Viktoria's Shadow: Jael

by Ysobella Black

  “So, you and Idris made up? I’m happy to hear that.” Maybe Soră’s Dragă matchmaking skills weren’t so off the mark.

  Musette’s cheeks flushed. “We did. Is Jael okay? You’re here. He must be, right?”

  Viktoria heaved a sigh. “Jael will be okay. Everything is still jumbled up in his mind. Part of him is happy, but I can feel his confusion. I’m not sure he even knows I’m strygoi, or if he remembers bonding us.”

  “He’ll know you’ve bonded. His heart is beating, and he’ll feel what you do unless you close him out.” Selene placed a warm hand on Viktoria’s leg. “Tell us what happened. Idris didn’t have very many details.”

  “Mother showed up. I didn’t have a lot of time to get into things then. I gave Thomax, a guy who worked for Asim, some Beer of Oblivion and let him think he kidnapped us. I didn’t know Lurky was already there. That mage did something to Lurky’s memories. Mother and Memory did what they could, and he relaxed when we arrived here.”

  Musette shuddered. “I remember Thomax and some other men. They were there right before everything goes blank. I didn’t even know I had magic and now it’s poison!”

  “I wish I could do something more to help.”

  Ember rose and moved to sit next to Musette, wrapping her twin in her arms. “We’ll find a way to fix you. I promise.”

  “My mother and my grandmother are experimenting with the poison from the spiders that were affected by the Beer of Oblivion. It might take some time, but I’m sure they can figure something out. When the spiders were freed, they were blank and imprinted on me, Dream, and Memory. They led us to Asim, where we found Jael. He’d been bitten so many times. And his swords... they were gone. Melted, I think.”

  Selene put a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. “The medallions?”

  “Safe.” Viktoria removed them from a pocket of shadow and held them up. “I found them on the floor in front of the fireplace. I tried to tell Lurky I have them, but he doesn’t want to talk about his swords.”

  Selene’s lilac eyes caught Viktoria’s. “Do you know why?”

  Viktoria nodded. “The medallions hold his daughter’s magic. She would have been a strygoi. How could she have strygoi magic if she didn’t have a vampire? She was so young when she died.”

  “Becoming fully strygoi is two parts. Meeting someone already strygoi, and bonding with a changed one capable of love. Strygoi magic used to run in families, passed down from mother to child, and strygoi were more plentiful before the massacre. It wouldn’t have been so odd for Jael’s daughter to have met a silver witch and become partially strygoi when we were numerous.”

  “Wait a second.” Ember held up a hand. “I didn’t meet you or Soră until after I summoned Stryx to my Dragă space. How could I do that if I didn’t have any magic and hadn’t met a strygoi?”

  “Well, you had magic, but wouldn’t necessarily have known if you met a strygoi. Mjesec gave you a burst of magic, did she not, and you felt a jolt? We don’t know anything about her history. She could have been strygoi from before the massacre and captured later. Maybe I wasn’t the only one to escape.”

  Selene stroked the dark hair of the girl sleeping in her lap. “And Soră is adapting. She still tires easily, but is learning to combine herself with the magics of witches, or daughters of goddesses, who have some connection to strong energy, to create a sort of hybrid, rather than a pure silver witch. It’s why Ember has a sword and wings in her strygoi form. Viktoria, are you pure silver when you change?”

  Viktoria shook her head and stood, flashing to her strygoi self. Shadows swarmed across her silver glow. “My mother named me Shadow because I’ve always been able to shape them.”

  Musette poked at Viktoria’s arm and a dark tendril wrapped around her finger. “That is so cool! I wonder what my strygoi form will be.”

  “I bet you have ice cream cones floating all over you.” Ember guessed.

  Musette stuck her tongue out. “Well, if ice cream is my super power, I won’t share it with you, Gingerbread Head!”

  “Ha!” Ember scoffed. “Like you ever shared your ice cream with me in the first place, Goldilocks.”

  Selene held out a hand to Viktoria. “May I?”

  The triangle medallions warmed as Viktoria handed them to Selene, and a clouded look in Selene’s eyes disappeared as she felt them. “Her magic is still here. No mage is going to get the best of you, are they?” The medallions pulsed with a silver glow.

