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Taking her conduit in hand, feeling the stone burn beneath her touch, Raana began the chant in the First Language, getting closer as she cooed the words as whisper soft as her steps towards him. The soldier’s erratic movements eased, and he allowed her to place a hand on his arm as she finished speaking. The throbbing of his limbs became that ever-present tenseness again, and Raana was certain she was about to vomit. Not from exertion, but she may as well have been holding a blade to his heart, eliminating his sense of self.
“Are you okay?” she asked, breathless and broken, mindlessly wiping blood from her nose and catching the tears that had fallen down her cheeks.
The man didn’t answer, only stood up straighter and turned to face the hill.
Then he kept moving.
* * *
“Spirits save me,” Raana rasped, tasting copper as she coughed, trying to muffle the sound by holding it in—and then coughed louder.
Her eyelids drooped as her fingers grazed the rug’s fabric beneath her. So well made. So soft.
Somehow, her body was exhausted—traveling across two kingdoms on foot, sometimes through shadows, and one with a hilly landscape that she cursed to the heavens, could do that—but her magic still writhed. Pounded. Wanted to run free. Her skin itched, needing to be swathed in its shadows, and she swore this iron bracelet was giving her a rash.
She sighed. Now, where had they ended up?
Using her sense of the shadows, she’d moved them into a darkened room she’d observed from outside the hall. A gamble, considering she hadn’t been sure who or what would be inside. Thankfully, it had been empty. Just an ornately decorated drawing room. It was nice to see an interior that wasn’t cursed or crumbling to pieces.
Rising to her feet, she glanced out the window behind her, catching the hall’s front drive.
“Wow.” Perfect execution.Though impressed with herself as she may be, there was no time for pride.
Raana stretched out a hand to her companion, her heart shattering as she observed him. He may as well have been a ghost.
Once they got through this, she was going to help. She would get himout. Away from Nerissa and away from her.
“Don’t move,” she commanded softly. “It’s better if only one of us is in the halls, and I can blend into the shadows. I’ll meet you back here. If you hear anyone, hide.”
For good measure, Raana stared at her open palm, her hands shaking beyond her control, making her wonder when exactly her magic’s reserves would run out. Darkness slid along her fingers, welling in her hand, the shadow a swirling, ebbing mist.
“Keep an eye on him,” she whispered to it. When she dropped her arm, the darkness remained bobbing where it had been.
Thankfully, the room’s door opened on silent hinges, and Raana stealthily slipped into the hallway. She paused once it closed behind her, turning her head left and right, embracing its quiet, cool darkness, the shadows dancing on the walls from the lit sconces. For a moment, in their void, she swore she saw shapes, movement, and heard the faintest of hollow murmurs.
See the unseen. Hear the unheard.That’s what Cassius had once told her of what her power entailed. Shadows held secrets, chronicled the past, and held information they seemed eager to tell her. If only it wasn’t mostly in tongues that she didn’t understand. At least when they held feeling, she could sense that.
Save some modern updates and alterations, this palace, with its arches and cavernous corridors, could’ve been the twin to the one behind the Wall.Luckily, this hall wouldn’t change its structure on a whim. At least, she hoped it wouldn’t.
Closing her eyes, Raana pictured the front of the building. When she’d observed it, there had been a veranda on the western end. It seemed regal enough. Something a king and queen would be presented on, as she’d heard, though that didn’t mean it was thethrone room.
Spirits, if only these places came with maps. Though maybe there was an optionherethat she didn’t have back in the Wilds.
The dark magic of Phobos’s cursed Pack Hall made the shadows too difficult to sift through, too difficult to trust not to rip her apart as she moved through them. Buthere?
Raana tucked closer to the stone wall behind her and caressed the darkness with her fingertips. “Take me to the throne room,” she spoke softly to them. “Or show me the way. Please.”
A coolness snaked up her legs, arms, and shoulders, and kissed along her cheeks, threading over her ears—a lover’s embrace, including whispers in those tongues.
Easy, relaxing almost until they grew louder, louder,louderuntil they were screams that nearly shattered her consciousness. Until they wrapped around her neck and strangled her, shook her, violently trying to get her to understand.
Raana thrashed and coughed, but the moment she opened her mouth, the darkness swept in, pouring into her and icing her insides.
Stop!
Her shout went nowhere; the shadows heard nothing, only spoke, trying to get her to understand. Finally able to beunderstood.And from one blink to the next, they swallowed her whole.
* * *
