The blue fires in her eyes were dimmer than when she’d first arrived. I wondered if the presence of light had something to do with it. The Shade was a dark place, after all, and if she relied on light to power herself up, I could see why she’d said she wasn’t strong enough here.
“Myst,” she finally said. “My name is Myst.”
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Thayen replied, trying not to smile. His eyes sparkled in shades of azure. I’d never seen him like this. There was more to his intense curiosity about her—a subtle edge I didn’t quite understand. I had a hard time reading his spiritual aura while she was around, that much was certain. Myst was an absolutely stunning sight to behold. Even I found myself in awe of her. “And where do you come from? What are you?”
“That is none of your business,” she shot back sternly, sheathing her marvelous sword. The bare glow of this clearing twinkled in the gems encrusted in the bone handle. It was the most beautiful weapon I’d ever seen—strange, to see such artistry on an object designed for violence and death. But something told me this wasn’t a regular sword. It had captured light, and it had used that light against the darkness itself. No, this was more than just a weapon. “You have my name, and that will have to do. It matters not where I am from. Obviously, I’m not from here.”
“Yes. And we’re fighting the same enemy, aren’t we?” Thayen asked. “The clones and the shadow creatures.”
Myst raised an eyebrow. “Clones. That makes sense. Copies… That’s why there were more than one of each in some places, yes…”
“They were modeled after us. After our people,” I said. “We’ve come to rescue the originals they’ve stolen from our island. This isn’t the real Shade. This… I don’t know what this is.”
“Me neither,” Myst replied, looking around with a mixture of wariness and suspicion. “I only know it’s crooked and wrong, from every point of view. It doesn’t belong anywhere. It’s not supposed to be here. Or anywhere.”
Soph scoffed. “I’m confused.”
“It’s not safe,” Myst insisted. “They’ll come back. The shadows. They like the darkness. They thrive in it.”
“And you thrive in the light, if I’m not wrong,” Thayen said. “You fuel your weapon with light, don’t you?”
She glanced down at the sheathed blade, then nodded slowly. “Which is why I doubt I’ll be able to protect you again when the beasts return.”
“What were those things, exactly? And who was the one controlling them?” Thayen asked, his brow slightly furrowed. We were still haunted by that particular encounter, and a connection between Myst and the shadow giant seemed to worry him. “He had eyes like yours, and the shadows reacted to his whip. At least I think it was a whip he was holding—I couldn’t make out much in the darkness.”
Myst let out a heavy breath while I listened to our surroundings. It was silent. Too silent for my comfort. Not a hint of wind or a rustle of leaves. Just dead silence, as though this whole place was nothing more than a tomb. Maybe it was just that, a cemetery, and we’d died… doomed to fight these tenebrous phantoms for all eternity. Maybe the clone invasion of The Shade had claimed our lives without us even knowing it. No, that didn’t make much sense. We would’ve been reaped. No. Judging by the heart that kept pounding in my chest, we were all very much alive and kicking.
“His name is Haldor,” Myst said, her voice uneven. “He is strong here. I am not.”
“Where did Haldor come from? What is he? Or is he from this place?” I asked, following Thayen’s line of questioning. For all her splendor, Myst didn’t seem like the sharing type, so I braced myself for plenty of stone walls going forward—supposing she’d stick around. The look on her face said otherwise. She was restless. Looking for a way out.
“Haldor isn’t from this realm, but he has made it his home, it seems. He and others like him. It’s not right,” Myst muttered, hand slowly reaching for her sword once more. I only had to observe her frame stiffening to realize that our troubles were nowhere near over.
Finally, sounds emerged from the almost-black redwood forest. Sounds I’d hoped I wouldn’t hear again. Steps that cracked twigs and crushed dried leaves. Creatures of the night that hissed with hunger and malice. Growling as they closed in on their prey. We were not hunters in this world. We were the hunted. “They’re coming back,” I warned.
Soph’s claws were already out, fangs sharp and eager to tear flesh from bones. I wasn’t sure if there would be anything for her to bite into. The shadow creatures certainly didn’t have the form or the mass for it. They were sentient wisps of darkness with flaming blue eyes and the ability to tear us apart, limb from limb. Jericho’s hands burst with orange fireballs as he took a defensive stance. Dafne stayed close, ready to shift into her dragon form, though I wondered what good it would do. Myst was the one to voice our thoughts in a single most effective sentence: “These monsters are darkness. Ghosts of the past, forced into Haldor’s service. You will need light to defeat them. Everything else is useless.”
“How do you know? Have you fought such creatures before today?” Thayen asked.
“I never thought I’d see this. My kind and Haldor’s were supposed to be united beneath the same authority. What they’re doing here, it… it boggles the mind. It’s wrong on so many levels,” Myst muttered, carefully watching the darkness just ahead. I could see why that particular spot had caught her attention.
A pair of eyes like hers materialized from the blackness.
“Jericho, might we get some light, please?” Thayen said, following Myst’s worried gaze.
The dragon fae complied and threw out a massive circle of roaring flames, enough to keep the approaching monsters at bay. Myst looked at me. “You have light, as well. I need some. Please.”
She took out her sword and held it straight. I nodded once and pressed my palms against its cold blade, chills tumbling down my spine with childlike delight. This was unlike anything I had seen and done before, yet it made sense to me—even though I couldn’t explain it in words. My hands glowed pink as I summoned the light within, allowing it to flow into the weapon.
Within seconds, as the blood rushed through my veins like an electrical current, the blade illuminated like a blinding beacon. The light spread around us, accomplishing more than the circle of flames. It showed everything that the darkness of the forest had been hiding. The deep claw marks that had ravaged the trunks of every redwood nearby. The dried blood drizzled across the forest floor. The shadowy silhouettes that loathed us. And the giant man with blue flames for eyes, a whip in his left hand and a black cloak streaming down his right shoulder.
“There he is,” Thayen breathed, and I could almost feel his horror as though it were mine. “Haldor…”
“I’m warning you!” Myst shouted, loud enough for the shadow-man to hear. “Leave them alone. Don’t make this any worse for yourself. A judgment awaits you, Haldor.”
We heard his dry chuckle, though we couldn’t see his face. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, Myst. You don’t belong here.”