The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7)

by Everet Martins

  The Shadow Princess hovered, closing her eyes and inhaling deep. She found her center, that place where the voices couldn’t dissuade her. It was a place where she couldn’t be chastised for not doing enough, blamed for her father’s death, accosted for not rising out from the blood to fight Shadow Slayer when he killed Mother. She would right her mistakes. She would make them love her.

  She opened her eyes, flashing bright with blades of violet. She willed all of them to attack, every remaining Shadow snake waiting at the Tower’s mouth and each of her humanoid constructs. She watched as a wave of movement passed over her pets, appearing much like a stretch of spilled ink from up there. She folded her wings against her body and fell from the sky, directing herself like an arrow to collide with the Arch Cunt.

  The remaining mass of Shadow snakes converged as if drawn together and then moved as one body, rising up in a sick parabola. Nyset gasped, stumbling back a step. The shape rolled along the Tower’s bridge, mopping up other Shadow snakes and pulling them into its central body. They rolled like an enormous wave, cresting higher and higher, using their brethren to charge the ramparts as a living wall of their own. Their hissing grew to a horrible roar, blotting out the clang of weapons and casting a great shadow over the ramparts.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Isa barked. “How… how do we fight this?” His voice broke, and it terrified her. Isa’s forearms flexed hard on his dark instruments, useless against the oncoming tsunami.

  The rolling mass moved as slow as mud, traveling onward and ever growing. Their heights easily surpassed the wall now, a looming tower of snakes eager to swallow the world. Nyset licked her lips. The sun was reduced to chinks of light that speared between their bodies.

  “Run.” Nyset’s voice was a croak, and she cleared her throat. “Run!” she screamed this time. Something drew her eye, a blot of red hanging on the distant sky. The spot grew. And within it were pairs of violet slits. Nyset saw the Shadow Princess’s mouth widen to reveal her glistening carnivore’s teeth.

  Finally. She comes.

  “Senka, Isa, to me! She comes!” Nyset’s Phoenix portal snapped open behind her, and she leaped through, landing in the main aisle of Tower’s library. Senka and Isa padded in after her, and she held the portal open, knowing she was abandoning the front line. Her heart wailed in agony at all the soon-to-be-dead she’d left behind. Grimbald would hold the line as long as he could, knowing his place in her plan. Her heart wept for his sacrifice.

  “I saw her! She comes!” Senka cried, twirling her blades. “Seconds.”

  Isa’s eyes were wide and shimmering diamonds, mouth hanging open as he waited. He dropped his hatchet and hammer at his sides and drew his sword instead. They exchanged nods as Nyset continued to hold her portal, hoping no one would be foolish enough to go through it unless directed.

  The clash of war was replaced with a black silence. Doomed. They were all doomed, Isa thought. His mouth felt dry as an ancient boot, hands slicked with sweat and crusting blood. Shadow blood. He could taste it on his cheeks and the back of his throat. He’d invariably swallowed some of her rot. He knew what that taste meant and what its future foretold. He hoped, in death, he would find peace.

  He stole a quick gaze about the library, its hallowed nooks like empty graves. Every candle and lantern had been snuffed out by the Arch Wizard, leaving one to question the swimming shadows. The enormous crystal marking the dome’s apex shone down with a murky gray light. Some books glowed upon their shelves with gilded spines of gold and silver, others seemingly armored as if the book itself would soon be marching into battle. Abandoned ladders stood on rails that guided them around the dome, offering access to the books at the highest reaches. Long oaken tables had been cleared and cast aside. Despite the numerous windows circling the dome, it still carried the odor of moldering paper and unwashed bodies. The Tower’s best scholars were notorious for their lack of self-care.

  It was a place he did his best to avoid. Real knowledge was born of experience, not rote memorization and the minds of untested scholars. Isa taught his Swiftshade recruits that if you wanted to learn something, its veracity had to be tested with skin in the game. True experience was born of pain, learned in muscle, and forged in bone. Only through the trials of fire did one properly know a thing. Isa swallowed and stilled his breath and his thrumming heart. Nyset’s portal sizzled on the worn carpets, smoking at the portal’s edges. The sizzling seemed to magnify in his ears, drowning out all else. What was taking so long?

