A gentle wind lapped against my cheek, bringing with it the deep, lingering scent of a forest at midnight. It swept along the curves of the pillows below me, stirring up notes of juniper and rain.
I sighed in contentment, happily stuck in the in-between of wakefulness and sleep. It wasn’t often that Elliot allowed an open window while we slept—something about him and a fear of birds—but he must have decided that the fresh air was worth the risk.
And Mother must be burning a new candle—or mixing some new curative.
I breathed deeper, trying to decide what the scent reminded me of. The Visstill? No, it was too complex, too dusty . It smoldered with something like incense, something similar to old wood, and twisted itself around a mist-covered field brimming with wild, beautiful things.
It was divine.
Elliot curled up next to me, his breathing even and slow. I smiled to myself as I listened to him breathe, reminiscing back to the days where he’d pile all his blankets and stuffed animals onto my bed so that he’d be protected from all sorts of things: winter winds that leaked into the creaking walls of our attic room, loneliness, or even the watchful eyes of a monster in the shadows. He was braver than he realized, my brother. Though he never quite understood why.
I reached out to tousle his hair, finding instead the stiff, cold skin of his neck.
“You’re freezing Ell,” I said, tossing him one of the blankets that towered over me. I adjusted my reach, curling a hand in his hair. It felt softer than usual—not tangled and coarse. “Mother finally got you to brush your hair, huh?”
Elliot didn’t answer, so I cracked open an eye.
And about jumped out of my skin.
Sleeping next to me, nestled deep in an extravagant pile of pillows, was the Shadow Bringer. Black armor clung to his half-blanketed body, darker than ink and lustrous with newness and quality. Not a single piece was out of place; gone was any trace of the tattered, injury-soaked material of his earthly attire. And the Bringer himself was back to his true form: mouth irritatingly tempting, skin clean and bloodless, and moon-white hair pooling over the velvet beneath him.
His eyes flicked open, their pale grey irises finding mine. “This is how I am,” he murmured, voice thick with sleep. “Cold.” He gestured to where my hand still clung to his hair, and I choked on my response, scrambling to the farthest edge of the bed.
A strange half-smile ghosted his lips as he settled back into the pillows.
“It’s good to see you, Esmer.”
“You tricked me,” I ground out, embarrassment shifting into something coherent and sharp. My new weapon prickled under my skin, dancing with anticipation. “You put me on that stone so that I would replace you here. How could you?”
For a moment, he looked ready to deny it. Then he said, fixing me with a bright, unbreakable stare, “I did—and it was a mistake. I shouldn’t have left you here alone. It won’t happen again.”
I was not expecting an apology.
Nor for him to look like he did, expressive lips caught in an earnest expression.
“What have you been doing all this time? Spreading Corruption, growing your army of demons?” At his silence I barreled on, grabbing his shoulder without thinking. Even over his armor, his body was so cold . It felt like I was touching a corpse, not a man with blood running through his veins. “Who have you killed? What evil have you—”
“Unspeakable evil,” he answered seriously, mouth slanting into an expression that showed part of his teeth. “In one year, I razed Noctis to the ground and forced all of humanity into chaos and war.” Shadows rippled from his eyes, spinning like smoke. “All but those I deemed worthy are Corrupt.”
“You’re mocking me,” I seethed, moving to swipe at the rising shadows. He caught me before I could; while he felt cold, his body was solid, a weapon meant for battle and bloodshed. “I’ve only been here a few days. A year is impossible.”
“A year entire,” he confirmed, his smile growing wider. “Haven’t you figured out that the Realm works differently than your mortal world?” As he moved to still my thrashing, blankets shifting down from his body, I had the sudden realization that the scent of juniper, incense, and rain was him . Against my better judgment, a warm flush raced across my skin. “A year has passed, and my demon army is infinite, nourished by Corrupted souls. We are thousands strong, and I’ve returned to be their king.”
“Liar ,” I hissed. “How can you command your demons if they’re gone?” His eyes flashed, revealing the smallest shred of disbelief. Had he finally noticed the silence beyond his chambers? I continued, imagining the rage that was surely churning within him. “They escaped off your balcony—they’re free . If you hadn’t left the tomb, they’d still be here.”
