This one is for you, Handsome, for believing in me
when I don’t have the strength to believe in myself.
You are my true love, my hero.
And you have great hair.
Shades: Disembodied spirit-beings who have escaped from their hellish dimension—the Haunts—and entered the mortal world. They cannot exist in a physical reality without mortal hosts, whom they possess and endow with unnatural powers. If left unchecked, they will gain ascendancy within a host-body and oust the original soul, taking full possession.
The following are the known varieties of shades as catalogued by the Order of Saint Evander:
ANATHEMAS
Abilities pertain to blood and curse-casting.
APPARITIONS
Abilities pertain to mind control and manipulation.
ARCANES
Mysterious entities with abilities not fully understood, but which seem to pertain to energies such as heat, motion, light, magnetism, and electricity.
ELEMENTALS
Abilities pertain to the natural elements of wind, fire, water, earth.
EVANESCERS
Abilities pertain to evanescing, or instantaneous distance-travel.
FERALS
Abilities pertain to heightened senses, augmented strength and agility.
LURES
Abilities pertain to enchanting voices and siren calls.
SEERS
Abilities pertain to visions, foretelling, and predictions. May also look into the past.
SHIFTERS
Abilities pertain to temporary transformation of host-bodies.
TRANSMUTERS
Abilities pertain to the transformation and manipulation of material substances.
Cerine stood on the battlements of the highest tower of Dunloch Castle. Winter winds whipped through the thin fabric of her gown, knifing her skin, for she had forgotten to wear a cloak when she limped up the tower stairs and assumed this solitary watch from above. Yet she barely felt the cold.
Her gaze was fixed on the Witchwood, a dark stain on the eastern horizon.
She’d taken up this position several hours ago now, while the sun was yet high. It was beginning to set behind her now. Soon night would cover the land. But the darkness hovering on the far horizon had nothing to do with nightfall. It had spread throughout the day, even when the sun was at its highest point in the heavens. It poured out across the countryside of Wodechran Borough, a slow creep at first, now a flood. Through that darkness, Cerine watched a gleam of blue like a lighthouse lantern cutting through the storm, warning of disaster ahead. Yet somehow her soul felt drawn toward that glow rather than repelled by it. Perhaps disaster was her destiny.
The destiny of all Perrinion.
She started suddenly at a cold touch on her hand and looked down into the sweet round face of Nilly du Bucheron. The child had crept up the tower stairs on silent feet and now slipped her little fingers into Cerine’s, gripping tight. A strange light gleamed in the child’s eyes, the only physical sign of the inborn spirit dwelling inside her.
Cerine’s throat tightened, but she squeezed Nilly’s hand gently. “Tell me,” she said, “can you see the end? Can you see what this night will bring?”
She didn’t ask the question she longed to put to the little Seer, the question that burned on her tongue, burned in her heart. To speak it aloud would be to give way to her fear, which she could not do. Not now. Not while she still drew breath.
Nilly turned away from Cerine, gazing out across the frozen Holy Lake, across the forests and fields of Wodechran Borough, but seeing far beyond. No doubt her shadow sight carried much farther than the limits of Cerine’s mortal vision. But she said nothing. She offered no prophecy, bestowed no vision.
Instead, she leaned into Cerine’s side and buried her little face into the folds of her skirt.
Cerine choked back the sob welling in her throat and wrapped the girl close, grateful in that moment for this small, trembling body. Nilly might possess powers beyond mortal imagining. But just now she needed Cerine’s strength. And Cerine could be strong for others if she had to be. Even when she couldn’t be strong for herself.
Her left hand tightened into a fist, crushing the parchment she held. The unopened letter. Gerard’s letter. Her lips moved, forming the words of a prayer song, whispering them into the winter wind.
“GoddessHead have mercy. GoddessHeart have mercy. GoddessSoul have mercy.”
The sun set. Shadow fell across the land, relieved by neither stars nor moon nor heavenly bodies. Only that distant blue glow on the eastern horizon.
Ayleth flung herself against the wall so hard she knocked the breath out of her lungs. Air burst from her mouth in a great gust, churning the oblivis in front of her face. The dark particles glinted like flying sparks.
Stones were sharp against her shoulder blades, each block cut like a large faceted gem. The alley she’d ducked into was as dark as pitch, and if she’d been limited to mortal sight, she would be completely blind.
But this wasn’t a real world. The rules of reality didn’t apply here.
The edges of her body fogged, morphed, trying to disintegrate. It was only a mental image, a projection created by her mind to give herself substance in this dream. She knew none of it was real, but the knowledge didn’t make her surroundings any less vivid, less convincing.
Summoning courage, she angled herself to peer from the alley, scanning the road she’d just sprinted down. Oblivis filmed the air, especially thick along the ground, as if it rose from the paving stones themselves. The dense fog of it obscured details of the tall buildings on either side of the road but couldn’t obscure the overall sense of towering hugeness. Ayleth, who had never walked in a real city in her life, shuddered.
On impulse she reached out with her senses, searching for the soul tether linking her to her shade, grasping at that presence and those powers she was so used to having readily available. But somewhere far away in the world of matter and reality, her body lay unconscious, hands bound in iron shackles. The influence of iron penetrating her skin, blood, and spirit drove her shade into deep suppression. Laranta couldn’t reach her, not in that world and not in this dream. The soul tether connecting them remained intact, but it was drawn so thin that Ayleth could scarcely detect it at all.
She was alone.
The oblivis drifting lazily on soft currents and eddies of air suddenly seemed to shimmer and vibrate, charged with an energy that increased by the moment. Ayleth’s breath caught, and a stone fist squeezed her pounding heart. She needed to pull back into the alley, to hide, but somehow couldn’t tear her gaze away.
A shadow approached down the center of the road, a figure without clear form or feature. The oblivis in the air around it flared brighter with shadow-light, creating a pulsing aura and outline. As it approached, the negative space at its center seemed to solidify, becoming the recognizable silhouette of a tall, thin woman. No eyes gleamed in that space where a head should be. Nevertheless, Ayleth felt a gaze searching for her.
At the last possible moment she pulled back behind the wall, too frozen with terror to move. It was a hopeless game of cat and mouse. This entire world—the images of the tall buildings, the paving stones beneath her feet, even the alley in which she hid—all of it was illusion. Only the oblivis was real, truly real.