“Breathe, Issa,” Phaeliisthia’s voice floated out of the darkness near me. Her hand, colder than I’d hoped, tethered me. “This place is no special shrine, no altar. Darkness and deep cold dwell here, as do many marvelous beauties.”

I let my held breath hiss out between closed teeth and extended fangs, and realized my eyes had been shut. When I opened them, I saw the cave in shades of gray, a lone passage twisting off into the darkness ahead. Phaeliisthia’s eyes floated near me like twin moons, each cut by lines of pure black. Her horns really glow, I realized.

“I… am fine,” I shuddered as shadows licked at my tail. Their cold threatened comfort, almost familial in my fright.

“Good. Focus. We will move deeper, to a place where I think you may find true beauty. However, the path will be… uncomfortable in your current state. You must remain confident.” Phaeliisthia paused to bend down, her bright eyes a finger’s length from mine. “You do not lack for confidence, do you?”

I shook my head. “No! I always come up with our plans! Usually!” The words felt almost childish, but saying them made me realize something I’d been scared to admit.

Ever since the night I touched that strange idol… I wasn’t quite the same, was I? I couldn’t place my tail on how that was, but I had an inkling.

Thinking of my sisters, and of the new life that seemed ever more within reach as I lived it day by day, I pushed back the shadows.

“Control, Issa,” Phaeliisthia interrupted. “Do you truly think you can forever deny such a malignantly persistent force as what you are linked to? Do you think you will never falter?”

The moment my concentration faltered, the shadows began to slide back toward me. In the total darkness, lit only by the distant, searing light of the cave mouth, they were darker still—dense in a cold, absent way.

“W-what,” I stuttered.

“Control, Issa,” Phaeliisthia repeated. “Take the shadows; take control by a scalesbreadth if you must.”

“But they’re already—”

“Are they?”

Are they?

Suddenly, I wasn’t so certain. And in the face of my confusion, the shadows struck. A fraction of a fraction of a moment before they reached me, a blinding gold light burned them back, and I screeched, reeling.

“Try again.” Phaeliisthia’s voice was not warm, but hot.

“I don’t know—”

“You do! Where is your bluster, Issa? Where is the recklessly confident young ra’zhii Kyrae has told me tales of?”

Kyrae! You said you talked with Phael, but did you really just share old embarrassing stories?!

“Stupid shadow monster,” I mumbled. “I’m not gonna let you get the best of me!”

I felt outward again, toward the shadows. This time, I picked a single tendril, then just the tip, waving invisibly in the damp cave air.

I pulled at it. It obeyed. I pushed it away, I twisted it, and predictably, it did what I willed it. Whatever else was supposed to happen, didn’t.

What am I missing? What am I doing wrong?

Is this not control?

The shadow tendril caressed my cheek and I flinched away from the cold. No. I’m not giving orders, I’m giving suggestions.

But how can I do any more? It’s not like I control this stupid shadow myself. So how do I take that step?

Reaching out, I grabbed at the tendril hesitantly. The semi-solid shadow practically purred in my grip even as it sapped the heat from my arm. Shuddering, I pulled away.

Near me, Phaeliisthia sighed loudly. “Would that your inquisitive nature lent itself toward introspection.”

I glanced over and up at the tall, slender woman. In the darkness, Phaeliisthia glowed like the sun burning through clouds after a summer rain. Startled as I was, my concentration broke completely and the shadow tendril slipped away to rejoin the waiting mass. The darkness didn’t pounce, almost as if it was afraid of Phaeliisthia.

She extended her hand again, tilting her head and horns to one side. “Are we awake now? Aware and in-tune?”

Her playful voice grated on me. Guarding my tone, I replied as evenly as I could. “I think so?”

“Are you ready to learn?”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I snapped.

“Have you learned anything yet?”

“No!”

“Then you must not be ready.”

“What kind of logic is—"

“It isn’t. Tautological would be the term. But I find tautology depressingly correct in this instance. You’re not learning because you’re only interested in the answer.”

