A palm presses against my heart, my fingers tangled and useless against the satchel’s strap.Tears film my eyes, turning the world into a warped blur, but I don’t stop.I can’t.
“Goodbye, brother.”The words are a shattered whisper, my cowardice choking the courage to give them voice.“Please forgive me.”My vision blurs into a broken mess as the first tear spills over, searing and unstoppable.
I turn my back to the rising smoke.There is no time for grief.Only the desperate need to outrun the stranger lurking among the trees.
Picking a path through the tangle of the descent, my feet skid and race faster than I can keep up.Shadows lunge out in front—wisps of blackness weaving through the charred wood—mapping toward the place I haven’t dared venture into for years.
Thoughts crash through my mind—the cavern, the black water, the faces.I know that place.I stumbled into it once as a child, wandering too far into the stagnant veins of the under-paths before fear dragged me back to the light.
Fear is a clutching hand, driving me back toward the very thing I should flee.
A certainty heavier than stone sinks into my stomach.The dream didn’t just show me the water—it’s pulling the tether.
The air sours with the acrid tang of sewage and decay as I reach the lanes, wedging myself into every crack where the shadows are deepest.Clipped voices ring nearby, forcing me to bolt behind a crumbling wall.
Their speech doesn’t weigh like ours.Their voices have a silken, melodic tune—words blessed by Solan himself—so unlike our shredded rasps, ruined by a lifetime of breathing our own waste.
I peer around the brick, its serrated edges slicing my cheek, as a flash of white and gold blurs into view.
Luminary Guards.
Three of them stalk through the street below, their unblemished cloaks dragging against the slick stones as the sewer-filth seeps into the white hems.
I hold my breath until my ribs strain, my pulse igniting into a frantic roar.I send a desperate, silent prayer to the Divine Mother, Nyx, hoping the shadows anchor me before anyone looks my way.The pendant pulses with a feverish heat in response—the only comfort I’m granted as their footfalls recede into the dark.
My shadow shudders, stretching toward the light like a hound scenting its prey.I crush the dark down with everything I have, my eyes squeezed shut in a silent, desperate plea;Not now, please.
A thread snaps at my spine.The shadows yank against their leash, forcing my eyes to open just in time to watch the black tendrils recoil into my skin.
The lead guard, his palm bleeding a soft yellow light, tilts his head.For a heartbeat, I’m sure I’m exposed, but his voice is smothered by the wild thundering in my ears.
His silver eyes rake over the crumbling houses where I hide.My fingers itch to unleash the dark, but the guards turn, their footsteps and their stolen light vanishing into the winding lanes, swallowed by the gut of the city.
Only then do I move, my footsteps feather-soft as the bags sway from the rhythm of my flight.
The streets narrow, houses falling away to cold rock and strangling roots the lower I go.Lanterns grow sparse, the damp thickening until my breath fogs in the air.Pale faces ripple from the depths of the inky water, taunting my vision until my steps falter into an erratic pace.
I know they won’t be there—I know it’s a cruel lie—but a small, desperate spark of hope refuses to die.
I slip further into the gut of the streets, clinging to the cliff wall where the light can’t reach.The paths become shards of stone, uneven and treacherous.Only the most unfortunate—the ones the city has already forgotten—live this far from the Lantern Market’s dying glow.
A door groans open above, and a figure stumbles onto a crooked balcony, her gaze snagging mine in the gloom.I freeze, my heart hammering so hard it feels like it’s trying to forge a hole in my chest.She looks familiar, one of the many faces that blended in with the market crowd earlier.
I lunge for the deep dark, but my own shadows betray me—they uncoil and reach upward toward the stranger, stretching like a ghastly greeting.No, don’t!
The whites of her eyes swell, two pale, detached moons in the blackness.Her hair lashes around her face as she scans for guards.My stomach plummets as her mouth opens, her voice slicing through the quiet like a rusted blade.
“The girl with the shadows!”she shrieks.Lights ignite in the dark, and the frenetic slap of boots against stone follows as the street vomits its people.Every eye follows the line of her accusing finger—pointing directly at me.
I run.
The satchel batters my hip with every stride, the contents of Yara’s heavy bag clinking in an agitated rhythm.
I plunge through a gap between two leaning houses, ducking beneath a sagging laundry line.I wind deeper into the innards of the slums, where the air clots with the stench of sewage and desperation.
The stone fractures into a dark grin; a sharp-edged invitation to hide.I squeeze into the tight space, edging back until the darkness swallows me whole.I hold my breath, waiting for the thunder of footsteps, but they never come.
Only the quiet sound of the walls shedding tears.
