Jast stirs in his sleep. The crack of lightning and the ephemeral, ethereal visage of a red-haired woman, fiery locks wild with the flow of electricity, haunt and hunt Jast’s dreams. And then the searing pain in his chest thrusts him into wakefulness, a jolt of energy lifting him off the ground by the melted slag stuck in his sternum. Cold sweat drenches his aching body, muscles untensing beneath his darkened skin. It’s been the same dream every night since he first escaped from the Garrison. Lightning and fire and the call of something else deep within his psyche. And, much to his confusion and irritation, these phantom memories of his liberation always cause an emission.
Jast sits up on his sleeping mat, a crude woven bundle of fibers and recycled cloth scraps he nicked from some clothes line on the West side of the Lower City. The Shadowarch made camp in an alleyway between two tenements, a shanty street already forming in that gap, carving out a space for himself with firm glares and unfriendly eyes. This late in the morning, the resident fisher vagrants have already left for the docks while the haggard brothel workers return from late-night shifts. Not the brothel women, mind, they have lodgings in the establishments themselves, but the men and young boys who tend to the laundry and fluids that stain the floors. Not that Jast would know.
He now wanders unfamiliar streets, far from the seeking eyes of the Garrison, but also far from where Zacaer had told him to go. The narrow buildings, like bad teeth, comprise brick and wood, with alley ways running behind the buildings and out of sight of potential customers. Women in various states of undress, many of whom wear the armbands of slaves, beckon men toward their “abodes” and tempt them into the hollow endeavor of paying for sex. Jast has found himself in the Lower City’s Redlight District, titular red lights lighting up the curtained windows of brothels of all sorts. It’s a strange place he’s found himself in, the idea of such a place having never crossed his mind in the short time he’s been self-aware.
Regardless, it’s where he is now and, upon discovering the frequency in which men and women from the Garrison blow their entire paycheck at the district, Jast keeps to the back alleys. His head feels fuzzy, clouded with the memory of ozone and burnt hair, and he washes his face in a bucket full of stagnant rainwater. Fragmented memories resurface, unbidden and of their own accord, as the cold water drips from his parched face. They carry with them words of knowledge and bits of wisdom, experienced Shadowarchs dispensing their insights in the art of Shadowarchy with open earnest.
“Tangible darkness craves a feather touch, Jast,” says a tutor, or perhaps his mother. Their distorted shape bears a faded face, flat and featureless. Their surroundings seem to melt like wax as the memory fades. “Grip it too tight and the mass goes wild, spiralling out of your control. But if you tease and coax it with gentle ministrations, you can pull the shadows off the walls. It’s why—” the words become indistinct “—exercises with slow fluidity.” The fragments crumble and the memory fades, lost in the recesses of his mind. But Jast feels something crystalize, a seedling taking root. One word: discipline.
He finds Shadowarchy instinctual. If someone steps on a shadow, the Shadowarchy arrests its owner, locking them in a motionless embrace, while the shadows read the intent behind their hand movements. He can dive into darkness, finding refuge from prying eyes, but he feels a strange sense of loss, as though a vast amount of uncertainty surrounds him. Lessons once given, stolen by his metamorphosis. He gazes at his reflection in the bucket, curly dark hair marred by a plume of white—bleached by trauma—taking up a sizable chunk of his bangs. He breaks the image, splashing more water into his face.
“A feather touch,” he repeats to himself. “Tangible darkness.” Jast takes a step back and shucks off his coat, letting it fall in a pile on the ground. He closes his eyes and tries to tease the shadow at his feet up and onto his body, spinning it like thread into his palm. It’s not something he feels, but he glimpses tangible darkness in his open palm when he opens his eyes. Then, in a blink, it’s gone.
Jast sucks in a slow breath and starts again. This time, instead of opening his eyes, he closes his hand into a fist. His eyes jolt open as a writhing mass struggles in his grip, pushing against his skin as it tries to escape. Jast grits his teeth and squeezes his grip tighter, aware that the tangible darkness will “go wild” but needing to see and experience such a nebulous concept. Strands like running ink leak out the gaps between his fingers, shooting out at high pressure and arcing like lightning through the midmorning sun. The darkness avoids direct sunlight, arcing away from it and toward darker shades of light and shadow. A bolt strikes a wall, clipping off chunks of brick before spooling into a dark crevice between two tents. Jast releases his grip, and the darkness melts away. Though shocked, he smiles. This “wild” darkness is something he can weaponize.