Shadows rioted around his arm and swept over the skin where my sword hid. I dug my fingernails into my palms, readying myself for the fight that was surely about to come. I could still smell the blood of Elliot’s demon; I had reduced it from a colossus into nothing at all.
Use what you’ve been given and conquer all that you face.
The Bringer had tricked me. Baited me into taking his place. I had felt sympathy for him before—a likeness, even. But maybe that had all been for a reason—to get me here where I was at this moment, his exposed throat a mere breath from my hidden blade. Maybe this was my destiny—to rid the world of the Shadow Bringer.
He sat up straight, smile vanishing. “Esmer, I never left the tomb. I tried for days, but the stone wouldn’t move.”
“I—what?” The shadows stilled and the blade in my palm felt distant; it slid away, no longer interested in a fight. “What do you mean you never left? So you really were lying—”
“I wouldn’t say lying , exactly. I thought you knew I was joking.”
“No one in my position would have assumed you were joking,” I snapped, incredulous. My pulse was racing; I didn’t know why. “You betrayed me.”
“I don’t blame you for your hatred, if that’s what you feel,” he breathed, turning his back to me and putting his feet on the floor. “I had intended for you to take my spot, guarding the castle until I finished taking my revenge. It was a selfish and reckless mistake.”
“Well, because of you and your reckless choices, the demons escaped. I couldn’t contain them. I had no chance .”
He nodded, mouth set in a grim line. “If the demons are truly gone, Corruption will spread ruthlessly. It will be far worse than ever before.”
“And I’m just supposed to believe you? How do I know you aren’t lying to me now?”
The Shadow Bringer ran a gauntlet through his hair, appearing quite vexed. “Because guilt very nearly devoured me as I watched you sleep,” he murmured. He made a small sound of disbelief, as if he could hardly understand it himself. “Is that enough to convince you I’m sincere?”
I shook my head vehemently. “No, it’s not enough.”
A resounding crack thrummed from the ceiling, sending a web of hair and a massive chandelier crashing to the ground. Dark stones ricocheted across the floor, cracking against the bed, and an obsidian statuette the size of my forearm slammed into the Bringer’s back as Somnus unfurled from the rubble.
“Your escalating personal drama, albeit enthralling as it may be, is distracting.” Somnus plucked one of the chandelier’s arms from where it tangled in his hair, eyes narrowing in distaste. “Your castle is a wreck, Shadow Bringer. Have you not had enough time to do something about it?”
“Somnus,” the Bringer snarled, shadows writhing about his shoulders and down the length of his hands. The room darkened, shadows deepening and drawing near.
“Shall we talk, or do you insist on violence?”
“There are no words .”
The Bringer let loose a primal, gut-wrenching roar as he leapt into Somnus. Shadows tore over them like a crashing wave, and they both fell through the front of the chamber, tumbling down to the floor below. I staggered out of the canopied bed, glancing at the hole where the chandelier once hung. A wisp of a blanket, one of the Bringer’s silk-lined ones, hung by a corner in the rafters, the only evidence of where Somnus had made his perch.
Had Somnus slept there?
“I have spent centuries imagining how I’d kill you all!” the Bringer bellowed, snarling again as a massive crash echoed up through the chamber. Somnus’s laugh rang out, clear and full of mirth. “You are not allowed to come here —” Crash. Bang. Crack. “—and tell me what to do.”
Another mirthful laugh echoed up, forcing another roar from the Bringer.
I ventured to the stairs leading to the Bringer’s room, tucking back into what was left of the wall, and watched as the shadows poured below, seeping from cracks, corners, and under the edges of furniture. They billowed out from holes in the walls and floor, swept out from the underside of my hair. All rushing, desperately, to the Shadow Bringer’s side as he raged.
And rage he did.
The Shadow Bringer was wrath embodied, his shadows a vengeful sea of bite and fury. With a slash of his hands they rose as one, and with a dip of his shoulders they eddied under and around him. They moved as he moved; he was a living, breathing shadow himself.
It was difficult not to stare—to not gape in wonder as he fought.
But Somnus moved like a shadow, too.
The Weaver of the Past was true to his name, flitting in and out of sight as though he were no more than an afterthought, a slip of some long-forgotten memory. The Bringer’s shadows couldn’t reach—couldn’t quite wrap their tendrils around his ghostly form. He swirled around the room in wide, sweeping flashes, dodging the castle’s deteriorating structure with the ease of a centuries-old legend.
