Something soft and cool was caressing her feverish skin.

Abrial twitched, scrunching up her nose so that whatever it was would go away.

The thing didn’t stop brushing her cheeks, pressing gently over her eyes. It was wet, leaving cool drops of water on her skin.

Abrial’s eyes blinked open.

“Abrial?”

Finley, who had been wiping Abrial’s sweaty skin with a cool white cloth, pulled back. She leaned over Abrial carefully, trying to see if she was awake in the dark of the tent. It was already nighttime.

Abrial groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. She had a terrible, piercing headache branching out from that spot behind her ear and striking all over her skull like lightning bolts.

“Here, Abrial. Drink this.”

Something hard and cool was held to Abrial’s mouth. Weakly, Abrial opened her lips to allow Finley to pour water in. She swallowed, only realizing how cracklingly dry the inside of her mouth was once she had a mouthful of water in it.

“What happened?” she croaked loudly. “Where am I?”

“We are in the infirmary tent,” Finley answered in a low voice. “Speak a little quieter, there are other people sleeping here. You were brought here after you lost consciousness this morning.”

Abrial tried to sit up, but Finley pressed her down by the shoulders again immediately.

“You need rest,” she said sternly, her voice still quiet. “Do not get up until your fever is gone.”

Obediently, Abrial relaxed into the white bedroll she had been set on again. Her eyes had adjusted to this nighttime darkness by now, and she swept a look around at what surrounded her: two rows of bedrolls set up along the tent walls, a few with people sleeping in them. Some bedrolls had cotton curtains pulled around them to obscure their occupants. On the small table by her own roll sat a basin of water reflecting the dim moonlight filtering in through the tent fabric. Finley dipped the cloth back into this water and dabbed Abrial’s forehead concentratedly again, wiping away the new beads of hot sweat that had formed.

“This is the infirmary tent?” Abrial whispered, remembering only at the last second to keep her voice down. “Who’re the other people here?”

“There are some people who have been injured during daily tasks. And I suspect the ones behind the curtains…are from the raiding regiment.”

Abrial tried to sit up again in shock, but Finley pressed her back down. She stared up at Finley with wide dark eyes.

“Why would people from the raiding regiment be here? Didn’t they get back weeks ago? They’re still injured?”

“Shhh.” Finley shushed Abrial firmly, continuing to dab her face. “I do not know why they would be here, but Sir Niklas visited earlier to check on them. Besides them, no one else is here besides a few receiving cold treatment. But I suspect there will be more people arriving very soon.”

“Why? Did something happen? Did people get hurt? Was it because of that fire I made?!”

Finley shook her head, holding a finger to her mouth to show Abrial to be quiet. Abrial was like a whirring bee that kept forgetting to lower its buzz every few seconds.

“No, nothing like that happened. No one was hurt by the fire; only you were brought to the infirmary. I expect that people will be coming soon because it is almost the twenty-fourth hour, which means that it is almost the Day of Shadows.”

Abrial frowned deeply, fighting the urge to swing up to a sitting position again. She wouldn’t have been able to anyways, since Finley’s hand was pressing down on her shoulder, seeming to have predicted her urge.

“What even is the Day of Shadows? What does that have to do with anything? Is it a bad thing? Do people get sick? Like cold season?”

As Finley opened her mouth to reply, the tent flap burst open. A loud hissing filled the tent, like a furious conversation being held in harsh whispers. Abrial craned her neck to make out two female figures dressed in white silken night robes.

Their faces flashed in the pale moonlight pouring through the open tent flap: it was Bi Gho and Bi Chanjuan.

As usual, Bi Gho was dragging Bi Chanjuan by the ear.

Bi Chanjuan pulled and pushed, digging the heels of her shoes into the dirt at the tent entrance.

“I’m not staying here for a whole fucking day!” she hissed, her voice like spitting poison. She sounded utterly furious, offended, even. “I’m not a fucking weak seedling or something! I can handle the day just fine on my own!”

Bi Gho’s low voice was unyielding. She continued to yank her younger sister into the darkness of the infirmary tent, her eyes glinting furiously back.

