Eyes heavy, dark, aching.
They creaked open, straining as the world wobbled alive.
Golden light worked through the air, and for a moment, I thought I was still dreaming. But the light fanned out, lapping against dust, cobwebs, and panels of worn barnwood. I felt sun-warmed hay itching my hands. Smelled woodsmoke and the musty leather of horse tack. Heard the warbled cooing of our chickens, their coop connected to the barn by way of a small earthen tunnel.
Home. I was home—
“You’re awake.”
A wisp of a legionnaire stood before me, half-clouded by the swirling light and dust. Her fingers were white-knuckled on a bucket.
“I need—w-water,” I croaked, my tongue struggling to find purchase.
The woman swallowed, eyes wide. “I can’t. Lord Mithras must know you’ve awakened.”
“Please,” I coughed, once, twice. The third cough was wet; it flecked the hay in red. I tried to wipe my mouth, horrified, but my hands were bound. “Why am I bound ?”
Flustered, the woman bent into an awkward bow. “F-forgive me.”
She fled from the cellar, forgetting to slide the door shut behind her. Indistinct sounds seeped from beyond the frame, but they were distant and unknowable. I winced, leaning back into the wooden slats behind me. My head hurt. Badly. If someone told me that my skull had been pried open with a knife, I’d believe them.
“I’m telling, you, she—”
Mithras, Silas, and Mila, all unmasked, walked into the cellar, their once-gleaming clothing mangled and dirty. Their faces held a riot of emotion: unease, disgust, and something else. Something suspiciously similar to hatred.
Hatred?
Mithras loomed over me, leaving Silas and Mila to wait a few uneasy paces behind. Dark blonde hair fell to his shoulders, escaping the band that bound it. He looked younger than he had appeared in the dream, but something aged him in his eyes.
“So, you’ve returned to us after all,” Mithras began, mouth slanting into a frown. I couldn’t decipher his expression. Disgust? Regret? Every breath made it harder to tell. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
A fourth man, wearing the garb of the Light Legion, stormed to where I sat, shoving past Silas and Mila. He was a mirror to his younger brother: high cheekbones, willowy build, and red hair smooth and full.
“The truth will come to light,” Alcott began, his voice hard and unwavering. He clenched his teeth, fighting against a tremble in his shoulders. “Lord Mithras saw everything. You will not escape justice.”
“Alcott,” Mithras said simply, a warning.
But Alcott was already moving, leading Silas and Mila to an adjoining part of the barn and leaving Mithras and I alone.
“I believe I asked you a question.”
I inhaled sharply, prepared to answer, but my throat had closed up again. A muffled wheeze croaked from somewhere within me. Mithras unhooked a leather flask from beneath his cloak. He brought it to my lips, and I drank deep.
Water. Blessed, blessed water.
“Where is my family?”
Mithras sighed, leaning against the barn. I noticed now that a faint scar split his brow.
“The Light Legion does not tolerate the Corrupt. Unmanaged, they will destroy a village. Unpunished, they will destroy a kingdom.” As he talked, he adjusted his gloves. A spray of old blood marked them. “Corrupted are known deceivers. They worm their way into the light when they’re still rotting from within.” He looked up, nearly smiling. “Fortunately, our Maker is a forgiving god.”
“Where is my family ?” I repeated, on the verge of screaming.
“Where do you expect them to be?”
I halted. “What?”
He gave me a strange, inquisitive look. It was as though he was weighing something—or considering a new possibility. Whatever it was, the expression passed briefly, replaced by his regular, mask-like stiffness. “We began our purification ritual, but it was breached. A severe transgression against your sovereign and the laws we fight for.”
A deep, bruising ache dragged along my scalp and ended between my shoulders, forcing me to bow my head. Thoughts swirled around in bizarre fragments. Memories clouded in on themselves. Even reality itself—the reality of Mithras pinning me with eyes of burning, golden embers—felt distant, somehow. I centered my breathing, focusing on the barn’s scent of woodsmoke and leather.
Mithras placed a gloved hand atop my shoulder, grazing the edge of my neck with his fingers.
