by K A Riley
A girl who was beginning to like the idea of letting people in.
I took a long shower, put on my silver pajamas and headed to bed after a final goodnight to my new friends. I must have fallen asleep almost immediately, because the next thing I knew, Niala was shaking my shoulder gently.
“Vega, wake up,” she was whispering. “Get dressed. The Headmaster wants to see you.”
I opened my eyes to see a woman in gray standing at the foot of my bed, holding my linen clothing in her hands.
Without a word I leapt out of bed, changed into my clothes, and followed the woman out of the room, leaving the sleeping students behind. My heart was pounding, my mind turning over, questions swirling like a tornado.
Was I going to get kicked out? Had Merriwether found out about the time I was spending with Callum? Had something happened back at home?
No—that couldn’t be it. Time at home was standing still.
But it had to be something. Merriwether wouldn’t call me to his office in the middle of the night for nothing.
“Someone will collect your things,” the woman said to me as we walked, which only cemented the notion that I was about to be expelled from the Academy.
I nodded, too frightened to ask why. I didn’t particularly want to hear it from a stranger. If the Headmaster wanted me gone, he could throw me out himself.
“Vega,” Merriwether said when he’d opened the door to his chamber. “Come, come.” He ushered me inside, shutting the door behind me when my escort had left.
I trembled as I stepped inside the wood-paneled office, noting the incredible array of objects surrounding me. Everything from what looked like royal scepters to skulls to vials of dangerous-looking potion. The space glowed with light generated by a huge floating lantern hovering above an enormous wooden desk with the ornate carved legs of a lion.
“Sit down,” Merriwether said, his voice low and even. I obeyed without question. After all, I was probably about to get kicked out of the Academy. What use would there be in protesting?
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“No,” I replied, determined to keep my answers monosyllabic to avoid giving away the tremor in my voice.
“Well, first of all,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”
Wait—the Headmaster of the Academy for the Blood-Born had gotten me out of bed to apologize…to…me?
“What?” I asked. “I mean pardon? I mean…what?”
“Freya’s attack this afternoon was deliberate, calculated,” he said, pacing behind his desk. “I should have known. I should have seen it coming.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“It’s not okay, in fact, and it enrages me more than I care to say. It’s not your fault the others see you as a threat, and it’s unjust. Promise me now that you’ll come to me if anyone else threatens you or makes you feel unsafe.”
Okay…so maybe I wasn’t being kicked out.
“I promise,” I said. The words came out like a question. “Actually, they’ve been really nice since…the incident.”
“Good, good. The most promising Seeker Candidate is always the least popular,” Merriwether said, striding over and taking a seat in the leather chair on the opposite side of his enormous desk. “You were terrified, weren’t you, when it happened?”
I stared at him, my heart pounding as I remembered the feeling of turning to swirling waves of smoke. The nothingness, the weightlessness that overtook my body. The feeling I’d become something else, something so far outside of myself that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find my way back.
“Yes.”
“Very few can do what you did,” he said, an approving look in his eye. “Very few are what you are. But they do tend to be quite powerful.”
“Powerful is a strange word for it,” I said. “I felt like I’d…”
“Died?”
“Yes.”
“It feels like death when one steps into the Shadow Realm,” he said, as though he spoke from experience. “It’s a horror, to be sure. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you in advance. The truth is, I had no way of knowing with any certainty you had it in you to become a Shadow.”
“Warn me? Are you saying you had a suspicion I could do that?”
He shook his head. “I did. I thought I detected something in those eyes of yours. They change color almost hourly now, which tells me that something inside you hasn’t entirely settled on what you are.”
“So I might have other…gifts?” I asked.
The word tasted bitter on my tongue. Summoning doors and losing myself in a cloud of purple smoke were quite enough for me.
Merriwether locked me in his gaze, his eyes twinkling under his unkempt brows. “I wish I could say with any certainty,” he replied. “But I’m afraid I can’t. You’re quite different from anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Great,” I puffed out. “With my luck, I’ll probably grow spikes where my hands are and become some kind of dagger-fisted weirdo. Then the Zerkers will really have a reason to hate me.”
“The Zerkers don’t hate you, Vega.”
He looked at the floor, and I watched as his hands tensed before relaxing again. “They’re used to a certain routine around here. They’re not accustomed to people wandering in from your world and showing themselves to be stronger, more powerful than they are. It frightens them, so they push back harder than they need to. It’s a reflex, a survival instinct, like a wolf who growls when threatened.”
I smiled to myself at the thought of scaring boys like Larken and Spiker.
“I don’t mean to frighten anyone,” I said. “I’m only here to help.”
“I know.” Merriwether picked up a book from his desk and leafed through it. “Listen, I need you to help me with something tonight—something dangerous and daunting. Are you up for it?”
“Everything is dangerous and daunting these days. Ever since my birthday. So what’s one more challenge?”
“That’s the spirit,” Merriwether said with a wink. He spun around and strode over to press a glowing panel on the wall. A few seconds later the door opened and Niala walked through, with Rourke at her side in panther form.
