Page 67 of Shadows of the Lost
Our long strides ate away at the river-stone path beneath our feet, but the misty, gray expanse never shifted. We were cocooned in a world of fog and dew with little to no visibility beyond our own wingspan. Our footfalls were muffled, as if being passed through acloth filter, and there was little else to decipher except the path laid out before us. A weak breeze whispered through the air.
Minutes crept by as our breaths quickened in time with our pace. Shadows manifested beneath our feet, and we pushed harder, faster, rounding a bend until finally the mist began to thin. The outlines of trees took shape, but they never fully came into focus. Somewhere, an owl hooted.
Calem slowed beside me. The mercury in his eyes had blown wide to douse his irises entirely, but he shuddered as he tried to summon more of his beast to the forefront. When nothing happened, he glowered at the widening path now interspersed with grains of black sand.
“I can’t shift.”
Unease stirred in my abdomen. “Not entirely unexpected. Charmers can’t use their magic in the shadows, and beasts can’t enter our realm.” I thought back to the time I’d snuck through the bowels of Wilheim’s castle with Leena at my side. We’d nearly stumbled upon Yazmin, and I’d been forced to wrap her in the shadows with me. Her beast had been left on the outside. He’d safely camouflaged himself, but it was explanation enough for why Calem’s power had been stifled.
“This doesn’t feel right,” he muttered. Shadow blades formed by his hands, and I was viscerally reminded of just how deadly Calem had been before he’d been granted a second power. His bloodlust already rivaled that of a beast. This mage might have had old magic, but I had my brother by my side. I had my shadows. And both of us would go to the end of this realm and the next to save our family.
“No, it doesn’t.” Willing tendrils to gather in my palm, I fashioned a rapier and gripped the hilt tightly. The air was thick with dread. Indecipherable shadows, like that of fleeing beasts, darted through the mist on either side of the path. As we stepped out onto the beach and left the fog behind us, we froze.
Horror filled the marrow of my bones. The ground waswrithing. Hundreds upon hundreds of shadows coated the beach in a serpents’ nest. They swirled tirelessly without any real direction, converging upon each other. The dull breeze from earlier had shifted to full-on wind, and if not for its rippling effect on the choppy waves, I wouldn’t have been able to decipher where the shadows ended and the ocean began. White spray shot into the air as seawater slammed into a barrier of rocky boulders. A lustrous moon—tinged a faded daffodil around the edges—showered the entire scene in an ominous light.
“Where the hell are we?” Calem’s hushed words were barely audible over the waves.
“I’m not certain.” I braved a single step onto the shadow-infested beach, and the tendrils I’d stepped on streaked away into the fog in the direction we came. Slowly, I took another step, and more shadows fled. “I think we’re all right to continue on.”
“To where, though?”
I didn’t know. To our left, an empty beach. To our right, the same. We couldn’t go back the way we came—we’d already traversed that path and found no sign of Gaige or the mage. Crouching, I waved my hand through the mess of interlocking shadows. They recoiled from my touch and raced away, peeling back to reveal more beach and the occasional rough stone. While most of the tendrils had fled at my gesture, a few had remained behind to hungrily lick at a damp spot in the sand.
With two fingers, I scooped up the wet grains and rubbed them against my thumb. “I don’t understand. Why are they…”
My voice died as the grains fell away and left my fingers stained a deep red. Slowly, I once again inspected the beach. The shadows weren’t moving aimlessly. They were collapsing in distinct spots and violently snaking around each other to devour whatever lay beneath.
Blood. It was blood. And I had a horrifying idea of who it belonged to.
Launching to my feet, I sprinted along the beach and swiped my rapier through the snarling mess of shadows. Darkened blood spots bloomed to life and created a new path for us to follow. Calem caught on to what I was doing, and he sprinted nearby, releasing countless thin blades of his own to skewer through the tendrils and send them rocketing away. Adrenaline roared in my ears.
Gaige’s blood.We were too late. We had to be. There was so much. And the further we ran, the more apparent the tracks became. At the beginning, they’d just been small blemishes against the already dark sand. Now, there were rivers cutting canyons into the soft ground and rough trenches, as if he’d been dragged through the muck. Fear did dangerous things to my senses, and I think for the first time in my existence I understood why Calem often fell prey to his wild emotions.
Because in that moment, fury was all I felt. I wanted to kill the person who hurt Gaige this badly, and I didn’t want to worry about remorse, about right or wrong. I wanted him to feel the same pain Gaige had felt when he’d experiencedthis. Bile soured my tongue, and I pushed forward until there was a noticeable drop in the number of shadows.
In the distance, a motionless body laid in the sand. Alone.
I knew I should have waited. I should’ve taken stock of my surroundings and strategized an approach. We had no idea where we were or what lurked in this foreign environment. But the moment I saw him, draped in ravenous shadows with smeared blood painted against his too-pale skin, all rational thought fled. My heart roared in my ears as I sprinted across the beach, and the remaining inky tendrils scattered.
Sliding to my knees, I ran my hands over Gaige’s exposed body.Uneven, jagged lacerations stretched from the base of his collarbone to his abdomen, and the shreds of skin had failed to restitch as blood continued to pool beneath him. Grains of sand coated his feet and calves, caked into place by a hardened layer of dried blood. His eyes were closed, lips barely parted, and a clammy sheen covered his brow. I gently wiped my thumbs across his forehead, but he didn’t react to my touch.
Calem rushed to my side. “Is he…?”
I found the vein along his neck, and a feeble, dull pulse thudded against my fingers. “He’s alive. Barely.”
“Let’s grab him and go.” Calem crouched beside me and prepared to slip his arms beneath Gaige’s legs when a miniscule shadow raced from under his thighs and shot through the sand. I glared at the wry tendril as it slunk away, only to slither around the bare foot of a man. My body went cold.
“Calem.”
He looked up and stiffened beside me. The mage. It had to be. The shadows about him exuded a raw and violent energy as they snapped about his frame, lashing away at his skin. His curled hair was matted and tangled in places with his unkempt beard. Tattered clothes limply hung about his frame and were stained with dirt. His face was gaunt, but there was an undeniable intensity teeming in his black-brown eyes.
“Hello.” The grating rasp of his voice sent a chill racing down my spine. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
My grip on my rapier tightened. “What have you done to him?”
“Taken his blood.” He shrugged as if it were the most obvious answer, and he continued forward until he was only a few feet away. “I needed it.”
My blade was against his throat in an instant, and I relished in the ruby rivulet that swelled and dribbled down the central ridge. I could kill him if I had to. “Not another step.”