“A feather touch.” His muscles find their memory and he adopts a peculiar stance, putting one arm back while holding his other arm in front of him like a blade. He then reverses their positions, swinging the front arm back and the back arm front, keeping his flat palm in line with his nose, fingers pointing up. Another fragment rises from the dearth and dirges of his mind.
“This is an old technique used by the Shadowarchs who founded the city, nocting,” his mother’s voice echoes in his mind. “One hand leads, the other deceives. The spider spins a web, the blade follows through.”
Jast lets out a breath and makes the movements he’s watched his teachers make so many times. Individually, their fragments mean nothing. A step here, a slide there, disjointed and disconnected. But together, he pieces each step in sequence, stringing each fragment together like beads on a leather cord. It’s a flowing, circular form, feet tracing arcs across the ground while his hands pull at the darkness and spin it into threads. The spider, the backhand, spins the web while the blade, the forward hand, follows through, collecting the threads into a more cogent mass. The exercise shifts, the form changing, each hand laden with tangible darkness. Jast increases his tempo, hastens the dance, thick cables of tangible darkness spinning out into whips. He cracks the whips, mind devoid of thought and feeling. Jast slashes a tent; he shatters a three-legged stool; he wraps up a barrel in his lengths of darkness and slams it into the ground behind him. Jast finishes with a flourish, cracking both whips against the ground, lashing marks into the stone.
It’s then he notices he’s being watched, eyes like knives taking in his display of Shadowarchy with greedy intent. He lashes out for the voyeur and wraps them up in his black whips.
She’s a girl wearing men’s clothing, an over-sized shirt baggy against her skinny frame, trousers held up with rope suspenders. Crammed on her head is a ratty button cap is, concealing short dark hair, unseated by the force of Jast’s whipping. She can’t be much older than fifteen, though malnutrition can conceal a year or two could, and the slenderness of her build leads to a passable attempt at being a boy. A willowy, scrawny boy. She struggles against the black whips and attempts to chew through them, but soon gives up on that endeavor.
“Hullo,” the girl says, giving Jast a sheepish look. The Shadowarch remains silent, eyes unkind. “That’s some pretty nifty magic you got there.”
“It’s called Shadowarchy,” Jast says.
“The Garries aren’t too keen on it.” It takes a moment for Jast to piece together “Garries” being shorthand for “Garrison.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“You probably want to keep that hidden.” Jast tightens his grip on her and she makes a strangled noise. “Kenni’s no rat! Kenni’s a Shade too!” Jast looks around, but doesn’t see anyone who could be “Kenni,” and concludes that the girl must be referring to herself.
Jast loosens his grip, but maintains the black whips. “That’s difficult to believe.”
“It’s true.” Kenni tries wiggling free. “Kenni’s mama is a Shade who works in a whorehouse. Papa paid to get her pregnant and eight months later Kenni popped out.” She makes a face and puffs out her chest. “But Kenni is strong, strong enough to last outside until her crying got the other whores’ attention. And Kenni ain’t no whore, she mops the floors and collects payments from grifters who stiff the bill.” If what she says is true, then judging by her paler complexion, she must be a half-breed. The child of a Shadowarch prostitute and whomever paid for the privilege of impregnating her. The knowledge makes Jast sick to his stomach, but he doesn’t show it.
Jast loosens his hold on her. “Where’s your armband? All the Shadowarch’s I’ve seen have to wear armbands.”
She scoffs, looking indignant. “Kenni doesn’t wear armbands. Kenivera does, because Kenivera is a good housekeeper. But in these here slacks?” Kenni wriggles her legs. “Kenni does what she wants.” Jast doesn’t want to, but his focus has slipped and he feels the tangible darkness slipping from his fingers, so he releases the girl.
“Well, Kenni,” Jast picks up his jacket, throwing on the garment after shaking off the dust. “I have nothing more to say to you.” He rolls up his sleeping mat and tucks it under his arm, walking further down the alley to put distance between the two of them. He feels compelled to find Zacaer, the stranger being the only sense of direction he has. Lost in thought, he doesn’t notice the little urchin following him until she treads in his shadow. It doesn’t impede him, but he notices all the same, whirling around in an instant and towering over her. She shrinks under his glowering stare, sheepish, and steps off his shadow.