I smiled when I saw the pair. If they were part of whatever the Headmaster was going to ask me to do, maybe I could come through it unscathed.
“There is a secret meeting set to take place at midnight,” Merriwether said. “In a location few can reach. I need you to find your way there and to eavesdrop on the two people who are getting together. Then I need you to return and tell me what you’ve heard. Niala and Rourke will be on the lookout, ready to help you, should you need it.”
A strange smile crept over his features before he added, “Naturally, you’ll need to use your newly-developed skill.”
I nearly choked. “Wait—you mean my disappearing act?” I asked. “But…I have no idea how I even did that.”
“A few days ago, you didn’t know how to summon doors to other realms, yet here we are. I have no doubt when the time calls for it, you’ll manage.”
“But you saw us this morning—I’m terrible with weapons. I can’t even—”
“I’m not sending you on an assassination mission, Vega. I’m sending you to listen. I suspect you’re very good at that, although you’re doing a terrible job at the moment.”
I opened my mouth to protest again before stopping myself. Of course. This had to be another test to see if I was worthy of being named Seeker when all was said and done. I had no choice but to do it.
“You’re not to talk to anyone about what I’m going to show you,” Merriwether said, looking at Niala and me in turn. “It is of the utmost importance that you keep quiet about this. Understood?”
We nodded in unison.
Merriwether opened the book he’d been leafing through and handed it to me. On a page on the right side was a painting of a cliff rising up out of the ocean, waves lapping at its base. A set of old ruins was perched high above at the top of the cliff, a heavy bla
nket of clouds hovering over the scene. Merriwether pointed to a black smear of paint at the base of the cliff that looked like a cavern of some sort.
“Do you think you can find your way to this place?” he asked.
I studied the painting for a minute before saying, “Maybe. But I don’t even really know where we are right now.”
“You didn’t know where the Academy was, yet you managed to summon a door that led you to its library. You didn’t know how to find the Otherwhere, yet you managed to summon the dragon’s door into Anara.”
“I think I get your point,” I said with a sigh. “You want me to open a door to somewhere near that cave?”
“Yes. Two agents of the queen are meeting there in a few minutes. You need to find your way into the cave and wait for them to arrive. You, Vega, will hide inside the cave while Niala and Rourke stand guard some distance away.”
“Am I going to get a fancy black Ninja outfit to wear?” I asked.
“You won’t need one. You’re a Shadow, remember?”
I swallowed hard when the word met my ears. “But what if…”
“What if you can’t disappear?” he asked. “If your power fails you?”
I nodded.
“It won’t,” he said simply.
When I opened my mouth to express doubt again, he held up a hand. “None of that,” he said. “You know better.”
I ground my jaw, reminding myself of Will’s words just before we’d said good-bye to each other:
Don’t be someone who sabotages herself on purpose to prove to the world how much you suck. You should be proving how amazing you are, because that’s the real you.
I told myself that, no matter what happened tonight, I’d try to make my big brother proud.
I glanced over at Niala, who seemed to have already been briefed on the situation, because she looked far calmer than I felt.
“Okay, then,” I said. “I guess it’s a simple matter of opening a doorway to a super-dangerous place and going through, only to hope I can disappear into a swirling void when a couple of people who probably want to kill me show up?”
“That’s about the size of it, yes,” the Headmaster said with a smile. “Now you’d best get on with it. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Without another word, I nodded and looked at the painting once again. After I studied it for a minute, I closed my eyes and envisioned the sound of waves crashing against the shore, the smell of sea salt, the feeling of sand and stone beneath my feet.
When I opened my eyes, a door stood at the center of the chamber, a large wave carved into its surface. I rose to my feet, shot Niala and Rourke a quick, only slightly terrified smile, and pushed the door open to step through.
A few seconds later, the three of us were standing on a rocky beach, angry waves crashing against the shore.
“I’ll head up the path,” Niala said, pointing to our right. A narrow trail led up to the sloping landscape above, where a series of large boulders offered a good hiding spot.
“I’ll send Rourke to let you know if we see anything threatening. You go stash yourself inside the cave. And be careful.”
“You know,” I said, “if someone had asked me to describe my perfect evening…”
“Yes?”
“This would be the opposite.”
Niala threw me a grin. “The fact that the Headmaster assigned you this task is huge, you know. It shows that he trusts you more than anyone. You should be pleased.”
“I would, if I had any confidence that I’d be alive in an hour.”
“You will. By the way, I trust you to succeed. And so does Rourke. And Callum.”
“I trust all of you, too. Now go stand guard so we don’t all die horribly in some kind of fiery ambush, okay?”
“Done and done. Watch for a bird. He’ll be your signal.”
I nodded as Niala and her Familiar took off up the path. Then, I made my way along the shore until the cliff began cropping up in jagged, rocky shards to my right. As I walked, the terrain grew more inhospitable, and I had to navigate carefully to avoid breaking an ankle and go flying into the water.