  “Is she coming?” he asked, clenching his teeth at the stupidity of his question. He turned to look at Senka, finding her attention where it should be and where his should’ve been— on the portal.

  “Don’t know,” Senka snapped, twirling her daggers, and shifting her stance from side to side, light on the balls of her feet. Dragon fire flickered along the edges of her blades.

  The Arch Wizard might’ve glared at him, but it was hard to read her expression between the fire glowing in her eyes, so bright it silhouetted her face. “She comes!” Nyset dove to her side as the Shadow Princess spilled through her portal, which closed behind her with a spark. The Shadow Princess fell into a protective roll, leathered wings beating at the floor before bouncing up to her feet, regarding them with a wicked smile.

  “The Arch Cunt!” The Shadow Princess charged, but Isa was faster, leaping at her flank with sword readied to impale her. The moment before his blade would’ve cut true, a torrent of thoughts wracked his mind.

  Parents never loved you.

  Abandoned.

  A creature too ugly for love, worth only death.

  Nothing.

  Hopeless.

  Useless.

  Despite fighting her before and knowing this would happen, it was enough to rattle the conviction of his strike, giving her an iota of space to dodge and counter. She spun and dropped her body low, leg flashing out to sweep his legs and send him floating on the air. Isa twisted mid-fall, landing in a deep squat, and re-gripped his sword. “Bitch! Out of my skull!” he growled.

  “Don’t belong here!” Senka screamed, daggers streaking the air with trails of Dragon fire, simultaneously trying to stab at her throat and gut. The Shadow Princess blocked one of Senka’s daggers at the wrist, Dragon fire burning so hot it seared and bubbled the Shadow Princess’s cheek. Before Senka’s other strike landed, the Shadow Princess slashed in an uppercut, tearing three bright streaks under Senka’s jaw and sending her blow wide. “Ah!” Senka shouted, blood splattering from her neck, sending her staggering back on wobbling legs.

  “No! Senka!” Isa lunged, driving his sword through the Shadow Princess’s thigh while her back was turned to Senka. She grunted in surprise, head swiveling to face him, blood weeping from her hamstring. The light of Dragon fire flashed at his left, and the Shadow Princess tore herself free from his sword to avoid a flurry of fireballs loosed by the Arch Wizard. Isa dropped to the carpets, releasing his grip as they soared past, making the air shimmer with heat. Most went wide, crashing into the bookcases and tearing three burning holes through the dome’s walls. Lances of daylight cut into the dome, highlighting all the swirling dust. Burning books thumped to the ground and shredded pages floated like feathers.

  One fireball tore through the root of her wing, blasting the air with chunks of red carapace and glowing violet blood. “You can’t do this to us! Don’t let her hurt us!” the Shadow Princess screeched and launched into the air, trying to flap her ruined wing and spiraling over a bookcase and into an adjacent aisle. Without hesitation, Senka ran to follow her, blood trailing her path like she was a pierced wineskin.

  Senka’s chin burned like it had been cut with acid. Gratefully, it felt as if her wounds were perhaps minor. If the bitch had gotten arteries, she wouldn’t have made it this far, Senka reminded herself as she rounded the corner of a heavy bookshelf standing nearly twenty feet.

  Tens of books had been dislodged from their shelf, crowding around the slumped form of the Shadow Princess. Can
it be this easy? A broad streak of violet blood trailed down from a neighboring bookshelf where she’d landed. Senka slowed as she approached, motioning for Isa to go in on the opposite side of the aisle. He gave her a nod of confirmation, hurrying down the bookshelf to enter on the other side. She gripped and re-gripped her daggers. Breath hissed between her clamped teeth. She peered back at Nyset, who was standing like a statue as she assessed the scene.

  Then Nyset moved. The Arch Wizard made no pretenses at caution, a portal snapping open a pace before the Shadow Princess. The Shadow Princess raised her head to look up at her, a bloody smile forming on her porcelain cheeks.

  “It’s time for you to die.” Nyset closed her hands, the sword of flame materializing in her fists to drive downward.

