Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The sun was rising, painting the sky with streaks of gold and red, as I scurried my way across the bridge that led to the home I shared with Orin.
For decades, he’d lived alone in this small cottage near the banks of Echoing Creek. My father and I had visited it occasionally when I was a child. Its cozy, chaotic interior was a place of wonder and laughter, alongside lectures and lessons in magic and a myriad of other topics. After I lost my parents, it had become a place of refuge, too—though it had taken months before I agreed to stay and consider it home .
I scaled the ladder propped against the right side of the house, making my way to the flat stretch of roof and the trio of skylights spaced across it. The middle window opened like the hatch on a ship, and we’d hooked another ladder to the rim of it, allowing for an easy descent into the cottage.
We had a door, of course. But the bits and pieces of Orin’s latest experiments had stretched their way all around the perimeter of the living room, as they so often did, and a table had been dragged in front of the door to accommodate them. When I’d left that morning—by crawling through the kitchen window—said table had been covered in books, scraps of parchment, and countless gadgets in various stages of completion…all of it so precariously balanced that I didn’t want to risk flinging open a door and creating an even bigger mess.
It was simply easier to drop in through the roof.
Phantom followed my lead, falling soundlessly to the dinged and scratched-up plank floor. His shadowy body sent chills rippling through me as he passed.
He threw a disapproving glance at the mess in front of the door before plodding to his typical spot underneath the stairs. He didn’t really need sleep, considering he wasn’t truly alive, but he tended to become grumpy when he didn’t get his time alone—so I made a point of keeping a comfortable bed for him.
My mentor stood by the kitchen sink, humming a jovial tune as he washed a teetering stack of ceramic mugs. Smudges of ink stained his brown skin despite the soapy water sloshing all the way up to his elbows. His long waves of grey hair were tied back by a strip of leather at the nape of his neck, and he wore his favorite coat, even though a healthy fire blazed in the hearth. I’d mended that coat countless times over the years—a different scrap of fabric for every ill-fated experiment that ended in flames, or sharp edges, or some seepage of cloth-eating liquid.
At this point, I wasn’t even sure what it had originally been made of.
“Morning, Orin,” I said, cheerful in spite of my exhaustion.
“Nova, my beauty!” He spun around, throwing soapy water in all directions. “What a relief to see you in one piece.”
I arched a brow. “You doubted I’d return this way?”
“Never,” he proclaimed, waving a dismissive hand, flinging even more suds onto the crooked cabinets. “And even if I had, I’m a senile old man. You can’t take my doubts seriously.” With a properly stern look, he added, “Or my certainties, for that matter.”
I grinned.
Old was an understatement, really. He’d never revealed his true age to me, but he’d served my grandfather, and his grandfather before that. Orin was one of the Aetherkin —beings with a connection to the old magic in our world that, among other things, tended to grant a longevity not seen in most humans.
He couldn’t wield any magic directly—there were few who could, even among the Aethers—but he could sense it and, with the tools he expertly crafted, he could channel some of it. It’s why my father had introduced me to him in the first place; Orin was the main reason I had any sort of control over my powers.
I still wore the bracelet my father had given me on my eighteenth birthday, and I’d been gifted several more like it in the seven years since. Each one was crafted by Orin. Each one helped me channel a different strand of my power, allowing me to access specific spells—such as the projecting spell the rose-bead bracelet helped me call upon. They’d helped calm the restless shadows inside of me, too; those dark ribbons hadn’t emerged upon my skin in years.
I was up to four main bracelets now, and I was somewhat proficient at—or at least knowledgeable about—each of the spells they channeled. Spells that all centered around matters of death and souls, exits and endings— necromancy was the overarching term Orin, and other magic scholars, used to describe my innate powers. Powers that needed to be tamed, by way of enchanted jewelry or otherwise. For everyone’s sake.
It was a crude system, but these bracelets were the best we could do; there simply weren’t any true necromancers left to teach me how to properly wield my powers.
Once, it was said that the five kingdoms of Valor had been home to hundreds more like me. But not anymore. I was the only one Orin had encountered in a century, despite his extensive searching for others. Which I’d always thought was part of the reason he’d agreed to take me in: He did love collecting his oddities.
