Chapter 11
Shadows are Nyxthos’s domain, but they are only a piece.
Understanding the secrets one hides from oneself, as well as from others, is just as powerful.
All his Mages were given the power to turn shadows into demons, but only Echo Vael could see within the heart.
And she is the fiercest warrior, save the Prince of Bones, because of it.
~Cedric Penrose, A Treatise on the Gods and Their Powers
Fiona
Just as Nyxthos said, when the clock struck midnight, the room around me disappeared, and everything changed.
I appear on a stone bench made of sparkling quartz in a clearing of duskthorn trees.
Nyxthos’s favored tree, it only appeared after he claimed the Kingdom of Dunloch as his.
The smooth wood of the tree is prized for its dark appearance and strength.
Silver leaves reflect the starlight like tiny diamonds.
The white and silver flowers that cling desperately to it curl like lilies.
By morning, they all will have wilted and fallen to the ground.
Well, they would have if this was any place in Nyth. I feel very certain it isn’t, though. From one branch, a lantern hangs and glows with a light that is decidedly not from a fire. It illuminates a stone path barely wider than a hallway. Cobblestones and mortar glow in the moonlight.
“You have a single task in your first trial, Fiona Thorne.” The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere at once. “Find the end of the Shadow Road by the time the moon finishes its journey or stay here. Forever.”
The first rays of moonlight pass over a horizon that I can’t even make out in the distance. “Well, that seems simple enough. I guess the full-day runs that Bram made me do when I was twelve will pay off.”
I stand up and take a deep breath before setting off at a brisk jog. “No different from running the road from Stormhaven to River’s End. It’s just night is all.”
There are a thousand ways humans are weaker than the god’s creatures. Long-distance running isn’t one of them. Sure, they can cross a room faster than us, but in the course of a day, I can run just as far as most of them.
The minutes turn into hours, and my lungs ache. My feet hurt. My lower back is tired. When I was twelve, I could have run at this pace for nearly eight hours, but I’m not twelve any longer. It’s been a long time since I ran more than a few miles.
But I can push through muscle pain. Bram would never let me live it down if I failed a trial because I couldn’t jog long enough.
I try to take my mind off the aches of my body to have that conversation with him in my mind.
You lost a fight to a road? I thought you were a Priest, not some decrepit old woman.
You were willing to fight monsters to the death, but a moonlit stroll through the forest did you in?
And it’s like my thoughts have become real as I hear Bram’s voice. “Fi! Help!”
I stop suddenly and hear Cedric’s voice echoing him. “Please!” His voice turns into a scream, and my body moves before I’ve had a chance to think.
Then I get control over myself, and I stop, one toe over the edge of the path. Cedric’s words return to me. Nyxthos is the God of Secrets and Darkness, but his weapons are illusions and your greatest fears.
Even more, Azric’s words come back to me. Stay secret and safe, little Priestess, and don’t leave the road laid out before you in the dark of night. A shiver rolls through me. He knew what this trial would be, didn’t he? What would happen if I stepped off this path?
Then I notice the barely visible wisps of mist along the ground that stop as if they’ve hit a wall when they come to glowing cobblestones.
I pull my foot back fully onto the Shadow Road.
Another cry rings out—Bram again. I’ve never heard him sound like this, and I’ve fought him a thousand times, many of which ended with my blade cutting through his flesh.
The moon clears the trees then, and suddenly, the space on either side of the road is visible.
Against the duskthorns, two people have been bound with their hands above their heads.
Demons made of shadow rip into them. Cedric screams as a demon tears at his stomach.
His body squirms against its bondage, and I hear something I didn’t think was possible. My tutor begins sobbing.
“Just kill us. Please, Fi. Kill us and end it,” he begs. “Let us die.”
I can’t help the tear that rolls down my cheek even though I know this is an illusion. It has to be an illusion. Nyxthos can’t get Cedric and Bram. They’re safe in Stormhaven. They have to be.
But what if they’re not? How am I to know if Nyxthos could capture them and bring them here? I can’t leave them as the demons torment them. I can’t save them, either.
Another demon latches itself onto Bram’s leg, and he screams. “Fucking kill us, Fi! Let us fucking die!”
Those two men are as close to family as I have other than my father. They raised me. They were always there for me. My foot moves to the edge of the path, but I stop. Neither of them would want me to leave the path to save them.
They’re Priests. They’re bricks in the wall against the storm, just like me. They’d rather crumble than let the wall fail.
Even though everything inside me rebels against it, I pull my bow off my shoulder and draw one of the red feathered arrows.
Logically, I need to make sure that those demons die at the same time that I kill my teachers.
I can’t fight them on the Shadow Road. I simply don’t have space to move, and I need to conserve resources.
More than that, I don’t know if I have it in me to do this twice. I need it to be done in a single shot.
I draw the bowstring back to my ear, take careful aim as I have so many times throughout my life, and let the arrow loose at the demon standing between them.
The arrow fires true, and as soon as it hits the demon, a burst of flame explodes outward in both directions, lighting the area up and leaving me night blind. All I can see is a red haze.
But that doesn’t affect my hearing. Cedric and Bram both scream. “Please, Fi. Stop the pain. It’s too much!” Cedric’s voice is choked with sobs. Bram doesn’t say anything. He just screams.
I can’t do anything about them until the red haze clears. Bram stands twenty feet away from me, clear as crystal. His foot is missing, and he’s standing on a gruesome stump. His face and shoulders are burned so badly that the skin left behind is blackened, and precious little is left.
Cedric is only a few feet behind him, his hands wrapped around his stomach.
His glasses are gone, along with his gray hair.
His cheek has been burned away completely, and I can see his teeth.
He tries to take a step and falls to the ground.
There’s no attempt to catch himself, and as he hits the ground, he screams again, his body writhing in pain.
“Please. End it,” Bram says through gritted teeth.
The tears fall freely, but this time, I don’t hesitate.
They are Priests. Their lives have meant something.
They held the storm back for decades, and sometimes the greatest gift someone can be given is death.
I draw a steel arrow back and let loose.
It hits Cedric in the head. His cries end abruptly.
I draw another and watch it hit Bram squarely in the forehead.
In this moment, I truly believe this is my teacher—my friend—because I see the light leave his eyes while his body slumps to the ground in a heap.
A moment ago, terrible sounds filled the world. Now only silence lingers. It’s the kind of silence that is so similar to glass, waiting for a tap to shatter it. Caeldra’s silence is the name given to it by many.
In that silence, I have to make a decision. I could give up. I could let my emotions break me because I possibly just killed two people I was closest to. They loved me, and I loved them just as much. They were more than friends; they were family.
And I just put an arrow into each of their heads.
I could give in to the ache in my chest. Sometimes death is the sweetest gift you can give to someone.
I take a deep breath and shake my head. What would Bram tell me to do? Cedric?
Cedric would analyze the situation. He’d tell me I can’t be sure he’s even dead. We know Nyxthos uses illusions. I shouldn’t let him trick me into believing anything. If I want to mourn him, then wait until I’m sure he’s even dead.
Bram would tell me that soldiers die, and if a Priest falls apart the moment someone she knows dies, she should join a monastery instead. You don’t mourn a sword if it breaks in battle. You find another and keep fighting.
I break Caeldra’s silence and turn from the terrors. My leather boots make brisk tapping sounds as I run. I know my teachers better than anyone else, and I’ve always listened to them. Today isn’t any different.