Then it stopped.
The shadows slowed to a drip, inching forward like a crawling, sluggish thing, quivering around the Bringer’s body as he halted midair, his face twisted in pure, unadulterated wrath. Somnus stood before him, lacing threads of silver through the air. They coiled outward, holding back the Bringer in an enormous web.
Somnus walked to a mostly upright armchair, sinking into it with a sigh. “And greetings to you too, Shadow Bringer. Willful as ever, I see.” He thrummed the edge of the chair, vacantly draping a leg over a piece of rubble like a footrest. “I thought the years would have aged you. Though I cannot recall your hair being quite so pale, and you’re quite a degree more angry than you ever were.”
The Bringer, frozen in time, fought to speak, jaw clenching and eyes wild.
“What is that? I seem to hear something, but it eludes me,” Somnus murmured, feigning a deeply troubled stare around the room. When his gaze sharpened back to the Bringer, his lips angled up in a serpentine grin. “Ah, but you appear to be stuck in my web. Allow me to free you.” The web gleamed, visibly loosening around the Bringer’s upper half.
The Shadow Bringer took a deep, ragged breath. “Let me down .”
“My apologies,” Somnus said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper, “but my web will not loosen. You understand.”
The Bringer’s only answer was a curse under his breath.
“Esmer, come join us,” Somnus beckoned, motioning a bone-white hand in my direction. I took a seat atop an overturned chest, careful that its broken edges didn’t cut the backs of my legs. “We have much to discuss.”
The Bringer cursed again. “Do we, now? I don’t recall—”
Somnus threaded his fingers through the web; at his touch, the silvery threads tightened, earning a grunt of discomfort from the Shadow Bringer. “Oh, we do. And since your memories have returned—at least in part—I am finally able to intervene. That, and the demons’ escape broke the barrier preventing me from visiting you. However, I have a suspicion—” A thread quickly trimmed a piece of the Shadow Bringer and I’s hair, and another thread launched them toward a hole in the ceiling. As soon as the locks touched the air beyond the ceiling, they burned, shriveling into puffs of ash. I flinched, horrified. “—that something is still preventing you both from leaving this place.”
“Do you want us to be able to leave?” I asked, incredulous.
It would be strange—unbelievable, even—to think that the Weavers would desire the Shadow Bringer’s freedom. But perhaps they needed his help in gathering or destroying the lost demons. If that was the case, I’d desire his freedom, too.
Mithras’s voice rang clear though my memories, a frantic warning.
So above all else, do not harm the Shadow Bringer, and do not release him from his tomb or his castle. We need him there. I need him there. Swear to me, Esmer. Do not release him.
I shoved Mithras’s voice aside, trying to stay focused. Perhaps he’d have a different opinion now that the Shadow Bringer’s demons were released.
“It would be ideal, yes. The ward protecting this place has been broken, rendering you as vulnerable as birds with their wings clipped. That, and you can both manipulate the dark.” Somnus crossed his arms, looking to the hole in the ceiling. “Corruption is festering past the point of no return. It needs to be wiped out for good, and I have a few theories about how your abilities can help us.”
“The Weavers placed the curse to begin with,” the Bringer said, clearly exasperated. “If they desire my help, summon the rest of them here, nullify the curse, and be done with it.”
Somnus’s thin mouth tightened. “It isn’t that simple. The Seven aren’t fully convinced of your innocence, and many are still in hiding.”
“What a surprise,” the Bringer muttered, not sounding at all surprised. “So if the Weavers refuse to help and the curse has yet to be lifted, why are you here spinning webs and cutting off locks of our hair?”
“There is something dark in both of your pasts that is haunting you. Something that appears to be looking for you still.”
“The only thing haunting me is you —”
Somnus sighed, and the Bringer froze, mouth frozen in a snarl. His eyes blinked, furious; it was the only movement he was capable of. “It seems you have lost all sense of civility in your imprisonment. You are filled with rage and bitterness and not much else.” Somnus’s eyes softened a touch at this, melting into what seemed like regret or uncertainty. Then he said, turning to face me, “Esmer, perhaps you have an idea of what haunts you. I sent you to visit a dream where the darkness was strongest—what did you see there?”
