Between the Shade and the Shadow

by Coleman Alexander

  Ahraia searched with her mind as they neared the Stone Tree. For the briefest moment, she thought she sensed movement. She paused, crouching low, but the feeling passed. The fog shifted disconcertingly. Ahraia cleared her mind and searched out again but felt nothing but the barren night.

  But something wasn’t right. The barrenness didn’t surprise her. It was something else . . .

  Her ears turned. Silence.

  She sniffed. Nothing.

  She searched out with her mind again. Deserted.

  Ahraia shivered.

  The Stone Tree wasn’t just empty—it was trying to convince her of its emptiness. She vaguely felt her mind wandering and her worry lessening. With a jolt of fear, Ahraia realized her thoughts were being warded off intentionally.

  Something’s inside, she conveyed as a hiss, so unsettled that the words nearly escaped aloud. Her breaths thinned and her eyes darted about. She focused on staving off any enchantments and bondings that might emerge from whatever was inside. It didn't feel like her brothers, and if it could keep itself secret, it might be able to manage a bonding or a binding just as well.

  Are they in there?

  I don’t know. She held her breath, hesitating in the silence of the moonless meadow. The solitude of the night seemed to swell. The moment stretched on and Ahraia began to wonder if she had imagined the feeling of being warded off. She strained her mind, trying to sense anything within or without. The Stone Tree felt desolate, but maybe it felt desolate because it truly was empty. She turned her ears towards the closure. Maybe the movement was just the fog, she thought.

  Losna turned her nose, searching for anything on the air. Shades? Sprites?

  Maybe they’ve already left. Ahraia wasn’t convinced. Circle around and see if you can’t see anything. But keep your distance.

  Losna made off at once, stalking towards the back of the Stone Tree, circling wide around the brambles with eyes and ears up and tail down.

  Altah? Ahraia probed tentatively into the darkness. No response emerged.

  Kaval? she conveyed.

  She crept closer, so silent that she couldn’t hear her own footsteps. She stood, dwarfed in the shadow of the tallest wall. The underdae was pitch-black inside. Ahraia struggled to peer past the closure into the inner chambers.

  Anyone in there? she probed. Her thoughts seemed to echo off themselves. She let out a slow breath.

  Empty.

  Truly empty, without ward or thought or binding. A bubble of tension in her chest dissolved.

  Still, she stared at the void, waiting for Losna. Her nose twitched. The remnants of humans? Their stinking metals? She couldn’t tell. Her eyes fell to the ground, where something lay just at the edge of the closure. She strained to see what it was. She knelt, expecting a broken stone or a fallen branch. Instead, she realized it was a bird’s wing, contorted oddly.

  She leaned forward. The bird was dead—its head was missing. The tips of its wings were silver.

  It was Altah’s raven, Mehra.

  Losna! Get over here! Ahraia conveyed, recoiling. Deeper in the dark, Ahraia glimpsed another shape; a paw—Kaval’s fox, Reyn. The night swallowed Ahraia’s courage.

  “Kaval? Altah? Are you in there?” she said aloud in panic. Her voice crackled the silence of the night like a thunderclap, echoing off the insides and rushing back at her. She stood up and stepped back, distancing herself from the closure as her skin erupted in chills. She realized then what the smell had been: blood. The air was thick with it.

  Something lurked just inside the threshold of darkness, near enough that it could have touched her where she had crouched a moment before. If pitch-black could possibly be wreathed in shadow, it was, and an overwhelming sense of danger swept through Ahraia.

  She opened her mouth to shout, but even as she did, she felt an enchantment strike out, grabbing her by the neck and pinning her where she stood. A deep void formed inside her, commanding her: Be still.

  Ahraia stopped, paralyzed far beyond any binding she had ever suffered. The shadowy figure shifted behind the mantle of darkness. She caught a glimpse of jet-black skin or fur, and lightless, lifeless eyes. Ahraia had no sense of what it was: a daemon, like an inky-black wolf standing on its hind legs, the jaws of its binding pinning her still. Every muscle and fiber in her body strained, wanting to scream.