I got to the cavern after several minutes. Its opening was large, but the inside was shallower than I would have liked. I’d just managed to stash myself at the back when I heard “Caw! Caw!” from a crow flying just outside the cave’s mouth. No doubt it was Rourke’s signal that I’d soon have company.
I swore under my breath as the faint glow from a lantern grew slowly brighter until the silhouette of a man appeared at the mouth of the cavern. Looking down at my hands, I could see they were shaking. Worse than that, they were still very definitely made of skin and bone.
Crap, crap, crap. How do I turn into a Shadow? I thought, trying to recall what had gone through my mind the moment it had happened in the sparring ring. But all I could remember was fear. Fear for my life, fear that my head was about to get crushed in. Fear I’d never see Will, Liv, or Callum again.
When the man with the lantern spun around and the light fell in beams against the cave walls, that same fear assaulted me. I could see his face now—a set of angry, bright eyes glowing crimson in the darkness. Stringy hair that looked like it had never encountered shampoo. At his waist was a long dagger that had probably slit more than a few throats in its time. The guy made Freya look like a plush doll.
I cowered, knowing full well that if he saw me, I was dead. Niala and Rourke were too far away to help now, and I was on my own. But the man turned around once again, grumbling something about his colleague being late.
As I watched him, I felt the same horrible emptiness that had assaulted me earlier, like everything that made me whole was dissipating, torn away by my own terror. I looked down once again to see the fear had turned me all but invisible for the second time in a day. My fingers trailed into the air in wisps of dark smoke, unfocused and inexplicably bizarre.
As my fear began to ebb, I found myself able to hold onto my Shadow form. As with the summoning of the doors, I was learning to control this power.
With my confidence growing, I managed to slip along the cave’s wall until I was closer to the mouth, close enough to hear even the quietest conversation. After a few seconds I was near enough to the man to reach out and touch him, and the thought of it filled me with a feeling of power I’d never known before. I was beginning to understand how Shadows had become assassins over the centuries, sneaking up on unsuspecting victims and slitting their throats from behind.
When I’d first left Fairhaven, it was with revenge on my mind. But now, all I really wanted was to help. I wasn’t here to draw blood. I was here to seek. To find. To save the Otherwhere and my home. It was nice to have a genuine purpose rather than fear as my motivation.
After a minute or so, the second party arrived.
I recognized her immediately. A tall woman with white-blond hair, the Waerg who had dug her way inside my mind on the street in Fairhaven. I could only hope she couldn’t detect my presence now.
“Took you long enough,” the man snarled as she came close.
“I like to be fashionably late, Barnabas. You know that,” she said.
“Yeah, well, the tide’s going to rise, and we’ll drown if you don’t spit out whatever it is you want to tell me, and soon.”
I looked outside the cave, panicked. He was right—the waves had begun lapping higher and higher, and now threatened to make their way inside the cave. And something told me that being in Shadow form wouldn’t save me from drowning.
“You first,” the woman said.
The man let out an exasperated breath. “Fine. Rumor has it that the girl—the one you tried to grab and failed due to your utter incompeten—”
“Watch yourself, Barney. You don’t want me walking into that shriveled husk you call a brain and pulling out all your secrets, do you?”
“It’s just that…the Sloane girl—”
I stifled a gasp at hearing my name. These people, these awful creatures, were meeting
to talk about…me.
“What about her?” the woman asked, clearly annoyed.
“They say she’s a Shadow.”
The woman froze for a moment, then let out a high-pitched, highly amused laugh.
“What’s so damned funny?” the man asked.
“She’s not a Shadow. She’s a damned Summoner,” the woman said. “I watched her do it. I watched her open a Breach, for God’s sake.”
“So?”
“So, a Summoner can’t also be a Shadow.”
“My source tells me she did it this afternoon at the Academy. Saved her life, too.”
“Not possible,” the woman reiterated with a dismissive snarl and a gnashing of her teeth.
The man held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Fine. You would know. Just tell me what you have, and let’s be done with it.”
“The Mistress,” she said, “has acquired five dragons. She intends to tame them.”
“Pfft,” Barnabas scoffed. “No one’s managed that in centuries. Dragons are feral monsters, at best.”
“She’s also acquired something else. Something…magnificent.”
“More magnificent than Dragons?”
The woman shot him an angry look.
“I’m no fan of theirs,” the man said. “But you must concede that they are handsome creatures.”
“I don’t have to concede anything,” she said. “And yes—what she has acquired is more magnificent than Dragons. It’s something that will put an end to this nonsense with the Sloane girl and stop her dead.”
“And you’re sure about this?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“But that means…” He was speaking softly now, barely more than a whisper. I edged closer, hoping to make out what he was saying. But before Barnabas could finish his thought, a sound erupted nearby—the unmistakable timbre of men’s voices.
“Damn it, the night guard is on the prowl,” he said with an upward flick of his head. “They’re on the cliff’s edge up above us. Come on, we need to get back before they see us.”