“Do you know it?” I narrowed my eyes.

“Ah!” Phaeliisthia tutted. “Does who know it, Issa?”

I hissed my breath out through my nose, but adopted a formal tone. “Does Tutor Phaeliisthia know the answer?”

“Much better!” Phaeliisthia, despite her cordial tone, kept her eyes solemnly locked to mine and her hand unwavering in its grip.

I wanted to shout.

“In fact,” Phaeliisthia spoke agonizingly slowly, “I do know the answer.”

“Then tell me already!” I hissed angrily.

Quick as skyfire, Phaeliisthia leaned forward and flicked my head with the back of one golden talon. “Mind your manners, child.”

“Ow! What gives!”

Phaeliisthia flicked me again, harder. She gave me a glare that brokered no dissent.

I whimpered.

“What, dear student, would happen if I were to tell you, do you suppose?”

I swallowed before answering. “How am I supposed to know that?”

My ever-frustrating tutor clicked her tongue. “That is what I am trying to get you to understand, Issa.”

“What!?” I screamed, shadows roiling.

Phaeliisthia’s hand rose with casual slowness, and an array of blinding runes shot forth. Daylight flooded the cavern, banishing the shadows, and I almost screamed at the burning agony I felt through my connection. Only the powerful woman’s stone-tight grip kept my torso upright.

“Answer me again, child: What would happen if I were to simply tell you the solution to gaining some measure of control?”

“Then I’d know it, I guess!” I shouted again, keeping my eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t know!”

Phaeliisthia’s eyes lit up. “Precisely! You. Don’t. Know. There. There’s your problem.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” I opened my eyes and glared up at Phaeliisthia, even as the darkness of the cave closed in around us once again.

My tutor shrugged. “Figure it out!”

“What?!”

“How to gain control, Issa.”

Fangs extended past my lips; I felt droplets of venom slide down my chin. With teeth pressed together, I hissed. “How can I do that? What can you tell me?”

“I can tell you that you must come to understand both why I cannot tell you and how you can gain control. That is the only hint I can give you. Think on it, and let us move from this place. Where I wanted to show you is deeper inside.”

I planted myself, unwilling to play along with Phaeliisthia’s dumb games. She didn’t give me a choice, and, as if I weighed nothing, dragged me by the arm until I was sliding along deeper into the tunnel. Dark rocks drifted past, outlining turns and twists and dips, and I sulked until a blue-green glow lit the jagged ceiling above me.

Wriggling in the horned woman’s grip, I tried to turn to see, my lower body spinning against damp stone.

“Would you care to move on your own now, Issa?” Phaeliisthia’s voice had an edge to it that made me stop in fear. “You are trying my patience, child, and I will not compromise your growth and learning because of a tantrum. Am I understood?”

I gulped. “Yes Phaeliisthia.”

“Good.” She pulled me upright. “Look.”

Blinking, I looked at the scene in front of me. The cave tunnel widened into a large room. Translucent blue rocks with regular, flat sides pulsed slowly, filling the room with blue light. Thick clumps of moss and strange knotted vines dotted the rocky walls, their own faint glow adding to the color I first saw. Motes of golden light drifted down from them to alight in the boughs of small, gnarled trees. Their large blue leaves clustered at the ends of tortured branches, a single fat bud between each cluster.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Sloping toward the center was a well-kept pathway, ending by a small pool at the foot of a much larger tree. This tree had another blue rock in its roots, the wood penetrating chaotic patterns into the translucent stone, distorted by the facets of the rock. The pool of water’s placid surface broke only for a single drop from above that fell as I watched. By the shore, a small area had been cleared, and a stone bench sat to one side.

“This is where I wanted to take you, Issa. You and your sisters have your own grove, but this one is mine. Something here is significant, but only in a metaphorical sense.” Phaeliisthia paused, breathing out her frustrations into the damp, still air of the cavern. “Come, let us sit and relax. Take as much time as you need to understand what it is you must learn. I will be right next to you should any untoward harm so much as attempt to befall you.”

