Without a Shadow, page 12
“Are you all right?” Caster Shani bent down beside her. Adlai sat up, shaken. Blinking, she saw that the other students had managed to get their objects out. Just behind Shani was the ugly chair Kanwar had described. There was also a stack of books, a marble rolling pin, a tea set, and a single shoe without the laces.
“I . . .” Everyone was staring at her. Even the damn chair had its eyes on her. “I couldn’t see the coins again,” she said finally. She couldn’t tell them what she’d seen instead. The god of Death couldn’t really be in her shadow. He couldn’t really be talking to her. It had to be the shock of dying.
“We can’t move on to the next task without the coins, Adlai,” Caster Shani said. “Would you like a break? I can have the others start a new task while you take a breather.”
Adlai shook her head. She didn’t need to rest; she needed to take back control.
Power has to be seized.
She gathered her shadow to her, hand steady and determined.
Ignoring how tight her chest was and the weight of the stares, Adlai focused only on the coolness of her shadow. Her shadow. There was nothing else in there but coins. She imagined plucking each one out.
She smiled. Relief flooded her as the familiar weight of coins filled her palm. It was hardly a fortune, two domes and six turns, but each coin sent a thrill through her as though she was holding precious jewels.
“Excellent.” Caster Shani beamed at her. “Now to trick your partner.”
Caster Shani paired the class up. Adlai had hoped to be with Nadir but was partnered with Kanwar instead. If possible, he looked even less happy about the pairing, and not for the first time she wished that Erikys had come to the class.
“Nadir, Adlai, and Jacs,” Caster Shani said, “turn around. The rest, take an object. And mind, you can change them up. Take the cover off the chair, put a coin in the pages of a book. Do something or nothing, just as you please.”
Adlai turned to face the window, squinting at the ghostly reflections to try and see what Kanwar was picking to hide in his shadow. She couldn’t, of course. She would have to rely on her shadow doing as she wished, or for Kanwar to be unoriginal enough that she could guess.
But his face gave nothing away when it was time to turn back around. She took a breath and drew her shadow out. An icy feeling passed over her but she ignored it, standing more steadily than before. Inch by inch, she moved her shadow forward, toward his. She imagined his shadow as an object. Not something she wanted to steal, but a coat pocket, perhaps. A very large, smoking coat pocket. Inside was the shiny thing she needed.
Her shadow overlapped his and she stumbled suddenly from the physical pull her shadow attempted. As though it had wanted to pull his shadow into hers. Kanwar locked eyes with her. Anger flashing in them.
“What are you doing?” he snapped from across the room.
It felt like her shadow had tried to seize Kanwar’s. She shook her head, bewildered. Clenching her hands into fists she forced herself to concentrate on the task. It wasn’t his shadow she wanted but what was inside it. Images flashed through her mind: the chair cover, the cups from the tea set, the coins. Only these came to her in the normal way images came to mind—by thinking them. It wasn’t the same as when she’d seen the coins in her mind’s eye. That had been real. Something she’d known, like focusing on her heartbeat or hearing her own breath.
From the corner of her eye she saw that Nadir had retrieved two books and the shoe. Those could be eliminated at least. The other student was struggling like her though. She paused to see the young boy frown, mystified by whatever Farrin had hidden.
Turning back to Kanwar she saw him with his head cocked to the side, apparently bored of waiting.
Adlai redoubled her effort. She searched through the endless black, only his shadow was . . . well, it wasn’t a coat pocket: it didn’t have a bottom to it, she couldn’t just slip whatever was inside of it out.
She eased her grip on her shadow, pulling it slowly back.
“I don’t know,” she said. She had the feeling she’d said that a lot in this class. “Did you stuff a rolling pin in a teapot?”
He glared at her. “A guess as idiotic as the idea.”
From out of his shadow, he brought up two coins.
Her jaw clenched as she stared at them. Just two coins. He hadn’t even tried to make it difficult for her. Had he chosen something simple because it was her first class, or because he thought that was her skill level?
