Chapter 21 Devora
Devora
The buzz of power and excitement flooding the town was intoxicating. It took the edge off just enough for me to shake the nerves of being around all these strangers, to let my guard down and let loose, not worrying about magic or guilt or spying on a murderous Shifter.
Flames and shadows twisted together and rose into the sky.
I couldn’t tell what was magic and what was smoke from the fire.
I reached out a hand, standing on my tiptoes to try and grasp a flickering tendril.
It slipped through my fingers, but something inside me stretched.
For a brief moment, a heartbeat, something else came to life.
“I have someone who’d like to meet you, Devora,” Thecae said from my left.
I turned to see him standing next to an older woman with coarse gray hair curled around her head. Kind silver eyes stared back at me, with a smile deepening the many wrinkles along her face.
“I would know you anywhere,” she said, her voice quiet but strong for her age. “Ceres’s daughter. You were born with a head full of that fiery hair, you know.”
A half smile formed on my lips. “You knew my mother too?”
“‘Course. She was my most gifted scribe. Powerful as could be, with a mind to boot.”
“I…I have so many questions,” I said with a nervous chuckle, savoring every small tidbit of information.
Her grin widened, exposing a gap between her front teeth. “Come, girl. There’s a log over here, and my old bones need to sit. Thecae?” she called, glancing behind her to the other Shadow Wielder. He approached and took her arm as the three of us walked to a nearby log.
“This is my mother, Calyra,” Thecae said. Recognition dawned on me. She must be the woman who stitched the blanket I was found in.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
“I always wondered if we’d ever see you again,” she said softly. “I saw the rubble from the shipwreck, but I knew your parents. They would defy the Fates if it meant saving you, girl.” Her wrinkled hand clasped mine as we sat. “The shadows have brought you back to us.”
The sentiment made my heart lift. “You said my mother was a scribe? What does that mean?”
Calyra nodded. “A lifelong learner, that one. Shadow Wielders are big on tradition and history. Recording the lives of our ancestors, figuring out ways to keep their memories alive, that sort of thing. She loved uncovering new stories. Traveled all across the province, recording people’s tales.
” Her smile faded as she gazed at me, then let go of my hand to cup my cheek.
“You have her eyes. Such bright eyes. And her hair too. You could see that girl coming from all the way across the valley. But your smile…that’s all Malijah.”
I swallowed. Her words clenched around me, pricking the backs of my eyes. “And what did he do?”
Thecae stepped in. “He was studying to become a shadow trainer, like me. At least, until we formed the rebellion. He was the only Shadow Wielder and Lightbender hybrid in the province. His magic was incredible to watch.”
“And boy, did he know it,” Calyra added with a chuckle. “Half the province was in love with him and the shows he’d put on for the ladies. Handsome and charming, always ready with a joke. But, oh, Ceres couldn’t stand him.”
I couldn’t help but smile as I listened, watching their story unfold before me.
“Malijah only had eyes for her,” Thecae said, a low laugh building as he shook his head. “He talked about her so much, I once knocked him off our bunk.”
“You lived together?” I asked. “At the training grounds?”
“For a time, yes. We were in the same class.”
“Ceres refused to give him the time of day, but I was always rooting for them,” Calyra said, wagging her finger at me. “There are some people who are just meant to be.”
Thecae grunted. “It wasn’t until Malijah almost died that she finally realized her feelings for him.”
My eyes widened. “Almost died?”
“A fight broke out one night on the border with Drakorum.” Thecae motioned to the east where the Mistwood Mountains lay far in the distance.
“An argument between the border guards, a group of Shifters, and some of our Shadow Wielders got heated. Several died. Malijah tried to step in and help his friends, and a Shifter clawed him across the stomach. Nearly killed him.”
With a grave nod, Calyra cut in. “They had to hold his guts inside his body when they carried him back to the training grounds. He didn’t wake up for four days. Ceres never left his side.”
“They were married six months later,” Thecae added.
Calyra’s wrinkled hand found mine again, and she squeezed.
“When you came along, everything changed for them. None of us blamed them when they needed to leave. This empire wasn’t safe for a very, very long time.
I just wish…I wish we could’ve known what would happen.
We would have never let them get on that ship. ”
We sat in silence for a moment, them honoring their dead friends while I mourned a life I never knew.
Mourn was too strong of a word. I wasn’t sorrowful, the way one might be when losing a loved one. Because I didn’t technically have anything to lose. In reality…I had found them.
Piece by piece, I was gaining parts of the puzzle that were my past. Stories that rounded out my chipped edges, that gave me the feeling that somewhere, somehow…
I fit. My mother’s eyes and hair, her desire to seek out answers and observe the world around her.
My father’s smile and propensity for humor.
Their passion and fire and nobility. I liked to think I had some of that too, when I wasn’t swept up in my own selfishness.
In a strange way, the sounds of people laughing, feet pounding to the music, and drinks swishing against bottles was the perfect setting.
