Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain

“What is it, son?” his father asked.

“I saw something,” Ashok said. He looked again, but the figure was too far off for clarity. “We’re still in the Shadowfell,” he said. “I can hear the wind. But I’ve never seen this place before.”

“This is the veil between one life and the next,” Reltnar said. “You can’t see beyond it.”

“Then who are these?” Ashok said, swiping at the shadows that were clinging to his clothes and hair.

He searched for the figure in black, and found it still walking toward him, though it might have been a mile or a century distant. But its course was set to intercept them, and it walked patiently, unhurried by shadows. Ashok felt the urge to go to meet the figure, but he did not want to be cast off like one of the ghastly shadows.

“They are waiting here,” his father said. He put his hand through one of the shadow skulls and shook until the thing dissolved into smoke. “No god calls them home.”

Ashok saw a vision of himself as a grasping shadow-thin, lifeless and pathetic. He wished he could see himself. He held up his hands, but they appeared normal. The pain in his lip felt real.

“Give it time,” his brothers said, their voices mingling. “You haven’t been here long enough.”

Ashok felt hysteria creeping in with the shadows. They were all over him, and he couldn’t take a breath that was not foul. Dead things and cold hands all over his skin-he cried out, and his father and brothers mockingly cried out with him. His own voice was lost in the chorus and laughter.

“Damn you,” he told his father, and allowed the hatred to course through him. “If you’d listened to me, none of this would have happened. You might be alive. Our enclave might have flourished.”

“To what purpose?” Reltnar said. “Didn’t we survive? Didn’t we live by our own will, as you have done?”

“It’s not enough,” Ashok said, but they couldn’t hear him over their own laughter. “Damn you all, it wasn’t enough. All you cared about was yourselves.”

Suddenly, the laughter stopped. Into the ensuing silence walked the figure in black with its tail of silver light. It walked into the space between Ashok and his family. His father and brothers stared in awe.

Ashok recognized the figure then, and a wave of profound relief washed over him. The figure turned and walked to his side, away from his father and brothers, and cleared the shadows that clung to Ashok.

“Ilvani,” he said.

The witch smiled. “I told you I’d come with you when you went to the Veil,” she said.

Ilvani waved the shadows away from Ashok, and he could breathe again.

“You shouldn’t pay them so much attention,” she said. “They’ll stay if you do.”

Ashok looked at his family, but his father and brothers had been rendered mute by Ilvani’s sudden appearance. They stared at her as if she were a beacon they were afraid to touch.

“This is the end, isn’t it?” Ashok said. “I’m going to the shadows. My soul will be gone.”

“This is the unknown,” Ilvani said. “Domain of fear. Will I die bravely? Will my god find me among the shadows? Will I lose my soul? That’s where you are now. You’ve always been here, all your life. Why should you be afraid of it now that it has a face?”

“Is this the fate of all shadar-kai?” Ashok said.

“This is their fate,” Ilvani said, pointing without looking at Reltnar and Ashok’s family, who cowered from her. “Are you with them, or didn’t you make another choice?”

“I tried to,” Ashok said. “But it all went wrong.”

“Are you certain?” Ilvani said.

“I deceived the companions I trusted,” Ashok said. “I slaughtered the only family I ever knew.”

“So your punishment is to exist here with them in the void,” Ilvani said. “No matter that Ikemmu forgives you, or the gods, because there is no forgiveness in Ashok for himself.”

“Yes. I exist here because I deserve to be here,” Ashok said.

“You have always existed here,” Ilvani said, “in fear. Now you have an excuse to stay.”

“I’m not afraid,” Ashok said. “I accept my fate.”

Ilvani reached up and touched his cheek. “You are selfish. You lay down to fade while others fight for you.”

Ashok felt the warmth of her hand, and a vision of Uwan flashed into his mind.

You are stronger than you know. Tempus believes you can bear this burden, and so do I .

Skagi’s face came next, and Cree’s. Olra in the training yard. Chanoch in his cell.

The gods be with you, my friend .

He blinked the vision away and saw Ilvani again with the court of shadows behind her. “Do their words mean nothing?” she said.

Ashok swallowed his grief. He felt the weight of their acceptance of him, and for the first time he felt warmed by more than Ilvani’s presence. “What of you?” Ashok said. “I was ready to give my life to make it better for you.”

“I am not who you think I am,” Ilvani said. “But if you decide to leave this place, you will see what you need to see.”

Ashok closed his eyes. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” he said. “Please …”

Pain swamped him then, so much at once that he thought he would explode from it. He gasped and opened his eyes.

He was back in his cell, unchained and unhooded, lying on the cold floor. He tried to move, but his joints were so cramped that every muscle in his body screamed.

Fighting to stay conscious, Ashok pushed himself up on his elbows. He saw, on the floor in front of him, a small object. He picked it up and saw that it was a small box made of velvet-covered wood. He recognized it as one of Ilvani’s many containers she’d spilled out of her bag that day he’d gone to see her.

The lock was open. He raised the lid and saw within a pile of ashes. He scooped them out with a finger. A few of the blackened scraps had unburned edges, scraps of parchment. He recognized his own writing on them, the evidence Vedoran had taken from him while he was unconscious.

“Ashok box,” Ashok said. “Full of ashes.” He closed the lid and held the box in his hands.

“I wondered what she’d done with them,” said a voice that Ashok knew well. He looked up and saw Vedoran standing outside his cell.

“Are you real?” Ashok said. It was the first thought that came to his mind.

Vedoran laughed without humor. “I can see why you’d ask that. No one thought you’d survive the tenday, but I told them you were strong.”

“Has it been that long?” Ashok said.

“You wouldn’t have felt the passage of time, after a while,” Vedoran said. “You still look faint, like you’re not truly present in the world. I wonder if that will make you easier or harder to kill.”

“Is that why you’ve come?” Ashok said. He didn’t feel surprise or betrayal, only a sense of pervading calm that grew stronger by the breath. He’d survived the worst of it. He wasn’t afraid. There were no shadows here.

Vedoran unlocked the door to his cell and tossed the keys aside. There was blood on them. “We won’t be disturbed,” he said.

“You know I’m too weak to fight you,” Ashok said. He was too weary even to stand before Vedoran.

“I told you, if I kill you, I kill Tempus,” Vedoran said. “It doesn’t matter what Ikemmu thinks anymore.” He drew his sword and came forward, his movements methodical, with none of the grace Ashok had once seen in him. That was all gone. He positioned his blade for a strike that would take off Ashok’s head.

“Vedoran!”

Ashok and Vedoran both jumped at the shout. Vedoran turned, giving Ashok a view of Uwan standing in the dungeon doorway, the bodies of the guards at his feet.