Chapter 56 Emory
AT DAWN, WHILE THE DRACONIC knights slept, Emory slipped into their encampment, using the sunlight to render herself invisible.
Using her magic was a relief, the pressure in her veins instantly easing.
She didn’t feel guilty calling on her power here, far from both the ley line and the keys.
She only hoped the darkness would stay away long enough for her to free the Shadow—and that his presence would chase it away completely.
She found him in one of the tents, his eyes closed as if in sleep, his hands bound together, and one of those magic-dampening bands around his neck—which had to explain why she hadn’t been able to reach him in that liminal space these past few days.
His shirt was dark with dried blood where the sword had pierced him at the Chasm, but the skin beneath was smooth, unblemished. Emory’s healing had worked.
Without those ecliptic eyes staring at her, it was hard to separate the god from the boy she’d fallen for.
The boy whose Lightkeeper magic she wielded now.
Emory took a careful step toward him—and jumped back when his eyes snapped open, locking on her face as if he could see through the invisibility. Her magic sputtered in shock.
Fury swept over his features, chasing away any lingering trace of Keiran as the god’s murderous gaze met hers. “Behind you,” he warned.
Emory spun around, but it was too late. The draconic knight barreled into her with a grunt, knocking her to the ground.
The knight lifted his sword above her. Before he could bring it down to her chest, a chain wrapped around his neck.
His eyes went wide as the Shadow stood behind him, tightening the chain until the knight’s sword clattered uselessly to the ground and his eyes went empty.
The Shadow tossed the body aside. And then he was pulling Emory up roughly and wrapping a hand around her neck.
“I should kill you for leaving me in their clutches,” he hissed.
His face was haggard, pale, as if he’d endured the worst sort of torture, or perhaps Keiran’s reanimated corpse was finally running its course. Even his grip around her neck felt weaker than it ought to be. His eyes, though, burned with enough hatred to end them both.
“So do it,” Emory said.
She thought he just might as his fingers dug in. And maybe this would be best, for someone to stop her before she hurt anyone else. But the Shadow released her with a frustrated growl, and relief surged into Emory despite herself. She didn’t want to die.
“Why did you come here?” the Shadow asked.
Rubbing at her neck, Emory motioned to his chains, the collar around his neck. “You said we need each other. I’m here to propose a bargain.”
“Like the one where I tell you who I am in exchange for you healing me? That didn’t exactly end well for me, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I kept my word. I healed you.”
“And left me weak enough for the draconics to capture me and hurt me some more.”
Emory crossed her arms. She wouldn’t let herself feel guilty over that. “Do you want my help or not?”
There might have been a spark of a smile in his eyes as he asked, “What do you propose?”
“I need you to show me how to control my magic. And you clearly need me to get you out of these chains and heal you again along with whatever other reason there is that you’ve kept me alive so far. The deal is you don’t go anywhere near my friends, and I hear you out.”
The Shadow’s eyes bore into her. Then he stuck out his hand, chains clinking together with the restricted movement.
Emory hesitated for a breath before she shook it.
She stifled a gasp as the Shadow gripped her tighter and pulled her close to him.
They stood a hairsbreadth apart. She couldn’t move, pinned as she was by his stare.
For the first time she realized she wasn’t looking at a demon, or even Keiran.
This was the Shadow, the first Eclipse-born, the one she owed all her power to.
A god in his own right, and one who was believed across realms to be the bringer of evil.
“If you betray me,” he said, breath teasing her face, “I will not hesitate to kill your friends.”
Emory found it difficult to swallow, her mouth going dry at the solemnity of his threat. She was certain she would never have the upper hand here, but still she said, “And if you betray me, I’ll make sure you die in this corpse of a vessel.”
Slowly, the corner of the Shadow’s mouth lifted. “You make a fine adversary, Emory Ainsleif.” His thumb stroked the spiral on her wrist. “You’ll make an even finer ally, I’m sure.”
Emory pulled away from him, disgust roiling in her stomach. “We’re not allies.”
“What, then?”
She had no answer. Instead, she simply used Virgil’s trick with the Reaper magic and rusted off his chains and the metal band around his neck. “Let’s go.”
They made it out of the encampment without being seen thanks to Emory’s Lightkeeper magic.
It felt bizarre to her, to use it on the very body that had come up with the invisibility trick to begin with.
When they were far enough, Emory let go of the magic and waited for ghosts to appear and visions of flowers choking her to swarm her mind.
But the darkness was kept at bay, as she suspected it would be in the Shadow’s presence.
“What are you doing?” he asked her as she suddenly stopped and sat down on a ridge.
“You’re going to start by telling me what you really want with me and the keys. No more veiled stories. The truth.”
“Fair enough.” He sat down across from her. “Where do you wish me to start?”
“How about why you were imprisoned in the sleepscape and the Tides were splintered into pieces.”
“The Tides,” he said, forcing the word out between his teeth, “is not her real name. That is only what your world knew her as: the four-faced deity consisting of Bruma, Anima, Aestas, Quies. Her real name is Atheia.”
Atheia. The name seemed to echo on the wind, as if a part of her lingered in this world.
“And yours?” Emory asked.
He thought it over for a second, as if pulling the name from the deepest recesses of his memory—as if the time he’d spent imprisoned in the dark between stars had made him forget it.
“Your people did not always know me as the Shadow. They called me Phoebus, once. The bright one. Associated with the sun because I appeared to them on an eclipse. Both were apt names, if not entirely accurate. My real name means he who dwells among the stars.” When he finally spoke his name, it poured out of him like a prayer. “Sidraeus.”
Emory tried to ignore how right the name sounded, how everything in her grew calm upon hearing it. “And what happened to them, Sidraeus and Atheia?”
“To understand that, I have to start at the beginning.”