  “I can never truly die.” The Shadow Princess laughed, shaking her head. Her voice dropped to a gravely rasp. “Kill me now, and I again return. I live and live again, perpetually trapped in a never-ending cycle of life and death. I’ve cursed myself, Arch Wizard. Is this punishment, I wonder? At our cores, there is only conflict. This is our truth, you and I.”

  “Oh, no. But you will die. I have your phylactery,” Nyset said with an icy grin. With one hand she hefted a pouch on her hip, filled with nothing but a common field stone, Senka knew. Would she believe it?

  “It’s not possible. How?” The Shadow Princess made to rise, wincing in pain, rivulets of blood spurting from her back.

  “Pathetic. You’re nothing without your pets. Your phylactery was easy to find in Tigeria, the first and most predictable place you fled after we killed your mother,” Nyset growled, driving the flame sword down with finality.

  Isa stifled a sudden howl of agony threatening to well from his throat down to a groan. The brand on his forearm burned like liquid fire, unlike any pain he’d experienced before.

  It is time, a terribly familiar voice crackled like burning paper. The debt must be repaid. Slay the Arch Wizard, Isa Dodred. I command it! Prodal’s voice bellowed.

  A sheen of cold sweat emerged from Isa’s every pore, eyelids pried unnaturally wide by an irresistible force. He tried to take control of his body, but his limbs acted of their own volition. No! He tried to scream, but no words came. Prodal’s laugh deepened, the sound melding with what might’ve been thousands of sobbing men.

  Stop! No! To his horror, he witnessed his arm unsheathing a long dagger verging on the length of a short sword, its edge curved and the flat broad. His arm shifted behind his head, studded leather armor creaking, legs advancing to bridge the distance to the Arch Wizard. His eyes were drawn to the Arch Wizard’s throat, the force controlling him undeniable.

  All the toiling years he’d spent cultivating expert control of his every fiber were laid to ruin in an instant. He felt the cords of his muscle winding up for a murderous swing, felt his fingers curling tight about the ivory grip of his blade.

  Please, no! No, no, no! Stop! Stop! he begged.

  Prodal’s laughter roared over his thoughts. The debt is always repaid.

  “Isa?” Senka asked. The edge of his blade gleamed in a shaft of light, its direction plain. “What are you—” Her legs drove her on, fueled by her instinct to defend the Mistress, leaping toward him to intercept the blow. Don’t make me do this! She slammed her daggers into his chest, his blood splattering onto her cheeks. “Isa! Why?” she screamed.

  His betraying arm hammered home into Senka’s upper back, blade driving so deep its tip emerged at the top of her breast. She threw her head back in a feral cry, driving her blades harder against his chest. “Why?” she yelled. Disgust and disbelief melded to give it all the sensation of a nightmare. “Why? Why? Betrayer!” Tears filled her eyes, gazing into his to find some vestige of an answer. There had to be a reason, something she’d missed.

  Isa’s eyes were wrong. They shifted from amethyst, to emerald, to a burning yellow, and finally, funeral black. She knew those eyes. Prodal’s eyes. “No! No!” she snarled and shoved Isa off her daggers. His body hit the ground with a wet slap. His head flopped to the side and bounced from the worn carpets, wounds guttering out in cascading layers of blood.

  I’m sorry, Isa wanted to say. But why should I be sorry? What more could I have done? He wanted to tell her that he loved her, but all that came was a choking rasp as blood gurgled thick in his lungs. The light of the world narrowed down to pinholes. Senka stared at him with her expression twisted in horror, daggers dropping free from her hands to stand at angles in the floor.

  Flee while you can. I’ve given you a chance, Prodal growled in the Shadow Princess’s mind. The Arch Wizard’s sword of fire puffed into a wisp of smoke. Her stupid mouth fell stupidly open, watching as her stupid friends murdered each other.

  The Shadow Princess laughed at it all. She laughed at her pain, at her self-inflicted torture, at the foibles of her enemies. There was never anything more beautiful than watching that pure suffering on the dark woman’s face. It energized her, gave her strength and courage where she thought she’d never know that feeling again.

  She rose while Prodal screamed for her to flee.

