Chapter 34
When Noctua played the sweet strains of a lullaby, the folk yawned, rubbed their eyes, and fell into a deep sleep. As the music ended, the shadows crept away to find more of what they had been fed and now craved: revelry, music, and grief.
—OLD ONES, ANCIENTS, AND THE FOLK
Prospect halted at the base of a black cliff, holding up a bog sprite lantern. “I’ll go no closer.”
Thea could make out the deeper darkness of the cave’s entrance. She sniffed the air, turning her head slowly, as she would if she were on patrol in the forest, her hunter’s instincts on alert. “There are shadows in there?”
Prospect made a rough sound of amusement, as if he’d forgotten how to laugh. “They are so wild, even the king could not win their allegiance.”
Thea might have thought he was trying to scare her, but that description matched what Damon had told her about the cave.
She imagined him thrown into that darkness as a child.
Though she was still furious with Damon for lying, and disgusted with herself for believing him, she had sympathy for his younger self.
Every child deserved a protector, and he’d had none.
“So this was Damon’s punishment,” she said, a lump in her throat as she imagined how terrified he must have been. “To be trapped with the most vicious spirits of all.”
“Yes.” There was no regret in the Seer’s voice.
Thea turned on him, her hands fisted. “And you didn’t stop it. You didn’t defend a child in need.”
He held her eyes. “To defend him would have meant my own death.”
From what she understood, he hadn’t even tried. She turned away, despising him and everyone in this cursèd realm. She did not want to go into the cave or stay in this horrible place one moment longer. But she lifted her chin and took a step forward. She would not cower.
Prospect gave her one last warning. “Do not trust anything you see or hear. The spirits deceive.”
She paused before stepping over the threshold, wondering why he was trying to help her. “How long am I to be left in here?”
The Seer spread his hands. “It depends on the king’s whim. Sometimes Damon was in here for several days.”
Though the idea made her stomach crawl, if Damon as a child could bear it, so could she.
An invisible veil of magic pressed against her body as she entered, as if a hundred horsehair brushes slid over her.
Once inside, she tested the ward and found it to be as solid as the rocky cliff. She was trapped.
She took a single shallow breath before turning to face the interior, the scant light from the doorway reaching inches inside the cave.
Stepping into darkness, she felt her way around the perimeter with outstretched hands.
The space was not large, perhaps twenty paces deep before the wall started to curve back toward the entrance.
It wasn’t long before she heard rustling, a scritch scritch of small animal feet.
Rats? How had they survived in this barren environment?
The noise grew until it sounded like a dozen or so.
When the sounds drew close, Thea darted forward with her hand outstretched to grab one.
It felt solid under her palm for one moment before it dissipated like mist.
Shadows.
The figment rats scratched the floor around her for several minutes. She thought of Damon being trapped here when he was young. Rodents would be horribly frightening to a child in the dark alone. But she had faced much worse.
Snarls came next. Something larger approached, padding over the cave floor. A wolf? Teeth grazed her arm, cutting her skin. She snarled back as she reached for it, but the wolf turned to smoke, and her hand passed through cold air.
An unfair fight! There was nothing worse.
She listened to the wolf’s movements as it padded around her.
It snapped at her, rushing forward and retreating.
She pushed the animal’s mouth away before it could clamp onto her arm.
The next time, it was too fast, leaving a bloody gash.
Thea gasped in pain, but after a while, her senses attuning to it, she was able to judge the shadow wolf’s location by sound, and used her forearms to smash its maw from her before it could bite her again.
Next came spiders. The tiny insect figments crawled all over the cave walls, jumping onto her hair and shoulders, skittering down her back. She shouted and pressed her body against the wall, squishing them into mist. She forced herself to focus, to steady her breathing so she didn’t panic.
In a moment, the spiders changed. Snakes coiled around her ankles, hissing.
She thought again of how scared Damon must have been as a boy trapped in here with these things, and anger rose inside her, hot and fierce, sharpening her senses.
She grabbed the snakes before they could turn to mist, hurling them away from her.
“Enough of these games,” she said aloud. “Challenge me.”