“Bi Chanjuan, I am not joking. If you refuse to come into this tent, I really will tear your ears right off!”

“Jiejie, there is fucking, nothing, fucking, wrong with me!” When Bi Chanjuan was furious, her profanities increased like the seeds of dandelions in the spring. “I’m not fucking sick and I don’t need any shitty herbal medicines, so cut the fucking crap! Let me go back to bed! I’m fucking tired and I need to fucking sleep!”

“You will sleep here,” Bi Gho said coldly, yanking Bi Chanjuan at last successfully into the darkness of the tent. “Where the healers can keep an eye on you. You know as well as I do the things you might experience on the Day of Shadows. As a committed practitioner of shadow magic, you must be carefully attended to today, starting from midnight; no exceptions.”

“But jiejie, I already told you! Last year I was fine not spending the Day of Shadows in the infirmary! I — ”

When Bi Gho spoke again, her voice was a low whisper, nearby enough that Abrial and Finley could here. It was so icy-cold that it sent a shiver down Abrial’s spine, and the coldness wasn’t even directed at her.

“Last year, you passed out while walking by the river, and where did you end up? Almost drowned! Your lips were blue by the time Wei Guang fished you out! I will not let you just frolic about when something like that could happen to you again!”

Bi Chanjuan was silent this time. She looked furious, but…seemed to have no rebuttal.

Bi Gho dragged her to the bedroll that happened to be next to Abrial’s. She made sure Bi Chanjuan laid down on it nicely, pulling the blankets over her little sister and snapping at her for continuously trying to get up and escape. Only when Finley shifted to dip the cloth into the bowl of cool water again, did Bi Gho seem to notice someone else was nearby and awake.

She squinted in the darkness, then lit up beautifully.

“Is that you, Finley Fellner, still here after so many hours? And Han Abrial Chae-young? How nice to see you both! I presume you are both here because of the events that occurred this morning?” Bi Gho shot a wink at Abrial. “I heard you performed some extraordinary shadow magic at my meimei’s lesson, and then fainted right away! You know how people talk; word spread all over the camp like a grass fire. People say the fire was ten meters tall! You have astounding potential as a shadow magician, I must say. Or, come to think of it — I only just learned today that you’re a shadow magician, Abrial! Could it be that you’re staying here because the Day of Shadows is approaching, like my sweet meimei is?”

Abrial glanced briefly down at Bi Gho’s ‘sweet’ meimei — namely, Bi Chanjuan — who was tucked into her bedroll and being held down by her jiejie. She looked utterly murderous, and avoided Abrial’s eyes fiercely.

Abrial coughed once as Finley continued to wipe her forehead diligently. Her throat was rather hoarse and dry still. In a slightly croaking voice, she asked:

“Actually, Bi Gho jiejie, I have a question about that. I’m here because I fainted this morning, but what’s the Day of Shadows? And why does your mei — Bi Chanjuan have to stay here because of it?”

Bi Gho smiled, releasing Bi Chanjuan and pulling up a stool between their bedrolls to sit on. She shot Bi Chanjuan a stern look, and Bi Chanjuan, who had begun to sit up, lied back down with a look of grumpy contempt on her pale features.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Bi Gho turned to Abrial, resting her white porcelain face on her palm with a smile. She was somehow even more lovely than usual right now, with her dark, flowing black hair falling over her shoulders like rivers of darkest ink.

“I assume you have not been deeply educated in the realm of magic, as the Day of Shadows is a day of the calendar only magicians carefully observe. It falls on the fist day of autumn each year, when the summer sun turns mellow and the air cools, preparing for winter frost. The Day of Shadows is called so because, on this first day of autumn, the transition of seasons and timing of the year creates conditions so that the chaos of the mind reaches its highest point, most full of strange shadows. The pathways of our minds stray and become more complex and dangerous as we sense the change in seasons. The peak of this chaos in spiritual energy occurs on the Day of Shadows. This is why my meimei gave a lesson today on shadow magic: for those who possess less talent in shadow magic, attempting it on the day before the Day of Shadows, when mental chaos is almost at its peak, will allow them a higher chance of first-time success. However…” Her divinely beautiful face darkened.