  She handed the medallions back to Viktoria. “When Jael is ready, he can have new swords made. The magic isn’t ready to leave him.”

  Viktoria returned the medallions into a pocket of shadow. “Anyway, Lurky was still in so much pain, I took him to see my aunt. She has some rocks that can absorb pain and bury it. When he woke up there, all I felt from him was disgust and hatred, so I brought him back here. Maybe being home will help his mind settle.”

  “And you? What do you want to do?”

  Viktoria chuckled. “Well, I was going to talk to you and go home, but Soră told me to come play.”

  The silver girl stirred and sat up. “Yes! I want to learn about shadows so I can trick the changed ones.”

  Selene smiled and hugged Soră close. “You’ve been trapped in here with me for so long, it’s nice to see you excited about new strygoi, doing new things, and being able to see new places. You’ll take over the whole compound soon.”

  Soră’s silver eyes sparkled. “Yes. That will be fun again.”

  “You’ve been here a thousand years, haven’t you?” Ember asked. “Why are you only taking over the compound now?”

  “Too tired before.” Soră yawned and rubbed her eyes.

  “We’re halfway around the world and an ocean away from Dacia here, and bringing so many of us all at once to a place we’d never been before took almost all our power,” Selene explained. “We were exhausted, and in a condition much like Musette is now when we arrived. Soră stayed here to keep me alive, because I was the first, and we thought, the last strygoi. But neither she nor I wanted to die. We had to recover, like Musette will.”

  “Are you still recovering? Is that why you never leave this room?” Ember gestured at the tower room. “Well, some version of this room. You told me when I met you that you are a prisoner here of your own design.”

  “That is true.” Selene offered a small smile. “When Riordan fell during the massacre, he didn’t die to buy us time. He was taken, trapped underground in a fight against the first mage. This place is the farthest I can go and maintain my link to him. Riordan lives, and he fights. I won’t abandon him.”

  Ember shot to her feet and flashed silver, sword in hand, black wings snapping out from her back. “We’ll go get him. Where is he? Can you track him like Stryx can track me?”

  “No. I can feel him, but it doesn’t give me a direction. Tazraus and Requiescere, his brother and sister, could track him. They went to look and never returned. He doesn’t want to risk anyone else.”

  “I am War!” Ember shouted.

  “You’ve been strygoi for a week!” Selene snapped. “Even as War, you are no match for a coalition of mages who have been using their magic for thousands of years. No one wants Riordan back more than me, and when the time is right, I will find him.” She softened her voice. “Look what strygoi magic has done in a week. I am not the only one anymore. And the more of us who can share magic, the stronger the magic will become. There are four of us —”

  “Five.” Musette held up her hand like she was in class. “When Myth gets here, we’ll be five. I hope she comes anyway.”

  “How do you know?” Ember whirled on her sister. “You shouldn’t be using your magic!”

  “I didn't do it on purpose! Soră helped me find her.”

  “Who is Myth?” Viktoria asked.

  “A witch we met at the auction we went to in Ashana,” Ember replied. “Norrix’s Dragă, and the newest strygoi, apparently. He followed her home when Stryx and I came back here.”r />
  “Riordan has waited a thousand years, he’s willing to wait a little longer. He doesn’t want anyone to die for him.” Selene turned to Viktoria. “So, what can you teach us about shadows?”

  GLOWING SILVER, VIKTORIA held her hands out towards the fireplace, and shadows leaned towards her. She wiggled her fingers in invitation and smaller shadows leapt to her, writhing around her hands. Larger shadows were slower to follow, but they too streamed to her as she coaxed them from around the fire.

  She placed her hands against a blank wall and painted with her fingers, urging the shadows to spread out and thin as they changed from a dark black to lighter shades of grey.

  Viktoria created a beautiful landscape of the moon over a lake, erased it, and made another image of the moon over sand dunes in a desert. Erasing that, she created Pohjola — a land of ice and snow far to the north.

  “They’re your walls, Selene. What would you like me to paint on them?”

