Five months ago, Ess’Siijiil

The dreams weren’t so bad. After we’d nearly gotten caught at the warehouse, and Kyrae had sold off what we’d managed to take, we laid low.

The money was enough to get us a place—a room under some shady business where we had to slither down under the pilings to get inside. But it was dry most of the time, and it had a hatch we could lock. The owner, a scarred lania’el named Nyss with a wicked smile and a hot temper, also had a key. We knew he searched the place whenever we were out, so we kept any valuables on us.

We heard a lot of things at night coming from upstairs, but we were told to ignore them. So we did. We even ignored the screams.

In a way, then, my long dreams of cold nothing weren’t so bad. These days, the shadows responded to my call, and even if everything felt a little colder as of late, Kyrae was warm. I hadn’t told her about the dreams, but she knew I was using my powers.

Sometimes I could control everything, sometimes I couldn’t, and I was never quite sure what I could do—that teleporting thing we’d done was something I could only rarely “feel” for and pull off. I called them “my powers,” but sometimes I wasn’t sure they were mine.

Today, though, I could feel them. And I would probably need them. The person we were renting a room from, Nyss was his name, I learned, had a job for us.

And if we wanted to keep our new home, we couldn’t say no. I’d hidden my powers from Nyss, but he seemed to know something.

“Issa,” Kyrae whispered, “we don’t have to do this. We can just run away.”

I tried to keep my voice calm. “But what if Nyss comes after us? We’re just stealing somethin’ anyway.”

Kyrae looked up at the wall that separated us from the gardens of some rich ussen. Beyond manicured plants was a big house. “We haven’t stolen like this before. If they catch us, it won’t be the rod or labor. It’ll be a hand—or worse.”

“Then we don’t get caught.” The wall was tall, imposing, and old. Cracks between the stones gave sight in narrow angles, and shadows abounded in the twilight. I felt them acutely. I have to be strong for Kyrae. Enough money and we can get off the streets, maybe open our own shop.

“Issa, we can turn around. Please,” Kyrae pleaded, and my resolve wavered.

We stared at each other for a tense moment, lying low and contorted in deep brush. I forced myself to shake my head. “If we get seen, I can get us out—and then we run away, okay? But if we can do this, then we’re one step closer to never having to do this anymore.”

Kyrae bit her lip, eyes wet. Eventually, she nodded. “Okay, Issa.”

I slid forward and hugged her quietly. “We’ll run if this goes wrong. And we’ll get out as soon as we can.”

Kyrae nodded and whispered. “Can we just go, now?”

“Okay.”

My anxiety calmed with the cold feeling of reaching for my power. I felt the shadows twist as if they were alive. Kyrae flinched, still unused to how my powers darkened my left eye to a black orb. Through it, I could see in the darkness with perfect clarity, and the shadows pulsed.

I reached out, turning my hand in the air and swirling slick shadows around the limb. I curled my lower body and tail around myself and Kyrae. Looking at a spot further in, deep in the brush near the house’s wall, I twisted the shadows I held onto where I wanted us to go.

There was a sickening, pulling sensation and a moment of breathlessness, and then we were through the wall and into the estate. Kyrae shivered, and I pulled her close until we both relaxed. She looked up at me with worried eyes and a knitted brow, but didn’t speak. We couldn’t do anything that would risk us now that we were trespassing.

The jump between shadows took less out of me than in the past, but we still needed to get inside—and get back out again. I wasn’t sure I could manage three more jumps. Two was pushing it, but we couldn’t risk trying to find an unsecured way in.

Already, I could hear a guard making the rounds, and feel them moving the shadows with their passing. Their own shadow was numb for me—something beyond my control.

“Could you—” I started to whisper.

“I’ll find a way in.”

I immediately thought to volunteer my powers to conceal Kyrae. “I can—”

“Don’t.” She gave me a hard look and slunk off into the shadows, her small, thin shape easily hidden by the garden.

I curled a little tighter against myself, feeling scales on scales. She knows we need to do this, right?

Kyrae came back just as I started to worry. We waited for a nearby guard to slither past before she spoke. “First floor. We’ll need to climb, but the shutter’s loose and the room doesn’t look used.”

I nodded and pulled the shadows around us. Kyrae shivered in the sudden chill, but I held her hand and she led us to an exposed side of the house. The elf was quick on her feet and climbed up and in without a sound, pulling the wooden slatted shutter aside.

I lifted myself up on my tail after her, until I was above the ground floor. I wasn’t big, even for a lania’el, so I couldn’t quite reach the sill without tipping over. Even balanced on the wall, I could barely get enough grip to stay upright.