  Nyset’s body froze as Isa hit the ground dead, struggling to understand, finding no easy answers. She glimpsed the short sword hanging out the top of Senka’s back, her father’s precious daggers dropped at her sides. A mortal strike. But Nyset could heal them. “Senka!” she shrieked, going to her. Blood trailed down Senka’s back, pooling at her belt.

  Senka collapsed to her knees, head lolling onto her chest. “Mistress,” she whispered.

  Nyset dashed around to Senka’s front, slipping on blood and thumping on her side. “Damn you!” she growled, scrambling up to face her friend. As Nyset embraced the Phoenix, a violet portal sliced the air, and the Shadow Princess leaped for it.

  No! Not like this. Don’t make me choose!

  Duty held the greatest weight. Nyset screamed in rage, throwing herself up and over Senka, falling through the Shadow Princess’s portal, leaving her friends to die.

  Senka’s fingers felt numb. She fumbled at the buckles securing her leather breastplate. She released the last with a metallic click, shrugging off her armor with a wince. She caressed the tip of the blade emerging through her breast and out her heavy shirt. It felt small and insignificant. Even the blood on her chest was a mere trickle. It shouldn’t have been enough to kill her, but given the width of it, she correctly surmised it had nicked her heart.

  After everything. Dying. But it was a good life.

  She closed her eyes and listened, hoping she’d hear the patter of the footsteps that would provide healing to herself and Isa. Books burned and shelving crackled, sending curls of dark smoke for the dome’s apex. The touch of smoke reached her nose, scoring at her sinuses. Her heartbeat was all wrong, an asymmetric gurgle in her head.

  “There’s no one. Alone,” she breathed, opening her eyes. Senka’s eyes, blurred by tears, tracked to Isa’s arm, and found his brand softly glowing. Her tears became joyous, and she let out a laugh, realizing he didn’t do this of his own choice. Prodal. She nodded in understanding.

  Senka smiled, lowered herself to her hands and knees and crawled over to Isa. She laid herself against his side and draped both an arm and a leg over his warm body. She nuzzled his jaw. She closed her eyes.

  The long sleep took her, but when she died, she was filled with love.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Termination

  “To enact revenge, empathy must be hamstrung.” - The Diaries of Nyset Camfield

  Grimbald gaped as the Shadow snakes crested beyond the height of the ramparts. He glanced at a brightness to his far right along the wall, seeing as Isa, Senka, and Nyset dashed through a glowing Phoenix portal. The Arch Wizard had finally sprung her trap. It was their last hope, and it had to work. The Shadow Princess seemed to be taking the bait, streaking like an arrow over the Tower’s bridge.

  “By the Dragon!” a thin archer breathed, dropping his bow, and resting his arms by his sides. He slowly removed his helm
, striking the ground with a clang.

  “We’ve lost,” said a backpedaling spear man, gasping in surprise when his back touched the rear wall.

  “The Shadow Realm is purified. Do not fear, we’re going to a better place,” said a wizard with espresso skin and long waves of hair.

  “Don’t stop fighting!” one of Grimbald’s generals shouted, snatching the archer’s dropped helmet and slamming it into his gut.

  “Oof!” the archer grunted and doubled over.

  Their shouts and squabbles paled as the Shadow snakes became Grimbald’s world. His vision became a roiling wall of hundreds of thousands of glittering amethyst eyes. There was a strange beauty in it. He dropped Corpsemaker, regarding it with a wan smile as it clattered, thinking of his Pa. He wondered what he’d look like in the Shadow Realm. His lips formed a smile, releasing his mind from the troubles of this life. He hoped in the next life, the pain of unrequited love and losing all he held dear would fade.

  He’d never told Ny how he felt about her. These things were better kept in a wine barrel and firmly corked where they couldn’t ruin friendships. Not every whim had to be acted upon, his Pa would’ve told him. But it wasn’t a whim, and nonetheless, his truth would remain hidden.

  Some thought him a dullard despite his station, but he knew things. He knew women like the Arch Wizard couldn’t love a man like him. He knew the way of the world. Life didn’t always give you what you wanted, even if you tried to take it from its iron grasp. One could hope that things could get better. He raised his head as the tiles around Corpsemaker further darkened.