Where the heady daze of the night made colors blend and shadows melt into your skin, where the world seemed less sharp.
Less…cold. It was the way I wanted to remember these people I never knew.
Thrumming with life, not hidden behind a veil.
After a moment, Thecae raised a hand into the air. Two strands of shadows shot from it, separating and forming into silhouettes of two people—one with short hair and broad shoulders, and one with a long braid down her back and a quill in her hand.
“To Malijah and Ceres Sephorne,” he murmured. Calyra repeated his words, and the shadows slowly dissipated.
I stared at my hands, suddenly wishing, willing, begging for my shadows to emerge.
To give me that one final piece, that one final proof that I’d finally found somewhere I was meant to be.
I wanted more than just my mother’s eyes and my father’s wit.
I wanted their magic. I wanted to know this part of them still lived in me.
As usual, nothing happened.
My throat burned from holding back desperation as I clenched my fingers into a fist.
Even my magic rejected me. Pushed me away. Wanted nothing to do with me.
I shoved my fingers through my hair, blinking rapidly to fight the dismay that swept through me.
To my surprise, Thecae crouched at my knees and yanked my hands away in his callused palms. “Don’t fight it, Devora,” he urged. “This is what we talked about. You have to face whatever it is you’re feeling. You can’t keep trying to control them—your emotions or your shadows.”
My hands shook as the first tear tracked down my cheek. I was so close. So close to shoving the sorrow away, taking several swigs of wine until it blurred completely, and tossing him a smile. Pretending like this never happened. Because it hurt. It hurt to face the truth.
Everything eventually rejected me. Used me, discarded me, or left me. Saw what I was good for, got their fill, and no longer needed me. Even though my family hadn’t chosen to leave me behind, I was still alone.
Always alone.
These shadows didn’t want me. And I didn’t deserve them. That was what it all came back to, wasn’t it? I didn’t deserve them. Any of it. The things I’d done, the way I lived my life—I brought it on myself. Why would my shadows want someone like me?
Why would anyone?
A snarl broke through the sounds of revelry as a massive figure appeared on the ground before me. Thecae staggered to the side.
“What did you do to her?” Nox growled, taking Thecae’s place at my knees. His eyes, more silver than navy, roved over my body.
“I’m not hurt,” I said with a gasp. I hastily wiped the tears from my cheeks and turned away from him. “I’m fine.”
Rough fingers came out to grasp my chin. Nox moved my head back to face him, his nose mere inches from mine, before his lips parted in surprise.
“Devora, your eyes,” he said. “They’re black.”
Alarm blared inside of me, and I searched for Thecae, who’d been knocked to his side when Nox burst in.
“It’s her shadows,” he said, brushing dirt off his pants. “They’re trying to get through. The emotions, the magic of the Vigil,”—Thecae motioned to the revelers around him—“it must have triggered something.”
Their voices became muffled and distant as my heart pounded louder in my ears. Something pushed against my chest, desperate to get out.
I slammed my eyes shut, all my muscles clenching as if that could keep it inside. Could keep the pain from escaping. One of my hands shot to the log beneath me, and my fingers curled tight around the bark, nails digging into wood.
“But she’s in pain,” Nox said, voice surprisingly urgent.
“Magic is tied to emotions, boy,” Calyra said. “Can you imagine going two decades without yours? She’s drowning in them.”
It didn’t feel like I was drowning. It felt like I was exploding. Like a dam had crumbled as I choked back another sob. It was writhing inside me, all the self-loathing, the bitterness, the anger, the loneliness. The years I spent merely surviving, finding my purpose in the wrong people.
This is what you deserve.
Voices whispered in my mind, the same kind I heard in the shadow circle earlier with Thecae. They brushed against the raw wounds, making me double over as if I’d been struck.
Small tendrils latched on to those emotions and tugged. They ripped them into the open and twisted around them, growing, building, pushing—
I felt Nox move away from me, and without thinking, my arm lashed out and gripped his hand.
I glared at him. “Don’t”—I huffed out a breath through gritted teeth—“leave me.”
Don’t leave me on these shores.
Don’t leave me in this tower.
Don’t leave me behind.
Don’t leave me.
Don’t—
His other hand clenched my arm. “I’m not going anywhere, Devora.”
Something solid slammed into me. I let out a gasp as the gates opened and power flooded me.
Shadows tore out of our joined hands, rolling down my body and surging at my feet, sucking the world into its black tide.
Nox was still on his knees in the dirt before me, but I could barely see the bottom half of our bodies through the darkness.
Wind whipped at our hair and cloaks. Shadows pulsed in the air.
They brushed against my skin while familiar voices drifted through my subconscious like music.
I stared at Nox, whose wide eyes matched my own, and for a moment, time stopped.
In my next breath, the shadows snapped back into my skin like someone had released a bowstring, and my muscles gave out. I slumped forward, falling from the log and into solid arms.
Everything went black.