She had to remind herself that the rules she had grown up with—the rules of wood and iron and flesh and consequence—did not apply here. They had no authority in this strange realm where time folded and air was crafted by hand and death waited patiently on the other side of a door.
So Lyssena made a decision.
Later, when they returned from whatever waited for her beyond these doors, she would give herself a small mission.
She would explore and observe.
She would learn how this place worked, how the shadows breathed, how the walls listened, how far her god’s presence truly stretched.
Erevos stood in silence, waiting for Lyssena to put on her mask.
She lifted it slightly, turning it this way and that in her hands as she searched for some visible fastening, some ribbon or clasp that would tell her how a human was meant to wear such a thing—but she found nothing.
“I don’t know how to wear it, Greatest,” she admitted.
“You bent my shadows yesterday.”
She had.
She had shaped animals from shadows, formed weapons with trembling fingers, and finally crafted a crown worthy of resting upon her own head. So she nodded at the hint her god had given her and steadied her breath, allowing the memory of that strange sensation—the yielding, living quality of shadow—to return to her fingertips.
“Would you help me put it on?” she asked. “I would like to wear you.”
The moment those words left Lyssena’s lips, the back of the mask unfurled.
It did not snap or hinge open like metal or leather, but rather . . . softened.
The shadow along its spine loosened and parted as though it had been waiting for permission, revealing a hollow interior that seemed deeper than it should have been.
Lyssena inhaled sharply and lifted it toward her face.
It was a strange experience, witnessing something inanimate respond to her voice, to her wish, watching an unmoving thing come alive.
As the beak aligned with her nose and mouth, she felt a long chill crawl up her spine and settle at the base of her neck, like cold fingers tracing along her skin. The mask sealed itself around her head without pressure or force, closing in a seamless line that vanished the moment it met her temples.
Lyssena felt nothing. It was neither cool nor warm, neither heavy nor light.
It was like Erevos.
And before she could turn her head from side to side to test how well it adjusted to her movements, she felt more of that same nothingness spilling downward, flowing over her shoulders and along her arms in a tide.
Her gown responded. The fabric her god had created for her darkened and extended, lengthening to the tips of her fingers, curling around her wrists, sliding down over her hips and thighs, stretching to her heels and toes as though shadow itself were blooming from the seams. Lyssena stood utterly still as it finished.
She was covered in shadows.
And yet it felt as though she was covered in nothing at all. No weight, no friction, no fabric brushing against her skin, only the faintest awareness that she had been claimed by something that fit her too perfectly to be separate from her.
Lyssena bent her knees slowly, testing the balance of her new form, then stretched her arms as high above her head as she could. She shook her head from side to side, the beak of the mask remaining perfectly aligned with her breath, and wiggled her torso.
Her full shadow bodysuit fit flawlessly.
It did not tug or wrinkle. It did not resist her at all.
To anyone else, the display might have looked silly—a grown woman swaying and stretching as though she had just discovered her limbs—but Lyssena noticed that she began testing the edges of her comfort, to push against the boundaries of what she was given and see how her god would respond.
She liked to see whether he would correct her, restrain her, or even punish her.
So far, he had not minded at all.