Even my parents had shown no signs of possessing the Shadow magic I did…though, I did have a twin brother—Bastian—who had carried markers of emerging magic. He’d died when we were just shy of a year old.
I had no real memories of him. But apparently, they’d found him dead in his crib, a dark scar running the length of his abdomen, with more scars splitting through the centers of his arms. As if something had tried to peel apart his skin and escape…
Ripped apart by his own magic, it was decided.
My parents almost never spoke of him, except to remind me of why I needed to keep my magic under control. Shortly after our first conversation about the matter, I’d found myself under Orin’s tutelage. Given the alternative of losing another child, my mother had begrudgingly allowed me to continue honing my powers with him, even as I grew, despite her misgivings about his methods…and despite the fact that the old codger refused to swear loyalty to anyone but himself.
“Have some tea to warm yourself,” Orin said, motioning to a steaming cup by the stove as he returned to washing dishes. “I’m sure it’s been a long night.”
I picked up the drink but didn’t sip from it right away; every concoction in this house warranted caution. And a quick sniff told me I was right to be suspicious—whatever was in this cup smelled like poison and the wrong end of a horse.
“This is…I’m fairly certain this isn’t tea, Orin.”
He shot me an indignant look before stalking over and taking the mug from my grasp, inhaling the steam for himself.
“… Ah. So, that’s where I put the foxglove elixir.” His disgruntled expression turned sheepish. “Yes, right, no—don’t drink that. It might lead to a mild case of…erm… death , I’m afraid. And not at all the kind we’ve been planning for.”
I gave him a wry smile as I searched through the cabinets and grabbed a clean mug. “I’ll just make something for myself, thank you,” I said, moving to the sink to wash the mug a few more times…just to be safe.
“Very good, very good,” Orin mumbled, offhandedly, having already carelessly placed the foxglove elixir down and moved on to the next object that grabbed his attention. A book, in this case—one with multiple, colorful slips of paper marking almost all of its pages.
“Judging by your mood, your mission was a success, I take it?” he asked without looking up from the book.
“Of course it was,” I replied, retrieving the container of crimsonlith fruits from my bag and plopping it onto the kitchen table.
He glanced up. His flicker of interest became a fixed stare, his eyes widening, mouth falling open. Clearly astonished—and now it was my turn to fix him with an indignant look.
“You really didn’t think I was going to manage this heist, did you?” I pouted. “You should know better than to doubt my skills by now.”
“I plead senility, once again.” He chuckled, tossing the book aside and moving to the table. “But Nova...this is well done. Well done, indeed!”
I gave a little bow before returning to my cup.
While he inspected the fruits of my labor, I mixed up my usual comfort drink of piping hot black tea with sprinklings of cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, and a dash of vanilla. The same drink my mother used to make me most mornings—though I rarely managed the perfect balance of bitter and sweet she always had.
This morning, in my exhausted state, I accidentally dumped enough sugar in it to render the damn thing nearly undrinkable.
I swallowed it down, all the same. The warmth felt good sinking into my bones, even if the sugar made my stomach twinge.
Orin had placed the crimsonlith blooms carefully in a row on the kitchen counter—after shoving away the mess that had already occupied said counter—and now he was sweeping around the room, plucking different containers from the shelves along the walls; mumbling to himself as he measured this and that; nodding as he lined up more ingredients.
I watched him, silently sipping my tea. After a few minutes, his collecting ceased. His soft lavender eyes fixed again on the blooms I’d gathered. He let out a low sigh, like a man who had traveled around the world and finally laid eyes on his destination. “The last piece. Finally .”
A weight settled over the room, but neither of us acknowledged it with more than a meaningful look at the other; that was all we needed. We’d both already made peace with what came next.
Or as much peace as we were going to make with it, anyway.
“I’ll prepare it all from here,” he said, quieter, his eyes still on the blooms. “Then it will need a few hours to properly settle into a usable spell, and a few more after that to infuse it into a new piece of jewelry for you. What say you get some sleep in the meantime?”