If the latter, he was wrong. Her shadow was a mess. She was a mess, and she was far, far below that low bar.
14
THE HISTORY OF SHADOWS
Adlai searched for Erikys after class and finally found him lying in a hammock outside a building that was covered almost completely by books. Books were piled as high as walls around the door and more framed the windows. Erikys himself had a stack in easy reach on the ground below him.
“Enjoying yourself?” she asked, not quite able to mask the irritation at find him so relaxed. Pushing and tugging her shadow had exhausted her.
Erikys smiled over at her. “You look terrible,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed and then settled on the book he was reading. “If you aren’t interested in going to the classes, why are you reading a book called The History of Shadows?”
“Oh, this?” He slammed it shut. “Just a bit of light reading.”
The book was leather bound and gleamed with gold-sprayed pages. So much gold as there were so many pages—it was thicker than Adlai’s fist.
She didn’t know how he hadn’t fallen asleep; she felt tired from just looking at it.
“Will you come to class tomorrow?” she asked.
“After all the fun you look like you’ve had, I think I’ll pass,” he said. “I told you I’m not interested in using my shadow.”
“Why not?” she cried, exasperated. How could he just ignore his shadow? Hers was a constant presence, like goose bumps creeping over her skin. “Your shadow is the reason we got out of the cells.”
“And yours was the reason you were in one of them.”
Adlai’s jaw tightened. Erikys wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right either. He didn’t understand. It wasn’t fair that he could just—
Her shadow clawed over the sands, becoming darker and larger as it pushed up from the surface. Adlai’s mouth gaped open. She hadn’t called her shadow out. And this . . . her shadow was huge and physical. It threw Erikys from the hammock, slamming him to the ground. Another thump and the book careened past his head.
“No!” Adlai pulled on her shadow and willed it to come back. Ice burned through her chest. She gasped and her shadow slumped down. It drew away from Erikys, not fully returning, but lingering between them like a faint, cold breeze.
“Erikys!” Adlai ran over to him. “Are you all right?” She knelt by his side, hands shaking and clammy as she tried to think what to do. Was he hurt? Should she check him? Would he even want her near him?
“I’m fine,” he said. But he didn’t sound fine. Erikys stared up at her, squinting like she was the sun and he couldn’t see straight. He frowned. “Was that . . . did your shadow just push me?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t mean to do it, I swear.”
He sat up, his expression closed from dumb, numb shock until he looked at her again. This time he smiled. “What, not even a little bit? You sounded pretty annoyed at me before. Are you sure classes aren’t teaching you passive-aggressive attack moves?”
A laugh escaped her. Nervous and shaky. “All classes have taught me is that I have a lot more to learn about my shadow.”
“It’s still out, Adlai.”
They both turned to the pit of blackness cast over the sands. It was still moving. Slowly her shadow reached to where the book had fallen. It swirled around the book, creating a false wind that blew the cover open. Pages rustled back and forth until, suddenly, the wind ceased. Everything stilled.
“No. Shadows. Near. The. Books!”
An old man hobbled from inside the storykeep, raising his arm at Adlai. He looked to be in his seventies and was easily the oldest person she’d seen on the island.
Adlai yanked her shadow back. The book remained open where it was.
“That’s Caster Fecks,” Erikys muttered to her. “He’s a bit particular about his books.”
Caster Fecks had thin white hair grown down past his shoulders and a slightly pinched face. He wore two black hoops on his left earlobe, which sagged as though it couldn’t hold the weight of a third. But his eyes were sharp behind their spectacles as they looked at Adlai. It was a look she’d seen from others on the island. A cold, distrustful look that made her feel guilty of stealing something she hadn’t.
“You must be Leena’s girl,” he said. “Yes, yes”—he confirmed it himself—“you have her look and her penchant for wayward shadow use.”
