The Shadow City

by Ryan Wieser

  She sat with Dezane DeHawn and the boy in the council tent, as it grew darker and darker around the world. She thought it might be raining, with the slow pattering against the tent walls, but she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She rocked slowly back and forth on her haunches, listening to the boy talk to Dezane.

  “He has been like this for too long…he acts wholly different in the Blade, but when we come here, it is to torment your people, as you know all too well. It is time for the Assembly Council to learn his true nature.”

  Jessop couldn’t help but notice how he didn’t speak like a boy, but like a man. It wasn’t just because his voice was deep—it was something else. He had authority, and power, and the confidence that came with true power. He spoke to Dezane like they were equals, though one was a great elder and the other just a gray-eyed telepath.

  “You hide your scars well under your cloak and tunic, boy, but I know we are not the only ones that man has tortured,” Dezane answered. Jessop didn’t know what he was referring to, but Dezane often spoke of things she did not know.

  “My scars matter not. There are many who know the truth of my nature, of my destiny. I do not fear Hydo.”

  Dezane nodded thoughtfully. “It has been spoken about even here. My son, Trax, has told me much about you. The next true Lord and Protector.”

  Jessop wasn’t following their conversation. She was hearing the words they were speaking, and she knew of Trax, Dezane’s son who had been raised with the telepaths, but she didn’t know what they were talking about—or why they were talking about it. Her parents had been killed; nothing they were talking about mattered.

  The tent flap hit the back of the canvas wall with the muted clap of hide meeting hide. A young warrior with glowing blue eyes appeared in the dark entryway. He ducked into the tent, and Jessop saw in his hand a flaming torch. As the young man made his way towards the fire pit in the center of the tent, Jessop suddenly stopped breathing. The air in her body simply disappeared. It felt as though something were attacking her, and she scurried back on her palms, knowing she needed to put distance between herself and the warrior. As her back hit a wooden post in the tent wall she knew she was trapped. She grabbed her chest; she could feel her racing heart, panicking as her body fought for air. Her eyes wide though she saw only darkness and fire.

  She heard the boy yell, “Get out!”

  She saw nothing but the flames, felt nothing but the smoke filling her lungs once again. He had said he had healed her—had it been some trick? Had he been mistaken and she was now dying a delayed death from the smoke?

  Her vision disappeared as she fell to the side, her face hitting the dusty ground with a heavy thud. There was a ringing sound, the source of which she did not know. As her chest fluttered with futile attempts to breathe, her fingers loosened their hold on her breastbone. She was going to be with her parents now. She closed her eyes, feeling her chest deflate further and further. Suddenly, strong hands pulled her up. She was being held in someone’s arms, her back forced against a chest much stronger than hers.

  She could feel a heartbeat—but not her own. His. She felt it through his chest, through her back, near her own.

  He held her tightly. “Breathe with me,” he ordered her. His chest expanded, pushing into her back. His breaths were deep and slow. She somehow opened her eyes; the tent wall appeared fuzzy before her. Dezane was crouched near, but his edges were blurred, and she could not make out the features of his face. She felt the rhythmic thumping of the boy’s heart, and it was all she could focus on.

  “Breathe with me,” he spoke again, his voice softer. And without having to think about it, she did. She breathed with him. Her chest rose as his did, and slowly fell, as his did. They stayed that way until her heartbeat found normalcy, until her vision corrected. Once she’d recovered, he let her go. She turned in his arms and looked into his gray eyes and knew something about him with such certainty, despite how odd it was to know. She knew this boy would always save her.

  Jessop knew that she needed Falco, and as she studied his concerned face, the way in which he held her close, her eyes traveled down his neck. Where his tunic was pulled low, she saw lines. Hundreds of silvery lines, all crossing over one another, peeking out under his collar; they were scars. She knew then that not only did she need him, but he, who held her with such conviction, tight against his mangled body, needed her too.

