door behind her. I can hear the click of her heels on the marble floor echoing as she goes. Now that I am alone, my new room feels too cavernous for comfort. I want to call home, but it’s far too late at night. My mother would have a heart attack, thinking there had been some emergency.
    I push the throw pillows off the bed.
Not a big deal
? This audition is
the
big deal. This music program is the entire reason I’d left home. It is my entire purpose for being here. All my future plans rest on it, and now the audition is being sprung on me before I am ready.
    What if this has all been for nothing?
    For the first time since I agreed to let Joe take me away from my home, I start to wonder if I’ve made a really big mistake.

chapter seven
HADEN
    It’s a long journey to the outskirts of the Underrealm, where Persephone’s Gate stands at the end of a long ravine. The Underlords, and even the Lessers, flank both sides of the walk to the gate. Normally, their swords would be raised in honor to the Champion as he passes. I know better now than to expect such pomp on my behalf. All except the Lessers and the other servants are dressed in armor. Mine has been removed and I’ve been forced to don strange clothes like what Dax is wearing. My pants are made from a similar heavy cloth, but they’re an inky black instead of blue, and my collared black tunic has many fasteners down the front. Both items of clothing are too tight, as though they’d originally been selected for someone slighter than myself.
    This idea makes me look for Rowan in the flanking crowd, but instead of him, my sight lands on Garrick, the scrawny Lesser I tried to defend from Rowan’s assault. His arm looks better now, thanks to a visit to the healing chambers, but for some reason, seeing him once more causes a twisting feeling inside my chest.
    When Garrick had been reassigned to the Pits after he wasaccused of stealing, I’d been glad to see him go. Relieved to be rid of the walking reminder of my shame. But I can’t help wondering what his life has been like in that terrible place.
And if he knows what part I played in what happened to him …
    At least he hadn’t been attacked by Rowan again, like he feared. Not yet anyway.
    “Just keep walking,” Dax says. I didn’t realize that I’d stopped moving.
    The ground trembles, and a faint green light begins to pulsate in the archway at the end of the ravine. The gate is beginning to activate. The old myths say that the gate was built for Persephone, the first Boon to be brought to the Underrealm by the original Hades.