Between the Shade and the Shadow

by Coleman Alexander

  “Maybe you will become a sprite after all . . .”

  Ahraia stared at him, every muscle in her cheek clenched, quivering. She wanted so desperately to push the blade into his neck—for her brothers’ and mother’s sake, for her own sake, but most of all for her siblings’ sake. It was one thing for the Astra, wraith that she was, to threaten Ahraia and the nit, but it was something far worse for him to make those threats.

  Ahraia lowered the blade.

  “Get out of my sight.”

  Her knuckles were white from squeezing the drain’s handle. Her father stepped back, holding her eye. After a long moment’s gaze, he turned and walked from the nit without another word.

  “I don’t want to be a sprite,” she said, casting the drain down.

  She stepped back into the shade tree and sat. The silence bore down on her with the weight of the entire darkening, as though the darkness itself was her tomb. She lay down and felt something press against her hip. She pulled the broken orb from her pocket, feeling the creases that were drying shut. She needed to protect the spritelings once she was gone. And she needed her shadow back.

  You can’t have both, a voice inside her said.

  She rolled over, her shoulder hanging uncomfortably over the hollow where Losna would have normally been curled. Maybe Kren would come around. Maybe she would be persuaded to look after the spritelings once Ahraia left the darkening.

  She lay in the bitter dark, a plan slowly taking form in her head.

  Ahraia awoke with hunger gnawing at her stomach and the absence of Losna gnawing at her mind. She rolled over and groaned with dread. She couldn’t make the ache of missing Losna go away, but the turning of her stomach was sharp. It had been three full days since she had eaten anything of consequence. She sat up and pulled aside the branches of her shade tree. It was the late afternoon beyond the darkening and rain rattled off the shell above.

  The putrid odor of the keress meat infected the air, bringing bile to the back of Ahraia’s throat and the memory of the kill to her mind. She plugged her nose and bent double, trying not to be sick. For a moment, her hunger dissipated. She pulled her cloak close and headed out into the darkening past the central hollow and the cook fires, past the chasms and the cores, instead looking for and eventually finding a small nit tree tucked away towards the far edges of the darkening. It was no larger than a shade tree, nascent, with lustrous gray leaves speckled in silver. Ahraia approached cautiously, reaching out with her mind rather than her voice.

  Kren?

  There was no answer. Ahraia gathered her will about her, keeping her emotion from tarnishing her conveyance.

  I need to talk to you about the spritelings . . . I need to know you’ll look after them if I can’t . . . if I don’t become a sprite. Ahraia waited. She probed out, searching for the brush of Kren’s mind. The nit felt empty. Ahraia bound the tree, forcing it to form a closure. The inside was barren.

  “What are you doing up?” a voice said from nearby. Ahraia turned and found herself facing Leran, one of the nitesses.

  I’m looking for Kren, Ahraia conveyed.

  The nitesse eyed her reproachfully, her gaze lingering on the ward-like markings at Ahraia’s wrists. “She’s gone with the Masai. The Astra uprooted her after all. Now get back to your shade tree, you shouldn’t be out at this hour.”

  Ahraia frowned, unable to hide her disappointment. Kren had been the spritelings’ last hope for guidance. Her ears batted downward, upset even further to think that her sister had been willing to go, wanting to be uprooted—never once considering their nit. Fuming, Ahraia stalked back to her shade tree under the leering eye of the nitesse. She slumped down, still starving, and waited for night.

  The moment dusk settled, she headed for the darkening wall. The branches she had previously softened rustled at her mind’s touch, ready to move to her will.

  Open, she commanded, in no mood to be disobeyed. The branches burst before her and she slipped out into the night. The rest of the wall quivered, sending boughs and shoots down to grab her but she flitted out of reach. The darkening shook in disapproval but she didn’t stop—tonight was a scavenging night.

  She found a suckle pine and climbed to the top, using springs and shifts to get her to the ripe cones. She sat in the high branches and messily drank the sap of as many cones as she could reach. It was still dusk, but the evening was so gloomy that she hardly noticed the blazing colors of the Dae-Mon behind a layer of clouds in the west. The mountains to the south were just visible over the forest, marking the lands towards Angolor, where Losna would be. The thought made her heart ache.