Adlai wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but it didn’t sound like a good thing. She picked up the book, keeping the page it had opened out to. It was of a large illustration. One that was eerily similar to the window display in the classroom. A man, a woman, and a beast were depicted, but in this drawing the three of them came with titles. The man was called the Creator of Worlds, the woman was Taker of Lives, and the beast was Collector of Souls. They were all linked with a tree and the text “The Death Trio” floated above them.
“What’s a Death Trio?” Adlai asked.
“The three gods of Death,” Fecks answered matter-of-factly. “Manni, Kintesia, and Prisaant.”
Adlai raised her brow. “There’s only one god of Death.” I’ve seen him, she thought, I’ve heard him. But the black beast was a detail of her death and revival she hadn’t told anyone about.
Caster Fecks snatched the book up, his back creaking at the effort, and peered back at her. “Well, the kingdom might preach that there are six gods and six goddesses. The balanced twelve. But the truth is there are two more. Our powers wouldn’t exist without them.”
“Shadows come from gods?” Erikys asked.
“From Kintesia and Prisaant, yes.”
Fecks shook his head and gestured for them to follow him closer to the storykeep, where outside there was a large rock. He sat down on it and carefully placed the book next to him.
“They were gods who fell in love with the mortal realm. With life,” he said. “Unexpected for a god and goddess of Death, but there you are.”
Adlai shook her head. “You’re saying the gods came here? They can leave the shadow world?” If the black beast she’d seen was Manni, the god of Death, then the idea of him flying through these skies was terrifying.
“All gods can come to the mortal realm. How else to interfere with us? We don’t see them bobbing around because what they do is subtle and of the spirit, not the flesh.” Fecks tapped the book. “Ah, but it wasn’t that way for Kintesia and Prisaant. Those two lived here. They fell in love with mortals, had children . . . did it over and over again because it’s not in a god’s nature to die. And yet with each new generation the gods began to age. Slowly, very slowly, they lost their powers as those powers were transferred down their bloodlines. It was a loss a generation at a time. With each child they had, and each child their children had, and so on and so on, because each child took from them a piece of their power. A piece of their godhood. It fell into their shadow, becoming what we have today.”
Adlai shook her head. Caster Fecks spoke like he was reading a tale from one of his many books, but the story couldn’t be true. “You really believe our shadows come from them? From forgotten gods?”
“Not forgotten by everyone. Your own shadow opened this book to the exact page that shows its own origin.” Fecks looked up at her curiously. “We hold but a fraction of the power a god has, and yet I do believe some have a larger share than most. Your family, for one, has had many great displays of power.”
“You mean my uncle?” She hadn’t spent much time with her uncle; she’d seen him for meals, but not much in between. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he would be busy most of the time. But when she was around him she felt . . . well, she felt something unnatural about him. Power, maybe. Nadir had told her the earrings casters wore reflected their power, and her uncle wore five earrings, which was more than anyone else she’d seen, more than the four Caster Shani wore, and she was the instructor. It had to mean he was very powerful.
Caster Fecks shifted uncomfortably. “Luth is our leader because of his mastery. But it was your mother I was thinking of.”
“You knew her when she was here?”
When Adlai had been part of a family.
“Well, your mother was never on this island. We lost Leena on the last settlement,” he said.
Erikys drew away, but Adlai leaned in closer.
“Then you knew her there?” Her desperation was obvious and embarrassing, but she waited, hungry to know more about the woman who was nobody to Adlai and should have been everything.
“If you want to know about something, you don’t read just one book,” he said at last. “It’s the same with people. Pick five different people here to tell you about your mother and you’ll get five different stories.”
“And what story would you tell?”
“The one that warns you to pay attention in class. Leena was gifted, but her shadow did things it had no right doing.”
Sickness crawled in Adlai’s stomach. Erikys had retreated further away, but she could feel the weight of his stare.
“What kinds of things?”