I pushed from my tail, trying to get my hands to the sill, and I scraped against the wall. A twig under me snapped and I jumped at the sound, missing the sill. Immediately, I heard voices and the rushing sound of a guard coming to check us out.

“Issa!” Kyrae hissed. She braced herself and stuck an arm out.

I coiled up and sprung up at it. Our fingers intertwined and Kyrae grunted in pain as my weight pulled down at her hand. Her hand spasmed and my fingers slipped out.

No! I need to hide.

The garden around me was still in the washed-out colors of night. Frantic, I looked for any place to hide, but the nearest foliage was too far—I’d make sound and motion if I dove for it. Out of options, I felt for the shadows in the room above and willed myself to move to them.

Shadows twisted around me and my stomach churned, then I was inside. Cold sapped my strength and I fell to the floor with a dull thud. I breathed out, shakily, and my breath came as a cold puff. Kyrae saw me, swore, and pulled the shutter closed. I could hear the guard below us, investigating where I’d just been.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I looked around the room. Boxes and old furniture were stacked neatly to the sides, and the one door out let a sliver of flickering light in under it.

“Issa?” she asked, getting down low and lifting my upper body off the floor.

I struggled up with her, coiled under myself and gave the best smile I could. “I’m fine!”

“You’re cold and you’re shaking. You’re not fine.” Her hand clenched around mine. “We need to go. Now. This isn’t worth it—and we shouldn’t be doing this anyway.”

“But Nyss—”

“Screw Nyss!” Kyrae slapped a hand over her mouth and followed up with a whisper. “Let’s stay quiet and we’ll leave when the guard does. Ess’Siijiil’s a big place—we’ll go where he can’t find us.”

“And then what? Be back to where we started?”

“Issa, Nyss’s just using us!” Kyrae’s voice nearly broke from her whisper.

“So we use him back!” I hissed. “Take back from him whatever he takes from us!”

Kyrae let go of my hand like she’d been burned. “That’s crazy! What’s gotten into you?”

“Me? I just want a better life for both of us—and now I can make it happen. Nothing’s gotten into me!” I rose up out of my coils to tower over her.

Kyrae’s eyes narrowed up at me, and she took a step back. “Your shadow powers. They’re doing something, aren’t they. You were never this careless.”

“What?” I hissed, this time in anger. “They’re a damn blessing! I can get us off the streets Kyrae!”

“They’re a curse! Magic shouldn’t work like that!”

“And how do you know about magic!?”

“My parents taught me. Before… before…”

“Before they died!” I hissed, and immediately flinched at my own words.

Kyrae’s eyes widened in shock, then moistened with tears. “Yeah. Yeah Issa. Before they died.”

“Kyrae, I…”

The elf backed away from me and sat on a crate. She buried her head in her hands.

I slithered closer.

“Go away!” she snapped. “Go do your stupid job and get me on your way out. Unless I get in the way too.”

That last comment stung, and I could feel my own tears start to form. “Fine! I’ll get both of us out of here. And then I’ll get both of us off the streets!”

Kyrae didn’t answer, and eyes blurry, I headed for the door, listened, then cracked it into an empty hallway and slithered off in search of my goal.

***

After Issa’s tail pulled the door closed, Kyrae, through hiccups and muffled sobs, whispered to no one in particular, “What happened to ‘we’ll’ get off the streets?”

***

The chill of the shadows couldn’t quite take my mind off how I’d hurt Kyrae. I shouldn’t have said all that, but… I just want us to have a better life! But the now-familiar cold sensation did let me focus on the job. I could feel whatever shadow strength I had was almost gone, so I snuck about without them.

Few people were up at this time of night. Aside from a few servants I managed to dodge, it seemed all the guards were outside. This wasn’t the Ssyt estate—it was just the home of a local ussen. Still, the fineries of the halls were more wealth than I’d seen in my whole life. Fencing this stuff would be hard, and I couldn’t take anything big—so I only pinched a few small trinkets as I made my way to the room with my goal.

The wealth of the room was dizzying; my eyes darted over fine silks, shining metals, and even the glitter of gemstones set and polished. I barely kept my hands to my sides as I slithered quietly inside—anything here would be missed, and incredibly dangerous to try to fence. Not at all like the small things I’d taken so far. Nyss had given a very clear description of what he wanted—a shortblade with a fancy scabbard and an emerald in the pommel—and I had to focus and take only it.

I found the ornate blade on a table, set out for display and recently cleaned. I lifted it by the scabbard and handle slowly and placed it in a sack that I tied off around my shoulders, hanging the weight across my back.

As I was turning to leave, I realized I was hearing footsteps outside the door. An elf servant? Quickly, I looked around the room for a place to hide, and found a table to slide under. I pulled shadows closer to me, now feeling the building headache that came when I strained my powers. I could do so much more than even last week, but I knew it wasn’t enough.

