Page 1 of Shadows and Flames (Twin Blades #2)

Chapter One

ELIáN

Three months after her

“ W hy am I being punished?” I gritted through my teeth. It was taking all of my strength to not let the depth of my anger show. But I managed. Barely.

“You’re being punished, Master Elián, because you’ve taken it upon yourself to settle a score with your Shadow brother after your Elders have already decided his sentence,” Master Varus drawled from his end of the table.

My chin raised, and I didn’t remove my eyes from his. Friend of my father’s or not, Varus hadn’t been much of a fan of me. “I did not agree with the sentence.”

“Be that as it may. You are prohibited from securing contracts in the name of The Shadows for the next six months.” Both of my brows rose, but when my gaze landed on Noruh at her place at the table of seven, I wiped all expression from my face.

I pressed my fist to my chest and bowed my head.

“You are dismissed.” Varus waved his hand toward the door, and I wasted no time. I spun on my heel and pivoted out of the Elder Chambers on silent steps.

I kept my hands behind my back and eyes forward while I prowled through the Shadow Well halls.

Hunting and killing Jones had been irritatingly easy.

Once I returned to the Well and discovered that he had never came back after…

I left immediately to track him down. He’d been hiding out at his mother’s home for goddess’s sake.

When I’d dragged him back for sentencing, for justice, I pled my case to be the one to punish him. Death, and a painful one, was my request. Smoke nearly blew out of my ears when the Elders were even more lenient on him than they had just been on me.

I turned around the corners of the dimly lit corridors, boots slipping across black stone, and then up a set of stairs.

It had been even easier to follow behind him as he left on his first contract.

My need to work off that rage kept me focused, careful.

And Jones feeling safe and cleared left him unguarded.

He routinely stuck to his training while he sought out his mark, creeping into their home in one of the southern Trylas villages.

I watched from the trees as he slit the target’s throat and collected the silver locket he was to take back to his contract’s employer. My fingers had reached up to grasp my medallion until I remembered it was gone. I’d given it to her .

Jones and I had been raised in the Well together, along with Leandro, Tomás, and Noruh. And he’d always been greedy. His mark had an extensive wine collection, it turned out, and I found Jones in the dead male’s cellar, sampling at his leisure.

Now, the Master’s wing of the Well was quiet, and it was another surprising blessing.

My steps slowed to a stop as I unlocked the door and slipped into my room at the end of the last corridor.

I had never thought much about decorating my space here, but the darkness now seemed empty where before I’d seen it as simple.

Sparse now when it had been organized before.

I stripped off my leathers and weapons and collapsed in my undershorts onto the bed, large and dressed in a simple deep blue blanket. My arms dug into my thighs while I sat, thinking.

That ruined king offered him a hefty payment to do his bidding—that was why Jones had followed the order to attack his brother Shadow.

And his own prejudiced views made him sympathetic to her brother’s plans.

We had been raised at the Well, yes, but the traditions and views of our homelands still had a hold.

Jones was from Krisla and saw the Vyrkos as the reason for all our race’s problems.

Even after traveling the realm, when I finally tracked down Jones, the cold of Trylas offended my body on a base level while I sliced into him, torturing out every piece of information he had.

I scoffed aloud, and ran my hand through my hair. My fingernails were blunt and could never scratch my scalp like she could. The thought of it sent a phantom ripple down my neck.

After he’d given me all he had, burning Jones had done little to satisfy my bloodlust. Though usually stoic, Jones had screamed as I let all my rage out onto him.

The Elder Shadows found out what I did soon after, as I had not tried to hide it.

If they were content to let Jones off with barely a slap on his greedy wrist, I would do what they wouldn’t.

Damn the consequences. I had a sneaking suspicion that Noruh had convinced them to make said consequences less severe than they should have been.

I killed another Shadow for revenge, and six months without working was less than a slap on the wrist.

A lick of flame bloomed in my palm, and I skated it along the edges of my hand, rolled it over my knuckles. But this release of the Fire, even in this small way, was hollow. I’d come back to deal with Jones and see that The Shadows were all right. To see that Noruh had left her contract safely.

I punished the one who betrayed me, ensured my siblings were safe—so why did I feel as though I made a mistake returning to the Well?And I could not help but wonder—where was she ?

Another flame lit on my other hand, and I concentrated on juggling the fire to clear my mind. There was no reason to feel guilty. I was a Shadow, and she had been right—I would always return to the Well at one point or another.

But without her here, without the cool darkness she provided…

the fire in my hands felt dull. When I closed my eyes, I saw her above me, unclothed and head thrown back in ecstasy.

But it wasn’t just the feeling of being inside her that left my mouth dry, my heart swelling and cracking at the same time.

It was the flames I conjured, dancing around her face like the rays of the sun that she was.

I had never felt anything like it. Like her. When our gifts from the sister Goddesses met, it was like a homecoming. In her Death, I felt settled and at home while still bright— alive .

But she would not listen to me. She would not hear me. And now it was done. There was no—I snuffed out the fire on my hands and was descended into the darkness of my room once more. There was no point in thinking about her anymore. It was done.

“Open up, mate, or I’m breaking down the door!” My jaw ground, and I scrubbed my hand over my face. The beard I’d grown in these months itched my skin, but I could not be bothered to shave it off.

I stood and made my way to the door, opening it a sliver for my Shadow brother. “I’m not in the mood for company.”

Before I could shut the door completely, Tomás stuck his boot in the threshold and pushed back. “I heard about the Elders’ decision. Thought you could use some cheering up.” Another push against the door had me relenting to his intrusion. I didn’t have the energy to resist his persistence.

I stepped back and made my way to the bottle on my bedside table. Sleep was elusive these days, but when my mind was swimming, it was a bit easier to grasp. When I extended the half-full bottle to Tomás, he took a small sip before handing it back to me.

