Chapter Ten Dominic
Chapter Ten
Dominic
This isn’t at all how I wanted to wake up.
It was bad enough when I was rudely pulled from slumber by my shadows tugging away from me, a physical discomfort that turns painful if they try to stretch too far.
Of course it was Inana’s voice that had drawn them.
Even I was intrigued by her story as my mind cleared from the dregs of sleep.
Then came the second interruption. A missive appeared before my eyes in a flash of astrotheurgical light, the parchment hovering in midair before dropping onto my face.
I had all of three seconds to read the damn thing before I saw them. Shades all around the clearing.
I’ve seen thousands by now, but the sight of so many gathered in one place sends a chill deep down to my bones.
Dozens of them fill the spaces between trees, their slender, semitransparent bodies watching us with hollow eyes.
One has managed to get so close that it’s crouched beneath the wagon, peering from behind one of the wheels.
What’s even more unsettling is that they’re acting so bold during daylight hours.
True, the sky has grown overcast as day turned to afternoon, but there remains a distinction between the brightness of the clearing and the darkness beneath the trees.
And these Shades are clustered as close as they can get to the edge of protective shadow.
“This isn’t ideal,” Pride says. “One would think they’d have the sense to behave for at least an hour.”
I ignore him and speak to my Summoners, voice low and level. “First lesson of being a Summoner. Stay calm. Don’t react. Breathe.”
No one says a word, though I think that’s more out of shock than obedience.
Still, to my new crew’s credit, they don’t panic.
I turn in a slow circle to assess where any other Shades might be.
Sure enough, there are a few behind the trees across the stream too.
Thankfully, Shades can’t cross bodies of running water, so those pose no threat.
My fingers flinch, eager for the sword I left by the boulder where I napped, but unsheathing my weapon would do more harm than good.
Displaying any threatening behavior could send them into a frenzy.
The best we can do is stay quiet and wait until they lose interest.
“Second lesson,” I say, “raise your fucking hoods.”
Calvin’s hood is already raised, of course, for he’s used to this.
The other three belatedly follow, understanding dawning in their eyes.
Though it’s rare, Shades who take too great an interest in a specific person, usually because of their art, might seek to Incarnate.
It starts with a Shade mimicking its target by appearance, its formerly featureless face shifting to mirror the human’s.
It escalates when the Shade consumes its victim, assimilating their flesh until their new form turns solid.
It ends with a blade of fire severing the Incarnate’s neck.
There is no other way to kill an Incarnate, and neither the original Shade nor the person it consumed can survive.
“What about you?” Inana asks, her eyes flicking briefly to mine from under her hood. “You’re not wearing a cloak.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not an artist, and Shades aren’t interested in imitating my kind.”
My heart thuds rapidly in my chest, which is when I realize I’m standing too close to Inana.
Once again, being near her has made my emotions spike—fear this time.
I take three steps away until familiar apathy returns.
What doesn’t change is our situation. My pinch of fear may have abated, but the Shades remain as intrigued as ever, showing no sign of losing interest. If anything, they’re growing agitated, reflecting Inana’s state as she was struggling to finish her story.
Even my shadows buzz with disquiet, rippling against my skin as they huddle around me.
“Dom,” Calvin says, and as I meet his gaze, he tilts his head toward the Shade beneath the wagon. It has peered farther out from behind the wheel, its spindly fingers clinging like spider legs. Its face, however, is a reflection of mine.
Fuck.
It’s the Shade Calvin accidentally attracted while I was gone.
I wanted to wait until nightfall to capture it, but after the missive I received, I no longer have the luxury of time. If I’m going to capture the Shade, it must be now.
“Change of plans,” I say with a sigh. “We’re moving on to our first active training session. How to calm unsettled Shades.”
“What?” Inana bites out in an angry whisper. “We’re going to perform Summoner duties? Right now? Without knowing fucking how?”
“You’re about to learn. Just trust me.”
