Promise of Shadows

by Ireland, Justina

  I’m expecting to appear as different as I feel. Time may not truly exist in Tartarus, but every minute I was there felt like a year. After the things I’ve seen I expect my face to be as lined and wrinkled as one of the seasoned warriors back in the Aerie. Instead it’s as smooth and brown as it was before Whisper died. My silver eyes are still wide and surprised looking, the light color startling in my dark face. The only difference is my hair. The blue, ropy locks are slightly longer than before I was sent down to Tartarus, frizzy near my head where the new growth hasn’t been properly twisted. Everything else about me looks exactly the same.

  Except I have no wings.

  I peel off the basilisk-leather shirt and twist around to look at my back. Nanda’s soft, pitying words come back to me. They took your wings. Dusky lines crisscross my back, scars from my fall into Tartarus when the razor-sharp edges from my feathers cut me as they swirled around, ripped free from my shredding wings. Two large black lines run parallel to my shoulder blades. Once my wings would’ve been there. Now there are just a few tiny blue pinfeathers, pathetic reminders of what I’ve lost.

  Not that I’m keeping track.

  The black scars from where my wings aren’t wind over my shoulders and down my arms a little, stopping halfway between my shoulder and my elbow. I do a double take and trace the black, scrolling lines. There’s no way it was caused by the loss of my wings; the placement is all wrong. They look like inky vines. What in the realms could cause such a marking?

  What if I got some kind of Underworld disease? What if it’s from the waters of the Styx? Or maybe it’s some side effect from eating that funky fruit. For a single panicked moment I imagine the black markings spreading across my body, eating away my vital organs and turning me into some kind of gelatinous blob.

  I poke at the lines, which don’t feel any different from the rest of my skin. Overall I feel fine, just a little tired and hungry. I try to push the worry away. I don’t know what the black marks are, but maybe Cass will. I make a mental note to ask her about them, shuck off the rest of my Underworld clothes, and jump into the steaming shower.

  I crank the hot water as high as it will go, sighing as the heat penetrates the hundred and one achy spots on my body. I would bet money that the Elysian Fields aren’t half as good as a hot shower after months of getting beat to the hells and back.

  While I’m showering, I can’t help but think about Whisper. I’m feeling relaxed from the heat of the spray, and my mind wanders to one of the last moments we spent together. It was a few days before the start of my Trials, and I was so nervous that Whisper finally decided she’d had enough. I was in the middle of running through the One Hundred Ways for the fourth time when Whisper threw down her magazine and stood. “You need a break.”

  I paused in the middle of pretending to break an unseen adversary’s neck and stared at her. “Should I practice my sword work?”

  “No. You should get dressed. We’re going out.”

  I stared at her blankly, not understanding what she was saying. “Out to the training area? I think I’m okay on land navigation.”

  Whisper sighed. “No, out of the Aerie. Come on, we’re going to town.”

  As soon as she said the word “town” I was up the stairs and getting dressed in what I called my norm clothes. A pair of jeans, a T-shirt cut to fit around my wings, and sneakers that were a little too small. They were relics from the last time we’d snuck out. None of the clothes were new, but they were better than the tight-fitting leathers that were the standard Harpy uniform.

  Once I was dressed, we climbed to the roof and flew off. Neither of the sentries challenged us, but that was probably because they recognized Whisper’s wings. As an assassin in the Omega Corps she was always coming and going. As soon as we were over the fence and into the countryside, the weight that pressed down on me disappeared, and I felt freer than I had in months.

  I followed Whisper as she landed on a loading dock behind an ugly glass-and-steel building. “What is this place?”

  She grinned. “The mall. I have some extra cash from my last job. We’re going to get you some clothes that don’t look like they came from the thrift store.”

  I flushed, because my jeans had come from the thrift store. I never had any money, mostly because I hadn’t been assigned to a line yet. But once I passed my Trials and had regular work, I would have a little money to spend.

  First we made sure our glamours were in place, mine courtesy of the æther stone in my pocket. Then we walked inside. For the first few seconds I couldn’t breathe. The scent of all those emotions made me dizzy. Whisper gently guided me to a bench so that I could sit down.