“She really is a Shadowarch,” he thinks with a grimace. “She tried to hold my shadow, little pest.” He walks away again, aware of the girl following him, though she is mindful to keep her feet off his penumbra. The sound of growling, gurgling stomachs arrests his walking and Jast clenches his belly. With all the recent excitement, he’s forgotten to eat. There comes another high-pitched, gastric whine, but Jast doesn’t feel his stomach rumbling. He looks back at Kenni and notices just how scrawny she is. Sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, glimmering in the sun.
“Kenni knows a place to eat if you need directions,” she says, tipping her hat out of her face.
“I suppose those directions aren’t free?” Jast asks. Kenni demurs, tapping her pointer fingers together. “Lead the way, free Kenni. I have marks to spare.” Kenni lights up and struts in front of him, chest forward and shoulders back.
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“Right this way, sir.”
Kenni leads Jast both out of the alley and out of the Red-Light district, toward some hole in the wall establishment in the Lower City, near the dock houses and bunkhouses. Tenement Row, as it’s called, bricked up buildings pressed tight together, coffin-like rooms serving as lodgings for the dock workers and fishers of the area. On the third floor, accessible from the outside via iron ladder stairs, is the eatery Kenni has in mind. The wall housing the place has a painting of a bowl, piled high with egg noodles and fish bits, serving as both a sign and advertisement. Kenni scampers up the ladder and Jast follows, but freezes when the girl comes flying out headfirst. Jast catches her with an outstretched arm, holding her ankle in his tight grip. He growls and scales the rest of the ladder, planting Kenni on her feet as he reaches the landing.
“Hey!” a gruff voice calls out. “She’s not allowed…” They trail off as Jast finished climbing up, towering over the middle-aged proprietor of the establishment. Shaking his head, he jabs his finger into Jast’s chest. “That brat has run off without paying too many times. She’s not welcome.”
Jast sighs and reaches into his pocket for his coin purse. “What does she owe?”
“Seven marks, easy.” Jast rummages around his pockets, but can’t find either of his coin purses. Realization dawns on him and he looks back at Kenni, eyebrow raised. She refuses to meet his eye, even turning away when he holds out his hand. It’s only after he waggles his fingers does the young Shade deposit a pouch into his waiting palm.
“Kenni,” Jast says, and the girl turns over the second. She must have gone through his pockets while she was dangling by her ankle, Jast too angry to notice. Regardless, he opens up the lighter pouch and eight mark silver coin, each as large as a river stone, the kind one can skip across a river.
“It’ll be two pieces each for a bowl,” the shopkeeper says, turning to walk away. “Coins first, because of the brat. Take a seat. Toryne will be right with you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kenni says to Jast, a beaming smile on her face.
Jast yanks her hat over her eyes. “Don’t go through my pockets again.” The two take a seat at a corner table, observing the noodle shop in full. It’s a small place, like much of the other establishments in the Lower City, with room to stand shoulder to shoulder between the square tables that fill the floor space. There’s a counter with seating, tired looking dock men drinking soup broth straight from their bowls. A young-looking teenager, wearing a stained apron and hair tied back with a bandana, approaches their table. This must be Toryne.
“Hey, Tori,” Kenni says, tipping her hat up with a single finger and leaning back in her chair, attempting to look cool. “As you can see, Kenni has found herself a new crewmember.” She points to Jast, and he raises a single eyebrow. Toryne rolls her eyes.
“Fenner wants the coin upfront this time, Kenni,” Toryne says, crossing her arms. “If you don’t have the coins, you’re going to have to leave.”
The young shade gestures to herself. “Tori, this is Kenni we’re talking about. Kenni’s got things taken care of.”
“Well, Tori remembers Kenni cried when Tori touched her boob. You took your tongue right out of my throat and ran off home to mommy.”
Kenni deflates in her chair, hiding her luminous blushing face with her ratty cap.
Toryne looks to Jast, who has the expression of a man who wishes he woke dead. “Do you have the coin?”
“Only if you promise never to embarrass her again,” Jast says, voice stiff. He takes four more marks and slaps them on the table. Toryne nods and deposits the small silver coins in a pocket in her apron.
“Kenni didn’t cry,” Kenni says after some time, still shrunken in her seat.