  “This may seem silly.” Selene bit her lip. “A long time ago, I had a cat. She was gray with black socks. Do you think you could paint a cat for me? I know it’s not a landscape, but she could keep me company here in my tower.”

  Viktoria smiled and turned back to the wall, summoning more shadows to her. Thinning and spreading them until she had the right shade of grey, she formed a cat shape on the wall, adding darker shadows to its legs as socks.

  “You know,” Ember mused, “I think if we add a little light...” She moved to stand next to Viktoria. Her fingertips glowed with soft light that she placed around the cat, adding depth to Viktoria’s shadows.

  Soră clapped. “She looks so real!”

  “I will enjoy seeing her on my wall.”

  “I could do this much with shadows before.” Viktoria bent down and tapped the floor. “This is how a strygoi plays with shadows.”

  The cat turned and stepped off the wall. Her first steps were taken with innate feline grace as she placed one dainty front paw on the floor, followed a moment later by the other. She stretched her legs and curved her back in a languorous motion that started with the arch of her head, rolled like a gentle wave over her body, and ended with her tail straightening into a stiff line before it relaxed into the shape of a question mark.

  Done with her stretch, the cat finished stepping off the wall onto the floor. She turned her head from side to side, surveying her new domain. Her eyes were dark shadows that matched her black socks, and they fell on Viktoria, who pointed to Selene. Mincing across the room, the cat leapt up onto the sofa and curled into a ball on Selene’s lap.

  Selene laughed in delight as she stroked the cat. “I can feel her! She’s perfect. Thank you.”

  Viktoria grinned. “She’ll need a name.”

  “I shall call her Bastet.” Eyes shining with a sheen of emotion, Selene’s voice was thick.

  “We need more shadow animals.” Soră put her little face next to the cat’s and received a head butt to the nose. “We need something that flies, another one that is furry, one really long one, and one really big one.”

  Musette laughed her musical laugh. “Well, as long as you’re taking orders, I’d like an owl.”

  Viktoria studied Musette’s stuffed toy, nestled beside her in the bed in the first version of Selene’s tower room, and turned to the wall, shaping shadows for wings and a beak.

  “You know Musette doesn’t do marvelously monochromatic.” Ember stepped forward and added light, giving the otherwise black and grey owl eyes, beak, feet, and wingtips of orange.

  When she finished, Viktoria urged their creation to life. It blinked round eyes and flew off the wall to perch next to Musette.

  “Awww. He’s perfect! Hello, Mortimer Aloysius the Fourth.”

  Inspired by Ember’s strygoi wings, Viktoria pulled shiny ebony shadows and formed a crow to fulfill Soră’s request for a flying animal, while a polar bear met her furry requirement and received light grey, lightened further by Ember’s magic.

  “A snake for the long one?” Ember glanced at her twin.

  “No way.” Musette shook her head. “It’s one thing to know we live in a house built around a fortress that was magically transported here a thousand years ago, and we have a dungeon. But, if we’re going to have free range snakes slithering everywhere, I think I might prefer to stay in my coma.” She waved a hand in the direction of the first version of the tower room. “Or whatever that is.”

  “The snake won’t bother you.” Soră patted Musette’s hand. “I promise.”

  “A snake it is.” Viktoria beckoned darker, obsidian shadows with a slightly rough texture and stretched them in a sinuous pattern. The snake came to life and coiled on the floor, watching them with grey eyes.

  Ember faced Soră. “The last one is something big. Like an elephant?”

  “No. Bigger!” Soră stretched her little arms to their full extent.

  “Than an elephant? Like a whale?”

  “No, not a whale. I know just the thing.” Viktoria drew more shadows to her and directed them over the entire wall. She couldn’t do blue and green scales, but black and silver would do and her magic was familiar with the shape.

  Selene looked toward the door a tap preceded its opening. Jael and Stryx entered, closing the door behind them as they walked into the first version of Selene’s tower room, where everyone looked to be asleep.

  “They were all like this last time I came in here too.” Jael crouched in front of Viktoria. “I thought they were playing some form of sleep twister when I saw them.”

  Stryx took a seat next to Ember on Musette’s bed. “It looks like Selene is teaching them to go other places.”