“Not the kind I like to talk about.” He sighed. “Leena . . . she wasn’t a bad person. As I said, you can ask around about her and you’ll hear different accounts of the kind of woman she was. Many of them good ones. But it wasn’t just that her shadow was powerful. Luth has a powerful shadow and we trust him.” Caster Fecks sighed again. “If she’d been able to control it, she could have done great things for us all. Perhaps she could have learned. Perhaps she was close to her own kind of godhood.”
“Adlai!”
Erikys was calling after her, but Adlai kept going. Caster Fecks hadn’t told her of anything her mother had done, but it was through the way he talked about her that she understood her mother’s powers weren’t something to desire. That her powers might even be something to have feared.
Like her own shadow was becoming.
It made sense now. The cautious looks from her uncle, from the woman with the stolen goods, and from Caster Fecks when he’d first seen her with her shadow out. They weren’t sure if her shadow would turn out to be like her mother’s.
Was that why her father had taken her away? To quarantine her from their kind?
“Adlai, stop.” Erikys caught up and grabbed her arm. She flinched and he held out his hands in a peace gesture. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “Didn’t you hear him? My mother didn’t have control of her shadow, and mine just attacked you.”
He raised a brow. “Do I look hurt?”
He didn’t. His skin was smooth and eyes warm as he looked down at her. Her breathing hitched under his steady gaze, and she turned away.
Without intending to she’d led them to the beach. A sight so beautiful some of Adlai’s tension rolled off her. The sun was setting and the sky had soft hues of blue and pink and orange that dripped down into the sea to make a wrinkled reflection that went on and on.
“No,” she answered. A wave rolled over the sand. Lazy. It touched her toes and was gone again with a sigh. She stared down at the wet sand where the water had just been. The shells in the sand looked so clean, so perfect. “But I could have hurt you.”
“If you think your shadow is dangerous, why keep using it?” he asked.
Adlai frowned. Her shadow wasn’t something she could ignore. It was a constant presence, even more so lately.
“I have to learn to control it,” she said.
“But if you never use it again. Say there was some way of getting rid of it. You could surely think of something else you’d want to do. A life without shadow or thieving. Something ordinary?”
“Oh.” Adlai looked out to the ocean again. She couldn’t believe how vast the water was. How did it not reach all the way to Libra? It shouldn’t have taken her seventeen years to see something so huge.
“I guess I’d want . . . I’d want a stall of my own,” she said finally. “Not in the desert market. My stall would overlook the sea. And I’d sell necklaces made of shells, scarves prettier than a picture book, and perfumes so sweet you’d want to eat them.”
He laughed and bent down to pick up a tiny shell that fanned out around a golden blush. He placed it in her palm, fingers tracing over the shell’s ridge.
“For your wares.”
His fingers left hers and she closed her hand around the small shell.
“And you?” she asked. “What will you do?”
Erikys grinned. “The sea is nice. But I want to move around a bit. Maybe I’ve got a taste for traveling under the stars.”
She scoffed. “You want to be a Cannie?” she said, thinking of the Cancen people that traveled all over the kingdom claiming the sky was their roof and no land could be owned.
“Well, maybe a better-dressed nomad. You never know who you might meet on an adventure.”
His eyes found hers and she realized how glad she was that the boy in the cell opposite hers had been him. All her life she’d prayed to Himlu for luck and even on her unluckiest of days, the trickster god had thrown her in the path of another shadow caster. Someone who had saved her life as much as she’d saved his; who came by smiles so easily and who wanted to know her dreams.
Would he understand her nightmares? Would he listen if she told him she’d seen the god of Death and that his voice might be clinging to her shadow still?
“You don’t like to use your shadow,” she said. “Is it because you’re afraid of it?”
“I’m not afraid of my shadow or yours.” His words were soft, kissing the air in front of her. She swallowed as he leaned down a breath further. “Your family could have the powers of all the gods and I don’t think I could ever be afraid of you, Adlai Bringer.”
