Between the Shade and the Shadow Read online

  A wolf? Her mother conveyed, her shock rising above the collective disbelief of the rest. Do you realize what you have done? Do you have any idea?

  Ahraia’s eyes adjusted to see Kren, her older sister, staring at Losna with unabashed jubilance. Her own shadow, Flit, was perched proudly on her shoulder. Flit’s great owl-eyes beamed at Ahraia. Gavea and Tallin were staring jealously, but a smile spread across Ahraia’s mother’s face.

  “You will bring darkness to the Gelesh,” she said aloud. “You will be the Astra one day.”

  A shiver of triumph and terror erupted in Ahraia’s chest. She had never heard her mother’s voice before.

  1

  Shade

  As the Dae-Mon rose searing-bright outside, Ahraia and the rest of the sprites retreated deeper into the darkening.

  Even with the thick walls, layered leaves, and woven branches of the darkening, a gloomy light permeated the central hollow, filling the space with a glow that far exceeded the tolerable amount of darkness.

  By this time most days, every sprite would have retreated to safer sanctuaries except for the dae-wards who, as the lowliest guardians of the darkening, were never afforded true dark. But today, even with the untenable brightness, everyone was still about.

  All because of her. Because of the shadow she had bound.

  It suddenly struck her, the enormity of it. She was no longer a spriteling. She was a shade now. A shade bound to a wolf—the strongest shadow there was.

  It was a feat that had sprites enduring more light than she had ever seen. They hastily re-shaped their cloaks into hoods and veils, the webbing rearranging to their minds’ desire. Others, like the younger spritelings and shades, who weren't as deft a hand at enchantments, stood in the darkest hollows, but still craned their necks to get a look at her and her shadow. There was only a small likelihood they saw anything at all, however—the whole darkening seemed intent to crowd about them, converging closer and closer.

  Losna remained pressed to Ahraia’s side, and for a brief moment, one of her thoughts projected into Ahraia’s mind: wolves in a pack squeezing in on a kill—wild, turbulent in their excitement. Everywhere Ahraia looked, she saw gleaming eyes and batting ears, heard voices and cries of disbelief. Losna wanted to run, and Ahraia had the urge to run with her, but the Dae-mon was rising outside. Thankfully, her mother’s conveyance soon rose above the din.

  All right, that’s enough. This light will make dae-wards of us all if we suffer it any longer, she conveyed with a veil pulled to her nose. Get back to your nits.

  To Ahraia’s relief, the rest of the sprites relented. The Astra's word was law, and no one tarried long.

  They began to filter out of the central hollow, retreating to the deeper shelter of their families’ nit trees.

  As quickly as she could, Ahraia did the same, turning away from the crowd and leading Losna towards the nit tree where she and her family slept during the day.

  Losna's golden eyes watched the sprites retreat. Where are we going? she seemed to think.

  The deeper dark, Ahraia conveyed in answer. Safety. . .

  Losna seemed satisfied, and Ahraia led the way. Within the darkening, each family lived beneath a nit tree, a type of night willow cultivated to form a secondary mantle of protection from the day. They passed dozens of such trees on the way to her mother’s, each forming a perfect dome beneath the greater cover of the darkening. Dense screens of branches fell all the way from the canopy to the ground, shielding the innards from the central hollow. And while each looked nearly identical, Ahraia’s mother’s was the finest. She was the Astra of the whole darkening, after all.

  From the outside, the tree formed a perfect circle, branches woven so tight that not a sliver of the inside could be seen as they approached. Intricate patterns of night lilies and hooded orchids interlaced within the woven branches, as well as carefully tended moonvines and star-bellied ivy. Thorned vines and serapine trees were also hidden within the branches, looking sleepy but ready to strike at any and all intruders. The latter didn’t so much as lift a leaf as Ahraia formed an opening with her mind and stepped inside. Losna’s eyes shown yellow as she tentatively followed.

  Home, Ahraia thought. Once inside, however, her siblings all crowded about her, and again Losna tensed.

  This is our pack, Ahraia conveyed.