“The Day of Shadows is much different from the days that surround it. As chaos, suffering and lack of control over the mind is what fuels shadow magic, it is on the Day of Shadows that those who commonly practice shadow magic, or have a particularly strong disposition to it, experience strange and dangerous symptoms. A certain agony, if you will. ‘The agony of the Day of Shadows’. For example:,” Bi Gho lifted a long, pale finger, “The most commonly experienced symptom is a splitting headache followed by a sudden loss of consciousness, which resulted in this meimei — ” she shot a cold look at Bi Chanjuan, then continued smoothly, “fainting and falling into the river last year. Other symptoms might include aches and pains, extreme proneness to illness, fevere, fatigue, or loss of control over ones’ spiritual energy. In the lattermost case, a shadow magician might begin to perform acts of magic outside of their control, becoming a danger to those around themself. I am sure you can imagine,” Bi Gho said, raising a perfectly sculpted, soft dark eyebrow at Abrial, “what the consequences of that might be. Imagine that shadow magicians accidentally began creating raging hot fires everywhere, altogether, all on the same day at the same time. That would be quite the hazard, wouldn’t it?”

Abrial laughed nervously, though Bi Gho didn’t seem to be pinning any blame on her. She just felt uncomfortable suddenly, as though there was some hidden beast inside of herself that she couldn’t control — like a fiery monster lurking in there that she had never noticed before, one misstep from exploding. Was she…a danger to other people?

“If shadow magic is so hard to control, and it can harm you on the Day of Shadows every year, why do people even do it?” she asked, curious. “Wouldn’t it be better to stick to natural magic and healing?”

“Because, dumbass,” Bi Chanjuan snapped from her bedroll, where she had been laying quietly all this time. “One, shadow magic is more powerful. And two, some people can’t do natural magic. Wouldn’t you know that better than anyone?”

“Oh — right.” Abrial’s cheeks burned red. She’d forgotten about that. She realized suddenly that Finley was still wiping her forehead with that cool, damp cloth. She snatched Finley’s wrist, pulling it to the side to look Finley in the hazel eyes.

“Finley, does this mean I have to stay here all day today, since it’s the Day of Shadows? Do I even count as a shadow magician? No, right? I only did one thing, didn’t I? I couldn’t even do anything else except that fire! So I should be able to leave, right?!”

Finley removed her arm from Abrial’s grasp expertly and began wiping Abrial’s damp, sweaty pale neck. Her honey eyebrows were drawn down seriously.

“Whether you were able to perform any magic besides conjuring that fire or not, you still performed a powerful feat of shadow magic. I…do not know why you could not perform the other tasks, or why you created something so powerful so suddenly, but it is clear that you can perform shadow magic. So you will most definitely need to stay in the infirmary tent today, where the healers can watch over you in case you experience extreme symptoms.”

Abrial frowned, crossing her arms over her blanket.

“...Fine,” she relented reluctantly, grumbling. “But just for today. And…come visit me, okay? And stay with me a bit? I’ll get really bored in a tent all day.”

Finley’s hazel eyes twinkled.

“I will go and perform an errand in the morning, then I will return and stay with you.”

Abrial’s eyes lit up like lanterns catching flame in the night.

“Really? You’ll stay? Awesome! Can you bring…How about a book? Can you bring a book and read it to me?” Abrial asked excitedly, dark eyes shining bright. “Listening to stories is always fun. No way will I get bored if you read to me!”

“Read it yourself, idiot,” Bi Chanjuan snarked from her bedroll. Bi Gho flicked her fan open threateningly — she seemed to carry that white fan wherever she went, even at night — and Bi Chanjuan shut up.

Finley felt Abrial’s forehead gently with the back of her hand. It was no longer burning hot, only warm, as foreheads should be. She squeezed the damp rag over the basin and laid it on the table.

“I will bring you a book,” she agreed, pulling Abrial’s blanket up higher. “I will retrieve it in the morning when I run my errand. For now, I am going to give you a pain draught, and then you should go to sleep again until morning.”