“You paint a convincing picture of your innocence,” he murmured. “Silas and Mila certainly believe you to be. But they have not known your kind as I do. They did not see you as I did.” I tried to respond, but my throat was dust, my teeth carved from chalk. And even if I could speak, I didn’t think the words would come. They were stuck to the walls of my mind, clinging to the shadows. “Even so, we agreed that you would be treated justly,” he continued. “Your punishment will be suitable for your crime.”
Again, Mithras offered his flask, and I drank.
“I have no reason to be punished,” I managed, rubbing away the haze that shrouded my eyes and clung to my every thought. Had he truly seen the Shadow Bringer and I together? Had the dream been real after all? “I want to see my family.”
“You will,” Mithras said simply. He tilted forward, prying my hands from my eyes. As if a curse had lifted, the pain instantly ebbed. “Right before we take you to your new home. It should be a pleasant stay for you, considering you’ve already been lurking there.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I leaned away from him, trying to peer out of a crack in the wood. I couldn’t see much, but it was clear that there were no fires, fighting, or Corrupt armed with pitchforks.
His mouth twitched up in a tight, forced smile. “Then you’re either delusional or a liar. Either way, it won’t matter for long.” Mithras lifted me to my feet, fixing me pointedly with his too-bright eyes. “You have five minutes to speak with your family. Then we will be on our way.” He smiled that cold smile again. “Choose your parting words carefully. You’ll not get another chance.”
“Parting words,” I repeated flatly, not understanding.
Mithras’s smile thinned.
Before he could speak again, Mother and Father entered the barn. They were led in by a different set of legionnaires, tied with ropes and visibly anguished. Elliot entered separately, his dirt-streaked face streaked with tears.
Elliot tried to run for me, but the nearest legionnaire yanked him back.
“Say it ain’t true,” he begged, stumbling over his words. “Tell me that wasn’t actually you in the dream. The flames were gonna get me, but then I saw you, an’—” His face scrunched up, shifting into something closer to anger. “You were with the Shadow Bringer ! He’s the worst monster—an’ you were with him!”
“No—no. I wasn’t with him,” I insisted, the words falling from a tongue that felt too numb, too dry. Had they all experienced the dream? If so, then they all had seen the Shadow Bringer and I together, bound by shadow and defying the Light Legion. “He captured me against my will. I was trying to escape him.”
“This is all our fault,” Father began, shadow-marked eyes welling with tears. He sounded like himself, which meant the demon vying for control over his body was subdued. It was like that in the early stages of Corruption; only in the most heated moments did the Corrupted’s nature begin to twist. “We forced you to walk this path. We drove you to seek the Shadow Bringer.”
My mouth fell open. “What? No . I didn’t walk any path. I was captured, I—”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Elliot cried.
“Elliot, please. We don’t have much time,” Mother pleaded, dampening some of Elliot’s anguish. Like Father, she sounded like herself. “If we hadn’t altered the elixir—hadn’t watered it down to make it last—then perhaps it wouldn’t have come to this. And for that, we will always be guilty.”
A chill ran down my skin, sliding over it like rain. So, another part of the nightmare really was true. Mother and Father had diluted the elixir, forcing Norhavellis to rot into Corruption.
“Before you’re taken from us, I want you to know the truth,” Mother began, eyes beseeching me to listen. “It began the winter Elliot took fever. You remember. We lived as though we were unworthy of it.”
Of course I remembered. I remembered Elliot, eyes sunken and dull, skin paper-thin and stretched tight over his bones. I remembered mice skittering over the floorboards and being hungry enough that I contemplated eating them. I remembered the dark. I remembered the stench of decay.
“The cost of his medicine broke us. We no longer could afford it,” Father added. “Not without sacrifice. And the elixir was down to its last shipment, with all of winter ahead of us.” His eyes fell in shame. “We kept the purest elixir for you and Elliot. And we diluted the rest of the village’s supply to raise enough funds for his medicine.”
“How long did you do this?” They didn’t answer right away, and horror flooded me. “A month? A season?”
“You have to understand that—”
“That winter was five years ago .”
“But for a time, it worked. We couldn’t risk losing one of you, not again—”
“You ruined their supply for five years ?”
“You should’ve just let me die,” Elliot wailed miserably.
“You don’t mean that, Elliot.” I squeezed my wrists, willing myself not to be sick. “Don’t ever say that.”