Awestruck by the glowing cavern, I barely remembered to nod as Phaeliisthia led me by the hand down the curving path to the poolside. She let go and sat on the bench nearby the cleared area. My scales felt smooth, solid stone under me, warm in the way that underground spaces often were: a lingering, primordial warmth.

I coiled myself on the smooth stone and looked up into the trees above me. Blue stone glinted through the leaves like bizarre moonlight.

“They’re most beautiful when they bloom,” Phaeliisthia said softly. I could have sworn her voice sounded… sad. “Please, relax and try again. Learn. From your mistake moments ago on into the now.”

Learn. I needed to learn.

Relaxing against the warm stone, I lowered myself until my chin rested against my emerald scales. I’d grown these past weeks. Enough to where I was glad Sire Tyaniis had my clothes made overlarge. Moreover, my scales were smooth now, polished and shining.

I’ll need to molt soon.

I leaned my head against one arm, feeling both soft skin and hard scales at once as I stared into the clear water of the pool. Several odd-looking, pink salamander-like creatures stared back at me. They looked cute, and the serenity as they dispersed slowly to flit around under the water, helped center me.

Learn.

I felt for shadows. Under roots and rocks, they responded to my call, waiting in silent vigil. “You must come to understand both why I cannot tell you and how you can gain control,” Phaeliisthia’s words echoed around my mind.

For a long time I sat there, moving shadows to and fro. Very quickly, I realized I needed to avoid the blue light. Even if it wasn’t much, the shadows recoiled. Despite what I knew, I wanted to say I had control. Tendrils of shadow, walls of shadow, and more, they obeyed me perfectly. I could even move within them.

I just don’t get it.

After a long time, the silence broken only by the rare “drip” sound of a single droplet of water falling into the pool, Phaeliisthia spoke. “Could you use your own shadow, Issa? I’d like to see what you can do with it.”

I almost jumped at the sound of her voice. “Why?”

Phaeliisthia simply shrugged.

“Fine.” I glared at her, but quickly looked away when she returned the gesture. Those eyes!

My own shadow was under me: a simple thing to manipulate that I’d done hundreds of times before. Except this time, I couldn’t.

Well, not quite. My power seemed to slide off it. No good, it thought.

Why? Why now?

I slumped forward onto my arms. This warmth is going to make me doze off!

Wait.

Wait—hold on.

Warmth.

Excitement building, I felt around for other shadows. They were all cold! Under Phaeliisthia’s bench, in the roots of the large tree: both had shadows. But I couldn’t feel either.

Except… I could. But they were rejected by my power. Because it wasn’t mine. Focusing on my own shadow, I tried to get it to move. Nothing.

I kept at it, determined.

More nothing.

Eventually, hunger and fatigue started to tug at me and I’d still made no progress. Am I wrong? I wanted to pound my head into the floor. What!? What is it!?

This time, Phaeliisthia prefaced her words with a polite cough. “There is often more than one way to solve a problem. Perhaps you could try approaching the answer from a different direction?”

Barely, I held my tongue, biting down onto it to avoid a bitter retort. What do you think I’ve been doing! I can’t do anything with these warm shadows!

As if to prove my point to myself, I moved a cold shadow under a rock through a series of jabbing motions. During one thrust, the tip touched into the warmth and both the shadow and I recoiled.

This is hopeless.

I cradled my head in my arms and held back tears. What’ll happen when I can’t do this? What if Kyrae can’t do this? What if I finally find my family and a wonderful life and it’s cut short because of some dumb statue I found in a warehouse.

I wish I’d never gone in there.

But then, would I have come to Ess’Sylantziis? Would Onussa have taken me in? Would Ussyri Noksi have recognized what I was? Would Ssiina have gotten to me? Would Tyaniis?

Good followed bad for me. Both Kyrae and me, actually.

I can’t give up. Since when was I the type to ever get up?

Oh, how about when you got curs—

I cut my own inner voice off, squashing it down and crushing it between my mental coils. I was not going to let this rule me.