  Losna! she conveyed desperately, unsure if her shadow could sense her or not. All she knew was the binding. It gripped her unbreakably. Her self-control unraveled under its coercion; her foot moved closer to the closure, possessed by the enchantment. Her teeth were clenched so tight that she knew they would break. She screamed inside herself as she was dragged another step closer.

  Losna! she tried to convey, but her thoughts didn’t escape her any longer. Another step. Her panic threatened to suffocate her. She needed to break away. She couldn’t let herself be pulled into the darkness. She knew in a matter of steps she would be dead.

  Ahraia gathered herself, closing her eyes and trying to clear the fog from her mind.

  Stop, she commanded, both to herself and the figure in the darkness.

  Her feet halted and the link crackled with a sort of primal, wicked laughter. The emotion swelled, bringing Ahraia out of the enchantment just enough to have a sense of the figure—of the shape of its thoughts; it was unlike anything she had ever bound. Its mind felt broken and twisted: a vile and violent creature, utterly fearless and repulsive.

  A renewed sense of certainty enveloped Ahraia. If she reached the darkness, she would be dead. The binding redoubled malevolently, and once again, her foot jolted forward. Her attempts to resist crumbled; she stood just upon the threshold.

  Dread consumed her. She couldn’t fight the binding.

  Her next step would be her last.

  She stood perfectly still, waiting.

  But the footstep never came.

  Hesitation reflected through the binding, and then something else, faint and peripheral. Instinctive protection rustled against every nerve in her body. A willingness to die fighting surged through her, but it wasn’t her own.

  A snarl erupted right behind her, followed by the most bone-chilling growl Ahraia had ever heard.

  Losna!

  The binding reverberated with gut-wrenching torment and suddenly dissolved. Ahraia stumbled back in surprise before she realized she was free, tripping over her feet and falling to the ground.

  Losna stood over her with her teeth bared and hackles raised. She growled again, her whole being threatening whatever stood inside the darkness.

  Ahraia heard rustling within the underdae, a stone falling and then silence. She scrambled up with her knife drawn, cold sweat covering her entire body. She cast out with her mind and felt the menace fleeing.

  “Kaval? Altah?” Ahraia said aloud, scrambling forward into the darkness that only a moment before she had desperately sought to escape.

  Ahraia! Losna thought in surprise, leaping after her. But the threat was gone. Ahraia could sense that it had fled.

  She stumbled to her knees beside two dark figures on the ground. Momentarily, the clouds seemed to break, and moonlight burned her skin. Her hands ran against something slick and warm on the floor of the underdae: blood, pooled next to her brothers’ bodies.

  They were dead.

  Her breaths didn’t seem to draw any air. A helpless sob escaped. She put her hand on Kaval’s chest as tears streamed down her face. Something cold and smooth stuck out from between his ribs. A knife. Without thinking, she pulled it from her brother, slipping the dark blade out with ease.

  Ahraia! We’re leaving. Losna grabbed Ahraia’s cloak and pulled her bodily from the underdae, growling as she did. Ahraia’s skin was burning, her mind numb.

  Losna thoughts were reduced to instincts. Leaving!

  Ahraia tried to resist, but Losna dragged her away. She was suddenly aware she was still holding the blade she had pulled from Kaval’s chest. She flung the knife into the grasses, disgusted. Then her f
eet churned on their own accord—first stumbling and then running, fleeing across the meadow—away from the dark of the underdae, away from her brothers and the terror of the enchantment.

  We have to find the others, Ahraia thought, wiping the cold sweat from her brow. Guilt swept over her for sending Hayvon out alone with the shades. What was that? she thought, unnerved.

  Evil, Losna thought. Pure evil.

  We shouldn’t leave them. Ahraia hesitated. She couldn’t believe that her oldest brothers were dead.

  Losna growled and then jostled Ahraia, keeping her from turning back. She let out a low woof. I know what that was.

  Ahraia’s feet raced, but her mind couldn’t make sense of it. The dark. The menace. The death. Whatever it was, it had been vile to touch and overpowering. The brush of its mind had left her feeling sick and weak.

  “What was it?”

  That was the Shad-Mon, Losna thought grimly. I’m sure of it.

