by S. K. Sayari
To feed the sea.
Heart of Shadows
A. M. Dilsaver
Theo stared out the big bay window to the fog-shrouded forest beyond. Not an actual forest—real plants could not grow here—but something close enough to mimic the trees of Earth, a shadowy configuration meant to disguise the bland nothingness of the space beyond. If he could not conjure the sun, then he would surround himself with shadow instead.
An eerie howl broke the silence of the ever-night, long and high, followed closely by two more. Vorgs, probably, out hunting. Sounds erupted all around him as the veils opened under the Solstice moon, allowing passage between worlds, inviting all sorts of creatures into his solitary confinement in the Other-Realm.
Theo kept a close watch, though not for danger. The menacing presence surrounding his manor was enough to keep most creatures at bay. If not, the iron gate surrounding it made a decent enough deterrent. No one—or thing—had crossed the gate in thirty years.
Theo couldn’t help but wonder why. Isandra had sent heroes after him for decades. Tall, strapping lads sent to slay the wicked jinn and bring back his heart. Every year, without fail, they came. Every year, without fail, they died.
And then they had stopped coming altogether.
This year would be different. He could feel it in his bones, in the shadows that wrapped around his torso and slithered around his arms and legs. He itched for excitement, even if it ended in a grizzly death.
Especially if it ended in a grizzly death.
“Help!”
His eyes snapped to the right, where a flicker of red danced through the shadow trees. Foolish humans, always choosing such vibrant colors. No wonder they were killed so easily. The figure screamed, high-pitched enough to make Theo wince, even from inside his manor. In the pervading silence of the Other-Realm, he had forgotten how piercing a human voice could be.
As the flicker of red moved closer, Theo recognized the flare of a long skirt. A sacrificed maiden, perhaps, though he had thought humans had moved past those archaic rituals by now. A distant howl let Theo know the vorgs had noticed the intruder as well. She would not be the first female to die in the Other-Realm, but he had never enjoyed seeing a woman in agony.
She fell against his gate, then yelped in pain, as if the iron bars had burned her skin. When she pushed her hood back to scan the forest behind her, a long braid fell out. Long, and completely white. Only one species he knew had hair like that.
Fae.
Theo stopped breathing. It couldn’t be. The Fae were all dead. He had watched them die. So why did one appear to be banging against his gate?
A vorg howled again, calling out to its companions, and Theo found himself moving, running down crimson-carpeted hallways, shadows trailing him like soot. By the time he reached the front gate three vorgs loomed in the distance, great hulking masses charging toward them, shadow trees swirling out of existence with every pounding footfall.
The woman screamed frantically, banging against the bars with the heel of her hand, and he knew he should not let her in. Knew he should have stayed inside his manor while the realms collided and let her perish like the rest.
Instead, he opened the gate with a brush of shadow against lock. The woman tumbled through, letting the gate slam closed behind her. The first vorg crashed into it, rattling the iron bars as the woman in red huddled against Theo, burying her face in his collarbone. Theo had time to catch a whiff of something sharp and biting before she shoved against him, dancing just out of his grasp. The worn, black handle of a dagger jutted out of his carefully pressed vest.
Theo stared at the woman in shock. She cocked one hand on her hip, watching him with an arrogant smirk, eyes twinkling in triumph. Then her gaze dropped down to the knife in his chest, the tendrils of shadow twining around it. The smugness faded when she realized he did not collapse in pain, that blood did not stain the very expensive shirt she had just ruined.
A second dagger appeared in her hand, lithe fingers spinning the blade as a frown of determination creased her forehead.
Intriguing, the thought that she would merely try again, but Theo did not need to fight. He caught her wrist easily, leaning forward to whisper a single shadow-laced word into her ear, and she collapsed into unconsciousness.
Theo sat in front of the fireplace, idly watching the shadows twist and twirl through his fingers, the warm amber flames doing little to chase away the confusion.
His fingers brushed across the spot where she’d stabbed him, shadows converging to swirl around the skin as if to assure him the wound no longer existed. He should have known it was a trap, should have sensed something off. Isandra had never sent a woman before. And her hair…
Theo sighed, recalling the harsh scent that had burned his nostrils as he’d carried her to a dungeon cell. Some kind of compound, a mixture of chemicals, used to change the color of her hair. What petty emotion had clouded his judgement enough to let that cheap trick work? Hope? Hope had no place here, and he did not deserve the fleeting warmth it provided.
Twisting his hand around, Theo drew the shadows into a sphere that hovered just above his palm. “Show me Isandra.”
She appeared in the orb almost immediately, her pale skin contrasted by the dark shadows framing her face. A wide smile cut across her face, lips still full and sensuous even after centuries on Earth.
“Theo! How lovely to see you alive.”
He did not rise to the bait. “A woman? Really? Why would you send a woman to a place like this?”
Isandra’s eyes hardened, crystal-blue shards that threatened to cut him. “I didn’t send a woman.”
“Interesting. Because one is here, and she seems to want me dead.”
The blood drained from Isandra’s face with uncharacteristic fear. “Mira…”
Theo cocked his head, gauging how much of her reaction was sincere. At least he had a name. “Mira. A friend of yours?”