  Ember’s gaze darted between Stryx and her twin.

  “Go be with your boys.” Musette yawned. “Dream connected my dreams with Idris’, so we can be together that way until I wake up. And Soră says she’ll show me what happens next, whatever that means.”

  “We’ll visit you again soon.” Ember hugged her twin. “I promise we’ll find a way to wake you up so you can meet Idris for real.”

  Viktoria slid her arms around Musette’s neck. “I wish I could have done more with the mage. I don’t know enough about mage magic yet, but Mother can figure it out. I’m sure of it.”

  “I know everyone is doing all they can.” Musette smiled. “I’ll make the best of it with my owl, my ice cream, and my hot vampire man.”

  Selene’s Dragă space condensed into Ember’s kitchen, and Ember’s kitchen faded away, leaving them in Selene’s tower room.

  “That is so weird,” Ember murmured.

  The shadow animals had come with them. The crow darted towards the vampires. The snake reared back in readiness to strike, and the polar bear stood on two legs, its mouth open in a silent roar. Somehow, instead of reducing the threat, the soundlessness only increased the menace of the shadow animals.

  “What the fuck!” Stryx yelled, dropping into a defensive stance.

  Jael reached for swords he no longer had. “I could feel you being very smug about something.” He kept his eyes on the predators as he edged around them.

  A pang of grief and helplessness through their bond swamped Viktoria before Jael shoved those feelings down.

  Soră laughed, and the tower door slammed open. “I called all the changed ones!” She slid from the couch and darted out the door, a parade of shadow animals following her.

  Stryx dodged aside as the shadow animals lunged for freedom.

  “They’re not going to eat anyone, are they?” Jael asked.

  Ember’s silver eyes glowed brighter as she rose from Musette’s bed and faced the wall, where the bulk of the shadow animal Viktoria had been working on waited for its finishing touches.

  “What’s that one?” Stryx asked Selene.

  “I don’t know. I’ve not seen the full creation, only portions of it.”

  Viktoria and Ember stopped shaping the shadow and backed up, dragging Stryx and Jael with them.

  “I do not have a good fe
eling about this,” Stryx said.

  Viktoria smirked. “Do you ever have a good feeling?”

  “I —”

  The shadow shifted over the wall until a horned head twenty feet from the tip of one horn to the other centered itself. Two silver eyes peered out, and a colossal head on a long neck emerged, followed by a claw-tipped leg stepping out of the wall.

  “Oh, fuck.” Stryx muttered.

  “I’m pretty sure the Old Man of the Mountain had a story about this,” Jael murmured. “I don’t recall it ending well.”

  “Come on,” Viktoria urged the dragon, holding out her hands. “Don’t be shy.”

  A second clawed leg stepped out, followed by a thick serpent like body, two more legs and a long tail.

  The dragon hardly fit in the room, its shadow body casting shadow over all of them. It eyed the open door and darted for it, disappearing down the stairs.

  “Hurry up!” Soră called.

  “This is like something my sisters and I would have done in Pohjola to make Mother crazy.” Viktoria went down the stairs at a run, pulling Jael with her. A sense of giddiness made her want to laugh.

  The door at the bottom of the staircase flew open on its own and the dragon flowed out with the other shadow animals, rushing up the stairs to the living room, causing chaos as they stalked and pounced at vampires.

  Zeke ducked as the crow flapped over his head. Xenos dodged a lunge from snake fangs. Alaric threw his arms over his head and yelled, “Not the face!” as the polar bear swiped a huge paw at him. Karov leapt into a backflip to avoid the dragon’s lashing tail.

  Melchior stood tall amid the melee in the center of the room, holding a giggling Soră in his arms. He glared at Viktoria and Ember. “Strygoi are all lunatics.”

  “Take it up with Soră,” Ember pointed an accusing finger at the silver girl. “This was all her idea.”

  “Outside!” Soră demanded.

  The front door flung itself wide, and the shadows streamed into the moonlight, followed by Viktoria and Ember, and the vampires.

  Everyone stood in the yard as the dragon paced in circles. It looked up into the dark sky, sat back on its rear legs and snapped massive wings out from its sides.