“But then none of this would have ever happened,” he sobbed, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Everything’s broken now.”
“And not because of you. Never because of you,” Father said, clearing his throat. Pain darkened his eyes, mirroring the shadows of Corruption that marred the hollows of his face. “As your parents, we ruined more for you and Norhavellis than we’ll ever be able to atone for.”
“We’re so sorry,” Mother whispered. Tears slid freely down her face; she could not stop them. “We just wanted you to be safe.”
The Shadow Bringer’s words rang in my ears: What you saw was merely a half-truth, as most dreams are. It held parts of your reality, but not the whole. This isn’t real. Your family will be safe.
Maybe there was a chance I was still dreaming.
I pinched the inside of my palm, wincing at the bite of my nails. Pain could be felt in the Dream Realm, too, but this sensation was sharper and more realistic.
“It is time,” Mithras said, nearly filling the barn’s entryway with his armored mantle. “Now that you’re awake, no time can be spared. You will be personally escorted to the Tomb of the Devourer while your family—and every other Maker-forsaken Corrupt still alive in this village—will be taken to our holy base at Citadel Firstlight to complete their purification.”
What?
“I’m not leaving. I’m not going there .” Panic bloomed in my chest. The Tomb of the Devourer was rumored to hold Shadow Bringer’s body, locking away his physical form. What place did I have there ? “The Shadow Bringer tricked me—he locked me in his castle for days until I was able to escape. I’m innocent—you haven’t even heard my story.”
“Oh, but your story has already been told,” Mithras said softly. “You have earned your fate. Now be strong for your family and face the justice given to you.”
Mother nodded, solemn. “The Light Bringer is right, Esmer. We have all earned our place. Our only regret is that it came to this.”
“What about Elliot?”
“Since he will soon be the equivalent of an orphan, he has agreed to become a servant at the Citadel. But don’t be concerned. If he impresses, then perhaps in five years he will begin preliminary training in the Light Legion.”
“He should have a right to choose,” I said, horrified. “This isn’t justice . None of this is just.”
Father’s face fell. “You will help the Light Legion battle Corruption by going to the Shadow Bringer’s tomb, and Elliot will be taken care of at the Citadel. What other form of justice is there?”
“He’s right,” Elliot agreed, sniffling. He looked so tired—so defeated. “It’s okay, ‘smer. I’ll be okay.”
A legionnaire joined Mithras at the entrance, a mask resting firmly atop his face. I decided that the masks made them look like ornamented vultures.
“We should begin our leave, my lord. I’ve word that people from the surrounding settlements are traveling here. They are uneasy.”
Mithras gave a curt nod, then turned to me, expectant.
“Take me with you to Istralla,” I begged. Take me with you so I can be with Elliot. The request sounded pathetic and whiny, like that of a child, but I didn’t care. “I’ll clean or serve however I can.”
“What you wish for does not matter. Lest that wish speak of Maker-given goodness.” Mithras’s face was impassive, but wisps of fury lurked underneath. He held me by my bindings, gripping the rope hard enough that I wouldn’t be able to run. “Finish your goodbye. You will not get another.”
Light and shadow, mingling with dust, leather, and woodsmoke, billowed through the barn as my family embraced me. The goodbye was horrible; it was an impossible attempt at finding meaning in what would likely be our final moments. Mother and Father, Corrupt, would be purified and buried in Istralla. Elliot would grow up alone and become a member of the Light Legion.
And I—
My fate was hopeless and heavy. A wretched sentence that involved the Shadow Bringer’s grave.
Dread roiled in my stomach, cold and sick. I shoved the sensation aside, unwilling to confront it, instead trying to focus on my family—Father, Mother, Elliot—and failing at that, too. My head was throbbing, spinning in a thousand different directions.
Outside, the Norhavellis Corrupt were tied and gathered in a single-file line, ready to be marched to Citadel Firstlight. Norhavellians, wide-eyed and furious. Eyes wet with tears. Eyes burning with newfound anger and hopelessness. Dark eyes—shadowed eyes. Dead eyes.
I swallowed a scream.
I had thought that the Shadow Bringer’s castle was a hellish nightmare, but that wasn’t even close to the truth. This was Hell. This was a nightmare.
And this was now my life .
