A Shadow's Tale (2 page)

‘Mother?' I murmured, still unable to tear my eyes from the picture. ‘What is that?'

Her fingertips gently touched the picture. ‘That is your father, Alexai.'

Shock and rage flashed through me. I flung the book across the room, glaring after it with my fists clenched, daring it to show me that image again. It lay on the wooden floor, splayed open, with an air of injured innocence. ‘No! That is
not
my father!' Arellan said nothing She stood up and retrieved the book, brushing it off and carefully placing it on one of the shelves. The
evil book. The one that lies.

‘I am sorry, Alexai, but that is your father. I swear it by the goddess.' She had to pause to compose herself as she sat down on the bed again. ‘There was a prophecy, that the Messenger Angel would bear children to the Prince of Darkness. All of the oracles interpreted the prophecy with the Messenger Angel being a part demon and therefore dead along with the rest of her race. The followers of Karthragan, the Demon Hunters, tricked me into the ritual.' Her pale blue eyes searched mine, seeking some element of forgiveness or belief. I sat emotionless, staring at the book, feeling dread creep into my soul, one icy drop at a time. What was I going to become?

‘That's why they called me half blood. That's why I'm dangerous.'

Arellan said nothing, reaching her arms around me to hug me close. ‘I don't care. I will never let you go.'

As the days passed by, Arellan was forced to spend less and less time with me. Senate duties kept piling up, meaning that she had little time for me. I never thought much of it. She always tried to put aside time to come and see me while being profuse in her apologies when she could not. The High Priestess had assigned a few Senators to educate me as it was deemed too dangerous for me to attend school with the other children. My studies kept me too busy to worry about my mother or to look out over the city and wish that I was allowed to leave the confines of the Senate Towers. Armen was my favourite teacher. He treated me like a normal child, without the fear disguised as hatred of the other Senators. I wasn't allowed to leave the Senate Towers, so they became my playground. Armen taught me how to play like a normal child, playing hide and seek with me through the many corridors. But there was one. One who hated every fibre of my being. Who resented my life with all his soul. Meran. For many years, I didn't understand why. It wasn't the same fear-hatred I
sensed from everyone else. This was deep-rooted. I was three years old when the first incident came to pass, when his hatred of me took a new form.

Meran was one of my tutors who, no matter how hard I tried to do things right, always found fault. That day, I had worked hard, learning to read and write with Armen. It was early in the evening, the pale violet sky outside my window turning to deeper shades of purple. Meran's lesson was the last one of the day. I was tired and looking forward to some food and curling up under my blankets. I blinked, trying hard to focus on the antidote to the certain substances that would become poisonous to me. The letters in the old book blurred with my exhaustion. It was complex, requiring exact amounts of each ingredients and precise timing. I added a Careen feather, concentrating hard on not doing anything wrong, on not warranting Meran's harsh words. I heard the subtle shift in his stature, the soft rustle of this robes as he prepared to lash out. I must have made a mistake! I scrambled to my feet, darting for cover. I didn't want to hear his words. I wanted to get away! I needed to get away! Sharp pain exploded across my back. Black blood had splattered in an arc across the floor. I fell forwards, landing heavily on the floor. Something in my mind snapped. Raw heat flooded through my muscles. Like a puppet with no will of its own, I got to my feet. I wasn't in control of anything! Everything I saw was tinted red. I saw more than before, in more detail. My head bowed, looking at my hand as if I had never seen one before. Meran cursed under his breath, backing away. My head snapped up to look at him. Fire flooded through my limbs. Darkness clouded my mind.

Waking up was difficult, as if sleep was a warm, heavy blanket that beckoned me back into its dark depths. But there was something else there. A presence close to me. I forced my eyes to open. For a moment, the bright light seared my eyes. My back
erupted in pain as I struggled to sit up. A hand touched my shoulder, gently pushing me back down. I stifled a squeak. The High Priestess Arias! She was sitting right beside me! I quickly made a formal salute, but she waved it away.

