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"Do you want to rule over your people?"
He frowns. "It's not about what we want, it's about what we have to do."
"So, that's a no."
He turns that frown onto me, and then it eases. "Right now, I want to find a way to save both our worlds. I think there's a good chance that if our father can be defeated, and his control over the shadow beasts destroyed, our remaining people will have to come to earth. Unless we can restore the light to our world. And if they come here, they will only be able to shift into their beast form at night, which will be difficult for them. Our other forms are like the other side of our souls. Without our world, things will have to change. A lot. But at least now we know enough about this world to help our people survive on it."
"And with the help of my sister, and Ann's position as lady of the Hart lands, it wouldn't be hard to establish a new life for your people. We can handle helping build them homes, a village. And between the two of us, we have more than enough lands to give them a solid start to a new life."
"Do you think your people could truly learn to tolerate us?" He looks sincerely curious.
I smile. "You don't know my sister, but you know Ann. Do you really think between two powerful women there's anything they can't accomplish?"
He nods and knots the thread he's working on, then cuts it with his dagger. He folds the clothes in a pile next to him and puts his thread and needles carefully back in a little case.
“If I’m still…”Oh, what was the word?“Alive when all this over, I’m going back to see my sister. It's one of the first things I want to do.”
“And you’ll take Ann? Even if we find a way to return to our world?” They’ve already built such a bond, an attachment with and to her, that I have no idea if I will ever be able to convince her to go with me.
“If she wants to go, but the choices she makes now doesn’t just affect her or me.” I shrug, and he smiles because he damned well knows what I mean.
“I get what you’re saying about your sister. I feel that way about my mom.” He sighs, and I understand. "My mother was an incredible woman. When Shenra's mom sent her to live with us as a girl, my mom took her under her wing, as if she were her daughter. And I could almost believe she was. They both had the same white-blonde hair, so white that it was unique in our world. But it wasn't just their looks; my mom had that same quiet power. A way to get even our tough father to listen to her."
"But she died?" I ask.
"Grave trolls," he says tightly. "We found her body. Tried to save her. But... it was too late."
"I'm so sorry for your loss," I tell him, not knowing what else to say. I know what love costs, the fear and the need to protect. The devotion is extraordinary, at times untenable, but always there.
He stirs the stew again, his movements tighter, and I hate that I ruined his happy moment. I remember the way he looked when I stepped out of the cave, and I suddenly want to bring him back to that moment. My heart twists, and it's strange. Usually, I only feel this connected to Ann, my best friends, and my sister. Feeling this with a man I'm just starting to understand feels strange. But then, this must be part of the mate-bond. Now that we're all Ann's, it makes sense that we sort of become each other's too.
“I don’t know much about the shadow world.” I'm hoping the change in conversation might help.Might, because it seems like its own kind of problem to unravel.
He shrugs, poking the fire and sending embers up around the pan. “The legend is that we—shadow beasts—were shifters in another world. Hunted. Murdered one by one until our numbers were depleted.” He shrugs. “The leader of the shadow beasts was a woman who was always searching for a new world.”
“A new world?”
He nods. “Yeah. There are slivers between realms, little spaces connected through the power of the moon.” He tells the story casually. “She was called the Moon Goddess. Every world she found was too bright for shadow beasts. The light would kill them, turn them to ash.” He blew out a breath. “Then she found the shadow realm. It was too dark for anything to grow or survive there. So the shadow beasts would be safe, but they would die because they had no food, nothing. She created a light source from the power in her own heart, and she hung it from the sky. It meant that she lost her power, her life, but she did it for the love of us.”
This was all old news to him. His history. Ancestry. He’d found a way to disconnect from all of it. But I found myths and legends intriguing. In fact, I'd read many of them that sounded similar to his story.
“From its light, an incredible world grew and the shadow beasts found a home.” He looks around. “It’s like here. The plants are different than they are here, but she breathed life into the dark realm. And when the plants grew, animals came too. Some good animals, and some like the grave trolls. It's always like earth's night there, but a bright one. Enough to flourish. Different magical creatures continued to be born there, under our goddess's heart, where the shadow beasts live. Wherever.”
“It sounds like an amazing place.” Boy would I love to take a journal there, to etch the plants and animals, to study their sky and figure out where their moon really came from and how they can exist without a true day and night.
“It was a wonderful place. But now the light source is gone. Everything is dead in that world. The grave trolls and rot monkeys are all that’s left. The shadow beasts that have stayed behind are mindless now, stuck in their beast form, trapped in the king's control.” He’s disgusted. “There's just... nothing left because he stole the light source from the sky. Until the light source is back in the sky, the shadow world will never thrive. The goddess's sacrifice will be for nothing.”
Shadow world? Goddess's heart and sacrifice?I nod. I’ve heard it before. Not just myths similar to this one, but I believe I've actually read about their world, and old memories tickle the back of my mind. “I recall this story. Another legend, too.” It’s sketchy and in pieces. “Something about a light fae living in a world like that one.”
"Light fae?" He frowns. "No, there had never been a light fae in our world."
Hum."Well, perhaps I'm wrong."But I didn't think so...
Dusk doesn’t say more. Doesn’t say anything. He just looks behind me at the cave, which is when I realize there's a low murmur of conversation and movement. I'd been so caught up in our conversation that I hadn't noticed.
The others are awake now. Phantom joins us at the fire and eventually the others trickle out, all looking strangely well-rested and, not surprisingly, happy. There’s no danger in the day. Not right now. And after our intimate time together, we all deserve a moment of peace to let the changes we've experienced sink in.
Dusk hands out the stew in wooden bowls, and we all eat in silence for a few minutes. Not a tense silence like before, but a comfortable one. Like we're a family enjoying breakfast, or dinner.
