Jon Sprunk - Shadow’s Lure

Caim shook his head. His father had died rather than relinquish his freedom. Caim understood now. There was another side to death, a noble side. To die in the pursuit of justice was not to perish in vain. The muscles in his right arm trembled.

“You were born of the Shadow.” Her cool breath rustled the hairs at the back of his neck. “You cannot deny your blood, Caim. Accept it and claim your birthright.”

Caim opened his eyes. The shadow beast crouched before him, its bright gaze locked on him. He felt like there was a question in its look. What do you want from me?

But the answer shivered in his hand. The sword twitched, wavering before Caim, and he saw the blade for what it was, a weight around his neck dragging him down. Killing had become easy, convenient. How long before he started to enjoy it? Or is it already too late?

Caim flung out his hand. The hilt stuck to his palm for a moment, and then the blade sprang free with a tearing sound. Before it touched the floor, the shadow beast leapt.

Caim opened his arms as the creature struck. Instead of knocking him down, the beast plunged into his chest. Not through him, as Kit had done countless times, but into him, into his flesh. The pain was beyond anything he’d ever felt, worse than the bear mauling. It tore all coherent thought from his brain. He saw his mother again, leaning over his bed. The pillow came down… No!

She sang to him as she touched his chest. For a moment he could not breathe. It felt like he was underwater. And then…

With a small, sad smile she pulled away. In her hand was a ball of darkly shining light. For a moment it looked like a little animal, all black and glossy, curled up in her palm. He sat up as she left the room. Don’t go, Mommy. I’ll be good. I’ll be…

Caim grunted as the witch’s icy nails dug into his skull. Caught between the twin torments of the beast and her touch, he could only hold onto the tattered edges of consciousness and ride the pain, hoping to see the other side of it. He heard the sound of breaking glass, and then he was splintering into a thousand pieces. I’ll be good. Just come back.

The agony faded. He was whole again. Not just in body. Something pulsed inside him, filling a space he had never known was vacant. Before he could plumb the new feeling, a furious hiss erupted behind him.

Caim turned, faster than he expected. His body moved with a speed and a grace he had never known before. Sybelle glared at him, holding up her hands as if they had been singed. Her lips parted to speak, and Caim opened a portal before him. As he passed through, a sudden inspiration made him split the gateway’s path into two forks. He didn’t know quite how he did it, but when he exited the portal, another empty hole yawned on the other side of the room. He hurled his suete knife as Sybelle turned to the wrong one. A pair of shadows flew up to deflect the missile. She reached out to Caim, and a shaft of pitch-black energy leapt across the distance between them.

Caim thrust out his empty hand without thinking. The air shimmered in front of him as the bolt of energy vanished. How in the hells did I…?

But he was too busy to think as the witch launched a volley of spectral attacks at him. Some he saw coming, but others he could only defend by instinct. Time and time again he neutralized them. He took a step toward the witch. Her features changed as he closed in, from rage to frustration to the first inkling of apprehension. When she hurled another bolt of black lightning, Caim focused his attention on her motions. The energy dissipated into the air before it reached him. Sybelle curled her hands into white-knuckled fists. Something passed behind her eyes. A portal opened beside her. Caim traced its path through the darkness; it led outside the chamber to somewhere in the north quarter of the city. Before she could step through, he slashed the air with his hand.

Sybelle emerged from the portal only a few yards from where she had entered and jerked to a halt before she collided with the wall. She turned to him with an expression of astonishment. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but he didn’t give her the opportunity to bewitch him; he lashed out with every shadow at his disposal. He lost sight of her in the vicious whirlwind of darkness. When she fell to the floor, he lifted a hand.

The shadows parted to reveal the witch propped against the pool’s retaining wall. Her skin had taken on a pale sheen. Rivulets of blood trickled down her face and neck, and leaked from the many rips in her diaphanous gown. She looked nothing at all like the imposing sorceress she had been before. But Caim didn’t care.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Sybelle coughed, and winced as her upper body convulsed. Her hand reached down to caress a shadow shivering at her side like a despondent pet. Caim dropped to one knee and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Tell me where she is!”

Her lips turned upward in a crooked smile. “You have her eyes.”

Caim shook her hard. “Where is…?”

Her hands latched onto his wrists. “Find Erebus. Your moth-”

Caim jerked away as a curl of smoke rose from her mouth. Stumbling to his feet, he could only watch as green flames erupted from her clothes. Even as she burned, the witch did not cry out, but only watched him with her midnight eyes, eyes he had chased across leagues and decades only to see her end like this. A word whispered from her smiling, charred lips.

“Erric.”

Her body collapsed into itself, the fire’s greedy fingers licking the air, until only a pile of gray ash remained on the floor.

Find Erebus. Was that a person? It sounded more like a place. Caim recalled the black fortress from his vision, and the man on the balcony.

Across the chamber, the black sword lay against the wall where he had thrown it. It was quiet now, showing no sign of its earlier zeal. For an instant, the urge to pick it up and turn it upon himself was overwhelming.

“Caim!”

Kit appeared out of nowhere and jumped into his arms. Her touch was a mere tingle on his skin, but it had never felt so good.

“I thought you were dead,” she murmured into his chest. “I was shut out. I couldn’t feel you. I thought…”

“I’m all right.”

She looked at him, her features drawn up in an expression more earnest than he had ever seen on her before.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know.” He tried to swallow, but his mouth had dried up. “I love you, too.”

The words were true before he spoke them, but saying them aloud had a power all its own. There was no taking it back. He tensed as she floated up and kissed him. Electric tingles ran through his lips and across his tongue.

“I’ve been wanting to do that,” she said, not nearly as breathless as he was, “for a damned long time.”

He was still enjoying the rush when she held him close and asked, “What about Josey?”

“I don’t know.”

Over her slim shoulder, he stared at the pile of ash.

“I don’t know.”

“Is everything all right, Josey?” Anastasia called from outside the door.

Inside the water closet, Josey braced herself for another painful upheaval. The morning had begun rather tamely as she arose and sat at the table in her chambers, where Anastasia joined her for breakfast. But when she started to eat, something about the consistency of the eggs on her breakfast dish had-

She shuddered as a mouthful of bile slipped from her lips and down the noisome hole. The close air inside the stall made her feel worse. Dabbing her mouth with a cloth, Josey pushed open the door.

Anastasia stood outside with Amelia and Margaret, all three of them wearing looks of concern. Of course, ’Stasia had told her maids about her condition. Now they fluttered about her like mother hens, clucking and giving her all manner of unsolicited advice. I suppose it’s better than having them in mortal fear that I’ve been poisoned every morning.