Darkness Beneath the Dying Light (The City of Shadow & Dust Book 2)

by R. T. Donlon

  Latvala found the soft spot behind Fenir’s ear once more, but hesitated in pushing into it.

  “Fenir has already felt this particular pain, so he will not flinch.” Latvala pushed hard against the pressure point, Fenir kept impeccably still. “And because I have already instilled in him the similar pain manifesting across his body, he will not flinch when I test yet another point.”

  The Mountain Teacher outstretched two fingers and pressed them gently against the hollow of skin just below the neck and above the chest. No reaction from Fenir woke up. He kept still, so Latvala pushed increasingly harder.

  “I could kill him now if I wished it,” the Teacher said. “He could live in his inner world forever, lost to reality…but Fenir trusts me with his life. He trusts his people with his life.”

  Latvala whispered in the boy’s ear and, suddenly, Fenir awoke in a distant sort of befuddlement, struck by the residual pain of his Teacher’s awkward two-finger blow to the neck.

  “You see, Kyrah. If traji takes away the past and tansij takes away the future—”

  His words finally clicked, sending Kyrah into a state of interrupting clarity.

  “The present,” she blurted. “Taerji objectifies the present.”

  And without another word, without another expressive flick of his graying eyebrows, the Mountain Teacher simply returned to his cross-legged position and fell back into traji.

  Another string of days had passed, but Latvala had revealed nothing more about the taerji.

  She spent her afternoons alone catching woodland fox cubs in the forest.

  “You are not ready yet,” the Mountain Teacher explained. “When you master the art of meditation, you may join Fenir in further training.”

  So, alone, Kyrah spent her afternoons catching woodland fox cubs in the forest. She had just found one and lunged for it when Fenir turned the corner and came into view. He was silent, his eyes downtrodden.

  “What is it, Fenir?” Kyrah asked. “Are you not supposed to be with Teacher?” She watched him with a bit more focus. “It is not like you to show such emotion.”

  He relaxed his shoulders, raised his eyes a bit.

  “Teacher dismissed training early,” he said.

  From behind his back, he presented her with a flower. The stem had been meticulously trimmed of thorns, but in a way that did not take away from the aesthetics of its odd green hue. The petals shifted from a deep silver-blue to a shallow yellow-red as he passed it to her in the sunlight.

  “I searched far and wide for this, Kyrah of the North.”

  He blushed while Kyrah twirled her newfound gift between fingers.

  “Fenir—” she began, but he rushed a hand to her lips.

  A static charged filled the air between them, something palpable.

  “Kyrah, please…I must say this,” he mumbled. “I know it is wrong to feel…to feel as I do now, but I must…I must offer this to you.”

  Kyrah kept her eyes fixated, staring at the flower. Nothing had ever struck her as so trivially beautiful. She processed what the boy had just said. She should have known—all of the flickering gazes, the distant smiles, the hunger…

  “It is a Ututu flower. It grows only at the peak of the mountain over there,” Fenir continued, pointing to a peak shrouded in cloud. “It is very difficult to find, but it is a symbol of—”

  “Love,” Kyrah interrupted.

  And, as if the word Kyrah had spoken somehow condemned Fenir to banishment, the boy lowered his gaze and took off running into the forest. She tried calling for him, ushering him back, but it was no use. The boy had vanished into the bush.

  “Does that offend you?” he whispered. “You know we are…forbidden.” He took a moment to breath inward, sighing outward in suspense. “I did not wish to offend you and I am afraid I have.”

  What a strange word to use, Kyrah thought. Afraid…

  To her left, the communal fire of the village had yet to be burned, awaiting the twilight hours of dusk. She turned toward the wood ready for burn, dropped to one knee, and choose a shard of wood that had been ripped from the base of a withered tree stump. Turning it in her hand, she took in its rough bark, its shifty growth.

  “There was no offense in your voice, Fenir, nor am I offended. No one has shown me affection like this since—”

  Kyrah’s voice trailed off as if the words simply did not have enough volume to push from her throat. Fenir waited until she gathered enough strength to continue.