Jast holds up a hand for silence. “We will discuss none of what just happened.”
The bowls that Toryne soon returns with, held in each hand, don’t have egg noodles piled high like on the mural outside, but they contain aromatic bits of fish swimming in a hearty broth. It smells briny and fresh, the cloudy broth stewed from the remains of whatever fish carcass the shop could get its hands on. Jast takes a two-pronged fork and twirls a heaping ball of noodles onto it, plopping the entire mass into his mouth. There’s a powerful body of flavor, a richness coating his tongue with thick umami essence. It’s not oily, the delicate fish flaking off in his mouth as he uses his tongue to press it against his palate. He looks at Kenni as she stuffs her face, shovelling noodles and fish into her open mouth and chewing at the lip of the bowl. She polishes it off by slurping the broth down in a single gulp, sighing as she slams the bowl down.
“That hits the spot,” she says, placing her hands behind her head and extending her legs in a languid stretch. She watches Jast as he eats with some semblance of grace, though not unlike that of an animal. He may eat like some beast of burden, but Kenni ate with desperate voracity. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Jast,” he says between mouthfuls. Kenni nods her head, as though appraising his name.
“Well, Jast, Kenni has a question,” Kenni says. Jast pauses, a quizzical expression on his face. “Kenni wants to know if you can teach her that thing you did in the alley.” Jast swallows a chunk of unchewed food in surprise as Kenni mimics the blade in front of her face, though he must admit she’s speaking with more discretion than he thought her capable of.
Jast opens his mouth to say “And why would I do that?” and intends on saying it, shutting her down and parting ways as soon as he’s finished eating. But he can’t bring himself to do it. Kenivera is a scrawny little wretch, a street urchin born of a prostitute and a rapist, with nothing to her name and nothing going forward in her life. She is also a Shade, a Shadowarch half-breed, and one that has managed to both forgo an armband and escape the eyes of the Garrison. She yet stands unbroken, despite her upbringing, and though Jast suspects she intends to use Shadowarchy toward ill causes, he can’t suppress the desire to arm as many miscreants as he can with Shadowarchy.
“Alright,” he says at last. Kenni almost falls back in her seat, stool legs slamming into the floor.
“Really?” she asks, uncertain. “Just like that?”
Jast nods. “Just like that.”
“No catch?”
“Well…” Jast strokes his chin and Kenni seems to deflate once again.
She sighs. “There’s always a catch. Well, lay it out. Kenni can handle it.”
“If you know anyone else like you. I’d like to teach them too.” Kenni’s mouth hangs agape, eyes wide, waiting for Jast to pull the rug out from under her. He says nothing and finishes his meal while the young Shade remains stunned across from him.
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Judging by her expression, Jast wasn’t sure Kenni even knew other Shades. But as he stretched himself in the alleyway, popping his joints loose and feeling for the darkness, he’s surprised to see Kenni followed by one other girl of similar stature. She stands taller by a finger breadth, her face stern and hard angled, her hands clenched into fists, almost as if glued together. Her skin is darker than Kenni’s, but still lighter than Jast’s. She squints at Jast, sizing him up, eyes lingering on the attachments affixed to his forearms.
“Kenni and crew have arrived, Lord Jast,” Kenni says with theatric flair, bowing with a flourish of her hand, cap swept off her shaggy head. She straightens up and points to the taller girl, cupping her chin in her hand. “This brick house is Nevryne. Say ‘hi,’ Nevryne.”
The taller girl scoffs, kicking at a loose stone. “Whatever. This guy gives me the creeps.”
Jast ignores the insult. “You girls know each other for long?”
“Kenni is the mastermind of this crew,” Kenni says, looking pleased, tipping her cap up. “Netti owes Kenni a life-debt.”
“She gets into trouble and I have to bail her out,” Nevryne says, earning a sour glare from the other girl. “So, yeah, we’ve known each other for a fair bit.”
“I have one question before we begin,” Jast says. “What do you plan to use Shadowarchy for? Simple thievery?” Kenni rubs the back of her neck, still remembering her attempt on Jast’s coin purses. Nevryne stands up straighter, but doesn’t deny the allegations. “Well, as long as it’s against Bright Casters, I don’t care what end you use it toward. Rob, steal, or murder, as long as it’s a Bright Caster, I don’t care.” He takes in their stunned expressions. “I have killed two Garrison officers and maimed another pair, and I will do it again. This is the man you’ll be learning from.”
