Page 21

Chapter Ten

SACHA

“Even silence speaks, when spoken to by the right kind of question.”

Wisdom of the Wandering Sages

“Do you really think you’ll find people you know?” Ellie’s gaze is fixed on the distant peaks of Thornevale Ridge, their uneven outlines cutting into the sky like broken teeth.

“Maybe.” The word tastes bitter. Hope is a luxury I abandoned a long time ago.

“But even if no one remains, I can get answers.” I scan our surroundings, checking every shadow, every potential point of ambush.

Old habits never die. “Before my imprisonment, I had connections in these mountains. Sanctuaries where those hunted by the Authority could disappear.”

“But after twenty-seven years …”

“Indeed.” I incline my head. Time alters everything—loyalties, names, the memory of a cause. “What existed then may no longer remain. People die. Networks fail. Even a stone wears down, given enough time.”

She frowns, considering my words. “What will we do if there’s nothing left?”

“Adapt.” Power moves through my veins with each heartbeat, stronger now with every mile we’ve traveled away from the tower. Freedom tastes like copper and possibility on my tongue. “Survive. Gather information. Plan. The principles of survival don’t change, only the shape of the world does.”

I guide the sandstriders toward a jut of stone that breaks the skyline. My mount slows beneath me, scales rippling as it lowers its head to nose through the scrub along the rocks. I open the leather pouch and remove bread and dried meat, which I hand to Ellie.

Our fingers brush as she takes it from me, nothing more than a barely-there contact, but it sends an unexpected jolt of awareness through me. I’m not sure I’ll ever become used to physical human contact again, not after so long without it.

“How much farther are we going today?” Ellie takes a sip from the waterskin, then offers it to me.

For someone torn from her world mere days ago, she’s showing remarkable adaptability. The question of what makes her different is a constant in the back of my mind. What quality allowed her to answer my summons when countless others couldn’t hear it?

But that’s something to think about later.

“We should reach the first foothills by late afternoon. We can set up shelter before the light fails.”

The sandstriders keep a steady pace, gliding over the hardening ground. Overhead, the shadow-canopy holds, diffusing the sun’s reach.

The desert floor rises in steady swells, scattered boulders giving way to layered rock formations. Dry brush and thorned trees begin to appear, sparse but stubborn, clinging to this band of transition between sand and mountain.

My senses detect water before any visual evidence appears.

It comes as a subtle change in the air, and the way shadows fall across the ground.

The sandstriders sense it too, their pace quickening without prompting.

We reach the top of a slight rise, and the valley unfolds below us, nestled between the first proper foothills.

A ribbon of green cuts through the barren expanse, marking the water’s path, a lifeline in a world that offers few mercies.

The stream runs narrow but clean, threading a line of growth between the rocks.

Not the lush oasis we left this morning, but it offers what we need most. Fresh water, and somewhere to stop for the night.

The animals move immediately to drink, lowering their long necks until their noses dip into the water.

Ellie dismounts with care, obviously stiff from the day’s ride, and holds the reins loosely in one hand as she surveys the valley.

“We’ll stop here for the night. The ground ahead is better approached with full daylight.” I secure the sandstriders while I speak, making sure they can reach both water and the vegetation along the stream’s bank.

A natural alcove offers partial shelter beneath an overhang of stone. I move to it and draw shadows in close, layering darkness to build the walls. It responds, but still without the ease I should command. I know why. I only need to remain patient for a little longer.

Inside the shelter, I gather shadow, shaping another bed for Ellie, along with another sphere of compressed warmth to keep the chill at bay through the night.

“Eat, then rest.” I turn to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“I won’t be far.” I pause, then give her something more. “I spent a long time without being able to see the sky.”

“Ahh, yes. Of course.” Her voice is soft. She thinks she’s learned something new about me.

Outside, the sunset sinks behind the upper peaks. Shadows lengthen across the slopes, and the air begins to cool. With night falling, the emptiness inside me stirs, no longer dormant but insistent. The time has come to change that.

But not here. Not within sight of our camp. Not in front of a witness. This is something that needs privacy.

I move deeper into the foothills, following a narrow game trail that winds between the rocks.