‘We are not standing on ceremony here,' she said. ‘The Healers have informed me that they have done the best they can to aid your recovery, although they have alerted me to the fact that wounds inflicted by magic are more difficult to heal than others.' She sat back for a moment, observing me with a critical silver eye. ‘When were you going to tell us about Meran? The Healers have told me that, while unconscious, you talked of his words to you. You appeared to have been quite distressed.'

I refused to look at Arias, turning my head to look at the wall. I hadn't planned on ever telling anyone. What Meran said to me held no consequence for the Synari. They had no need to know. Instead of answering Arias's question, I asked one of my own: ‘What happened to me?'

‘You underwent your first demonic crisis. The other half of your blood manifested itself. It was to be expected. You are of the average age for this to happen. You will need to be careful of what you feel in terms of emotions. Demonic magic is fuelled by strong emotion, and strong emotion will always leave you open to Demonic Possession. You will begin magical training as soon as I find a senator willing to take on the task. He or she will be able to explain this phenomenon in greater detail.' Arias stood up, marking the conversation as over, but just before she walked out of the room, she paused, one hand on the door frame. ‘In light of this occurrence, the Senate found it fit to rename you. The Synari child known as Alexai is dead. You are a new being. A true hybrid. You will now be known as ‘Shadow'. Rest well.'

For the next few days, no one dared come near my room apart from the elderly Careen who brought me food, and even she left as quickly as she could. Instead, I read. I devoured books with
my eyes. Spell books, storybooks, even extracts from the Half Demon Scriptures. There was one book, however, that I refused to touch, that sat on my bookshelves and gathered dust.
Demons
. The book that held the picture of the creature that was my father. The silver glass in the corner of my room had been shattered. I had broken it in a fit of rage. I had caught my reflection one day, a changing girl. Even now, I can clearly remember the image that had been reflected back at me. My skin had turned a pale grey, my hair a mess of black and purple, the white streak the only thing that didn't change. My eyes were a mottled bruise of violet and blue, my teeth and nails lengthening. My senses became more acute, I became stronger. With each passing day, I looked less and less like Arellan, and therefore more and more like my father. More like a monster. It was that thought that had made me smash the silver glass so that I couldn't see the horror I was becoming.

Five days after the incident, Armen came to see me. He let out a quiet ‘oof' as I jumped on him, hugging the Senator tightly, delighted to see him after my isolation. He smiled down at me with affection in his eyes. He ruffled my hair in a gesture of fondness.

‘Come, little one, I have a little treat for you.'

He took me out into the city for the first time in my life. He had instructed me to keep the hood on my cloak over my head to hide my identity, but I didn't care. I allowed myself a moment of awe as I looked at the city from an entirely new angle. After living all of my short life within the tall Senate Towers, I hadn't realised how big the other towers of the city were. They looked tiny from my window, but now it was I who was dwarfed by their stature. Armen, amused by the look on my face issued me with a challenge: I wasn't to step on the cracks between the cobblestones. Gleefully, I jumped from one cobblestone to another,
playing the game that generations of children had done before me. We reached the main street, weaving our way through the crowd to the front. I held on tightly to Armen's hand, a little unnerved by the press of people around me, yet another completely new experience. Rope had been strung between the buildings to create a barrier that stopped anyone from going into the main street, leaving a wide, clear passage. I tried to ask Armen what was happening, but he smiled and shushed me.

There was a commotion further down the line. I craned my neck to see further. Then I saw them. They always featured in my favourite books! The pegusi! Elegant equine bodies with their noble heads and slender legs completed by their giant feathered wings. A whole herd of them were charging down the cleared lane, heads tossing, muscles rippling beneath their gleaming velvet coats, a spectrum of colours from brown to orange to black to white. These were war pegusi, the mounts of the city guard. Smarter, stronger and faster than their domestic counterparts, they chose a single rider and would only take orders from them. They even shared a simple mental connection, able to feel what the other was feeling. I watched as one faltered in its stride, ears swivelling and sniffing the air. Its eye surveyed the children eager to get a closer look leaning on the makeshift fence. It took one hesitant step forwards. Then another. And another. It calmly clopped towards a delighted looking boy on the other side of the aisle. I felt a pang of jealousy and longing as he stroked the pegasus's nose. My fingers itched to stroke it too, wanting to feel if it was as soft as it looked.