A moment later, something large approached, its loud panting filling the small space. A paw swiped out and raked long claws down Thea’s face, drawing blood and knocking her to the floor.
Paralyzed with pain and fear, she couldn’t move for agonizing seconds. The feel of hot breath on her face made her push to her feet and stumble back.
“A bear?” she asked, keeping her distance while using one hand on the wall as a guide. She and the shadow bear did a sort of dance, the animal lunging for her while she leaped right or left, always out of reach, until it hissed at her in frustration. The panting ceased.
Silence followed. What next?
Face the greatest enemy of the Sylvans, said several hissing voices speaking together.
“A Dracu?” Thea guessed, motioning an invitation in the dark. Dracu were fast, and so were the shadows. She listened, dodging as best she could, but soon, a blade sliced Thea’s shoulder, missing her cheek by inches.
“Unfair to use a blade,” she snapped, moving by sound alone, guessing where the shadow Dracu might be. “I have no weapon.”
Fair? the shadows spat. There is no such thing.
Suddenly, there were at least two Dracu. Three? More? Thea used her forearms to block, but their attacks struck home. Soon, she was covered in blood and sweat, the air stinging her wounds.
Cry mercy, the shadows hissed.
“You first.” Thea blocked, then finally managed to grab one of the false Dracu by the hair, which turned to cold mist under her fingers. A knife cut her back. Her arm. Her leg. There were too many. She would go down fighting. All she could do.
The shadows made a sound like laughter. Cry mercy!
“Is this what you did to Damon?” she asked, blocking and dodging while more and more shadow knives cut her skin. “To a helpless child?”
No answer. Thea hated the shadows in that moment. Despised them as she’d never hated anything.
He hates us, too, they whispered. The shadow prince.
Suddenly, the attacks stopped. Thea stared at the darkness, anticipating another attack, her entire body throbbing in pain. “What’s wrong?” she asked finally. “Is it more amusing to watch me bleed to death slowly?”
Thea wondered: Did they actually want to kill her? It would be easy. But a dead body would provide no entertainment.
The thick quiet was broken as voices cried out in the dark. “Thea! Thea, help us!”
She gasped, not expecting this new kind of attack. Her sisters? Rozie’s voice rose to a shriek. “Thea! I need you!”
Don’t trust anything you see or hear, Prospect had said.
It wasn’t real. But it tore at Thea’s heart, touching on her worst fear—that she wouldn’t be able to protect the people she loved.
She covered her ears, but the sounds seemed to pierce her skull.
This was so much worse than the cut of a dagger. “Thea! Help me! Help!”
Her stomach heaved. As the voices went on and on, she shivered violently, wishing death on the shadow king, his son, and Prospect for putting her here. Finally, she snapped. “Shut up, you foul things. Be silent!”
The voices grew louder.
Real or not, they were breaking her down, making her sick, making her question her sanity. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall, her stomach roiling as they continued their cries.
The sounds of battle came next. Clangs and shouts and the cries of her sisters shrieking in pain, gasping their last breaths. It sounded so real. After a few minutes, tears made cold tracks down her cheeks.
You should have killed Erebus while you could, they sang. Your weakness will mean your sisters’ deaths.
“So you claim,” she replied, her lip trembling. “But the future isn’t fixed.”
Wind came from nowhere, a gale so strong it pinned her to the wall.
The shadows grew louder, spitting terror in every way imaginable and in forms she had never imagined.
The cries of children. Animals in pain. Images appeared in the darkness, terrible images.
War. Death. Destruction. Lightning crashing and fire consuming the forest. A chasm rending the ground and lava pouring from it.
The oceans covering the earth. Stars falling from the heavens like sparks. The sun going dark.
Images from the future, the spirits said. Your future.
“Then I will live a long life,” Thea said, though her body shook uncontrollably, “if I am to see the end of all things.”
You will never leave here. We vow it.
Days seemed to pass. Weeks? Thea experienced no hunger or thirst, nothing that would help her gauge the passage of time. Her cuts burned, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. The shadows tormented her until she was half-mad. It seemed she was to be left here forever.
“What do you want?” she cried aloud, unable to bear it.