Heat rushed into her face, staining her cheeks with roses. The anger, at least, was real. “If you harm a single hair on her head—”
“Silence.” He cut off her petty threat with a snarl. “I will not be spoken to like I am the villain.”
“Please.”
And that was where she went too far, gave up the ruse too soon. Isandra had never said please.
“I think of her as a daughter,” the ageless woman pleaded, and if Theo hadn’t already been convinced it was a lie, he would have been impressed at the quiver in her voice. “Give her back, Theo. This isn’t Mira’s fault.”
Something in his chest hardened at the sound of his name on her lips. “I did not take her,” he said coldly, then he crumpled his fingers into a fist. The orb dissipated, shadows sweeping out to curl around his hand.
Now he just had to decide what to do with her.
Theo woke with a weight on his hips and a blade in his ribs.
The cool metal sliced through skin, immediately met by a rush of shadows. Mira sat on top of him with a cruel smirk, white hair flaring out around her head in a halo of death. The skirt of her dress spilled around him like a pool of blood, tiny gemstones from her bodice glittering malevolently in the weak light.
“Good evening, my dear,” Theo said, voice still gravelly from sleep. “I take it you were displeased with your lodgings?”
“You left me in the dungeon,” she snarled. “For two days.” Anger seethed from her, an almost tangible entity that forced the blade deeper until it clicked against a rib.
Theo blinked—not at the blade but at her words. Had he really let two days pass? Time moved like a shadow in this forgotten realm, sometimes a jerk, other times a languid spiral, never something he could quite grasp.
“Yes, well…you seem to want me dead.” He raised an eyebrow and glanced down at the dagger’s hilt. Ribbons of shadow twined around the frayed leather, healing Theo’s wound even as the blade forced it to remain open.
Mira frowned, smacking his chest with her free hand. “I stabbed you before…d
idn’t I?” Her fingers slid over bare skin, desperately searching for a wound that no longer existed.
He gently took her hand and pushed it back. “They will not let me die.” No matter how many times he tried—and he had tried often. The inability to feel pain allowed for some creative methods.
Confusion flitted across Mira’s face. “They?”
He glanced down to the dagger, and she followed his gaze, finally noticing the shadows, almost imperceptible in the dark. They whispered around her fingers now, pushing, forcing the blade out of his body.
She released the weapon with a gasp and stumbled off the bed, shuffling across the room until her back thudded against the door.
“What—how—you’re a monster!”
“And you’re free to leave,” Theo said casually, propping himself up against the headboard. “Although you probably won’t get far. The veils won’t open again for a year.”
“You’re lying.” A breathless whisper, a desperate hope.
“I never lie.”
Mira gulped, her face so pale it almost glowed. “It doesn’t matter. I came here for your heart. I’m not leaving without it.”
Theo smirked. “Interesting. And how do you plan to do that?” He shifted his torso, revealing the smooth, unblemished skin where not one but two daggers had now failed to injure him.
Mira’s breath came too quickly—he could hear it across the room—but her chin tilted defiantly. “I’ll figure it out.”
“And if I kill you first?”
Her eyes hardened around a flash of fear. “Then the world will always remember you for what you are—a beast. A monster. A murderer.”
Theo’s smirk faded, shadows slithering across his chest and twining around his neck as if they could sense his changing emotions. “The world has already forgotten me. If I had a heart, I would gladly give it to you.”
“But you won’t?”
“I can’t.”
“You’re a jinn.” She spat the word like it tasted bad on her tongue. “You can do whatever you wish. Whatever anyone wishes.”
A heavy feeling settled in Theo’s chest as he thought of the last time he had been summoned, of Isandra’s wicked smile as she demanded her wishes, of the mirror he’d shattered to make sure no one ever summoned him again.
“Mother told me what you did,” Mira snarled. “How you destroyed an entire race of people for—”
Theo crossed the room in an instant, shadow-laced fingers pressing against her jaw, aborting the heinous words. “You do not speak of the Fae,” he hissed into her ear as shadowy tendrils curved a pattern against her pale throat. The words stung his tongue, a bitter reminder of the past he could not blot out, no matter what realm he lived in, no matter how many years had passed.
The acidity of Mira’s hair made him want to gag. How could he have ever mistaken this harsh falseness for the feathery, swan-white hair of the Fae? He let her go with a sneer of disgust and leaned over a low fireplace built into the wall, the dying embers providing the room’s only source of light. A swirl of his finger sent bright orange flames bursting into life.
“I did not want to kill them,” he said quietly.
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
He sensed her movement but did not turn, did not fight the knife that found its way into his back, a perfect throw with deadly aim. Theo closed his eyes, waiting for a flash of white. For the swell of blood on skin. For the warmth of pain, or the coldness of inevitability. Every blade inserted, every rope twisted, every bone broken brought with it a surge of hope, a breath of hesitation, but they always ended the same way.
With life instead of death.
Twisting his arm, Theo yanked the knife out and hurled it across the room. The blade buried itself in the headboard of his bed.
“When are you going to learn that doesn’t work?” he growled, stomping back toward her.