I agreed, draining the rest of my drink before climbing to the loft where my bed awaited me in the same cozy, hastily half-made state I’d left it in.
I kicked off my boots and flopped onto the lumpy mattress without bothering to change, or to fully disarm myself, or to even pull the privacy curtains closed.
I’d planned to at least attempt rest, but I ended up sitting cross-legged on the mattress, instead, staring at the shelf directly in front of me. It held the few objects I’d dared to collect from Rose Point over the years: a violin that had belonged to my mother; a journal of my father’s; an assortment of Phantom’s toys, which had gone untouched since his death and the loss of his solid body.
From the shelf, my gaze lifted to the spiraling swaths of gold-flecked paint across the low ceiling. The paint had been added to cover the deep grooves crisscrossing that ceiling; gashes left behind by my magic after a particularly bad nightmare summoned it and sent it lashing violently out of control.
Six years had passed since that incident—the last time my shadows had clearly appeared on my skin.
Orin hadn’t flinched when I’d woken him in the middle of the night, sobbing over the destruction those shadows had caused. And he hadn’t immediately kicked me out, or threatened to lock me away in some ‘safer’ prison, or done any of the other awful things I’d feared he would.
He’d simply made a new bed for me on the couch, left me there with a cup of chamomile tea, and set to work purifying the magic-wrecked space with various herbs and enchantments. The following morning, I’d woken up to the sound of him humming as he covered the deepest grooves with paint.
The shimmering spirals had faded only slightly after all these years. They still reminded me of the Zephyra —the lights sometimes seen dancing in the southern parts of the Valorian sky on cold winter nights.
I crawled to the edge of my bed, peering sleepily down through the loft’s floorboards. There was a decent-sized notch in the board just to the right of the bed, which I sometimes used to spy on Orin and the occasional interesting company he invited into our chaos.
He remained alone today, however. The door stayed barricaded, and he’d even closed the blinds, something that he—a lover of natural light—rarely did.
He was moving recklessly fast, now, fully caught up in the fervor of spell-making. I winced as he upended a bowl of what appeared to be beef stew; likely his dinner from last night, entirely forgotten about. He simply let it be, oblivious to the thick broth oozing across the table as all his focus zeroed in on some sort of smoking powder he was leveling off in a teaspoon.
I blinked, trying to clear the sleep from my eyes as I swept my gaze around the rest of the space, studying it.
I’d been gone much of the past week while working on planning my theft from Lord Roderic’s manor, and the house had grown even messier than usual in my absence. If I disappeared for good, there was a very real chance Orin might lose himself entirely within the waves of clutter surrounding him.
How was he going to manage without me?
There were security concerns, as well; this house had no shortage of priceless artifacts, ancient tomes, and other specimens that would likely fetch a good price—assuming someone could pick their prize from among the mess.
Various wards surrounded the property, but it was typically me who chased away any threats.
I’d maimed an impressive number of would-be thieves, by this point.
And that was merely my work with a knife—to say nothing of the shapeshifting, spectral dog often seen hunting at my side; or my strange magic; or the outlaw reputation I’d carried since the night I fled from my old home.
Then again, Orin had managed to survive without me for years before taking me in. He’d be fine.
Wouldn’t he?
He was back to singing his tune from earlier, much louder than before, and likely so caught up in taking notes about his spell-making that he would never hear me leaving. Even if he did, I doubted he would interfere; for better or worse, he’d always let me come and go as I pleased.
I just needed to breathe some fresh air. To clear my head. To return to the place where this all started so I could remind myself of where I was going next.
Where I had to go next.
Without making a sound, I pulled my boots back on, double-checked the knives still secured to my belt, and then crept to the other side of the loft. There, a narrow staircase led down into a nook that I often cozied up in to read. A window took up most of the back wall—one I could pass silently through, as it was already unlatched and partially open to allow the soothing sounds of the babbling creek to filter in.
Once outside, I followed the familiar path along Echoing Creek, jogging through the early-morning mists with only birdsong and the occasional bounding deer for company.
