Chapter 6 #2
He sighs. “I was warned this is a conversation we will need to have. I understand that it can be hard to believe when you have lived your whole life in the sun, but what happened by the river is no joke nor trick. You are bound to a shadow wielder, and I have come to take—lead you back to the Nightmare Realm. Body, soul, and shadow. Unlike some elves in the past, I will not abduct you. You have made a pact out of your free will, and I will be your guide. We don’t even have to go tonight. ”
Okay, this is getting a bit too freaky for my taste, but he goes on.
“Speaking of which… Let’s keep the fact that I’m courting you between us.”
I frown, but my heart beats faster. “You’re courting me?”
He laughs and leans back. “Well, yes. And I will be free to do so once you’re Gloombane’s Dark Companion, but it’s considered er…
in bad taste to court another’s promised before the couple is officially bonded.
Though I think that Gloombane lost that privilege when he sent me as his replacement, right? ”
My head is spinning, and I stop him with a gesture. “We can go back to LARPing later, but I want to talk for real. Know the real you.”
Tristan lowers his voice. “I am prepared to prove my words.”
He rolls up one of his sleeves, and the veins going up his forearm make me salivate. Maybe I could just go with the flow and roleplay tonight? What’s the harm?
“Behold, this is—”
“Your pizza!” the waiter says excitedly, and places two steaming plates in front of us with a broad smile.
Tristan freezes. He looks between the waiter, me, the pizza, his forearm. I guess whatever his grand reveal was supposed to be, got spoiled.
I clear my throat. “Thank you,” I say, and Tristan quickly does too.
Once the waiter walks off, he hums. “Would you rather… eat first?”
“No, no, go ahead.” I’m far too curious.
He looks around conspicuously, and I’m about to laugh, but then something slides out from under his sleeve as if it’s alive.
I don’t know what I’m looking at, but it’s black and grey, a bit like smoke, a bit like shadow, most definitely moving yet rests flat on his skin, like a tattoo.
A moving tattoo of a… snake? What is that even?
I jerk back and raise my hands, my pizza forgotten despite the hunger. “Okay, you’ve got to tell me how you’re doing this. And the wings? The spikes? Was that some kind of illusion? Are you like a professional magician?”
“No. An illusion is what makes my kelpie look like a horse here. It obscures reality.”
I cock my head. “Kelpie? Like the mythical water horse creatures from Scotland?”
But he is not done and captures my gaze so intensely I’m pinned to my seat.
“This is reality. Both my wings and this are the result of shadowcraft, and this is an eel that lives on my body. I’ve got three.
” When he says that, another snake-like head peeks out from under his sleeve and slithers toward his hand.
“One for every shadow wielder I killed. The dying breath of their power is condensed in these creatures.” Tristan shakes his head.
“You don’t believe me because it seems purely visual to you.
I’m more than happy to bend the reality you know. Give me your hand.”
I don’t know what to say. He sounds like a crazy person, but the movement on his skin is… there. I can’t deny it, only look for alternative explanations, so I place my fingers in his palm, my heart thudding as a sweet warmth winds through my body.
Tristan looks around once more, but no one is there to disturb us.
He guides my hand to the table, holding his own on top.
“Solid, right?” When I nod, he paints around it with his fingertip, and I’m…
disturbed when darkness spills from under my palm.
I flinch in panic, because something is very wrong here, but he keeps my hand in place, only to push it down.
My flesh sinks into warm softness of… what? The table? I watch half my forearm disappear in a darkness so complete it can’t be rivaled by anything I’ve ever seen.
Tristan laughs. “How about that? You just dipped your hand in the Shadowild. You can feel it, and you can see it with your very own eyes, right? I would have used my wings for a presentation, but they’re far too big and would draw too much attention here,” he adds as if he hadn’t used them at the frat party.
How is he so calm when his words speak of the impossible? Terror is an ever heavier ball at the pit of my stomach, and I rip my hand out, glad to see it whole. “What the heck? How— Shadowild? What’s going on?”
I stare at the black, hand-shaped hole in the table, then dare poke it with my finger, and yes, it definitely goes in.
“A tiny entrance into the shadow realm. It’s very safe,” he adds quickly. “Unless one gets lost there, but that’s another matter.”