Think!

I can’t get the power to latch onto the warm shadows in here, that much was certain. The other shadows recoiled from the light and warmth.

What if…what if I try to force a shadow into the warmth? Light I already know is a no-go. Or is it?

I shook my head against my inner monologue. Not yet. Warmth first.

The first thing I tried was thrusting an entire tendril into the warmth near the main tree’s roots. No luck; the shadow dissipated. A little slower, and it bent away.

Fine? You want slow?

This time, I pushed slowly, focusing as hard as I could. A fraction of a scalesbreadth into the warmth I paused. It burns.

Tough luck.

After waiting, I pushed forward again. Then again. For what felt like hours, I trekked a tendril of shadow into a warm gap between two tree roots. Just as my hunger started to hurt and my head felt light for lack of water, something snapped.

Like a loose string, the tendril of shadow flopped free, sliding further into the warmth. I focused on that feeling, an odd sensation I had no real hope of describing. But I remembered the weird, twisting, snapping, pulling feeling.

Eager, I tried the same on my own shadow, trying for that same feeling without all the awful slog of the first time. No luck. My power still wouldn’t latch onto the warm shadow.

I’m not leaving without showing Phaeliisthia.

I found a shadow closer to her. This one, I pulled and wrenched into the warmth. My mind screamed, but I pushed and felt like I was tearing through a barrier.

One mind-turning sensation later, the act was done. Carefully, I pushed the shadow into the warmth under Phaeliisthia’s bench, its movement slow and imprecise. I felt like I barely had a grasp over it, like the tendril would slip away at any moment.

But it didn’t somehow, and I managed to tap the back of Phaeliisthia’s foot where it connected to her leg. Ankle, Kyrae called that place, right?

Phaeliisthia sat up suddenly a lot straighter. Wide white eyes pierced me, then a grin cut the horned woman’s face nearly in two. “Astounding, Issa.” She leapt up and bent over to inspect the tendril of darkness.

I tried waving it; it looked drunk.

Carefully, Phaeliisthia reached forward and poked the semi-solid darkness with the back of one finger. “As I thought. Replace the magic from the linked source with the magic of a neutral source…”

“Magic?” I asked. “Is that the warmth I feel?”

Phaeliisthia nodded. “Correct! Whatever entity is linked to you is responsible for that dreadful cold. This cave is densely magical by my own cultivation—every species here collects, stores and emits magic. Even the adorable little axolotls in the pond.” She waved her fingers at the water and I could swear one of the little things waved back.

“So, what did I do?”

“You changed the source of magic for a sustained spell.” Phaeliisthia laughed. “Oh, your sister Ssiina is going to be livid when she hears you beat her to that milestone. Moreso when she realizes she might have a year or more until she can do the same.”

I blinked rapidly. “What about spells?”

Phaeliisthia sat back down and adopted what I had learned was her “teaching slouch.” “The entity you are connected to creates the spell one way or another, and simply allows you to manipulate it. But when you changed the source magic, you became the sole controller.”

What is my tutor talking about? “Change the source magic? What does that mean?”

The horned woman’s lips quirked. “Magic comes from a source, be that a font within oneself, the world around us, or the font of another. In your case, it is coming through your link. You simply traded the source of power for your shadows to this cavern’s ambient magic.”

“...Okay.” I nodded as confidently as I could. This barely makes sense, but it sounds like… it sounds like I took control! That sad little shadow tendril is my own!

“Issa.”

“Yes?”

“I know you don’t understand this. I don’t expect you to understand this—yet.”

“Hsss… yes, Tutor Phaeliisthia.” I twitched the tendril back and forth, feeling its sluggishness. This is mine. “You said I became the ‘sole controller.’ Is that why it's hard to control?”

“Precisely! You lack a cold, evil guiding hand.” Phaeliisthia glanced down under her. “Could you try to bring your little shadow out into the light?”

I nodded and scooted the tendril forward. Without hesitation, it moved into the light.