  “You need to learn to breathe past it. After a while, you won’t notice the smell so much. At least here the emotions are mostly happy. Try heading into somewhere like one of their prisons. It’s terrible.”

  While I waited for my nose to adjust, I took in the view. It looked just like all the shows on TV. Boys and girls traveled in flocks, their bags swinging happily. Tired-eyed mothers pushed their children along in giant strollers weighed down with purchases, while distracted dads stared at their phones. It was beautifully normal. Average. It was everything I’d ever wanted.

  And it was nothing I’d ever get to have.

  Whisper and I went from store to store, trying on pants and eyeballing shirts that would have to be altered if we were ever going to wear them. A boy held my gaze for too long in a store plastered with posters of shirtless guys on a beach, but when he headed over to talk to me, Whisper grabbed me by the hand and dragged me off.

  “I want you to have some fun, but that is a distraction you don’t need. Trust me.”

  The rest of the day flew by in a blur, so when Whisper recommended getting a pretzel and heading home I’d been crushed.

  “I can’t believe it’s time to go already.” My anxiety returned, the fear of my upcoming Trials almost crippling. The scent of my emotions must have been overwhelming, because Whisper wrinkled her nose.

  “You’ll do fine, Peep. There’s no sense in freaking yourself out about it.”

  “But what if I don’t?” I asked Whisper as we adjusted our purchases in preparation for flight. We walked to the edge of the parking lot. Our glamours would hide our take off, but that was the least of my problems. I knew I wasn’t going to pass my Trials. My heart wasn’t in it. I hated the Aerie, despised the way it controlled our lives and kept us from the real world. The last thing I wanted was to spend the rest of my years rotting away inside of those strictly regimented walls. But I couldn’t tell Whisper that.

  She loved the routine, the safety. She was just like our mom in that way.

  My sister looked down at me, and her expression softened. She laid a protective hand on my shoulder. “Zeph, you’ll pass or you won’t. And if you don’t,” she began, halting my interruption, “we’ll figure it out. There are lots of things you can do in the Aerie that don’t require fighting. We’ll find a position for you.”

  “Maybe I should leave the Aerie.”

  Whisper laughed. It sounded like my hopes crashing to the ground. “Leave the Aerie? Don’t be silly. Life is too dangerous to go it alone. No, if you fail your Trials, we’ll just find something else for you to do. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re going to pass your Trials. Now let’s get home while there’s still daylight.”

  We took off then, flying back to the Aerie in silence. And I knew that if I failed my Trials, Whisper would be disappointed. I vowed that I would do everything I could to pass.

  But it didn’t matter. I still failed. I let down the only person who ever had any sort of faith in me.

  I won’t do that again. I will find Whisper’s shade and send it to the Underworld. Or I’ll die trying.

  The water turns cool, pulling me from the memory. I hurry to wash up before it goes icy. I don’t move fast enough, and I end up washing my ropy snarls of hair under a frigid spray. But I can’t complain. It’s my first shower in more
than a year.

  I turn off the water and wrap myself in a towel. When I walk out to the bedroom, Cass is still wrapped in her towel. She holds a pair of the shorts Nanda left for us. Cass’s expression is a bit forlorn.

  “I don’t think I can wear these,” she says, holding up the running shorts. “They’re . . . indecent.”

  I look around the room, and the bed gives me an idea. I pull off the bedspread and tug at the sheets, handing the top one to Cass. It has wide green and blue stripes, but it’s not running shorts. “Can you make this work?”

  She nods before looking down at the shorts again. “Does everyone wear such tiny clothes?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. In the Aerie we wore leathers. We switched them out for jeans, which are these canvas kind of pants, when we went to town. But the people on TV wear stuff like this all the time.”

  Cass stares at the clothes, like she can’t believe people would willingly give up wearing togas. “Can you help me cut this down to size?” I nod and extend one of my talons. Nanda’s going to be pissed that we’re destroying her bedsheets. But I can’t let Cass run around in the dirty toga. It’s a pungent reminder of hell, and I’d like to forget Tartarus as soon as possible.

