INFINITE
Whenever I feel alone, I imagine myself scattered across the sky.
I imagine I am endless, limitless, stretched beyond reason. I imagine myself beyond this single existence.
There is a name for this, I learn.
My sister teaches me.
“You’ll get it one day.”
I jump, not expecting Laila to be right behind me, leaning casually, like she’s been there for a while. She must have flown in from the hole in the wall. I hate when she does that.
My face reddens with thorn-prickling embarrassment as I shove my hand back into my pocket. I’ve been trying for half an hour now to summon a cloaking shadow. Stupid, really, to try. No matter how long I concentrate, or how strong my stance is, nothing happens.
I have powers. I’ve used them before.
But they are fickle. Rare. Summoning shadows doesn’t come easily to me. I barely feel them stirring beneath my skin.
It’s as if they’re resting. Waiting. For what? I’m not sure.
I’m not like my siblings. I watch them sometimes, from my frost-glazed window. I see the shadows in the gardens inch toward them as they pass. My half brothers and sisters, all within a few years of my age, carelessly string them together as if it’s easy, as if it’s natural.
A burden, I once heard a guardian call me, so I have tried everything to become essential.
I left the winter palace early this morning to join my siblings and the rest of the Nightshade elite’s children for training. While they were grouped into shadow-wielders, I joined the warriors. I focused on swordplay.
I can’t rely on my abilities, but I can count on my metal.
Still, a blade can only do so much.
“Here, I’ll do it,” Laila says, straightening, flicking her wrist like it’s nothing. A towering shadow curves out of her fingers and covers us like a cloak.
At eight, my sister is only a year older than me, yet she already has full mastery of her abilities.
I wait for the flash of bitter jealousy ... but it doesn’t come. Not for her. Not for someone I care about.
I’m glad she has her shadows. I would never take them from her.
Even if she, out of anyone, doesn’t need them.
Laila has discovered—or carved—holes all through the palace. Likely all through the training grounds too, up in the mountains of the Algid. She could turn and be outside in a moment’s notice. She’s doing this for my benefit.
Burden, I hear, whispered somewhere in my memories.
Wearing her shadow over our heads, we inch through the castle. My arm brushes the cold, glimmering stone. Whisper-quiet footsteps echo nearby, attendants rushing down the halls. We pass countless oak doors, and I can hear my siblings inside, training.Always training. There’s the hiss of shadows. The earsplitting cry of sharpening blades.
Just when we’re at the end of the last corridor, an attendant fills the entrance.
Guardian Asa. Just a few months into her tenure and already the cruelest guardian of them all. I straighten on instinct, the skin in my back stretching, scars tingling, a reminder of the pain she’s inflicted.
We’ve been caught. I swallow, already feeling the ghost of her razor-sharp shadows, already—
Laila digs her nails into my arm and pulls me to the side, just out of Guardian Asa’s way. My heart is beating wildly. Spark-like nerves swirl through my stomach, even as she passes us by, without incident.
From Laila, I feel only bubbling anticipation. Excitement. It’s almost like she wants to be caught.
That was close. Too close.