  * * * *

  “Did he say when he would be back?” Mar’e asked, readjusting the ochre-dyed shift she wore. Jessop copied her, tightening her own cloth dress. Falco had left her with the Kuroi while he returned to Azgul, the city where his master resided. He had spent several days with her first, explaining to her where the Hunters of Infinity worked, how they worked, and why he needed to be the one to confront Hydo. She had asked him how he intended to best his mentor, when he couldn’t fight him off the day of the fire. “I had expended my energy trying to heal…” He had let his voice trail off, his gaze fall from her. “It matters not. I can do this. I know my brothers will help me.” While she feared his departure, he had spoken of his many brothers in the Glass Blade, where they lived and trained—and assured her he would return safely. He said he thought of at least several brothers who would return with him.

  Jessop began to work on her braid. “He just said it wouldn’t be long.”

  Mar’e stared at her skeptically. “He’s very beautiful, you know.”

  Jessop crinkled her nose at the girl’s words. She wondered if she and Mar’e were truly friends. She did not understand how the girl spoke to her about Falco so soon after what had happened to her family.

  “You think I want to talk about him with you?”

  The Kuroi girl sighed heavily. “I don’t know what is and isn’t safe to talk about with you anymore. I don’t know anyone who lost their parents.”

  Jessop glared at the girl. Mar’e had known her parents. She had slept in their home. She had spoken with them. She had eaten their food. Jessop had expected her to mourn in the same manner she did. They stayed silent for many minutes, uncomfortable.

  Mar’e shifted nearer. “I saw you two, the morning he left, walking.”

  Jessop thought back to that morning. The sky had been gray, like his eyes, and there was a welcoming chill in the desert air. “Once it’s done, I’ll come back for you. We will make arrangements.” He had spoken to her with a soft voice, always dancing around the pointed words. He avoided saying anything about her parents. He simply wanted her to know he would make sure she was taken care of. That his mentor wouldn’t get away with his trespasses against her.

  “You don’t have to feel responsible for me. It wasn’t your fault.” She had been terrified of speaking the words to him. She thought that maybe, if she told him he could be free of her, he would truly never return. But she didn’t want him to return out of guilt. She didn’t even want him to return to take care of her. She had the Kuroi. She just wanted him to return.

  He had shaken his head down at her. “It’s not like that.” He touched her face softly, his fingertips grazing her temple. He closed his eyes and seemed to focus. Jessop didn’t know his kind. She had seen him do much and had heard there was much more he could do that she had yet to witness. All she knew was that she did not fear him. He blinked, opening his gray eyes to her slowly. “You’re different. I can’t tell what it is…But I know you’re like me somehow.”

  She had stared at the ground, confused by his words. “I don’t know about that.”

  He had raised her chin with his hand, willing her to look back at him. “I do.”

  Jessop pushed the memory back, returning her attention to Mar’e. “You saw us walking—what of it?”

  “You don’t even know each other and you act like you have this unspoken bond. You walk with one another as though you’d been doing it for years.” Her voice was sharp—jealous.

 
Jessop narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You don’t get it.”

  “Then explain it to me, Jessop.”

  “He’s alone, Mar’e. Alone like I am alone.”

  She cocked her head and her dark braids fell over her shoulder. “His family died too?”

  Jessop knew Mar’e meant no insult. She simply didn’t understand. “No. I don’t know. But it’s not like that. Not that kind of alone. Alone because he’s different.”

  Mar’e nodded, her eyes softening. She looked about the space in the tented room, as though ensuring they were alone. “I do know what you mean. He’s different like you. Like what the Kuroi speak of.”

  Jessop didn’t know what Mar’e was saying. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling defensive. “What do they speak of?”

  “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Mar’e.”

  “Fine. But remain silent over it. I do not always say you aren’t Kuroi because of your bloodline, Jessop. I don’t even say it to just criticize you, even though sometimes I know I say it to be cruel…I say it because I have heard my parents speak of it. I heard them talk about how you and your family are different.”