Whiteness exploded outward from the center of my vision and I screamed in sudden agony as searing pain rippled across my skin and down my scales all the way to the tip of my tail. In a flash, it was over, but I was left panting. My little shadow tendril had been burned away in the light, leaving not even a mark behind.

Phaeliisthia pursed her lips, indifferent to my pain. “Hmm, I thought that might happen.”

My tongue felt oddly dry and I coughed. “Then why didn’t you warn me!”

“Because you would have hesitated.” Phaeliisthia stood up and strode over to me. “I knew it wouldn’t truly harm you, but this close relationship between shadow and caster is most unusual. I believe that to be why you are capable of teleporting so efficiently. It would also explain several other concerns I am not going to let you know about at this point. I can say they are under control, however.

“Issa.” She grew a fanged grin. “I am pleased at this progress, but I want you to answer me: what is it you have done, in a general sense?”

“In—in a general sense?” I cocked my head to one side.

My tutor leaned forward and tousled my hair. “Yes. What did you have to do to shift magic sources?”

I frowned. “I just did it?”

Phaeliisthia shook her head and sighed. “This is truly a simple question, Issa.”

“Well it doesn’t feel simple!”

“Irrelevant. You can get this.”

I clenched my fists again. “All I did was make the shadow do something it didn’t want to do!”

Phaeliisthia laughed, bright and clear. The sound echoed around the cave like a lilting melody. “That’s the answer, Issa! You did something that whatever is linked to you didn’t want to do!”

“Huh?”

“I told you it was simple!”

“But… the light and…” I blinked rapidly, my jaw slipping open.

“Oh, you don’t nearly have enough power to maintain a shadow in bright light on your own.” The horned woman made a dismissive gesture and stepped back, sweeping her arms around the blue-green cavern. “If you can seize that power, however, you might. But that’s for another day. I promised your sire I would ensure your safety of body and soul first and foremost and I keep what few promises I bother to make.

“All you had to do was what you did. Certainly I gave you a hint, but you could easily have tried something in the cave, like banishing the shadows or wrapping one around one of my horns instead. Something much easier, but far less fun.”

I did my best to ignore the ‘fun’ comment. “Would I get in trouble for the horn thing?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.”

A sudden thought struck me. “When I was controlling that shadow, was one of my eyes black? Like, solid black?”

Phaeliisthia shook her head. “Both emerald green!”

I took a shuddering breath in and sighed. “So, what’s the next step?”

“We rest! I have to teach in the morning after all.”

“But tomorrow is my day off?”

Phaeliisthia chuckled. “We’ve been in here almost two days, Issa. And don’t worry, I expected this might happen. You will be fed well for your time and effort, of that I assure you. Honestly, I had anticipated this breakthrough to take several tries.”

“Two days?! What about Kyrae and Ssiina? And your servants! Won’t everyone be worried sick?!” My hearts started to race. I didn’t want to imagine how I’d react if Kyrae disappeared—and Kyrae was going through that for me right now!

“It has indeed been two days, but I sent word through my magic to Zinniz. He’s no doubt informed your sisters and they know we are well. I expect a meal to be ready when we arrive, and I am famished, so we should leave.” She reached forward and offered me a hand.

I took the proffered hand and let her pull my upper body upright. Deep breaths. They know we’re safe. “Wait. Phaeliisthia?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Didn’t you say this place was nothing special?”

My tutor laughed, a rolling, loud laugh. “I lied Issa. I needed you to realize for yourself. If I gave you too many hints, you wouldn’t understand what you do now.”

“And what is that?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

I thought about it for a minute. Two whole days. “Hssss, is it effort? Is it that it takes great effort to truly learn?”

“Close enough, so yes. It is the difficulty of the task. What you are doing will not be easy. This will not be the hardest step—or whatever your lamian equivalent is—forward.”

I shuddered. “I don’t want to think about that. Can we just go home and eat? I’m starving.”

Phaeliisthia nodded with a smile. “I am happy you’ve come to think of my estate that way, Issa. Let’s do just that.”