Kenni steps forward, face grim, lips trembling as she adopts the stance Jast displayed the other day when she spied on him, one arm forward in front of her face. Her voice quivers in her throat. “Kenivera will do anything—everything she can to make her papa pay.”
“Then let me see what you already know.” Jast scans the alley while Kenni remains motionless in front of him, staring him down as best she can. He spots Nevryne moving into his blind spot, silent despite her size, her shadow lengthening by slivers with every passing breath. She touches Jast’s shadow and lets her expression break into a smirk, full of smug overconfidence. A memory fragment resurfaces unbidden in his mind, the voice of his sister coming through a misty haze.
“Shadowarchs can not touch each others shadow,” she says, “well, they can physically touch, but I can’t control you through yours. Shadow stepping, though, you should still be able to do that. Well, not you. You’re too weak, but I can walk through your shadow.”
Jast waits for Nevryne to draw closer before he springs this knowledge on her, sinking into his penumbra like a stone. He glimpses Kenni’s face as she sees him drop and the look of horror as she finally notices Nevryne.
She reaches out for her friend. “Netti, don’t! That won’t work on him!” Jast has already climbed into Nevryne’s shadow, thrown off guard when Kenni dives in after him. She floats, weightless, before clenching her eyes closed and screaming. The inner darkness responds, going wild, unseen tendrils and shaped ink-blackness thrashing around the space. A Shadowarch can’t control another’s shadow, but Kenni brought her own inside Nevryne’s. Jast teases out a length of tangible darkness and whips it around the girl, wrapping her up tight and covering her mouth. Her wide eyes water as she stares at him, her roiling darkness settling once she’s silenced. Jast whips her up and out into the daylight.
“Kenni!” Nevryne watches the petite girl fly a few feet off the ground before landing in a heap. Jast follows soon after, landing on his feet at her side. Nevryne jumps back, startled, but adopts a stoic expression, bringing her fists up. Jast can feel his Demesne activate, and Unlabored Flawlessness reacts of its own accord, moving his body out of the way as the teen releases a flurry of back alley punches. With his Demesne handling his reactions for him, Jast turns his attention towards Kenni. She’s back on her feet, eyes closed, hand writhing, as she attempts to perform the same feat Jast did the other day. A spool of wriggling tangible darkness forms in her open palm, stifled and cranky, but it vanishes once she opens her eyes.
“Better stop this before she hurts herself,” Jast thinks, side stepping a full-bodied haymaker from Nevryne. He returns his attention to the larger girl, using his eyes to draw out a thread of tangible darkness from his shadow, snaking it up her leg and squeezing. She stops at the sensation, looking down to see the threading, before Jast rips her off her feet and sends her tumbling into a trash bin. She lands on her backside, trash and debris covering her.
Jast turns to Kenni in time to see her clench her hand around a blob of tangible darkness, streams of the stuff jetting out the gaps between her fingers. Jast sprints up to her and grabs her face, squeezing her cheeks as he lifts her off the ground. She kicks her feet, trying to free herself, but releases the darkness to grip the Shadowarch’s wrist.
“Color me impressed,” he says, and Kenni stops struggling, eyes wide. “I didn’t think you’d be able to make tangible darkness.”
Kenni groans. “You make it look easy.”
Jast holds her limp body off the ground by her face.
“It requires a feather touch.” He drops the girl, and she lands hard on her backside. “You shouldn’t man handle it, and you shouldn’t scream at it. At least one of you knows how to control their own shadow. But lesson Number One:” Jast holds up a finger and makes the split decision to use their own terminology, “you cannot manipulate another Shade’s shadow. You can hide inside, sure, if they let you. Or you’re more proficient in than them in Shadowarchy.” Nevryne glances at Kenni. “But no amount of proficiency will let you control someone else. Controlling the darkness is to master one’s own. Not through force, but through gentle coercion.”
Jast coaxes his own shadow, pulling it off the ground and bringing it into his hand as a mass of tangible darkness. He wasn’t aware he could do that, nor did he recall another fragmented memory. But his sparring match against these street urchins has inspired him and that inspiration took shape in the palm of his hand: a raven with moon-shaped feathers, wings spread wide; the symbol of Clan Lunurian.