  Losna settled slightly at that, ears still flattening tentatively.

  Ahraia’s mother and father stood to the side, watching her and Losna, both with gleaming eyes. Ahraia’s eldest sister, Kren, was the first to speak.

  “Well done, Shade Ahraia,” she said, pulling Ahraia into a firm embrace. Her own shadow, Flit, spread her wings in a ruffled attempt to remain perched on her shoulder before leaping to flight and settling on a nearby branch.

  Losna eyed Flit and the other shadows, her fears easing as she considered them. Kaval’s fox peeked from behind his knees, and Altah’s silver-tipped raven fluttered from one branch to another. There was no sign of Hayvon’s shadow, but she was tucked into one of the folds of his cloak, no doubt. Ahraia doubted very much that she would be showing herself anytime soon with a wolf inside their nit.

  “They’ll hear of this in every corner of the Sihl," Kaval, her oldest brother, said proudly, “from the woods of the Gelesh all the way to Angolor."

  Kren was nodding. “Even the Masai, may her nights be dark and her days even darker, will know of you and your shadow,” she agreed.

  Ahraia swallowed at the thought. The Masai, the Astra of all Astrael, ruler of the Sihl. . .

  Surely not. . . she conveyed.

  “Of course she will!” Kaval said with bright-eyed grin. “A wolf binder? You must be the first since . . .?”

  “Since the Masai,” their mother finished.

  Goosebumps spread across Ahraia’s arms at the thought, but she was distracted as Losna bumped into her, wanting to be as close as she could. At the very least, she seemed to understand that they were surrounded by kin, but she was still nervous. Ahraia wrapped her fingers in her shadow’s fur, drawing her close.

  Hayvon, her older brother by a year, regarded her with reverence and awe. He alone seemed unafraid of Losna. He stepped right up before her and held out a hand, which she sniffed for a moment, neither startling nor drawing nearer. Then she licked his hand, a sort of reluctant truce. It was as good a start as Ahraia could hope. A small pair of wary eyes shown out from a fold in Hayvon’s shirt.

  “A wolf,” he said. “We have a wolf binder in our nit.”

  Ahraia couldn’t believe it herself.

  Her mother intervened.

  Let them be. They must seal their bond.

  Ahraia let out a sigh of relief. With a nod to the others, she led Losna to the last and deepest layer of sanctuary, her shade tree.

  Within the nit trees, each sprite, shade, and spriteling underdaed in their own individual shade tree, the third and final form of protection from the Dae-Mon. Shade trees were offshoots of nit trees, mimicking them in both form and function, and dotted the ground beneath the nit tree like living boulders in a perfectly round and living cavern.

  Ahraia took particular pride in her own. She had woven it so perfectly that not a single speck of light managed to penetrate it, even on the brightest days. She invited Losna inside.

  So dark, Losna thought uneasily. Ahraia was still buzzing from the binding and would have walked beneath the Dae-mon to keep her shadow happy. She reached out with her mind and formed a binding of the branches before teasing them apart, just a hair, so that a sliver of gloom broke through.

  “Better?” she whispered, ears batting hopefully.

  She felt Losna’s mind ease, and a tightness in her chest loosened.

  Ahraia huddled in the darkest side of the shade and let her shadow enjoy her sliver of light. Soon she fell asleep in a haze of contentment, hand in the fur of her shadow—the sign she was no longer a spriteling.

  Ahraia spent the next turning of the Bright Moon beneath the eves of he
r family’s nit tree, keeping Losna close and comfortable to seal their bond. There was little need. Losna, though wary of the other sprites, seemed as eager to be near Ahraia as Ahraia was to be near her.

  She was curious, with bright, pensive eyes and a tilt to her head with every questioning glance. Her ears turned this way and that, and she sniffed at everything, sometimes sending her into fits of sneezes or wild bouts of excitement. Ahraia kept a steady stream of conveyance flowing between them, and with every night that passed, Losna seemed more at ease with their bond. With nowhere to go, they played beneath the nit tree, leaping and wrestling with each other, sleeping intertwined and thinking eagerly of when they could run the plains again.

