“Your Shadow did that?” she gasped as she caught sight of his thigh, flayed from hip to knee and weeping beneath shredded leather.
“It attacked, and I fell back. I must have caught it on the rocks. Shit,” he groaned as she hauled him back over the crest of the fall.
“Tula did not mention combat,” Lunelle sighed.
“No, no, she did not.” Mirquios eyed the edge of the trees in the direction his Shadow had taken off. “There! That’s you, I’d stake my life on it.” He pointed to a movement between the ghostly white trunks a hundred paces away.
Her Shadow did not run. It held.
It demanded to be seen.
Lunelle held her breath and tilted her head, watching the wisps of her watch back. His Shadow slinked behind hers, catching her attention as they both dove deeper into the dark. Mirquios began to run, but grunted as his leg contacted the ground and sent a shock of screaming pain through his spine.
“We have time,” Lunelle breathed, looking toward the murky sky, searching for something to anchor her in space and time, but it only returned an endless black. She propped her shoulder under his arm and helped him hobble through the first few steps before he tightened his back and found a motion that allowed him to move swiftly, though the pain only grew more demanding.
“We do not havethat muchtime,” he sighed. His head already swirled as the blood soaked what remained of his pants. He winced as he struggled to overcome a log, Lunelle waiting for him with guiding hands. “You should not wait for me.”
She glared as she pulled him forward, watching the space she’d disappeared into carefully for movement.
“Don’t be a fool,” she sighed. “We do not leave one another. Ever.”
Mirquios nodded beside her, though she did not need his affirmation. She knew it in her bones. They passed through a thickly tangled knot in the wood and fell into a clearing, the ground sharp with rocky soil and brambles fallen from life that perhaps once existed there a millennia ago.
“Yours calls to you,” Mirquios mumbled, pushing into the wound on his leg to attempt to stop the flow of blood. “But can you call to it?”
Lunelle tilted her head as she considered what she might need to do—to say—to convince her Shadow to return to her. What might tempt it.
She reached within herself once more, sifting through that hollow for answers. A slight tendril curled a finger toward her, begging her closer.
What do you want?
She was not sure who was asking whom, which way the question flowed, or if it even mattered. She pressed into the shape of the question, leaned into the darkness.
What do you want?she asked her Shadow. She’d spent so long suppressing what her Shadow wanted for the sake of what her Soul needed, she wasn’t sure she’d ever considered that it may have a dissenting opinion.
The answer bubbled up easily—instantly.
“Ah!” Mirquios screamed as his Shadow sought to deepen the wound to his leg again. Lunelle’s eyes widened as she watched the phantom strike his leg a third time, driving the pain to his bone. His knee hit the brambles beneath them briefly before he sprang back up.
Do not ignore me now,she heard, delivered in an icy chill down her spine as wisps of smoke pulled at her hair, her chin, demanding her attention. She spun back around, pressing her shoulders against Mirquios’s, hoping to bring him any amount of relief as he dodged another savage swing.
He was heavy against her, his breath coming hard as he tried to get a hold of his stance.
Lunelle?It was not the voice within her that called her name—it was Astra.
Over here!she called, as if she understood where here even was, grunting as Mirquios landed on her shoulders once more.
“On your left!” he huffed as he hauled himself forward.
She had not expected to feel her Shadow’s grip on her jaw, yanking her head, a yelp leaving her throat as nails dug into her flesh.
You will hear us,it hissed, sweeping Lunelle’s legs from beneath her and pinning her into the fallen thorns.
Her mind raced back to that answer—back to that truth she’d always known but never wanted to admit. Her Shadow clutched at her hips, her knees, her elbows, forcing her back into the twisted prongs over and over again as she fought to get her gaze on Mirquios. She could hear him hit the ground with a thud, a harsh gasp tore from him as he shuffled against the leaves.
The Shadow atop her refused to entertain the distraction.
She was in charge, like she’d been when she’d taken a blood oath that would change the trajectory of her entire life. Like she’d been when she’d commanded a Plutonian prince to release rebel prisoners, rooted in the darkness that drove her to forsake the nobles that lofted her.