  Jessop felt her skin prickle at the words. “What are you talking about?” Her tone was angry. Defensive. Mar’e had lied to her before and she was possibly lying to her again simply to feel superior once more.

  “I don’t know any more. That’s the truth. All I know is that I heard them talking. Not about how you and your mother were part Kuroi, but how you were part something else.”

  Jessop studied her friend’s face. Mar’e seemed excited, as though she relished having secrets to tell. Jessop didn’t think the girl spoke the truth. But she thought of what Falco had said to her. She was different. She shook her head, arguing against the thought. Maybe she was different, maybe she wasn’t, but if there had been something about her family, her parents or Dezane would have told her. She gruffly walked past Mar’e. “Don’t talk about my mother.”

  * * * *

  She didn’t understand why the ashes were still smoking. She didn’t understand how a week ago, this had been her home, her parents…her whole world. It had burned entirely to the ground—not an intact dish or surviving piece of furniture. No parents. Hydo’s wicked magic had given the fire life, a dreadful ability to decimate that which a natural flame would have left simply licked.

  She closed her eyes and stepped onto the ashes. She was surprised to learn they were not hot against her feet. Was she numb to new pain now? She kept her eyes shut and raised her hand out before her. In her mind, she saw her front door, her hand wrapping around the lever to open it. She stepped through the wooden entryway, and the smell of fresh flat bread replaced that of charred flesh. Her mother was polishing a dish, her father cutting meat. It was mealtime. They looked to her and smiled. She stepped around the table and approached them, ready to be enveloped in her parents’ embrace.

  But as her extended arms locked tightly around nothing, she opened her eyes. She was standing right where they should have been, but of course, they weren’t. She let her arms fall to her sides. She knelt down and pushed her hand into the hot ash. She wanted Hydo to die—she maybe even wanted Falco to be the one to kill him. But if he couldn’t, she would do it. Maybe not today, or even in a year…She needed to grow; she knew she couldn’t fight anyone at this size, except maybe Mar’e. But as she lifted her palm and watched the ashes of her life and all that she had loved trickle through her fingers, she knew she would kill him. Given the chance, she would take everything he ever loved, and set fire to it.

  * * * *

  The fire was moving with a mystical force. The noise of the flames was deafening. The fire hadn’t killed them though; he had. The smell of smoke was overwhelming. The red of the flame, the way it lit up everything it intended to destroy, filled her with dread.

  Jessop. She didn’t know who spoke her name, though the voice sounded so familiar. Jessop. She spun about the room, though she saw no one. No one but her parents. They were side by side. The fire getting closer. The room collapsing around them. Jessop! Someone grabbed her violently—

  Jessop woke with a start, scrambling forward. As she crawled away from the pelts of her bed, her hand finding the cool wall of the tent, she realized it had simply been another nightmare. Her heart raced. Her skin was slick with sweat. Her nights were plagued with terror as she slept alone in the tent Dezane had allocated to her. Every night had been the same since Falco left. She was back in the fire. She woke. She thought of how she’d kill Hydo Jesuin one day.

  Though Hydo was not the only one who she thought of. She thought about Falco. Dezane had arranged the first leg of the boy’s travel, getting him on a Soar-Craft out of Okton Radon. But that was all he could do for him; the rest was up to Falco to figure out. Thinking about him worried her. He was barely older than her, at ten and four years—she couldn’t imagine doing what he set out to do. He had powers though, abilities they had taught him, the sorcery the Hunter kind were known for—different from Kuroi power, darker. She hoped that what was said about him was true, that he was the best there ever was.

  From what she had seen of him so far, she believed it.

  * * * *

  Every day Jessop returned to her home. Or at least to what was left of it. Every day she promised herself she would not come the following. That she would say goodbye and mean it. Then the following morning arrived and she was walking back without hesitation.