  The suckle sap was too sweet for true sustenance, but it quelled the grumbling in her stomach, at least. She swung back down to the forest floor, wondering if the wall had alerted the Astra. As soon as it did, wards would be sent out after her.

  Try and catch me, she thought grimly. She would run them ragged—run them right into the light if she was forced to.

  She moved quickly as the forest grew darker, still wet from the fresh rain. No matter what the second test entailed, she needed to find a bowstring if she was going to pass and she knew just the place. The wind rose, sending leaves spinning all about her with spurts of scattered drips. Without Losna’s company, the woods seemed entirely different. They felt alive—and dangerous. Watchful eyes chased her, some even preying after her, stalking behind the dark layers of the forest.

  The clouds broke and the stars emerged as she ran, her shoulder aching and her stomach twisting tighter than ever. Slivers of the Dark Moon and Blood Moon watched her on the western horizon. She drank from a deep pool, her hands slick upon the wet rocks, the icy water sending shivers inside and out. She ate a pair of yellow-stem mushrooms, careful to pick away the poisoned frills. She painstakingly gathered and ate several handfuls of small midnight berries, mixed among a bloom of charberries whose ashen fruits were worth an empty stomach and a drink from the Daemon’s Creek. When nothing else made itself available, she chewed on Bitterroot, gnawing at it just as Losna’s absence gnawed at her mind.

  When she finally reached the meadow of the Stone Tree, the Bright Moon was climbing in the eastern sky, rising over the treetops as the clouds drifted overhead. The Dark Moon had disappeared, and the Blood Moon chased it over the horizon. The meadow was laid bare in pale light—empty and cold and quiet, with only a gentle brush of wind across it.

  No menace remained.

  Ahraia didn’t bother with her hood as she picked her way towards the remains of the wagons, hoping the fire hadn’t consumed what she sought. A single twisted piece of metal and a few ashen timbers were all that revealed where two of the wagons had stood, and the wheels and the white covering of the lone unburned wagon were missing, leaving it sitting like a skeletal duck on a wind-rippled pond.

  Ahraia approached and eyed the Stone Tree warily, wishing for the comforting warnings of Losna.

  Please be here, she thought, clambering up the ribs of the wagon. Her nose stung with must and mirk of things neglected. She covered her face and peeked inside.

  Dae-Mon above, she cursed, staring down.

  Her bowstring was missing.

  She swung her leg into the deserted belly. The place she had seen the dead child was bare, but the stain of dark blood lingered in the wood. Ahraia rustled about amongst the wagon’s contents. She pushed a heavy sack out of her way and grains slumped out with a hiss, wet with rot. She sniffed at another sack and wrinkled her nose. It smelled of sheep and damp.

  “Where is it?” she muttered, standing straight. At the front of the wagon, she noticed a perfectly flat wooden slat that stretched across the front of the wagon. An odd, straight crease of darkness lay just beneath it. Slipping past the upturned sacks, she ran her fingers over the polished board. She tried to lift it and was surprised to feel the heavy-looking wood shift, creaking as it did. She inched it upward, trying to peek beneath it. Suddenly, it slipped and slammed back heavily.

  Crack!

&n
bsp; The loud smack of wood against wood filled the meadow like a tree breaking.

  Light and fire, Ahraia cursed, ducking down. She looked nervously about; nothing moved except the rustling grasses. The night seemed all the quieter.

  With her heart still racing, she lifted it again, seeing that the wood was fixed by strange metal roots that somehow kept it from falling away. More human magic, but the insides were just filled with human nonsense.

  “Where is it?” she said in frustration, having half a mind to drop the wood again. It whined as she lowered it carefully. She let out a loud sigh and looked about. Something seemed off about the wagon. Something was missing—besides her bowstring, of course.

  “Where are the dead?” she murmured, leaping down from the wagon.

  Something had moved the bodies. Sprites would never touch a dead human; it was terrible luck. She wondered if more humans had passed through the meadow since the massacre and burned their dead. She looked about for a pyre, shuddering at the thought of being consumed by light and fire. Or perhaps the alps had meddled with them? Ahraia thought of the flaxen-haired alp who the Astra had colluded with—Ahraia was sure she would have no qualms dealing with the dead.