His lanky form slumped into one of the chairs before the small, unlit hearth opposite my bed.

The mattress dipped as I sat once again, and I downed almost all that was left in the bottle.

Tomás’s eyes were filled with judgement, but I didn’t have the energy to be embarrassed in my own room. The alcohol didn’t even burn anymore.

“Still stuck on that queen?” He lounged back in the leather armchair and crossed an ankle over his knee. When I returned, I hadn’t told anyone what happened between her and I, but Tomás guessed after hearing my recounting of Jones’s betrayal at the Elder hearing.

I didn’t grace him with an answer, though. Instead, I took another swig from the bottle and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. There was nothing to say.

“So, now what? What are you going to do?” I narrowed my eyes at his question. What was there to do? Wait out my sentence. Perhaps direct my attention to training the acolytes until my six months were up. Then, the same as always. Contract after contract until… another contract.

My teeth clenched when the memory of glowing waves flashed behind my eyes. She had asked what I did for fun that night. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized there wasn’t much.

“Aeras really got to you with this one, didn’t They?”

I glared over the space between us. The fire in my blood throbbed. I felt like I could almost still taste her on my tongue. “Do not make me tell the Elders about your run-in with her.”

Third on my list of priorities in returning to the Well was confronting Tomás about his teaching her some of our ways.

When I saw her in that ring, silently and fluidly maneuvering around her opponent, I’d wanted to drag her past the barrier by her braids and plunge my sword into her gut.

Our techniques were sacred. A petty pickpocket mimicking such a thing felt like the deepest insult.

And when I took her money, it had only seemed fair after she insulted me again by disrupting my contract.

But after my time at her side, I’d all but forgotten the reason we’d first met. When she told me of Tomás teaching her to settle a debt, I could see that she had felt guilty for not telling me sooner. Unlocking the answer felt just as hollow as I was now.

Tomás rolled his eyes and waved a dark hand in the air. “I know you won’t say anything. Although I hate to admit it, she saved my arse that day. Seemed like a fair enough trade.”

“It was a fair trade to betray our ways?” But my question had no conviction. It hardly mattered anymore. I drained the rest of the bottle.

He shrugged. “At the time, I suppose.” He pointed at my hands. “You know, drinking yourself sick isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

I put the bottle back on the side table and grumbled, “And talking is? Leave.”

Tomás ran a hand through his long, loced hair and looked me over contemplatively. His eyes landed on my lap. “Could give you a distraction.”

Now I was the one to roll my eyes. “Is that what you came in here for?”

He shrugged again. “It was just an offer. Seeing as how you don’t want to talk. I know Danner’s been trying to get your attention again. He was in the common room earlier.”

My hands scrubbed my face. I had no desire to take pleasure in Tomás or Danner or Noruh after experiencing her .

I’d already had to swat Danner’s hands away thrice now.

Before, I had let his body take my frustration, allowed him to bring me to release.

But the thought of touching anyone else right now made my skin crawl.

“No.”

Tomás heaved a heavy sigh and began to stand. “Well, if you’re content to rotting away in your own misery, I will leave you to it. But if not, we could go spar or run to take the edge off.”

If there was ever a time to miss Leandro, it was now.

He wasn’t like me. He and Tomás could go on for hours talking about anything and everything, and he had never been one to dwell for very long.

And he would also know just how to make me feel better.

He would find the words I couldn’t and speak for the both of us.

I looked down at his name in my hand and scratched at my beard with the other.

“Fine.” I stood and crossed to the wardrobe that held my lighter training clothes.

If I couldn’t go out and make coin, the only thing I could do was train.

The trousers and tunic were looser than my usual leathers, and once I pulled both on, I turned back to Tomás who had taken post beside the door.

His lips pulled to the side, as if he was trying to decide what to say.

I’d heard the whispers after killing Jones.

Some of my siblings thought something was wrong with me, that I’d gotten too emotionally involved in my last contract.

I could not deny it. What was worse was that I did it all for nothing.

“Mate, why don’t you just go find her?”

I tried to push past him toward the door. “Find who.”

Tomás shoved my chest, and I glared at him. I’d agreed to training with him so that we didn’t have to talk. “Just go find her and talk to her. Godyx knows that it would give us all a bit of peace.”

I shoved back on his chest and got my hand around the doorknob. Before I opened it, I ground out the words, “She made it clear that I couldn’t be a Shadow and choose her.”

He scoffed, “Don’t blame her.” My head whirled around, incredulous.

Tomás chuckled as we made our way out to the corridor.

“Jones helped her brother try to kill her? I wouldn’t want anything to do with us either.

But it’s been six months.” He shrugged and cracked his knuckles.

“She might be more willing to hear you out, now.”

He didn’t think I’d thought of that? Every day, I drank or trained away the thought of finding her and getting on my knees, trying to convince her that we could have both things.

But the way she’d looked at me, tears running down her cheeks because of my words—I hadn’t been heartbroken like that in over a century.

Tomás continued on under his breath. “If I were you, I’d stop your wallowing and track her down. What else do you have to do?”

We went down the steps and headed toward the courtyard while I turned over his words. She’d said that they were leaving everything behind. She could be anywhere. There had been no sign of her during open contract bids, no talk of her from other blades for hire. I did not even know where to start.

I pushed open the door that led to outside, and the gray sky was a blanket over the mid-afternoon sun. The forest surrounding the Shadow Well was dense, expansive, and my muscles hummed in anticipation of weaving through the trees and leaping over the brush.

“Ready?” Tomás jutted his head toward the darkened wood.

A soft breeze swept the small courtyard. It rustled my hair that had grown too long in these months. I tucked the frontmost strands away from my face and angled toward where he indicated. “Ready.”