  The ashes had finally stopped smoking. She had taken to sitting among the burned remains, to be near to them still. She spoke to them as though they were still there. She pretended they were listening. She told them of her anger, her plans for vengeance, of Falco Bane and the thousands of scars on his body. She had only seen those that stuck out of collars, the jagged ends on the periphery of his limbs, but she knew they were countless. She had not asked, and he had not volunteered any information.

  In a few days it would be her birthday. She would be ten and three. “The first one I will have where you two won’t be there.”

  She ran her fingers softly through the ashes. “Dezane weeps for you still,” she said, changing the subject quickly. She offered up the information on Dezane, speaking as though she herself did not weep, when she did.

  She rubbed her small fingertips together, brushing the ash away. “Many do, still. I suppose many will for a long time.”

  She crossed her arms over her small body and leaned forward. She had not spoken about what Mar’e had said—not to the ashes and not to Dezane. She had barely spoken to the girl since she had shared her secrets. “I don’t want you to worry about me. Dezane cares for me well, and Falco will return for me. He promised he would.”

  She would have felt foolish saying the words out loud if she didn’t already know how absurd it was to be speaking to the ashes of her dead parents. The words were true though. In those first few days, no matter how hard she had tried to fear him, she couldn’t. He had saved her and he alone had seemed to understand her pain. Her loneliness.

  There were none like him and she understood that he had been treated differently for his uniqueness. She was willing to treat him however he wished to be treated—she owed him that. “He’s different, you know. I’m not sure how yet, we don’t know each other very well, I guess. But I could tell when I couldn’t breathe, and he knew how to fix it. He knows my pain. He’s felt it.

  “Dezane believes in him too, I think. I mean, I know. They talked about his future, and the future of the Kuroi. He cares for the Kuroi, but his eyes are not like ours, Mother. He is like Father, someone who feels comfortable with the Kuroi.

  “He’s going to be—” but Jessop’s words were cut short as her eyes caught the quickest glimmer of metal in the sky. It had disappeared behind the tree line, and within seconds there was the unmistakable sound of a crash.

  * * * *

 
; The Soar-Craft was lodged into the sand, smoking. It had left a skid trail for sixty paces at least. Jessop stared at the mangled silver ship, and at the face of the unconscious boy behind the glass windshield. She barely recognized Falco—he was covered in so much blood. Her heart began to race. Smoke was rising from the back of the craft. She knew the Kuroi villagers had heard the crash and would be coming, but once again, they would be too late to save anyone.

  Jessop wanted to retreat from the smoke, watching it with an angry suspicion, but she couldn’t leave him to die. Not when he had saved her. Not when she needed him so greatly. The doorway to the craft was lodged several feet under sand; there would be no prying it open in time. She eyed the ground around her, looking for something—anything—that would help her break him free. She saw nothing, and the smoke was thickening.

  She took a step closer. “Fal—” Her scream halted as she stubbed her foot on something hot and sharp. She hissed at the pain, but forgot the injury entirely as her eyes fell upon a piece of scrap metal. She was unsure what it was; it looked like a giant bolt, almost too large for her to hold in one hand. It didn’t matter what it was or where it came from, though, it could work. She grabbed it up, ignoring the way its heated metal could harm her hand. With an agile leap, she was on the hood of the craft. She knelt before the windshield, her adrenaline too great to feel the scorching metal melding to her kneecaps.

  “Falco!” She screamed, banging on the windshield with her hand. He did not stir. She drew her arm back, clutched the giant bolt tightly, and punched the windshield with all her might. There was not enough space on the bolt for her to hide her fingers, to shield them from the impact. They crunched unnaturally as they met the glass. Tears welled in her eyes, but the glass had the faintest crack in it, and that urged her to once again wind up.

  She hit the windshield again, certain bones were breaking between the metal and glass. “Wake up!” On her third strike, he stirred. She saw his eyes, blinking away blood. “Falco!” She screamed with urgency and encouragement. She hit the windshield again and again, ignoring the pain shooting up her arm. Suddenly, he was alert, and coughing. Smoke was filling the cockpit.