It was only twenty minutes or so to the edge of my family’s fallen estate, and a few minutes more before the shadows came into view.
For seven years, these shadows—the same kind that had chased me from my home on the night of my eighteenth birthday—had been colliding with a barrier of protective Light magic wrapped around the grounds of Rose Point. As a result, the air here had a beaten and battered, ragged and thin quality to it. Like it would never truly fill up my lungs, no matter how many deep breaths I took.
There were signs posted all around at the points of the colliding powers, all declaring essentially the same thing:
Off-limits, by order of His Majesty, Aleksander Caldor, King of Light and Fair Elarith; Elected Steward of the Eldrisan Throne.
That King of Light had erected the barrier of his magic to keep the curses in, and to prevent anyone from crossing over to get a better look at what lay on the other side. Protecting Eldris’s people, he claimed, from the rot their own royal family had unleashed upon them—which was how he’d ended up with the title of steward to the Eldrisan throne.
It was all a lie.
A giant, fucking lie.
He was the one who had unleashed the very rot he claimed to be saving my kingdom from.
The night of my birthday celebration had been pure chaos, but in the seven years since, I’d untangled some events. Uncovered some truths. I’d ventured into the rotting lands multiple times, too, typically using my spirit-walking abilities to return to Rose Point.
So I’d seen for myself where the darkness flowed from: From the spot where Aleksander’s sword had stuck into the stone—a deep, supernatural wound cleaved open by his blade after he stained it with my father’s blood. A wound that still had not healed.
Luminor was the blade’s name, I’d learned—the infamous, magical Sword of Light that had been passed down through the Elarithian royal family for generations. He’d never planned on gifting it to my parents, as I’d mistakenly believed; he’d always planned to wield it against them.
That sword had been swallowed up by the ground, along with my father, but dark energy still wept from the wound it created. Energy from the dead world below, Orin theorized. A world reserved for the deceased, but one that, centuries ago, was much more intimately connected—and accessible—to our living realm.
We’d studied the power enough to conclude it was separate from the magic that came from my own body. But for years, I hadn’t been able to tell—or believe in—the difference. I’d assumed I caused the destruction and draining power. Because the shadows had chased me that night, driving me from my home and everything I’d ever known.
But now I understood they hadn’t truly been summoned by me; the blade and the breaking world had let them in, and I had only channeled the darkness from underneath, briefly and inadvertently giving the dead energy a foothold. Orin had tried to convince me that I’d likely saved lives that night, by drawing the shadows toward me and running away from the manor.
Even so, I wasn’t sure I could consider myself a savior of any kind. Not yet, anyway.
And the rumors perpetuated by the King of Light and his followers, of course, called me the exact opposite. They reminded my former subjects at every chance they could that I was the odd princess they had never fully trusted or embraced—the Shadow-marked woman who had allegedly cursed her entire home and everyone she loved.
Now, it was only a matter of time before Aleksander moved to officially annex my small but prosperous kingdom—a move that would likely be met with little resistance, unless I could stop the cursed shadows bleeding out from Rose Point and find a way to reveal the truth about the Light King’s treacherous actions.
To do that, I needed to close the wound and recover the sword that had caused it—a plot Orin and I had been working on for years.
And now, the most pivotal part of this plot was finally upon us.
My eyes fell on the main gates in the distance. After seven years, they should have been overgrown with weeds, overtaken by the elm trees flanking either side of them.
Instead, they were perfectly intact.
Nothing had grown around them, though the color of it all had faded in an unnatural way; it was like looking at a painting in need of restoration.
I’d physically pushed through the Light King’s barrier a few times in the past, but it was always a draining, difficult experience—which was why I typically opted to send only my spirit, instead.
I traced my thumb along the rose-shaped beads around my wrist, thinking of projecting now. It was risky to do while I was alone. But the chance of anyone stumbling upon my incapacitated body so close to this cursed place was slim; too many strange things had happened here over the years—enough that even the bravest of thieves and trespassers had long ago abandoned Rose Point in favor of easier targets.
And I couldn’t help the longing in my chest.
I needed to go inside.