  7

  The Underdae

  What else could bind you like that? Losna thought, repeating an argument Ahraia had already deflected a dozen times.

  Ahraia swung down a shift, her hands transferring seamlessly between the first branch and the next, her feet never touching the ground.

  “It couldn’t have been the Shad-Mon,” she said again, unwilling to cede the point but too uncertain to earnestly convey the thought. It doesn’t leave the heart of the forest. Ever.

  Her shadow ran the length of a fallen log, bounding to the forest floor just ahead of her. Just like sprites can’t leave the forest? she thought, leading Ahraia across a creek that spilled in steep, chattering steps down towards the plains below.

  “You don’t understand. It’s bound there—beholden to the Seed of the Forest. It can’t leave the Shadow Woods.”

  Then why do we patrol the Winnowlin and the Daemon’s Creek in the first place?

  Ahraia didn’t answer. Arguing with her shadow was no better than arguing with herself.

  “No one’s ever seen it and lived.”

  I saw it—white teeth all wreathed in black. And I could smell it—dead fur and death, Losna thought, adamant and discomfited.

  Ahraia had heard every exaggerated story and seen every half-formed memory from those claiming to have seen the Shad-Mon, but none of them matched the menace they had faced in the Stone Tree. Some told of a gray-skinned monster, the size of a jontun, other’s claimed it was an imp with the head and wings of a great eyeless owl, and still others claimed it was a spirit that moved as fog and mist and materialized as death. Each and every story was just as absurd as the next, but none of them had ever called the Shad-Mon black as the night, with black fur and lifeless eyes.

  What other faceless daemon roams the woods? What about the fog? Losna pressed, leaping effortlessly from one stone to the next, onto a moss-slickened log and over a narrow channel of foaming water.

  “It’s always foggy in autumn. Maybe it was a wraith of sorts . . . some spirit or fiend from the Reaches.”

  Losna scowled at her. It killed Kaval and Altah, Ahraia—and their shadows. What else has ever killed a pair of shades?

  Ahraia didn’t know. The mention of her brothers was like tumbling into a nettle, sharp and barbed, but the piercing needles resided on her insides: thick and blunt and excruciating. Guilt pressed into every corner of her chest, suffocating her.

  “I never should have left them.”

  Losna paused, dropping her insistence for a moment. Her great golden eyes shone back from the water’s edge. There’s nothing we could have done.

  Ahraia lapsed into silence, dwelling on her brothers, wondering if she might have stopped the wraith if they had been sooner. Now, they lay upon the barren floor of the Stone Tree with the lightrise coming.

  “They aren’t meant to suffer light, even in death,” she said quietly.

  Neither are you, Losna thought, looking to the east. A hint of gray was creeping over the horizon. Soon enough, it would be burning bright, even before the Dae-Mon decided to rise. Losna stopped at the streamside and lapped at the water. Ahraia felt woefully tired, drained from the emotions twisting within her.

  “We’re going to have to go back,” she said.

  Losna looked up, startled, her snout dripping-wet.

  “Tomorrow night,” Ahraia said. She brushed her hair behind her ear, resolute in her decision.

  Losna, who would be willing to argue until the fur fell off her tail, stared at her in disbelief, her thoughts reduced to pure instinct. No.

  The sky was growing lighter by the minute.

  We need to get to the underdae, Ahraia conveyed. She started back down the hill, using fistfuls of ferns and alder trunks to slow her descent. Losna eventually gathered her thoughts. She hurtled after Ahraia, slipping in haste and letting her know how foolish she was for even thinking of returning.

  The hillside eased. The stream dropped in shorter and shorter falls, quietly churning over rocks and tumbled logs until at last, it slid smooth and glimmering onto the plain before them.

  We’d better hurry, Ahraia conveyed, cutting off Losna’s warnings. She lengthened her stride.

  The plains were frighteningly unprotected, an endless expanse that would soon enough be swathed in deadly daylight. Even with all their nights spent running wild, it still made Ahraia nervous being in the open so late.

  They climbed a series of long, low hills, until Ahraia spotted the underdae in the distance, first as a silhouette, then as a small stand of trees, and finally growing as a massive grove that towered overhead. She could see a tiny figure standing beneath the eaves of the outer trees.

