Page 17

My body remembers freedom better than I expected. Each step is painful and exhilarating, muscles straining against disuse, yet gloriously unbound. My balance is off, my stride uneven. The simple act of walking requires more focus than it should.

“Wait. Sacha, look!” Ellie’s voice stops me. “The tower … something is happening.”

I follow her gaze. The tower’s gleaming surface is losing its luster, turning dull. While we watch, cracks appear along its length, spidering like lightning across its once-flawless shell.

“Interesting.” My voice is quiet, almost clinical. “The binding must have been connected to the tower itself.” I watch with satisfaction as my prison begins to crumble. “Breaking one affected the other. ”

The tower shudders visibly, even from this distance.

Hairline fractures multiply, racing across its surface in luminous blue veins.

Segments of the shell shear away, dropping to the sand with dull, distant thuds that I feel more than hear.

The destruction accelerates, the entire structure convulsing, as though fighting against its own collapse.

With a groan that sounds almost sentient, pained even, it folds inward. The shape that held me for nearly three decades buckles, collapsing into the very void it once contained. In moments, nothing remains but a drifting plume of dust where the tower once stood.

“It’s gone,” Ellie whispers, her voice small and shocked. “Like it was nothing.”

“Yes.” The single word carries all my satisfaction, my relief, my triumph . All those years of captivity scattered like ash. A strange lightness fills me, as if the tower’s physical destruction has severed some final invisible tether.

“We should keep moving. The dust cloud may attract attention, and I’d rather be far from it before that happens.”

We walk on, the site of my captivity shrinking behind us.

With each step, the silence inside me begins to recede.

Shadows edge closer, more responsive, as though they’re relearning my shape.

But the power is still uneven, sometimes smooth, sometimes jarring.

Once, I stumble mid-step, breath caught, and have to focus to still the current.

“You said you have an affinity with shadows,” she says after we’ve been walking for a while. “What does that mean?”

“I do. ”

I don’t want to scare her, especially as I might need her cooperation for a while longer. But I also need to understand how she reacts to manifestation of power, if she is to remain useful, she cannot be ruled by fear.

“I can manipulate darkness.” I deliberately choose the most benign description of my abilities. Better she understands gradually. “I can control it, shape it, extend my perception through it.”

To demonstrate, I reach toward my own shadow stretching across the sand.

With a flick of one finger, a gesture that once required no thought at all, the darkness stirs.

It rises from the ground in a coiling spiral, fluid and deliberate, winding around my outstretched hand before dissolving back into the ground.

The cost is immediate. A fine tremor runs through my fingers. Power responds in pulses, not flow, and I have to concentrate harder than I should to shape it. Still, I betray nothing. I hold the moment in control, and offer the illusion of ease.

Ellie’s lips part, her breath catching audibly. “You can actually move it.” Wonder and apprehension war in her voice.

“A minor trick.” I watch her reaction carefully. She doesn’t recoil as many would.

Interesting.

I wonder what other reactions she might surprise me with as she sees more of what I can do.

She falls silent, turning her focus back to the path ahead. The sun is draining her quickly. Despite my years confined inside, my nature grants me resistance to the sun’s effects that she doesn’t share.

I reach toward the shadows again, this time drawing them up and outward.

Darkness pools above us, spreading to form a canopy that blocks the worst of the sun’s glare.

The effort leaves me momentarily lightheaded.

Once this would have been an action achieved with ease.

Now it strains abilities gone long unused.

I hide the weakness, adjusting my stride to disguise the sudden unsteadiness in my legs.

She looks up at the hovering darkness with equal parts wariness and relief.

As the sun begins to descend, Ellie’s steps grow increasingly slower. Despite the woven shade above us, the day’s journey has taken its toll. While I could continue on for longer, we need to stop for the night.

“We need to find shelter. Night comes quickly in the desert, and with it, the cold.”

A cluster of rock formations rises from the sand perhaps half a mile ahead. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. I adjust our course toward it, maintaining the shadow-canopy until we reach the relative protection of the stones.

“Rest.”

