“Does he remember?”

Dorian’s head throbbed. Cool steel sliced up and down his forehead. He felt welts along his torso and a laceration across his throat. He had been stabbed and bruised and cut. Every inch of his body groaned in pain. Yet somehow worst of all, he felt tired, achy, and old. His feet burned, and he was freezing cold.

It was raining. He opened his eyes.

A figure of pure shadow stood over him. It was blurred and indistinct in the dark except its two red eyes. Droplets of rain poured past Dorian and gathered around his legs, but the shadow shape did not seem wet. It did not catch the rain. It did not blow in the storm, as Dorian’s hair did. It only stood.

Lightning flashed nearby. The bolt was not white as it should have been, but blinding bright green. For a moment the bailey was overwhelmed with emerald. Dorian’s eyes burned, and when he looked ahead, the figure was gone.

But as darkness returned, so did the shadowy shape.

The Shadow Man.

Dorian swore. He reached for his sword and tried to slash it at the monster before him; it was nearby, in a pile of his things against a wall in the garden, and he grabbed it by the hilt and swept it wildly into the silhouette.

But the blade passed harmlessly through the Shadow Man’s flesh. Dorian’s sword was not enchanted.

The Shadow Man did not seem to respond.

The weapon fell from Dorian’s hands. Pain blinded him, turning his vision white, and his muscles cramped. He gasped and doubled over. All his body was covered in bandages, and he knocked a healing potion over as he stirred.

“Get out of here!” he shouted. “Get out!”

The Shadow Man did not react.

“Do you remember?”

Dorian’s chest heaved with rapid breath. He sat upright, splashing in the wet, beginning to shiver. At least the cold numbed the pain.

He retreated to the lower section of a wall around the garden. He pushed his back into the cold stone. His gray hair hung sodden in his eyes.

“Kill me or let me rest, creature,” he said. “Don’t waste my time with riddles.”

“Why would I kill you now?”

The Shadow Man pursued him. But it never came closer than it had before. When it reached the wall, it leaned over Dorian; it was taller than any man, at least ten feet, and it regarded him like he would regard Corvo.

“I could have killed you in your sleep. But I woke you up. I do not want to kill you yet.”

“What do you want?” Dorian said.

“I want to know if you remember.”

“Remember what?”

The Shadow Man didn’t respond.

“I’ve lived half an age,” he said. “I’ve forgotten most things in my life.”

The Shadow Man’s blank head cocked to consider this answer.

“Would you hurt my little crow?”

“What?”

A moment of silence. Reconsideration.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Why are you alone out here? In the rain? While the others are warm inside?”

Dorian glanced down at his injuries. He considered whether or not he should answer, and contemplated telling a lie. But he could not tell a lie, not even to this monstrosity. He had no choice but to say what had happened.

Yet as he plunged into his memory for a simple answer, the throbbing along his forehead grew much worse. He couldn’t think clearly. He felt like he had a concussion, and he grew dizzy.

“There’s a barrier for magic past this gate,” he said slowly. “My wounds are too severe. Without healing magic, they’ll kill me. So I have to stay here.”

“Did Eris tell you this?”

“And the blind elf, yes.” He saw a flash of their conversation in his memory. “Didn’t you hear? I thought you were always watching. Wherever there was dark.”

“I am. But I do not remember this conversation.”

Dorian stared into the Shadow Man’s eyes. He had faced down many things far more terrifying, far more powerful and malevolent, than this thing before him. But it activated a primal fear of the dark. It reached for his inner child, for the long-suppressed thoughts and feelings of a frightened boy on the streets of Katharos.

And when he remembered what the Shadow Man wanted to do with him, and Eris, and Corvo, his fear mingled with rage.

He said nothing further. He straightened his back to meet the Shadow Man’s gaze as best he could. Then he simply stared.

“Will you hurt him?” it said.

“Yes,” Dorian growled. “I’ll kill him. Once the chance comes. You’ll regret ever leaving that damned tower.”

The Shadow Man’s head cocked the other direction.

“Not me,” it said. “My little Corvo.”

Dorian blinked. He shook his head.

“Of course not.” He was quiet beneath the storm. “Why would you ask something like that?”

“It was bright. I was frightened. That is why I did not kill you. Eris is lucky her magic has worked. For now you will help keep him safe.” Its neck lowered to Dorian’s. “Next time, I will not spare you. Even if she does.”

“What are you talking about?” Dorian sputtered. “Get away from me, you freak!”

Green lightning overpowered his vision again. This time it struck even closer, just beyond the wall around the garden. He closed his eyes to shield them; and when he opened them again, the Shadow Man was gone.

“You can’t have Corvo!” Dorian yelled into the rainy sky. The red clouds were covered over black, but the aurora of mana still snaked and fell in curtains beneath them, casting their light back on the shadowy storm. “You’ll be dead within days! Give up now!”

But the Shadow Man did not return, and Dorian was left shouting at no one but himself.

In the morning, which felt like morning only for the disappearance of the storm and the return of the familiar red sky, Aletheia came out to see him. She checked his wounds and cleaned his bandages; the dirtied linens were purified with a spell before being reapplied.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

The pain had already mostly faded. Her healing magic worked quickly.

“Not like I was stabbed a few days ago, at least,” he said with a cough. “Wish I could’ve come in out of the rain last night, though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’d like to come meet this Neiaz now. I think I’m well enough it.”

She stared at him. And from the look she wore, serious and calculated, he knew something was not right.

“You aren’t,” she said simply. “But don’t worry. We’re setting off again soon.”

“I think I am,” Dorian said. He tried to act cordial, laughing as he spoke, smiling. To prove his point he stood upright on his own. He kept his balance. He stretched his arms, with nothing more than a brief grunt of pain. “See?”

Expecting her to follow, he made for the banded double doors that led into the tower.

Aletheia grabbed his wrist.

“Dorian,” she said. “Stay here.”

“Why?” He turned to her. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Dorian,” she said again. She tugged him hard, and he was forced close to her. “You were hurt. Badly. You can’t go inside.”

“Why not? You think I’ll drop dead the second I do?”

“Sometimes there are questions that it’s better not to have answered. Sometimes you shouldn’t ask.” She pushed him backward. “Don’t ask. Stay here. Please.”

He had wanted to mention the Shadow Man to her, to ask what she thought it had meant, but now he hesitated. He had never seen her act this way. He frowned, and he thought about telling her off. But her eyes were narrow and serious. He saw an intensity through her pupils that disturbed him, just as the Shadow Man had the last night.

Something terrible had happened. Something he could not remember. He was sure of it now. This world of magicians and demons and elves maddened him; he felt powerless beside a single small woman. He was powerless. She could do with him as she willed.

“Don’t ask,” she repeated. “Stay here.”

Dorian exhaled. He shook his head.

Then he nodded.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll stay here. But you’d better bring me breakfast before the hour’s up.”

Her intensity waned. She grinned at the corner of her lips.

“I’ll see if I can find you something,” she said. “We’ll be out soon.”

So Dorian didn’t cross the threshold. He lingered out in the garden, even when no one was making him. And the more he thought about what he couldn’t remember, the more he realized that Aletheia was right.

Sometimes, knowing added nothing. Sometimes it was better to remain in the dark. It was simpler, easier, and happier there. So he didn’t follow, and he didn’t ask, and he thought about the matter no more.