  Ahraia moved to the other wagons, already knowing that she wouldn’t find her bowstring. Charred wood and bare ash. She looked up to the night sky, where Seti, the great bowman seemed to taunt her from his perch in the south. She didn’t have time to grow a string . . .

  She lowered her head and sighed. Her eyes settled on several strange mounds of dirt near the first wagon. They were almost like spritish graves, covered by the everdark of the earth, hidden from the Dae-Mon.

  They can’t be . . .

  She wondered if her father had buried Kaval and Altah right out in the open. But there were too many . . .

  With a flutter of hope, she realized that they were graves. The mounds rose from freshly turned dirt, all aligned in a neat, unnatural row. Did the humans bury their dead as well? It was a strange thought, lightwalkers laying hidden from the Dae-Mon for eternity. But they were strange people . . .

  At the foot of one mound, she noticed a small sack and hurried towards it. As she approached, she could see that it had been opened, probably by some day-walking creature, but its contents remained.

  The sack was leather, smooth and worn. She opened it and reached inside, pulling out the first thing she touched. It was an unnatural object, obviously some kind of human tool, made by magic. It had a wooden handle and was flat, about the size of her hand, with dozens of narrow metal tines, all in a tight line. They weren’t sharp, but they seemed odd and wondrous. Ahraia ran it over her palm and delighted in the tingling scratch across her palm, her heart aching to imagine how Losna would love to feel it scratching behind her ears, something to comb through her fur.

  Ahraia set the metal comb carefully to the side.

  Next, she picked up a small, round wooden piece. It was smooth as the smoothest water-worn stone. She turned it over—

  “Aghh!” She panicked, reflexively throwing the piece to the grasses and scrambling away.

  She had seen the eyes of a dae-ward in the object, yellow-bright and light-seared. She snapped her head about, turning one way and then the other, her drain clutched in her hand. She was breathing hard, still twisting in search of the ward. But the meadow was empty. She was alone. Her heart felt like it was going to burst.

  She crept back cautiously. The wooden side of the object faced upward. She reached out with her drain and flicked it onto its back. She looked down on it in amazement as it reflected the stars in the sky, like a solid, perfectly dark pool just as wide as her hand.

  She leaned over it and saw herself in a flawless reflection, clearer than any pool of water, even on the stillest nights at the darkest ponds of the Endless Plains. Her skin was as scarred as it had ever been. Her hair looked darker, gray and silver, like the color of starlight and fog mixed. She leaned closer, staring into her eyes. They were brilliant yellow, like the radiant sky before a lightrise.

  She stared a moment longer, marveling at the magic of the humans. It was a perfect mirror.

  A looking mirror, she thought. A deep ache swelled in her chest, wishing she could share it with Losna. Losna loved her reflection; she stomped and ran about wildly whenever she saw herself. Ahraia let out a heavy sigh and pocketed the mirror and the comb in her cloak.

  The other mounds were mostly barren, but the last had another small leather satchel upon it. She moved closer to it, careful not to step on the graves. She squatted down and flicked it open.

  Her chest loosened in relief.

  “There you are . . .” she said as she reached into the bag. She grabbed hold of the human figurine that the boy had held in his dead hand. She pulled it into the night and held it up.

  It dangled from her hands with four perfect lengths of string.

  Just the right length.

  She checked the tension, wondering how humans came about such string; it didn’t look grown, but it was strong and tightly woven, and already oiled, it seemed.

  “I’ll just take one,” she whispered as she trimmed the string with her knife.

  She smiled, for the first time in days. Then she lay the figurine back in the satchel and put it back where she had found it.

  With her bowstring in hand, she headed away from the Stone Tree.

  Ahraia ran for an underdae at the fringes of the Gelesh. She couldn’t bring herself to stay in the Stone Tree, and Plain Dark would be the first place the Astra would expect her to go. Instead, she headed for a cave that few sprites or shades ever used.

  Along the way, she found a squirrel hidden in a small hollow of a tree. It didn’t feel right making a bond with any creature other than Losna, but she coaxed it out of its hole.