She sinks to the ground, and takes out the waterskin. Opening it, she takes a drink then offers it to me. I take a sip more for appearance than necessity. My body requires even less sustenance now that my power is returning.

“I don’t think the water is going to last long.”

“We’ll find more tomorrow. There are ways to extract it from desert plants, if you know where to look.”

With the approaching darkness comes another surge of power. I can feel it building, responding to the natural shadows that lengthen with each passing minute. My skin tingles with it, almost painfully sensitive to the night’s approach.

This . This is my element, my domain, my birthright .

I step away from the rocks, and spread my arms wide, welcoming the darkness, letting it flow through me like a current.

Power builds within me, greater than I’ve felt in years.

It crests in waves, pulses that leave me breathless, almost drunk on the sensation.

I stagger slightly, overwhelmed by my own strength, by the sheer rush of energy surging through me.

The shadows around me deepen, swirling in response to commands I don’t need to voice.

The connection is intimate, like flexing a muscle long atrophied but suddenly remembered.

I shape the darkness, moulding it between my hands like clay, bending it to my will.

Walls of solid shadow rise from the desert floor, their texture somewhere between smoke and stone.

A roof forms overhead, then solidifies, providing shelter from the elements.

I fashion an entrance that can be sealed with a thought, protection against whatever might prowl the night.

Within this structure, I gather the darkness at its center, compressing it with slow, even pressure until it forms a perfect sphere. It hovers between my palms, suspended, awaiting purpose. The cold emanating from it is absolute.

I inhale. Then exhale.

“ Asha’valen. Dosmira. Kelth .”

My voice is quiet, but the syllables still slide from my tongue like oil poured into flame. Ancient, elemental words—a shaping, a warming, a binding.

Heat rises beneath my hands, and spreads outward, drawn from the sand, from the air, and channeled into the waiting sphere of dark, until a deep, penetrating warmth fills the shadow-shelter completely.

The sensation of creating rather than existing is intoxicating.

“Come,” I call to Ellie, who stands watching with undisguised fascination. “This will protect us better.”

She approaches cautiously, hesitating at the entrance, one hand raised. “How are you doing this?”

“Shadow magic has many applications.” I gesture her inside, noting the wonder she doesn’t bother to hide. “This is one of them.”

She enters slowly, eyes widening as she steps fully inside. Her hand passes through a tendril of shadow, and it coils lightly around her fingers, then releases. She shivers, not from cold, I think, but from the strange intimacy of touching something born of my will.

“It’s so warm. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

She settles against one wall, as far from me as the space allows. Smart girl. She can probably sense the change in me, the growing power that makes me less the prisoner she first encountered and more something … other. Yet she doesn’t show the fear most did. Just caution.

“Few have.” I sit across from her, feeling the night’s energy continue to build inside my body.

“You’re getting stronger, aren’t you?” Her perception surprises me again.

“Yes.” I see no reason to deny the obvious. “The binding suppressed much of what I am. Now it’s returning. ”

“And what is that?” Her eyes fix on mine. “What are you … really?”

I smile slightly. “Darkness is everywhere. It touches everything, sees everything. Those who command it can’t be easily tracked or contained, as the Authority discovered with me. It took them years to capture me, and even then, they needed specialized bindings to hold me.”

It’s not really an answer to her question, but she lets it go.

“What did you do to make them hunt you?”

Not an unexpected question.

“I opposed their purges. I fought against their efforts to eradicate those with natural abilities. For that, they labeled me a heretic, dissident, enemy of the natural order.”

Not the whole truth, of course, but enough to establish my position without frightening her away. The full extent of my resistance—the army I commanded, the territories I controlled, the Authority strongholds I destroyed—those can wait for another time.

“So, there are others like you?”

“Not like me, but others with powers, yes. Many died in the purges. Others went into hiding, suppressing their abilities to avoid detection.” I keep my eyes on her face. “Some may still survive, in remote regions or even in disguise among normal society.”

“What will you do now that you’re free?”

The question is dangerously direct. I have no doubt the truth would terrify her. I have plans for vengeance, for reclaiming what was taken. She wouldn’t understand.