  I help Cass cut down the sheet, then quickly pull on the clothes Nanda left for me, a shirt advertising a 5K and a similar pair of running shorts to what Cass held. I feel strange walking around someone else’s house barefoot, but my boots smell like ass. Hopefully once the leather dries out, the stink of the Styx won’t be so noticeable.

  There’s not much I can do with the snarled locks of my hair, so I bind it in a high ponytail with a leftover length from Nanda’s sheet. Once Cass has finished securing her bed sheet toga with a couple of creative knots, we gather up our towels and dirty clothes and follow our noses to the kitchen.

  Blue sits at the kitchen table, scraping the remainders of something that smells amazing from his plate into his mouth. Tallon is nowhere to be found. My mouth waters, and I think I recognize the smell, but I’m not sure. The combination of everyone’s emotions and the cooking food make for an interesting scent. Birthday cake and bacon. Coffee and too-ripe strawberries. I don’t bother trying to parse them out. I just hope at least one of the smells is on the menu.

  Nanda stands at the stove, overseeing several skillets at once. She sees Cass and me and gives us a wide, welcoming smile.

  “Laundry room’s over there, Peep. Just toss those dirty clothes on the floor. I’m making bacon and eggs, so do you want scrambled or fried?”

  Nanda speaks English, so I translate for Cass. She’s still confused, and I realize that she’s probably used to much different food. Has Cass ever had bacon? What the hells did people eat in the olden days? Porridge?

  I answer for both of us. “We’ll have our eggs scrambled, thanks. Oh, and Nanda, don’t forget Cass doesn’t speak English. You’ll have to speak in Æthereal.” I respond to Nanda in Æthereal, so that Cass will know what I’m saying.

  Nanda smacks her forehead with her hand. “That’s right. Sorry, completely forgot.” But her words are flat and insincere. She’s obviously not as over Cass’s dubious history as she’s pretending to be.

  I’m also having a little trouble trusting Cass right now.

  I force a grin and shrug. “It’s okay. Hanging out with Cass has really improved my Æthereal.”

  Nanda watches Cass with a dark, assessing gaze. “So I guess Blondie doesn’t know what bacon is then, huh?”

  Cass watches Nanda with her usual blank expression. “No. I’ve never heard of bacon.”

  Nanda gives her a feral grin. “Honey, you are in for a treat.”

  I toss the dirty towels and clothes on the floor of the laundry room, praying that I’m not going to have to referee a cat fight. When I return, Cass has already taken a chair at the kitchen table. A heaping plate of scrambled eggs and bacon sits in front of her, and she’s shoveling it in like a champ. I take the other empty chair, Nanda sets a full plate in front of me, and then I get to work as well.

  No one says anything for a few long minutes, and when I look up, everyone is watching me. “What?” I say around a mouthful of food.

  Blue’s lips twitch, and his sapphire eyes sparkle. “Are you hungry?”

  I look down at my plate and realize I’ve eaten everything but a forkful of eggs. I swallow the food in my mouth. “Yes, but I always eat like this. You snooze you lose in the Aerie,” I say. Cass frowns in my direction and I shrug. “It sounds much better in English than it does in Æthereal,” I tell her.

  We finish eating, and when I’m done, my belly is painfully full, stretching out the T-shirt. I feel amazing. I can’t keep the blissful smile from my face. “Nanda, you are awesome.”

  She laughs and picks up my plate. “That’s just the bacon talking.”

  Nanda loads the dishwasher, and Cass watches with her head tilted to the side, like an inquisitive dog. I reach across the table and tap her. “Dishwasher. It washes dishes.”

  Cass nods, but the perplexed look doesn’t really leave her face. Nanda notices and frowns.

  “Cass, how are you with wards?” Nanda asks, remembering to speak in Æthereal this time.

  “Fairly good. What are you looking for?”

  “Well, I had a decent ‘don’t see me’ ward set up to protect me from Hera’s Acolytes, but I think one of their seeker spells may have damaged it.” Nanda gestures to Blue, and he stands without a word, giving up his chair so that Nanda can collapse into it with an audible sigh. She turns to me and says, “That’s how I’m figuring she sent the grass men after me. Hera’s been chasing me for nearly twenty years. Her Acolytes send out seeker spells to try to find shadow vættir. It was just my good luck she found me on a day when you kids were strolling up the walk.”

