Prologue
Dynalya
The snowstorm howled and rattled the window, wailing a warning to run, hide, and pray to the Gods, but there was no hope of escaping what had arrived with the night. Dyna turned in place in her bedroom, this dreaded room she couldn’t escape.
At the familiar creak of old wood, Dyna glanced at the nine-year-old version of herself sitting in the rocking chair by the fireplace. She held a bundle of blankets wrapped around her baby sister. Her wide green eyes stared out the window, watching the storm. The evergreen trees thrashed in the violent wind, threatening to snap in half and wrench free from the earth. In the moon’s gleam, snow whipped like diamond dust; its beauty lost to the darkness surrounding her family’s cottage.
Dread crept up Dyna’s back.
Her younger counterpart clutched baby Lyra as she rocked her, feet pushing off the floorboards in a nervous pace. She knew they both sensed something sinister hiding within the darkness. Instinct prickled Dyna’s skin in warning, tightening her limbs.
The Shadow was watching.
The thought came unbidden, a familiar call, a warning of what was to come.
“Get up!” she shouted at her child-self. “Run!”
Younger Dyna didn’t hear her.
They both flinched at the spark of embers that burst from the logs in the fireplace. The fire struggled to heat the small space of the bedroom, smothered by the cold clinging to the air. The flames cast an array of disturbing shapes on the walls. They stretched and writhed, creeping toward the ceiling.
Thane, her younger brother, slept in his small bed beneath the windowsill. His mouth was propped open in a slight pout from where his chubby cheeks were pressed against his pillow. Her heart ached. He was so small, and precious. She walked over to him, wishing she could brush back the curtain of red ringlets dangling over his forehead.
The sound of her parents’ voices slipped through the crack beneath the door like a draft whispering secrets.
“Cease to argue with me on this, Ayla. We are leaving. This instant.”
She gasped at the sound of his voice, feeling her eyes well with tears. “Father!” Dyna rushed to the door, but it would not open. She could not reach them. She banged her fists against it, crying out to them. “Mother! Father!”
A clatter of movement beyond the door followed a rustle of fabric. “Pack as many provisions as you can carry and dress warmly.”
“The council deemed the village safe, Baden,” her mother insisted. “We needn’t leave.”
“The council knows nothing. I’ve tried to tell them, but they refuse to listen. The winter solstice has arrived, and the Third Shadow Winter has come with it.”
The definitive tone of his claim sent a chill down Dyna’s back. She glanced at her younger self, who also listened, her wide eyes on the door.
“I don’t understand. Your father already defeated the Shadow at its last coming.”
“Aye, as did my grandfather ten years before him. It always returns.”
Trepidation skulked into the house, filling the heavy pause. Having been born two years after the Shadow’s last coming, Dyna’s younger self had only heard tales of the demon, dark tales of it swallowing children whole in the dead of night.
She rose from the rocking chair and tip-toed to the door to peek out through the crack. Dyna peeked with her but the foyer limited their view of the apothecary. She could only see the small round dining table covered in glass bottles and dried herbs. Her parents were in the kitchen.
She strained to push the door open. She needed to see them, to embrace them, to warn them.
“I’ve made my decision, Ayla.”
“You will have us leave in the middle of this storm? Where are we to go?”
He sighed. “Belzev offered us shelter in Lykos Peak until winter’s end.”
“God of Urn, are you mad? We can’t take the children there.”
“It will be much safer than here. He has sent Zev to meet us.”
Dyna closed her eyes at the mention of her cousin. He would arrive too late.
“We need to leave the village,” her father continued. “Don’t you understand? It’s coming. Tonight.”
“You think we will fare any better out there? To reach Lykos Peak, we must pass through the Forbidden Woods. Do you mean to take us to our death?”
“Enough! I have spoken, and I’ll not suffer you to argue with me on this matter!” The booming command vibrated through their small cottage before settling with a dreadful silence. Soft weeping soon followed.
Dyna’s younger self gasped, stunned. Father had always been a soft-spoken man.
“Forgive me.”
Her mother sniffled. “I’m frightened.”
“As am I,” he admitted, his voice trembling in a way it never had before. “I watched, helpless, as the Shadow took my sister at its last coming.”
“Oh, Baden.”
“I don’t fear to die. I fear what may befall my family. I have been plagued by nightmares of that night for the past year. Now I fear my past will repeat itself, and that is a future I cannot bear.”
Dyna looked over her shoulder at the window. The time had come. The Shadow was coming.
She yelled at her younger self to move, to go to her parents, to do something. But she didn’t. As a child, she knew better than to interrupt them when she should have been asleep.
“Please, we must go,” her father begged.
“I will follow you,” her mother said at last. He released a long exhale of relief. “But if what you say is true, then the Shadow must be out there.”
“For that, I have prepared. I’ve made cloaking amulets for us all,” he said.
Dyna heard a faint clink. She pictured him removing the lid from the ceramic bowl he kept on his cluttered desk among the dusty magic books.
“Luna reeds. Where did you get these? They only grow in Magos.”
“Aye, and they were difficult to acquire,” he said. “Here, take two. It masks everything but sound. As long as you’re quiet, you’ll be safe. Go for Leyla while I wake the children.”
Her mother’s thudding footsteps ran out the front door, off to collect Grandmother Leyla. “No, we should not separate!” Dyna shouted. “Come back!”
Her younger self backed away from the door and tucked baby Lyra in the woven shawl wrapped around her shoulders.
The door swung open, and her father entered. Dyna inhaled a breath at the sight of him, stifling a sob. She reached out her shaking hands, calling him. “Father, see me. Hear me, please.”
Dressed in furs and thick wool, he carried a large canvas pack strapped to his back. He brushed his unruly red hair aside, his face set with calm determination. Her father was not tall or strapping, but he was a man of repute in North Star, among the rare few who wielded magic. He would keep them safe. Her younger self had believed it so thoroughly she smiled.
Foolish girl.
“You need to run!” Her screams went unheard.
His astute green eyes swept around the room as he accounted for all his children. “Dynalya, are you ready?” He smiled, but she read the urgency in his gaze.
“Yes, Father.” Her younger self pointed at the two small travel bags packed and perched by the bedroom door.