“Trust you?” Harlow lifts her head to glare at me from under her hood.
“You’ll do great, love,” Calvin says with a wink. She turns her scowl to him instead.
“Eyes down.” The demand in my tone has all four heads lowering. “Now, Inana, tell a story. But not the one you were telling just before.”
“That wasn’t a story,” she says, an edge of panic in her voice. “That was…I wasn’t lying.”
“I’m not accusing you,” I say, though I’m not sure how else to explain how she drew so many Shades if she was speaking truth.
It’s like her very voice is art to them.
“What I mean is, your words left them restless and unnerved. A Summoner’s duty involves knowing how your art influences the Shades and using that to get them to do what you want.
In this case, we need to calm them so they’ll wander away after your performance. Tell something false yet mundane.”
“False yet mundane,” she mutters. After a few more beats of silence, she begins. “There once was…a squirrel.”
“Oh, this one is boring already,” Lust says.
Sloth, however, leans toward her. “I like squirrels.”
Inana darts a glance at me, a furrow between her brows. For a moment, I wonder if she can hear them. But…no, that can’t be possible.
I nod at her to keep going, along with a stern “Eyes down.”
She clenches her jaw before lowering her head once more. “There once was a squirrel who…lived in a tree burrow. He was small and…and cute. He collected…acorns.”
I’d be amused if this situation wasn’t so dire. It seems Inana does not excel at telling stories unrehearsed. Yet the Shades give her their full attention. Even Pride, who refuses to acknowledge interest in anyone or anything, is reluctant to follow as I slowly make my way toward the wagon.
“He loved all kinds of acorns,” Inana says, “but the blue ones were his favorite. Yes, in this magical forest there were acorns of all shapes, colors, and sizes.” She’s hitting her stride now, her pacing more even.
From the corner of my eye, I see the Shade shift under the wagon, edging away from me to keep the campfire in sight. With unhurried motions, I reach into the wagon bed and retrieve Bard’s mandolin and Harlow’s sketching supplies. Then, just as carefully, I return to my crew.
“Every color of acorn had a different meaning,” Inana says. “The pink ones could lead one to love.”
I stop beside Bard and hand him the cloth-wrapped instrument, half expecting him to lash out at me for touching it.
But he takes it from me with only the faintest of grumbles, then gingerly unwraps it.
“Play something soft. Quiet. We don’t want to draw more Shades than we already have, but this will divide the attention between you so Inana isn’t bearing it all.
There’s a reason Shadowbanes work with more than one Summoner. ”
Bard begins to play, a simple yet playful tune.
I hand Harlow her sketchbook next, as well as her satchel with her ink and quills. “Draw pleasant images.”
“They can’t see what I’m drawing from where they are. What if that makes them want to get closer?” The worry in her voice makes her sound younger, closer to her seventeen years of age than the cynical, world-weary persona she’s displayed thus far.
“It doesn’t matter if they can’t see what you’re drawing. It’s the act of creating that matters. And if you’re infusing your work with calm, they’ll feel it. Draw something that evokes your own feelings of safety.”
With trembling hands, she opens her sketchbook, then sets out her inkpot and quill. I was impressed the first time I saw her ink drawings and am equally so now as she proceeds to set fine lines to her paper, starting at the center of the blank page.
I step back toward the wagon.
“You won’t let me watch?” Lust says. “What if she draws those sexy positions again?”
“We have a job to do,” I say under my breath, halting once I’m on the other side of the wagon.
Its bed is between me and the campfire now, but I can still hear Inana’s story, her words weaving seamlessly into Bard’s tune.
The Shade wearing my face remains beneath the wagon, fully entranced by my Summoners.
I unsheathe one of my knives and crouch down.
Keeping my breathing steady, I press the tip to the earth and draw a circle.
From there, I bisect it with a horizontal line.
A hundred and eighty degrees, to represent the ground.
Then I press the tip to the bottom of the circle and carve a diagonal line.