A winged demon peeked over this unfurling edge, its skull ringed in horns that crowned red, smoking eyes. Where its face should be was a mask of swirling darkness .
The memory of the demon slashed through my mind, filling me with dread. “There was a demon unlike anything I’d ever seen.”
“And what did it look like?”
“It had red eyes that burned like fire and its face was like a—”
“Storm,” the Bringer finished, no longer frozen. “And it has armor. And horns.” We locked eyes, an uncertain understanding forming between us. “I dreamed of such a demon as a child. And I saw it once more before the curse began.”
“Interesting,” Somnus murmured. “Then perhaps that demon is the link.” He placed his hand upon my shoulder, looking unexpectedly sympathetic. “Esmer, I have reason to believe this demon has been hunting your family. First, your sister. Eden.” A chill raced over my skin, settling hard in my stomach. “Some years later, it found Elliot. That was the dream you experienced.” I squeezed my hands together, horrified at the truth beginning to unravel. “Most recently, it claimed your parents. Naturally, you’d be next. Or perhaps Elliot once more.”
“No, not Elliot. The Light Bringer swore he’d give my brother a life of dignity in Istralla. He’ll be taken care of, elixir and all.” I looked down at my feet, which I hadn’t realized were bare atop the castle’s chipped floor. Was I telling Somnus this to convince him or to convince myself? I wasn’t sure. “That leaves me.”
I chewed on my thumbnail, trying to come to terms with this terrifying revelation. If I dwelled too long on the fact that Elliot might be alone or in true danger, hunted by that demon with smoking eyes, I’d lose what little shred of control I had left.
The Bringer shifted in Somnus’s web, clearly uncomfortable with where this conversation was headed. “A demon hunting an entire family is unheard of, Somnus.”
Somnus smiled sadly. “It would be, yes. Except it has happened once before.”
“Once before—?” The Bringer trailed off, brow furrowed in confusion.
“You mean the Shadow Bringer and his family,” I suggested.
The Bringer shook his head again. “That’s impossible.”
“Esmer is correct. I have reason to believe this demon hunted you first, Shadow Bringer. It hungered for you, doing what it could to grow near. Even if that meant targeting your family and comrades.” Somnus paced across the floor, black hair skimming the ground behind him. “Which leads me to my proposal. I wish to send you both to visit three dreams where I sense the dark is deepest. Any more than three, and you risk getting lost. Any less, and you will not learn enough.”
“So, three dreams where this demon will be, then.”
“Theoretically, yes. Because if you can break this demon—or learn enough about it to determine why it hunts you both—then perhaps your curse will be lifted. Moreover, if it can be proven that this demon is connected to the root of Corruption—and I can see that memory lived out through your eyes in the dream—then the Weavers will be inclined to think of you both less like monsters and more like a boon.” Somnus stopped pacing. “Do we have a deal?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. If this demon truly is hunting me and my family, it must be dealt with. I need to know more about it.”
Before it can hurt Elliot.
The Shadow Bringer thrashed against the web. “He’s trying to deceive us, Esmer. If we get stuck in these dreams, we may never return to the present. It’s how he tortures his enemies.”
“So, do you not agree to my terms? Three dreams and an earnest shot at your freedom?”
“Unless your request results in both my freedom and your head atop a pike, I refuse.”
“Well, unfortunately for you, I value my head.” As if to emphasize his point, Somnus pulled his blade, its metal needle-thin and gleaming, out of his hair. “Every strand is worthy; they would serve no purpose without a life to guide them.”
“Your riddle-speak is infuriating,” the Bringer began, then stopped, meeting my eyes as the room began to shift, its every corner trembling with a strange, shimmering substance. I staggered from the chest, tripping into Somnus’s web.
“I hadn’t deemed this necessary,” Somnus droned, his voice slowing to a honeyed crawl, “but you leave me no choice.” Time around us stopped, freezing the room in silvered threads and lightless shadow. “Together, you must relive what is lost. Return to me after confronting the dark in three dreams of my choosing. However, fail this, and you will not live to see light outside these castle walls.” Somnus flashed his serpentine smile. “But upon the Maker, this I swear: your success will earn your freedom from this place. Forever.”
“We won’t serve the whims of a Weaver,” the Bringer snarled.
Somnus’s smile faded.
“Then you will die inside these walls. Your choice.”
And with that, he vanished in a swirl of black.