  She recognized Shim but he disappeared back into the woods. A moment later, he returned with Hayvon behind him, just as Ahraia and Losna reached the grove.

  “Where have you been!” Hayvon called out, looking disheveled and weary. “Where are the others? Where are Kaval and Altah?”

  Ahraia could tell something was wrong. Hayvon’s face was pale. Ahraia slowed to a walk, moving under the broken cover of the woods, exhausted.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  The stand of trees looked ragged and unkempt—dark—but not nearly dark enough.

  “The underdae, it’s been—” Hayvon stopped suddenly as though he had seen the Dae-Mon. “Are you okay?” What happened to you?

  Shim was staring at her as well. Ahraia looked down. Dried blood covered her hands.

  “It’s blood,” she said dumbly. I mean, it’s not mine. Her stomach clenched, realizing it was her brothers’ blood.

  “Where are Kaval and Altah?” Hayvon asked, his ears flattening.

  “They’re . . .” The words failed to form on Ahraia’s lips. She swallowed down a lump in her throat. They’re dead.

  “They’re what?” Hayvon's skin faded to a paler shade of gray. The tips of his ears curled down.

  Dead, Ahraia repeated, unable to meet his eye. “Where’s Tev? It’s getting light.”

  “Dead? How?”

  “Why is it so light in here?” Ahraia said, moving past him into the first layer of trees. The once tightly sewn limbs dangled loose and unwoven. She walked farther into the grove and felt her heart sinking. “What happened here?” she asked in disbelief, looking at the state of the underdae.

  It had been ravaged. Two anchor trees lay cracked upon the ground, uprooted. Branches hung withered and sickly. The source vines that the inner trees leeched off of had been hacked away. All her tedious coaxing and tending had been spoiled. A golden line of light in the east could just be seen through the far side of the grove.

  Losna sniffed about, worried. The Astra must have destroyed it . . .

  “What do you mean they’re dead?” Hayvon asked again, his gaze chasing her for an explanation.

  “I mean they’re dead!” Ahraia snapped, her composure crumbling under the fear that came with finding the underdae in tatters. “Dead. Like we’re going to be if we don’t get this folding back in order.”

  Hayvon
stared at her, his mouth agape. The shades were staring too. Ahraia turned away, immediately wishing she hadn’t lashed out. Her fear had gotten the best of her. And the guilt that had been steadily weighing on her heart now hung like the Dae-Mon, just beneath the horizon, on the verge of killing her.

  “What are we going to do?” Shim said.

  Ahraia assessed the shelter, rubbing her hands together to flake away the blood, feeling both disgusted and defeated. Folding an underdae took time and energy, neither of which she had.

  She drew in a deep breath, blowing stray hairs from her face. Folding darkness normally required calm, but she was going to have to make do without. She focused on the grove about her, taking in every twig and branch, every half-grown leaf and twisted trunk. She nodded, beginning to see the shape of things as they were, and the shape of what they would need to be.

  “I’ll need your help, Hayvon. We don’t have much time.”

  “It’s too much. We’ll never be able to form darkness that quickly,” he said. He paused, his eyes showing pale in the last vestiges of true night. “We aren’t going to survive the day, are we?” he asked, a quiet certainty in his voice.

  Shim and Tev looked up from where they huddled with their shadows under a low bramble of fox fern and maple.

  “Of course we are,” Ahraia said firmly, setting her mind to the task. “You start tightening the inner bit. I’ll take care of the rest.” She turned away from him and sat down.

  “But what happened to—”

  Hayvon . . . Ahraia conveyed, clinging to her thread-bare calm. You’re wasting time.

  She reached out and made her first binding. Hayvon stood just behind her, his questions about the Stone Tree lingering at the tip of his mind. The moment stretched on, and finally, he turned away. Ahraia was glad, turning her attention to weaving the branches of a small fir to the trunk of a nearby cedar. Her emotions prickled like a nerve laid bare, and if Hayvon had pressed her, she didn’t know if she could keep the weight of everything from overwhelming her. She fought back tears and made another binding, trying to lower herself deeper into the task.