  More than once, Ahraia tried to show Losna the rest of the darkening, but each time, they garnered so much attention that Ahraia could barely contain Losna’s urge to go bounding away, and so they hurried back to the shelter of their nit tree instead.

  Sprites from other nits brought them food and all manner of gifts, and slowly, with each passing day, Losna’s wariness settled, though she still growled when anyone approached, save for Ahraia’s immediate family.

  We’re going to feed you like the Masai, Ahraia’s mother told Losna one night, squatting down to offer her a hind of deer. “We’re your pack now.”

  Losna lowered her head deferentially. She seemed to have an instinctual sense of Ahraia’s mother’s place as the leader of the darkening, and took the hind gratefully, though she didn’t eat until Ahraia’s hand was on her back. Once she did, she did so slowly, keeping her ears turned to the ever-present night inside the darkening. To Ahraia, the darkening was filled with familiar noises, but they made Losna’s ears twitch and her head raise at every new call. Black sparrows, star shrikes, and nightingales all hovered in the branches, enchanted to sing during the night and fall absolutely silent during the dead of day. Only then did the hum of the outside rise dangerously, a reminder of what lay beyond the wall.

  Eventually, Losna became accustomed to the noises, and with each passing night, her thoughts solidified, taking on a shape of their own, like thunderclouds materializing from the aether over the Endless Plains. Her emotions and instincts, which ran deep within her, began to bubble out as words that Ahraia could wrest from the air. Slowly, those words began to run together, as though she were a spriteling finding her voice, and through their bond, Ahraia could unravel her thoughts.

  Gradually, Losna’s guard came down, but even as it did, Ahraia could feel her shadow’s restlessness growing. She was ready to run. Not run away, but just run. To feel the plains beneath her paws, the wind through her fur, the moonlight on her back.

  And Ahraia felt it with her.

  Losna’s company felt like a half of her that she had never known was suddenly revealed, and she could feel that same desire coursing through her—to run, to feel the thrill of the wind in her hair, and the freedom of the plains.

  “That’s forbidden,” Ahraia muttered, but even as she said it, she knew those were just words, and beneath them, conveyed another thought to Losna.

  Soon.

  Losna’s chest rumbled eagerly next to her.

  Eventually, Ahraia showed Losna about the darkening, resorting to sneaking out of the nit at dusk, when most sprites were still underdaeing. And of course they were still underdaeing—sneaking about with Dae-Mon still in the sky was absurd. Ahraia felt a pang of guilt. Though it had never been expressly forbidden, it went without saying that no shade with any decency would be out at this hour. Ahraia felt a twinge of worry as she parted the nit’s branches for Losna, revealing the lighter-than-usual darkening beyond. Then again, they had run beneath the moons and survived. And no other shade had a wolf to keep happy, so she didn't feel that guilty.

  Losna padded at her side, eager to be moving.

  They crept beneath tunnels of leach ferns and star blossoms, keeping to the deeper shadows where they could. Ahraia conveyed most of her thoughts, but she spoke them too, as her voice seemed to soothe Losna’s mind.

  "This is the central hollow," she said. "The gathering place."

  She showed her the springs, where the river gurgled to life in the middle of the hollow, and the dae-groves, which were woven halls, deep and dark and lovely. She showed her the cores, where the massive trunks of the darkening tree twisted skyward, and the cultivars, where great sheets of eaves web, winter web, and all manner of other webs were grown to be used as clothing or blankets or whatever other purpose the sprites saw fit. They were passing between two smaller nit trees when Losna raised her nose to the smell of smoke, tensing.

  Fire?

  “The cook fires,” Ahraia replied, pointing towards a thick screen of wicker bushes where smoke rose from a wide opening. Screens of stone, wood, and leaves kept the fires hidden, of course, without even a sliver of light emerging.

  They saw a few dae-wards walking about during this time, either veiled or scarred, moving through the darkening on their return from patrols.

  Different? Why? Losna wondered, the words vague and muddled. Ahraia still knew what she meant.

