“Good lass.” He held up three necklaces of dried, white reeds. From each hung a circular pendant made of polished wood. “These are Waning Amulets infused with the magic of the moon. It will cloak you from the demon.”
A foreign spell. One he must have found within his many magic books. The rune for concealment marked each amulet: a single line connected with an inverted triangle on both ends. It matched the one he already wore.
He handed her two of them. “Be sure to wear it.”
Young Dyna nodded, stroking the smooth grooves of the carving with her thumb. She placed the smaller amulet over Lyra’s head to rest on her chest.
“Dress warm,” he ordered. “I’ll wake Thane.”
Dyna backed up against the wall, knowing what was coming. Her father turned toward her brother when a frigid chill blasted through the room. It extinguished the fire, leaving behind mere wisps of smoke. Her rapid breaths shot visible puffs into the air as it grew frightfully cold.
Silver moonlight slipped in through the window, stretching wide across the wooden floorboards. It offered a brief solace in the dark—until a shape moved into its place.
Dyna was suddenly her younger self again, impossibly small, and terrified. “Father …” she whimpered. “The Shadow is coming.”
“Quiet!” he whispered.
They kept still, but she dragged her gaze to the window. A black form filled the frame, akin to a man’s but large and misshapen. Tendrils of smoke and shadow swelled around its translucent profile. From its shapeless face were two eyes glowing molten red, flickering with flame. The amulet slipped through her shaking fingers and clattered to the floor.
The demon’s eyes found her. They cut into her with an enthrallment, freezing her limbs in place. She was stone, and she was ice, locked within the walls of her consciousness. The frozen air crushed her lungs, snuffing out her screams. She drowned in desperation to escape. The cold grasp on her mind squeezed tighter and tighter.
Her father snatched up the fallen amulet and dropped it around her neck. Its magic cut through the trance and released her. She sucked in a deep breath, air searing down her throat.
The Shadow’s furious roar shook the foundation of the house to her bones.
Dyna shrieked, stumbling into the rocking chair in a panic to run away. Her father took her face in his calloused hands and made her focus on him. “Hush now, Dynalya, you are safe,” he faintly. “As long as you have the amulet, it cannot see you.”
She shook her head. It was too late.
“Papa?” Thane sat up on his bed, rubbing the sleep from his face.
The demon’s molten eyes snapped to the boy left unprotected. Thane’s expression dulled, mouth slacking as he fell under the Shadow’s trance.
“No!” Her father’s cry raised the hair on Dyna’s neck.
Time paused. The events around her slowed into a cruel rendition out of her control. No matter how many times she had seen this moment, or how many times she willed another outcome nothing changed.
She screamed Thane’s name as her father lunged to save him. But the window shattered—and the Shadow came.
Chapter 1
Dynalya
Shrill screams tore through Dyna’s throat. The terror wrenched her racing heart, threatening to tear it out of her chest. Adrenaline spiked through her veins, and blood rushed in her roaring ears. Hands grabbed her, holding her down. She thrashed and fought against them, screaming and screaming.
“Hush, hush, sister! It’s me! I’m here!” The familiar voice slipped through the manacles of Dyna’s nightmare, snicked into the lock, and broke her free. “I’m here,” the voice soothed. “You’re safe.”
Small, gentle hands came over Dyna’s cheeks. She looked up at her little sister’s face, the delicate features etched in concern. Lyra’s presence banished all shadows the way the sun banished the night.
But even the sun had to set by the end of the day.
Dyna broke into gasping sobs. She clutched her sister in a crushing embrace but Lyra didn’t complain.
If only she could stop time and keep Lyra safe where no putrid darkness could reach her. But wishing would not amount to anything—a lesson learned long ago.
Dyna inhaled a deep, shaky breath when her cries eventually quieted. She loosened her grasp on her sister and let her numb arms drop onto their bed.
“Are you all right?”
Dyna nodded and rubbed her swollen eyes. Sweat-matted strands of hair stuck to her temples, mounds of blankets tangled around her legs.
Lyra sat back on her heels. Her red tresses, braided in two coils on her head, were coming undone at the seams. She was every inch their mother, the same cluster of freckles adorning her cheeks, the same heart-shaped face and tawny brown eyes.
Grief swelled in Dyna’s throat as she fought the urge to weep again. Her sister was all she had left of her mother. She held out her arms, and Lyra readily fell into them.
Dyna held her as she surveyed their bedroom. It was the same one of her dreams, but the window was clear of any shadows that didn’t belong. Beyond it, the dark sky lightened as dawn kissed the skyline of the Zafiro Mountains. No fire burned in the fireplace, save for a few cindering logs. Several melted candles peppered the ledges in the room. Trails of wax hardened where they had pooled in candleholders, thick runnels leaking over the edge of shelves, end tables, and any available flat surface. Anything to keep the darkness and the past at bay.
Not much had changed in her bedroom. A small empty bed remained under the windowsill.
Dyna looked away, swallowing the wave of emotion dragging through her. She could never bring herself to get rid of the bed. On the days she was exhausted or distracted, a mirage of her little brother’s sleeping form appeared to fill its space. Sometimes Thane’s laughter echoed on the hills outside, his cheerful voice calling out to his friends. It always sounded so real.
“Was it the dark that frightened you?” Lyra asked, her small voice too laden to belong to a child of nine.
Dyna didn’t know what frightened her more. The dark? The past? Or the future?
Lyra slipped out of her tight hug and hopped off the bed. She hurried to the desk covered in a disarray of books and scrolls, where one lit candle remained. With it, she relit the others one at a time until the room filled with a warm hue. Lyra beamed in satisfaction. She was a small gangly thing, in a white chemise falling past her knees. At her sweet smile, Dyna offered a small one back.
“‘And then there was light,’” Lyra said, quoting the archaic teachings of the Sacred Scrolls. A saying their grandmother used to tell Dyna when her fear of the dark first started.
The light lifted something heavy off her, and she could breathe.
“Thank you,” Dyna murmured. Eighteen was much too old to have such a childish fear, but whenever she found herself alone in the dark, those red eyes always found her.
Lyra tilted her head. “Was it the same nightmare again? About Mother, Father, and Thane, of the night they died?”
Shards of memories cut through Dyna’s eyes, mouth and ears gathering into a broken pile on her lap. “Yes.”
Lyra returned to the bed, curled up beside her, and covered them with a blanket. She yawned, eyes falling heavy. The dawn’s morning light filtered in through the window and graced her cherubic face. Her lashes cast faint patterns on her soft cheeks. “Will you tell me about it?”