  “—my mother.”

  He sensed a surge of desperation clinging to Kyrah’s voice as she spoke of her.

  “She is gone now,” she explained, “with Xan in another world.”

  “My apologies,” Fenir spoke. “The flower was meant to show you who I am. I did not mean for it to bring back memories of your mother.”

  She leaned forward and kissed Fenir hard. A surge of electric passion coursed through them. Her hands reached for his neck. His dropped to her waist and, suddenly, the two of them connected. Every instant felt real, primordial and freeing, like tasting sugar for the first time, but Kyrah pulled away, suddenly ripped back into reality.

  “We have not been mated,” she whispered. “This is not sanctioned.”

  Her breathing broke heavily and laced with years of hidden hormones suddenly exposed. The more she gazed into his tired eyes, the more she realized that this was not something spontaneous. This was a connection that had existed since the moment she laid eyes on him, only now, she understood it. She knew it all to be true.

  She had loved him at first sight.

  “An apprentice cannot mate,” Fenir whispered. “I know.”

  “If Latvala found out about us—” she continued.

  “He will not. He cannot.”

  The sudden whoosh of chemicals through her brain seemed a definitive thing. Of course, thoughts of ruining her trust with Latvala, with Velc even, kept her hesitant, but the tingling desire sparked from her fingers, the pulse of her heartbeat increased with every elongated second apart from his, the never-before-experienced sensation of her lips against his…it all sent her to the far corners of cultural treason, willing—for some unexplained reason—to part with everything she had ever desired.

  They stared opposite each other for some time, daring the other to speak.

  “We can’t,” Kyrah whispered, but Fenir, with lust in his eyes, had nothing else on his mind.

  “Follow me,” he whispered.

  And she did.

  The first rays of sunlight poked like fingertips over the horizon, shimmering between peaks and valleys of the not-so-distant jagged mountains to the east. The soft shrill of canopy birds echoed in the trees as if played by an orchestra of flutes. Remnants of stars blinked harshly against the gray-black sky, then slowly disappeared as night shifted into the opaque blue of a fresh morning sky.

  A chilled, fluttering wind broke through the air, but Kyrah and Fenir held each other warm under the homespun blankets and feather-packed pillows of their makeshift bunk—a distant corner of a foreign rock face halfway to the outer jungles. He had convinced her that no one would discover them out there in the wild and, as it turned out, he would be correct. They had their heads about them now, no longer overwhelmed by those delicate primitive powers of desire and lust.

  “This can never work,” she whispered.

  Fenir had closed his eyes, but not to sleep. The words seemed to hit his ears like thrown rocks, but he knew them to be true, so he opened his eyes and turned towards her onto bent arm.

  “We can build a life,” he said, “away from here. Who knows what lies beyond the Portizu lines.”

  She read each shift of his eyes, each quiet upturn of the corners of his lips, each short, choppy breath, and still, the excitement of pleasing him caught her attention.

  You must not fall to the pleasures of the flesh, she thought.

  The voice of Velc barked at her through years upon years of training, even as far away as the Mountains.


  His own words had caught him by surprise, as well. The ways of the Portizu Tribes held too strong in both of them. Seeing her dismay, Fenir ran the calloused pads of his fingertips across the shape of her arm, down to her waist until it rested against her hip.

  The electricity of his touch had not faltered. She knew it never would.

  “I have spent every moment of my training preparing for the power I will one day yield. I have no doubt that Latvala has done the same with you. Tell me—you wish to sacrifice the duty owed to your people for…this?”

  Kyrah’s words were sharper than she had expected them to be, but it did not keep them from resonating in truth.

  “What will I do when you leave?” said Fenir. “Knowing a part of me has gone with you? How will I become the man I am supposed to be?”

  All of it had happened so suddenly, so precisely. Yes, there was something in Fenir’s gaze that offered strength—it would never vanish altogether—but the Elite would force her to return to the North, no matter the circumstances. That, she knew.