We remain here. Trapped by Erebus the Betrayer.
That made her sit up. “Who were you before you came to the cave?”
They paused. The souls of the folk, like the others. But we are those who would not obey him. Another pause, then: We will kill you. Kill you and devour your spirit.
“I would not obey Erebus, either!” Thea shouted.
“So kill me if you can, but know that you are doing his work for him!” She pushed to her feet, readying for their next attack.
But how long could she hold them off? She was used to relying on her combat skills to save her, but the shadows weren’t like any other foe.
She couldn’t defeat them, couldn’t even make them bleed.
Was there another way? Sylvans were known for making deals.
Why not offer the shadows a bargain, something they were desperate to have?
She had little time to consider the details, so she trusted her instincts.
“Or you can bind yourselves to me, and I will give you freedom from this place—”
We serve no one! If we wouldn’t obey him, we shall not obey you.
“Because he is empty of everything you crave,” she said. “His shadows want cruelty, but you want something else.” She listened, trying to gauge their reaction, hoping they were so bored by their eons of tormenting others that they would be tempted by her offer.
She waited, but the shadows went quiet.
It gave her time to think. Even if she knew how to set these shadows free, she couldn’t risk it.
They were too dangerous to be left loose.
Instead, she was offering them a Sylvan bargain, which would commit her to tending these shadows for the rest of her life—the worst shadows, the most violent of spirits, so evil that Erebus himself, with all his cruelty, could not win their allegiance.
What would they want from her? What would they expect?
What would happen if they grew bored and turned on her?
Still, she would do anything to help save Thirstwood from Erebus.
Erebus must have wanted her allegiance for a reason. He had hinted at her bloodline, her powerful parents, born long ago in a time of greater magic. Perhaps she had something inside her that drew the shades. Something even she didn’t understand.
We could kill you, the spirits said.
“Then do it.” Thea lifted her chin, daring them.
She let them sense her fearlessness. “Erebus is weak. His cruelty is born of fear. Test me. Fight me again. I will never beg for mercy. Never yield. I’m not like him.
” She paused, sensing interest in their silence.
“If it’s freedom from the cave you want, I’ll try to release you, but you have to remain with me.
You will have more chaos and revelry than you can drink in if you stay at my side.
” She believed what she said was true. There was no end to the threats her people faced, and perhaps she was her father’s daughter because she didn’t mind the challenge. She wanted to fight.
You are a curious thing, they said, voices softer now. A thing that loves death as much as we do.
“Death never frightened me.”
She felt the shadows approach like animals scenting food. They growled, some of them shrieking words in an ancient tongue. Cursing her, even as they moved toward her.
There is one thing. It pulls us. We sense a hunger for death in you. A wish to kill.
Thea wanted to deny it. She opened her mouth to refute it. But the shadows were right. She was her father’s daughter, as Damon was his father’s son. And a part of her loved war.
There. She could admit it to the shadows.
If you promise us chaos and death, destruction and tears, we will join with you.
Thea closed her eyes. “I promise you battles until there are no more to be fought. I won’t stop until Erebus is defeated.”
But would she be able to stop at all?
As the shades wove around her, circling her wrists like bracelets and settling around her neck like a fur collar, she found her mind floating to a state of euphoria.
It was a new kind of power that gloried in wildness instead of perfection, freedom over precision.
She let herself savor it, trying to let go of the need to exert control.
She would be mistress of the shadows. No matter how she had to change to do it.
Over time, her cuts healed, and she experimented with the shadows.
It was strange at first to consider them allies, but soon she became fascinated by them.
They were unpredictable, fickle, and imaginative, taking shapes of animals she had never seen—some things she wasn’t sure existed.
At first, she didn’t trust them not to hurt her, but it seemed they had committed to the bargain, and she began to let her guard down.
With practice and attention, she could hear their thoughts without them speaking.
It felt as if they were learning her, too. She found she could influence their shapes, and they chose the one she liked best. They became butterflies. Deadly ones. Her weapons against the betrayer.
Weapons against anyone who would hurt you, they whispered.
When light appeared at the cave entrance, Thea rose to her feet and smiled.