I felt the servant’s shadow pass over the room. They didn’t call out, but I watched legs walk between some of the tables until they stopped in front of where the sword had been resting. The sword that wasn’t there anymore.

I heard a gasp and some words in Elven, and the elf sprinted out of the room. My hearts thundered and I pushed myself out of cover and back toward Kyrae. I’d just made it to the right hallway when I was caught out.

“Stop! Thief!” someone shouted.

I hissed and leaned down, speeding toward where Kyrae was hidden. Behind me, a single steady beat of footsteps was soon joined by more sounds of feet and sliding scales. The people after me were faster, and gaining rapidly. I threw the door to the right room open and barged in. My hearts skipped a beat at the seemingly empty room before Kyrae popped out of hiding, her eyes wide, red, and puffy.

I rushed toward her and swept my sister up in a hug. Without saying a word, she hugged tight into me, her eyes lingering on my own, a mixture of emotions running through them that I couldn’t have processed even if I had the time.

Pulling on shadows, a chill swept through the room and over us just as the first of my pursuers rounded the corner. A triumphant “Got you!” cut off into a startled gasp, and that was all I saw before the room twisted and disappeared under a veil of darkness.

A short, sickeningly cold plunge later, and Kyrae and I fell into the street outside. My mouth was dry, and I had a splitting headache so bad my fangs hurt. My eye was the worst of it, and when I looked up at Kyrae, one side of my vision didn’t see the same as the other.

I saw outlines and cold mist—shapes melting into an empty black background. I tried to speak, pulling my arms up to stop the shivering. But my body didn’t respond. All I could do was utter a pained gurgle before the warm, wet dirt rushed up to meet me.

***

Kyrae was scared. No, terrified. Her sister—her caring, upbeat, kinda dumb sister—was different now. She didn’t know if it was her creepy shadow powers or the power they gave her, but Issa was starting to do things they’d both agreed never to do.

Like breaking into an ussen’s estate. We’ll be killed if we’re caught, she thought as she hid in a dusty corner of the room, praying no one walked in. She should have never gone with Issa to that warehouse last month.

Worse yet, she could see Issa getting pulled under Nyss’s thumb and she knew where this road led. Others from the orphanage had gone down it. And Issa said we never would. I’m powerless to stop her, Kyrae realized, I have to get her to realize what she’s doing.

But they had food and a dry place to sleep and Issa always wanted more for both of them. Something was wrong, though. Terribly, terribly wrong.

Again and again her thoughts looped. Tears streaked her face almost as fast as she dried them. The young elf rocked herself in her hidden corner. Her breath and heart sped up and she only barely kept herself from plunging off that edge.

If she lost it right now, she’d doom both of them.

Bang!

The door slammed open and Kyrae almost fell over. Hot worry turned to cold sweat and then chills. A quick peek showed Issa was the one who’d run in and her heart leapt, then clenched. Shadows wafted off her like steam from leaves after a summer storm, and her left eye was entirely black. Kyrae threw herself out of cover and at her sister, praying she was still herself.

Issa clung onto her, trembling. Their eyes met and Kyrae studied the fear in Issa’s one emerald eye and its absence in her other dark orb. Shadows, colder than ever, swirled around them both and Kyrae clung on, hoping Issa was just taking them out of the estate.

This time, after the twist of her stomach and the room around them, Kyrae got a glimpse beyond the veil while Issa had her eyes scrunched up. Before they reappeared, the pair of them were somewhere else. And in that somewhere, Kyrae saw nothing but a black void.

When they reappeared, Issa was pale as bleached wood, her normally dark skin pallid and cold. Fangs extended and eyes wide, she opened her mouth, gurgled, twitched, and fell forward. Issa rushed to catch her upper body, and grunted under the weight. Issa’s torso wasn’t particularly heavy, but the rail-thin Kyrae, despite muscles and frame she didn’t want to develop, wasn’t strong.

Slowly letting her sister down to lay as comfortably as she could on the dirt, Kyrae looked around. They weren’t just in the garden, they were outside the estate entirely, at the edge of an area of dense brush close to their hideout.

Concerned, Kyrae looked down at the comatose Issa, watching the very slight rise and fall of her chest and lower body. What on earth is happening to you, sister? Only one thing that gave Kyrae comfort: right before Issa fell, her emerald eyes, both of them, had locked with Kyrae’s.

***

I dreamed of the cold nothing again. Hours seemed to blend into days and I wondered if I’d ever wake by the time I started to stir and my mind pulled away. Just before I faded back to reality, I felt a presence brush my own.