Mira’s eyes widened as he grabbed her arm, but she did not move, stiffening her spine as he searched for more weapons. The red dress had grown dirty from her stay in the dungeon, and Theo felt a flicker of guilt at having left her there so long. She had hacked away the train, shortening the skirt to something she could move in more easily, but he knew the alluring fabric hid more than one kind of danger. He pulled out two more daggers and a garrote, slinging them across the room.
The shadows that wrapped around his body writhed and stretched, reaching for her bare shoulders, her torn dress, her false-white hair. Mira’s breaths came out in short bursts, eyes wide and fearful. Good. At least she had the sense to be afraid.
“You’re a monster,” she whispered as he released her, finished with his search, though he had no faith he’d found them all.
“I did what I was bound to do,” he snapped. She had not come for the truth, but he would shove it down her throat anyway. “Isandra is the real beast.”
Mira backed away to stand near the door, as if preparing to flee. “Mother told me what you did. How you stole her magic, left her stranded in a realm that no longer believed in magic.”
“I stopped a wicked sorceress from taking over the world,” he snarled. “She’s a brute who doesn’t know when to stop. If you’re not careful, she’ll destroy you too.” He glanced down her body at the dress that had concealed so many weapons, poisoned honey luring in the fly. “If she hasn’t already.”
Anger surged across Mira’s face like the shadows cast by the fire, but a seed of doubt sparked in her eyes as well. She smothered it with a frustrated shake of her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“I told you, I never lie.” And though he hadn’t intended to convince her of his innocence—knew he couldn’t even if he tried—he found himself wanting to anyway. Wanting to warn her, at least, before she made the same mistakes he had.
“You know it’s true,” he said, his voice as quiet as the smoke that danced in the air between them. “Somewhere deep inside, you know what she’s capable of.”
“And what are you capable of?” Mira asked with fire in her eyes and a stubborn set to her chin.
A familiar feeling wormed its way into Theo’s chest—a flame that had burned out long ago. He pushed the thoughts away, letting familiar apathy replace the anger that had fueled him moments before, leaving a cold emptiness in its place. “I guess we’ll see.”
He fell onto the bed, not bothering to cover himself with the sheet. The fire had heated the room too quickly, combining with the passion of her fury and melting the shell of ice he’d protected himself in for so long.
“What am I supposed to do now?” Mira demanded, sounding less like a scared prisoner and more like an irritated house guest. The thought amused Theo.
“Make yourself at home,” he said, with only a trace of sarcasm. “You are free to sleep where you like. The dungeon obviously won’t hold you anyway.” He raised his head off the pillow, turning to glance at her over his shoulder. “How did you get out, by the way?”
“Well, it’s not exactly state-of-the-art, is it?” Theo could hear the sneer in her words. “I used the garrote to saw through some of the bars.”
He collapsed back on the bed, unable to keep a grin from creeping across his pillow. “Of course you did,” he murmured.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to leave me to wander around for a year? Tell me my mother is a monster and then go back to sleep like everything is fine?”
Theo wanted to tell her that the things he knew about Isandra would turn her stomach. That he lay on his bed not to sleep, but to hide the pain that lived in his eyes. That nothing would ever be fine again.
Instead, he said, “You may join me for dinner tomorrow evening.”
“And if I don’t?”
He shrugged, letting the apathy suck him back down, a comfortable cloud to numb the pain. “Starve, for all I care.”
Mira hmphed, and Theo tried to calculate the odds that Isandra really hadn’t sent her, that the next year living with a fiery assassin wouldn’t somehow end in his d
eath. Tried to determine whether fear or hope sliced through his chest like her daggers could not.
But it was too late for calculations, and Theo had relived enough nightmares for one night. He closed his eyes, though sleep danced far out of reach, as elusive as one of his shadows.
“Trust me,” he said. “There are worse ways to die.”
Mira moved through the manor like a wraith. Or one of his—she shuddered—shadows. A chill passed down her spine as she remembered the way they had curled around her hand, twined through her hair, a cool menace brushing against her skin. Inhuman and terrifying.
Not that she had expected him to be human. Mother had told her jinn could be tricky. Could take on the form of a human and twist it to suit their needs.
She could have told Mira about the knives, though. Mother knew daggers were her favorite weapon, and yet she had failed to mention the jinn could not be killed by one. She wondered if he were telling the truth, that a heart did not beat beneath his surprisingly human chest. Was it an item, then? A keepsake hidden somewhere in this shadowy manor?
Apparently, she had a year to find out. Another tiny detail Mother had neglected to inform her.
A canvas on the wall distracted her: a portrait of the jinn and the likeness he wore. The same lean body; wavy black hair that curled around his ears and fell over his forehead; a sharp, angled jaw; eyelashes even longer than her own.
The eyes, though…the eyes were different. In the painting a flat, lifeless grey, but in person they had been hungry, almost alive, as if actual shadows swirled around his pupils. The expression didn’t fit either, too arrogant in the painting, too sure of himself, and no shadows twined around his arms or wrapped around his neck. The jinn she’d seen in the bedroom had seemed weighted, heavy, exuding a sadness that belied his eternal youth and power.