  I need food, she thought, lowering herself to the most basic emotion of hunger. Luckily, it wasn’t hard as her stomach was a tight knot. The squirrel understood.

  It scrambled down its tree and led her to a patch of ground where it started digging. The moment she saw the first husk of a hazelnut, she let go of her bonding and brushed the squirrel aside. It chittered away angrily as she dug the nuts from their hiding. Fingers muddy and clinging to a handful of her treasure, she plopped down on the still-wet ground and used her drain to work the soft tops from the nuts, popping the bitter insides guiltily into her mouth.

  “Sorry,” she said when she had finished. The squirrel fussed his whiskers and glowered at her.

  Feeling both better and worse, she continued on. She kept her eyes out as she ran, looking for a young yew or ash to make her bow. Eventually, she came across a grove of dorn trees.

  Sturdy enough, she thought as she pushed against a thin trunk, avoiding the sharp thorns. She stooped to the ground and sawed at it with the drain. The knife was meant for letting blood, not trimming trees, and the night was turning towards dawn.

  Come on . . . Her knuckles scraped against the ground and the lowest thorn. Eventually, she cut through it, sloppy in her eagerness to break it loose. It toppled over her when she least expected, the thorns scratching painfully over her arms and neck.

  “Getoffame!”

  She pushed it aside, standing and brushing the dirt away. She quickly stripped the remaining branches, then she cut the top half away, leaving what she didn’t need.

  She jogged towards her underdae, dragging the staff along after her. She slipped into the cavern just as the first gray hues of dawn gave way to yellow in the east.

  Ahraia slipped to the back of the narrow cave and through a small fissure into a hidden inner chamber. She settled down in the perfect dark, remembering a time that she and Hayvon had hunted with Altah here. Between the three of them and their shadows, the cave had seemed cramped and overcrowded; she had hated the way Altah’s shadow cawed out, grating at the dark and alerting the whole woods to their presence. Now, the cavern felt empty and overlarge. She put her back to one of the walls, thinking darkly of the company she missed.

>   It’s the Astra’s fault.

  She rested the dorn stave across her knees and began to strip the bark away, working around the thorns.

  And father’s.

  The bark was ashen, just like her skin, flecked with gray-speckled markings and scars.

  And the Masai.

  The shavings piled up at her feet.

  I’ll get my shadow back. And when I do, none of them will get what they want.

  Outside, the Dae-Mon started to cast its light over the world, and the narrow fissure glowed with deadly light.

  She set to her task in a haze of determination. For the first time in days, she let her mind focus on something other than her shadow test. She whittled at the wood, stripping it of its outer husk, leaving the thorns except at the handle. She worked towards the ends, taking down the back of the bow first before fine-tuning the belly. The day was full bright outside, and she stood occasionally to check the bend and the balance of the bow. Slowly, the bow emerged from the wood. Her hands were tired and worn and her eyes burned, but Ahraia kept working through the afternoon. She made nocks on either end and smoothed the handles. Eventually, it was ready to be strung. She looped the string into two careful knots, measuring it over and again to make sure the length was right. She nocked the first end and then stood, stepping over the bow, putting her weight into the shaft to draw the string to the second nock.

  She drew the bow. Too stiff. She unstrung it and stripped away more wood until it felt just right. The light was changing in the entry, going from the steady bright to a golden veil. She lay down in the lonely dark of the cavern and slept.

  20

  Waning

  The nights of the Bright Moon’s waning were the longest Ahraia had ever known. The Blood Moon and Dark Moon set early, and the Bright Moon rose late, leaving only the stars for company. As expected, the Astra sent out nit- and dae-wards for her, but Ahraia had underdaes they had never seen before—the forest about Daispar was laced with her creations. At night, she avoided the Astra’s scouts easily; they almost never searched the trees with their eyes and only scratched at finding her with their minds. Like the golden-haired alp that had avoided being discovered at the Stone Tree, Ahraia cultivated an emptiness in thought to avoid being detected, and she formed an airtight barrier to keep any errant bindings from taking her. Even a few nitesses passed by without the barest hint that she was there.