  “I will tell you what you will do,” she said. Her eyes no longer glistened in the morning light, only emptied of hope. “You will train for as long as Latvala needs you to train…and, in time, the pain of my loss will make you stronger. It is the way of our people, Fenir. It is the way of Turisic.”

  “No,” he said, pulling himself from the blankets. His naked body chilled against the wind, but he did not show it. “You make me stronger. We are supposed to together. Can’t you feel it?”

  She, too, broke free from the blankets and stood naked in the pale morning sunlight.

  “What you speak of can never be,” she persisted. His hands had ventured to her waist. She relished in the moment before it was whisked away forever. “The Portizu have claimed us for different purposes. We cannot ignore that.”

  Fenir turned against the wind and raised his chin to the sky. There was nothing left to say.

  “We were warned of this,” Fenir replied, “countless times. It is something traji and tansij cannot fix. I think Teacher called it—”

  “Heartbreak,” Kyrah whispered.

  He met her eyes as he squared his shoulders to her. The moment she had surrendered to him—his touch—she had given away any lasting privilege of innocence. No longer could she rip away her feelings. They were bound by love, warmth, embrace…

  “This is not the end of us,” she continued. “One day we will meet again and both of us will know our purpose. Latvala will teach you well. I can see his teachings alive in you, as Velc’s are in me.”

  “You speak as if you are leaving,” said the boy.

  She paused for a moment, running her index finger across the bridge of his palm. Her heart raced quietly in sync with his.

  “For so long I wondered when this day would come,” she continued, “but it was you all along. You showed me the way.”

  She held up two empty palms—one on either end of outstretched arm.

  “Traji eliminates the past. Tansij shades the future, but taerji does not shield us from the present. It does not eliminate pain or fear or emotion. It is the present. Taerji is one in three—the ultimate separation.”

  Fenir’s demeanor did not change—could not change—for he had discovered taerji as Kyrah had. As she stood naked in the cool of the jungle morning, she understood exactly what Latvala had been trying to show her. In those final moments of slumber before awaking, she had come to know herself. She became one with the warmth of Fenir. Somewhere deep in her mind, she had allowed herself to believe in something bigger—stranger—and she accepted herself as both finite and infinite simultaneously, both controlled and uncontrollable, both wild and tamed.

  “I do not expect you to understand,” she continued, “but very soon you will. We will forever be connected, but you must learn what I have learned by yourself…” She paused before allowing the remaining words to filter past her tongue to her teeth, “…and I will never stop loving you.”

  Love—a foreign concept to two naked, young Portizu Warriors, standing opposite each other with attraction and loss bleeding from their eyes.

  “As I you,” Fenir whispered. “I had sworn myself to you before we had even met.”

  Then, no more words were spoken. Nothing seemed fit to say. Instead, they embraced each other against the chill of the mountain winds, unwilling to allow fate to tear them apart.

  “Mountain Teacher,” said Kyrah. It was afternoon and the sun blanketed her shoulders. “I am ready.”

  Latvala rose from traji.

  “Ah,” he replied. “So you have found the way?”

  Without doubt or hesitation, Kyrah answered: “I have found the way.”

  “And what, may I ask, changed this course in you?”

  This, she would keep hidden, although Fenir’s heartbroken eyes would never leave her.

  Never.

  “I spent the night at the edge of the caves,” she answered. “I now know the Light in taerji, the truth in it.”

  The calming, unobtrusive demeanor of her Mountain Teacher quickly changed. His mouth curled downward.

  “You do understand that you have one chance at proving yourself,” the Teacher spoke. “You will not be given a second.”

  His comment pushed out from him as a question, but resonated as more of a command. Still, there was no doubt hidden away in Kyrah.

  “I know this,” she replied, “and I will prove to you that I am prepared, once again, to join the Elite in the North with taerji as my steady guide.”

  There was an extended silence, only the sound of insects buzzing somewhere fluttered in the distance. Her eyes never parted from those of her Mountain Teacher.

  “Very well then,” he said. “Follow me.”

  There was no preparation—no hours of traji in the afternoon heat, no tansij in the village grass, no conversation, no persuasion to change her mind. There was only the walk.