“But… how?” I utter, watching him pick up one slice of his pizza. He seems as shocked by the stretch of the cheese as I am by what he’s just made me experience. “I don’t understand… Those kinds of things only exist in books!”
Or do they?
They might not be common but if someone living in the middle ages saw a television, or a plane, surely they’d also call such things impossible illusions. Does that mean that… some fantastical things aren’t purely the product of imagination but real phenomena most people never encounter?
“Then just imagine you’re about to be taken on an adventure in a book.” He smiles and bites into the pizza. His eyes go wide and I swear his pointy ears twitch several times. “This is so good!” he says with his mouth full.
I offer him a wide smile and dig in too, despite the waves of hot and cold clashing inside me. “But I have a life here. Friends. Grandparents. I can’t just leave.”
Tristan hums. “Hm. How about I eat and you tell me more about all that?”
I pick up a slice of my vegan pepperoni, trying to work out how much I believe my own senses, because everything I know denies the existence of what he just showed me. Am I hallucinating?
I pinch the side of my throat so hard it almost brings tears to my eyes, but Tristan remains where he was, rolling the softer end of his slice up so it doesn’t flop and lose some of the toppings.
But that’s still not enough, and after a moment’s hesitation, I reach to his massive plate and pick a piece of hardened dough from the very edge.
It tastes… like pizza, and clearly exists too.
“So… I live with my friend, Viola, who helped me do my hair tonight.”
“Very pretty,” he says between one bite and another. “Black and wavy like the Sea of Sorrows.”
Tristan wraps an entire slice of pizza into a roulade of meat and cheese and stuffs it into his mouth whole. Well, that settles it. I shall be the one to speak.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was still a toddler, so I was raised by my grandparents, on their farm. They are the best people I know, and I try to live in a way that will make them proud.
“They do know I’m gay, and Grandma specifically kept saying positive things about the community to encourage me, and I did eventually come out to them at the end of high school.
They sold the farm last year and are currently on a year-long cruise.
I miss them, because they are getting old, and we will only have so much time together, but they said they don’t want me to organize my life around theirs.
” I run out of steam and quickly fill my mouth with the pizza, which tastes surprisingly bland today.
Maybe because everything that happened has been such a rollercoaster…
I’m about to tell him about my job, but then I realize I got fired and I don’t want to sound like a loser, so I skip that whole topic. “Do you… have family?”
Tristan nods and pokes my foot with his. “My father died, and my mother is away often, but I have a sister who just had a baby last year. Can you imagine he’s called Nathan? What are the odds? A human friend of mine suggested it, saying that it’s very nice and respectable.”
I find myself nodding as the reality of my job loss sinks in. What if my manager sends warnings about my conduct to other vet clinics in the area? What if I need to have a long commute or move somewhere else altogether, all because I tried to do something good?
“It is. A lovely name, I mean.”
“For lovely people, apparently,” Tristan adds, winking at me, and heat rises to my cheeks.
“A human friend? How many humans are there where you’re from?”
Tristan glances through the window with a thoughtful expression. “Three at the moment at the Nocturne Court, but Carol and Lady Gueneviere were planning a trip, so I’m not sure if you will get to meet them as soon as you come.”
This is way too much information, and not having the proper context is making it all spin in my head with no rhyme or reason. “But why? You mentioned I made a bond. What for? Why are you abducting people?”
He raises his hands, palms up, but it takes him a while to swallow before he can speak.
“I didn’t put you in the River of Souls.
You died. Souls that end up in that river the way yours did are filled with despair.
I don’t know the exact mechanics of it, but the shadow of a person pulled out of its waters can be used for shadowcraft.
You are now Captain Lorsen Gloombane’s promised, and on the next full moon, he will make you his Dark Companion.
Once the bond is forged he will be able to use your shadow. ”
All this just sounds like a fairytale.
Or the plot of a romantasy novel.
“He didn’t seem to like me much.”
Tristan waves it off. “He’ll get over himself. Some Dark Companions don’t even spend that much time with the one they’re bound to.” He pokes my foot again with a smile. “So what other hurdles do we have? You want to say goodbye to your friends?”