With each step, the pull strengthens, guiding me toward a small box canyon cut into the hillside, hidden from view and already dark.

The air still holds the day’s warmth, but the light has almost entirely gone.

Perfect. Secluded. Hidden .

I reach the center of the canyon as the sun sinks behind the peaks. The last of the light drains from the sky, and the air sharpens with oncoming cold. Overhead, stars emerge one by one, distant and unblinking.

The change builds before it arrives. Not through warmth or sound, but a pressure rising in my blood, behind my eyes, somewhere beneath thought. My bones know what’s coming before my mind forms the words .

The Authority severed us long ago. But not completely, as I feared. Only death could do that. And I did not die. What they fractured, time hasn’t erased. Now, with the binding shattered, what was divided begins to return.

My breath catches as all nerve endings fire into life, but it isn’t in pain. It’s recognition.

The ground darkens around me, emerging from within, from something deeper than ordinary shadow.

No cast light. No borrowed shape. Entirely mine.

It bleeds outward from my boots, tendrils reaching across stone and dust, reshaping the light as they move.

The connection is imperfect. Almost hesitant. But it’s there.

I kneel and place one hand flat against the ground, closing my eyes, and opening myself to the night.

“Find me.” The words don’t travel through air, but through darkness itself, vibrating along pathways only shadow can touch.

Pain and anticipation twist behind my ribs, a knot I’ve held in place longer than memory. I throw my arms wide, fingers splayed toward the sky. The motion unseats something buried. The call—not in voice alone, but in breath, blood, the pause between each heartbeat.

“Return to me.” The words tear loose, not a command but a plea. Primal. Raw. The wounded cry of a being too long incomplete. My voice cracks on the final syllable, decades of enforced solitude distilled into three words.

For too long, I’ve been half of what I was. Broken. Diminished. The Authority took more than my freedom when they sealed me inside that tower. They severed me from the essence that made me whole.

That made me who I am.

The stars above seem to shudder in response. The slight breeze drops. The darkness deepens. The very air grows dense with anticipation, as though the world itself is holding its breath.

And then …

There’s a disturbance in the night sky. Nothing visible to ordinary sight, but to me? To me, it’s as visible as the moon. A shadow moving against the backdrop of stars, flying with purpose directly toward me.

My heart pounds against my ribs. After all the silence, all the years apart, my familiar approaches.

The shadow-raven takes form as it descends, its wings spanning wider than any natural bird.

Its body is made of concentrated darkness—no feathers, no flesh, only force.

It pulls the night into itself, consuming light from the stars as it passes.

Its eyes burn with cold fire as it circles once overhead.

In that instant, I feel it again. The bond.

My breath stills. My arms shake. The void pulses with desperate hunger. It is no longer waiting. It is coming for me.

Mine again.

It whirls and dips, then tucks its wings close to its body and plummets toward me. I brace for impact, but there is none. Instead, it dissolves on contact, transforming into liquid shadow that flows over my skin, soaking through clothing, through flesh, directly into my being.

Cold fire floods my veins—not burning, but filling .

I gasp as the breath leaves me, spine arching backward until I think it might snap.

My jaw locks open in a silent scream as my familiar drives deeper, piercing past muscle and marrow.

My vision blurs, then fractures. The stars above shatter into fragments as darkness consumes me from within.

This is not merely pain or pleasure, but both extinction and rebirth. A complete reordering of who and what I am.

I collapse to my knees, then fold forward, arms locked around my ribs, fingernails digging crescents into my own flesh until blood wells beneath them. The familiar reintegrates with singular purpose, restoring what was lost, reclaiming its place with ruthless focus.

Every cell in my body feels flayed open, exposed, as my familiar scrapes against the inside of my skin. I bite down against a scream as my ribs strain outward, making room for something vast compressed into human form. My teeth crack against each other, the taste of iron flooding my mouth.

The boundaries between us blur, then vanish. We are separate and one, individual and unified. The contradiction makes perfect sense in ways language cannot capture.

Memories not my own crash through me—a torrent of experiences from eyes that have watched the world while I sat motionless in a tower.