  They reached the outer edge of the first valley and, silently, Latvala started up the incline to the mountainside. She watched her steps diligently as she skidded through falling pebbles and rain-driven sand. These paths were not meant for travel, yet Latvala—even as stalky and built as he was—sauntered gracefully navigating them, even elegant.

  “You’re taking me to the caves, aren’t you?” Kyrah asked, but she was met with no response.

  The rocky escarpment flattened five hundred feet up and gave way to a chopped expanse of miniature Eldervarn trees, most withered at the core. They stood proudly with their slender, bare branches pointed into the sky. Wind whispered through them, calling the names of all who had passed this place before. She found herself closing her eyes as she walked, sensing her way through the sticks, listening to the Mountain Teacher’s footsteps before her. This was where she needed to be—calm, reassured, and prepared.

  She listened with, not only her ears, but her heart.

  “Do you still wish to pursue the taerji?”

  It had been the first words Latvala had spoken to her in hours.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Very well,” he continued. “Follow me.”

  The withering trees gave way to yet another escarpment—this one even steeper than the last. For most of the journey upward, Kyrah struggled to keep her balance against the cliff, clutching to any implanted rocks she could find or any fixated debris crusted to its sides. She moved cautiously against the spiraling rock face quickly and quietly, but the final ascent was unlike anything she had ever climbed before. The cliff nearly bent over on itself, angling so that she could only climb with the tips of her fingers. The rest of her body dangled helplessly over open air. One false grip and she would tumble thousands of feet down to the trees below.

  Latvala maintained his distance, keeping comfortably in front of her, never speaking, never glancing back. She mimicked his movements to match his. Where he went, she went.

  Hours passed. Endless climbing persisted. One strained movement at a time, she poked her hands into the
crevices of rock and clung dearly to the cliff, fingers white against the tension. Her breathing stiffened in the thin air, unable to take the deep breaths she desired. Then, just as she felt she could no longer face another series of jagged hills, Kyrah Laeth and her Mountain Teacher reached their peak.

  She watched Latvala effortlessly pull himself up and over the lip. She climbed over it, as well, but awkwardly, rolling onto the surface above, stretching her worn fingers in and out of fists. She rose to her feet and peered out over a circular flattened platform, shaved down from its original peak-like point only for the purpose of standing room. In front of her, the horizontal mouth of a darkened cave opened from the floor. The entrance was nothing more than a dark slit that opened sideways at its base. Only the slightest of people could fit into it, she thought, but she knew almost instantly that she could, that she must.

  To her left, the Mountain Teacher stood with his eyes scanning the blackening sky.

  “This place is beautiful, is it not?” He spoke in nearly a whisper. “We stand at the highest point of all of the Poritzu Tribelands. If you look closely, you can see all of the Territories from here.”

  She could barely hear him over the gusts of wind doubling back on themselves. She swiveled her eyes to one side of the peak, then the other, taking in the wonder of the peak’s strange elevation. Stratospheric clouds hovered just below them and, because of it, the air above had never seemed so crisp, so untouched. The sun—cold and pale as the western reaches—sank deep into the horizon’s thinning line, almost out of sight. The first harshly blinking stars peered down at them from above.

  Latvala watched Kyrah intently with unblinking eyes.

  “You know,” he continued. “If you fall from this height, there is not a god of the Range that could save you. You’ll hit the ground of the valley and—”

  He stopped himself to redirect, shaking the thought from his mind.

  Why would he say that? she thought.

  “It is here you shall prove you are worthy of the taerji,” the Mountain Teacher spoke. “In a moment, I will drop deep into my own taerji state, so deep that you will not recognize me, nor will I recognize you. I will only identify you as Portizu—not of the Mountains—but of the North. Our people never allow such circumstances at face value and, consequently, my taerji self will not be pleased with your persistence in learning the taerji gift. This is the way of my people—the Mountain Warriors. It was never meant to travel beyond the Mountain Lands. We are cautious. We are protective…and taerji brings that out in me more than you will choose to believe. In order to succeed in this task, you must find your own taerji. Without it, you will perish.”