  “They’re the dae-wards,” Ahraia answered back. “The guardians of the darkening, males without nits—they roam the edges of day to protect the darkening, trying to earn their place.”

  Losna eyed them curiously. Ahraia didn’t envy them. Most had come from other darkenings, seeking to impress a nitesse through valor or cunning. They wore veils across their faces, and the skin around their eyes was thick with light scars. Most would perish in the day long before they found their way into the darkening. The dae-wards eyed Ahraia and Losna with a mix of awe and wonder, as though not sure what to make of the fact that Ahraia had bound a wolf or why she would awake before the Dae-Mon had fully set. Eventually, with the light sizzling at her skin, she led Losna back to the nit.

  When at last the turning passed, the bond was sealed—or, at least, that’s what the other sprites said and she and Losna were finally allowed to leave the darkening. As a spriteling, Ahraia had hardly left the confines of the nit tree—she had even been scared to. But now she had Losna, and the two of them had free reign to come and go as they pleased. Ahraia had never been so eager to leave, and the first thing they did was head straight back to the plains.

  Both the Bright Moon and the Dark Moon were in the sky when they arrived, and this time, there was no hesitation: Losna stepped into the moonlight and Ahraia followed. Together, they ran as far and fast as they could, howling together at the moons. Losna’s fur billowed in the wind, and Ahraia’s hair whipped around her. They didn’t stop until they were both breathless, and even then, only for a moment.

  The next night they did the same. And the next. Each night, Ahraia and Losna ran farther and farther afield. They drank from cold rivers and deep pools. They chased the stars in their slow fall over the horizon. They ran south towards the human realms, and north towards the edge of the world. They ran west towards the deep vales, and east onto the plains. Light scars blossomed on Ahraia’s cheeks and wrists, yet still they ran. It wasn’t proper, but she wasn’t all that interested in being proper. She had a wolf for a shadow, and Losna wanted to run wild. Who was Ahraia to stop her?

  Each night they returned to the darkening, burning with the desire to return to their adventures the next. In the back of Ahraia’s mind, she worried the light would be the end of her but in her heart, she just wanted to run. So they did.

  Near the end of the turning, Ahraia and Losna returned from another night of exploring the plains to find her father waiting for her, bringing Ahraia up short. He eyed her blossoming scars with a deep-set frown. In his hand, he carried a bow.

  Ahraia recognized it, of course: it was a shade’s bow. All of her siblings had carried similar bows during their first year as shades. It was carved out of yew and strung tightly with some sort of woven fiber. He carried a fletch containing three arrows.

  Ahraia averted her eyes. Up until her binding of Losna, he had hardly spoken a dozen words to her or even
looked her way. Being the Astra’s nit-ward meant he wasn’t just responsible for protecting their nit tree but was also in charge of protecting the whole darkening, organizing the dae- and nit-wards and overseeing patrols of the forest. It left him little time in darkening, and no time at all to trade words with spritelings or shades. Now that she had bound a wolf, though, he showed her an undue amount of respect.

  “Soon, you will be going on your first hunt,” he said, holding out the bow. “This is for you, until you learn to get close enough.”

  She trembled taking it. She had never hunted before but knew the expectations from her siblings. She would have to make an enchantment to lure the prey and then make the kill. Her stomach turned at the thought. Her siblings had all talked about it. The first kill was said to be the worst. Hayvon even admitted that it hurt.

  Her father didn’t seem to notice her apprehension, or, if he did, he didn't care. He was looking at her and Losna with a rather pleased expression.

  “You surprised me, Ahraia. In the best of ways.”

  She brightened slightly. Losna fixed him with a steady gaze and for once, Ahraia couldn’t sense what she was thinking, though she could feel the thoughts churning behind her golden eyes.

  Several nights later, they went hunting. Ahraia had been practicing with her bow, and to her surprise, was a fairly decent shot. Her fingers were raw, and her muscles ached from drawing the bow, but she seemed to have a natural sense of the arrow’s flight. Despite this, she wasn’t sure she was ready, not because she couldn’t make the kill, but because the thought of making a binding made her sick to her stomach.