I mirror that on the other side. Then I connect the lines, making them intersect at specific points.
Every line is precise yet second nature; I’ve drawn many ritual circles since I became a Shadowbane.
We may be taught only a single astrotheurgical diagram, but it’s more than most Sinless know.
The Sinless gentry aren’t allowed even the barest knowledge of astrotheurgy.
The princes and dukes use solar magic—with a diagram almost identical to the one I’m drawing now—but they don’t cast their own circles.
Instead, they perform a ritual using a pre-drawn diagram etched into the Holy Braziers.
The only people who know the full scope of astrotheurgy are the priests, for the church serves directly under King Kaelum.
Their knowledge makes them the most powerful humans on the continent, and they guard it with their lives.
My diagram grows more and more complex with every line, but it isn’t cluttered. It’s orderly. Symmetrical. A mathematical equation of elements, angles, and planetary symbols, meant to call down divine energies from the heavens to reflect back on mortal earth in specific outcomes.
I complete the diagram by drawing the glyph for Bastien, God of the Sun. Then I retrieve a vial from my holster. One nearly empty, save for a single drop of blood. My blood.
“…the purple acorns, however, taste the best,” Inana says, continuing her story, “as everyone in the magical forest knows.”
The Shade beneath the wagon remains perfectly still.
“Creatures come from miles to the violet tree…”
I place the vial at the center of my circle.
Uncork it.
“…just to collect the purple acorns before sundown.”
The Shade scuttles to the side, then whips around.
I take a few slow steps away. My shadows, meanwhile, stretch before me, splaying across the dirt in black puddles to darken the path from the wagon to the circle.
The Shade sniffs. Once. Twice. Then it begins to crawl.
I ease another vial out of my holster, Calvin’s blood this time.
Uncorking it, I bring a sip to my lips. The blood coats my tongue in a sickly-sweet richness with an iron tang, and I despise how pleasurable I find that taste.
Heat rushes through my body, reacting to the flavor.
The blood is an offering to my Sinless half, the half that was stripped of sin and filled with Bastien’s divine light.
My very soul hums with euphoria, for in this moment, I am a sliver of a god.
The Shade extends a hand from under the wagon, then another. Inch by inch, it crawls toward the vial at the center of my diagram, the monster with my face drawn away from the campfire performance by the scent of my blood.
I press my thumb over my vial. Tip it until a dab of Calvin’s blood stains the pad of my finger.
The Shade now inches toward the center of the circle, its body wavering at the edges, losing its humanoid likeness until it’s a mass of dark smoke.
I cork my vial. Return it to my holster.
The Shade stretches into a wisp of shadow, then reaches into the container—
I lunge for the edge of the circle. My shadows retreat just as I press my thumb to Bastien’s glyph, painting it with the drop of Calvin’s blood. The hum of my soul intensifies as the offering I gave to the circle resonates with the one that still lingers on my tongue.
Bastien’s solar magic imbues the circle, creating a dome of light four feet wide and six feet tall. Exactly to the specifications in my diagram. It’s so bright, it’s almost blinding. Only my half-Sinless nature enables me to look at it head-on.
An unearthly squeal comes from inside the dome, the Shade trapped with nowhere else to go but inside the vial.
I wait one second. Two.
Then I reach inside the dome, slam down the cork, and wipe my hand across the circle.
The dome of light goes out at once, as does the pleasurable hum in my soul.
My hand trembles in the aftermath of such powerful astrotheurgy.
The vial within is full, the Shade captured.
I tuck it into my holster, catch my breath, and use my boot to wipe away all remaining evidence of the diagram.
Then I round the wagon toward the campfire.
Not a single Shade remains, all having fled at the burst of light.
Four sets of eyes stare at me. Calvin wears a grimace, while the rest emanate trepidation. Bard’s hands have gone still over his strings. Harlow’s quill has frozen on her paper. And Inana burns me with a glare, chest heaving. She speaks through her teeth. “What the fuck was that?”