‘This is the Choosing,' Armen explained. ‘They hold one every so often to recruit new people to the city guard. Whoever is chosen by a pegasus is drafted. Uh oh!' He pulled me back a little as a lone black pegasus, a giant even amongst the tallest of its kind, charged along the passage, zigzagging in the form of a creature driven mad. It crashed into the barrier not far from where I stood. I watched it admiringly. It was beautiful despite
its wildness, a black so dark that the light glinted blue on its coat and feathers, long wings flaring. A spark of lucidity cleared its rolling eyes.

‘Is it possible?' I heard Armen murmur distantly. The black pegasus stalked along the passage, sniffing at the people. A child reached out to stroke it, but the aristocratic creature snapped at him, sending the boy stumbling back. I squashed the tiny spark of hope. There was no chance that a being so beautiful would choose a filthy blooded half demon.

‘Please, take me away from here,' I pleaded to Armen. The Senator must have sensed my distress. He took my hand and started to lead me away. A loud, braying shriek shattered the air. I dared sneak a look back over my shoulder. The black giant was watching me. Me! With a movement of personified grace, the pegasus unfurled its giant wings and soared over the barrier. It trotted towards me and lowered its head to nuzzle my hands. I smiled, limiting my emotion so as not to spark off any magic, reaching up to stroke her nose. On the collar around the top of its neck was inscribed its name. Merlas. I sneaked a look between her hind legs. A doe, a female pegasus. Armen put a hand on my shoulder.

‘Congratulations,' he said quietly. He lifted me up to perch on her broad back. I suddenly felt a long way from the ground. Even though I had the physical form and height of a human seven-year-old, I had to stand on my toes and reach up in order to touch her shoulder. I leant forwards, running a hand down her neck, feeling the fine, soft hair beneath my fingers. She twisted her head round to nudge my foot, snorting quietly. I giggled, winding my fingers into her long mane, feeling the contrast between the coarse hair and her soft coat. Armen laid a hand on her neck and walked with me back to the building on the outskirts of the city where the pegusi lived.

The pegusi stables were two L-shaped blocks on the outskirts of
the city, surrounded by fields. One block was reserved for the domestic pegusi, owned and ridden by those who were not bonded to a pegasus, and a second block for the war pegusi. The main difference between them was that the war pegusi block had no doors. Each stall had the pegasus's name written on it, but the pegusi themselves were allowed to roam free. I leaned against Merlas's reclining form, snuggled against her warm belly, thinking through what I know of the pegusi. Now that I was face to face with them, I realised that I didn't know much about them at all. Armen had explained to me the two different breeds of pegasus: the slender, delicate-looking carnivorous pegusi with their long, sharp canine teeth and dished faces and the heavier, sturdier herbivorous pegusi with their long hair from their knees to their hooves and big, expressive eyes. I nestled closer to Merlas, breathing in her scent, listening to Armen arguing with one of the carers, the people who looked after the pegusi.

‘Senator Armen, you have to understand that we cannot accept a half blood amongst us. There is no way. It is too dangerous. The doe could give us so much more if we could get her to choose a different rider.'

‘How long have you been waiting for her to choose a rider?'

‘Ten years.'

‘How many Choosings?'

‘Forty and three.'

‘If we separate her from Shadow, she will go back to her uncontrollable state. Do you really wish to return to that?'

I could sense the defeat coming from the carer as he spoke. ‘No.'

‘I do not mean to say that she should join the City Guard. Goddess knows, Arias would not allow it, but do not separate them. Merlas will calm down and Shadow will have a reason to try to keep herself under control now that our beloved High Priestess has forbidden her mother to see the child. For us, it makes the situation easier. The child keeps calm with the doe,
and the doe becomes controllable. It appears to be what is known as a ‘win-win' situation, no?'

‘But sir—'

‘Yane,' Armen's voice held a hint of warning. ‘Merlas belongs to me. I agreed to let my own doe be used for that experiment, and it failed. Now, the two half bloods have found solace in each other and
you will not separate them.'