  “You’re a shadow vættir?” I ask.

  Nanda nods. “Yep. Not something our kind like to advertise, but there are still a few of us running around.” At my shocked look she laughs. “Every vættir race has its dark and its bright members, even Harpies. It’s less about who you are and more about where you get your power from.”

  I bite my lip, because everything I learned in the Aerie tells me the shadow vættir are unnatural, and that their strangeness is what led to them dying out. But that can’t be true, because Nanda is a shadow vættir.

  And so am I.

  Cass climbs to her feet. The lost expression on her face has faded away, which I’m pretty sure was Nanda’s goal. “I could definitely strengthen the spell, maybe add a few layers that would trigger a warning. How do you feel about a backlash spell? You know, just in case someone tries to tamper with the ward.”

  Nanda grins. The twisting of her lips is more devious than friendly. “Blondie, I like the way you think. Blue take her outside and help her fix the ward. Two layers, at least. More if you’re feeling ambitious. Tallon’s out there already, but you know how bad he is with æther.”

  Blue nods, and then he and Cass file out the back door.

  Now Nanda and I are all alone.

  I look at her, and time fades away. It could’ve been just yesterday that she was arriving at our house in the Aerie like a tropical storm, bearing cookies and promises of fun. Nanda was the only person I knew who could make my mother laugh. Their friendship went back to when they were kids, and I always thought my mother must’ve been a much different person when Nanda met her. Otherwise I can’t imagine the two of them ever becoming friends.

  Nanda leans back in her chair. Her posture seems relaxed, but I can see the telltale tension in her shoulders. She’s Harpy trained, after all. Even now, so far from the Aerie, it shows. She could kill me before I even have a chance to move. “Why did you stop visiting?” I ask before I can think twice.

  Nanda throws her head back and laughs. The birthday-cake scent of her amusement is genuine. “You always did get straight to the heart of the matter. It was one of the things I adored about you.”

  I smile. “You didn’t answer my ques
tion.”

  “No, I didn’t, did I?” She sighs. “It was your mother, mostly. She began to take a turn, one that put too much of a strain on our friendship. We grew up together, you know?” I nod, because I remember their stories of “back in the day.” They were one of my favorite parts of Nanda’s visits, the chance to see my mom as something more than a fierce general.

  Nanda shrugs and continues. “She used to see the Aerie as a necessary evil. As she got older, she lost the sense of adventure she’d had when she was younger, clinging more and more to the traditions inside those walls. When she told me that she didn’t think it was a good idea for Alora and Tallon to come the next time I visited, I knew I’d lost her. As brave as Harpies may be in battle, they’re terrified of the outside world.” Nanda shakes her head sadly.

  There’s no doubting the truth of her words. I remember how our field trips to town stopped as I got older. I always thought it was because my mom got too busy once she was promoted to general. But now I realize it could’ve been motivated by fear as well.

  “Why don’t you like Cass?” I ask, changing the subject.

  “The old stories say that she’s the reason the last Nyx was killed. She’s the great Betrayer, and I don’t trust her. It has nothing to do with liking her.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you would, growing up in the Aerie and all. It’s not like they teach all of the old stories there.” Nanda sighs. “Perhaps this story is best if I start at the beginning.”

  “Okay.”

  Nanda clears her throat and begins speaking in Æthereal. “In the old days there was chaos. Gods and men mingled freely, and the darkness and light ran rampant. Time was nonexistent. Man and Æthereals both lived many lifetimes. The first among Titans, Cronus, was angered by this. He despised humans and felt they didn’t deserve to live as long as the gods. He decided that the worlds needed to be brought to order and he would do this by splitting up the realms. The majority of the bright æther and his favorites would go to the most perfect reality, the Æthereal Realm. Those he disliked or thought inferior, and the erebos that he couldn’t control, would go to the lower realm. See, Cronus was only going to create two realms, but then he was betrayed by the drakans.”