“A pain draught?” Abrial frowned, shifting to a comfortable position beneath the blanket. “What, for my headache? It’s mostly gone now, I don’t even notice it anymore unless I really think about it. It’s no big deal.”

Bi Gho, on the other hand, seemed in enthusiastic agreement with Finley’s idea. She fanned herself, black hair fluttering like silk in a spring breeze.

“What a good idea! Finley, please do make a draught large enough for my meimei to take some as well. You surely are my best student, so clever! Preparing a preemptive pain draught all on your own, I’m so proud.” She seemed to be wiping real tears of pride from the corners of her eyes.

“Yes, Teacher Bi Gho,” Finley answered quietly, already on the other side of the tent rummaging in the infirmary’s cabinets of herbs.

“Call me Gho-jie, Finley! Didn’t I tell you that already?”

“Yes…Teacher Bi Gho jie.”

Meanwhile, Abrial frowned.

“Why would we need a pre-emptive pain draught?” she puzzled. “Doesn’t that mean, it’s ready before the pain? Is something going to happen to us?”

Bi Gho closed her fan, stowing it away in a pocket of her silk night gown.

“Not always,” she said, stroking her white chin. “But for those who are especially inclined to shadow magic, painful symptoms are almost always a guarantee. My meimei, for example, always gets a terrible headache — ”

“I do not!” Bi Chanjuan growled. “I’m completely fine every year!”

Bi Gho continued as though she could not hear:

“ — along with vomiting, stomachaches, constipation, indigestion, heartburn — ”

“Jiejie, stop it! I said stop! It’s all lies!”

“ — rashes, itchy ears, fever and chills, phantom sounds and smells — ”

“Jiejie! Shut up already! Shut up!”

By now, people were beginning to wake up around the infirmary. Several healers who had been sleeping due to there being no overly serious conditions in the infirmary sat up groggily, mumbling in confusion at the shouting. Patients began to groan and blink awake.

“What’s happening?”

“Someone starting a fight? In the infirmary, seriously?”

“Shut up, I’m trying to sleep here!”

By that point, it was too late anyways. Specifically because, at that moment, both Abrial and Bi Chanjuan both shrieked vile profanities while gripping their temples tightly, as though something had violently clobbered both of them over the heads at the exact same second.

The moon had just risen to the center of the sky, marking the twelfth hour, and the beginning of the Day of Shadows.

The agony had begun.

Bi Gho rushed to kneel by her meimei’s bedroll, trying to pull her clutching hands away from her temples.

“Meimei! Meimei, let go for a moment, let jiejie take a look — does it hurt terribly? Hold on, Finley is making a pain draught, the pain will lessen soon…”

Bi Chanjuan was squirming beneath her blankets, pulling at her hair and squeezing her eyes shut impossibly tight. Her cherry lips were curled into a fearsome scowl.

“Get back, jiejie!” she snarled, pushing her sister away. “It’s just a fucking headache! Argh!”

Bi Gho, of course, paid her sister’s words no heed, and rushed to snatch up a towel and basin of cool water to wipe Bi Chanjuan’s forehead from a nearby shelf.

Meanwhile, Abrial was writhing in her bedroll, already having thrown off her blanket in the f;ash of breathtaking pain. She had always had a high pain tolerance, but now her face was contorted tightly and pale as white jade. Profanities spewed from her mouth like air with every breath.

“What’s going on?” someone on a bed across the tent shouted in confusion. Everyone was clamoring about, trying to get a look at whoever had just started swearing their heads off. The healers frantically lit lanterns so they could see where the noise was coming from, while the patients grumbled.

“Isn’t that Lady Bi Gho’s little sister? The one who practices shadow magic?”

“It must be the agony of the Day of Shadows! They’re experiencing those symptoms…”

“Are we safe? What if they lose control?”

“Not to worry!” Bi Gho turned around, sweeping her wide white fan in a round gesture. The lanterns in the tent lit up with mellow light, which allowed for people to see clearly, but wasn’t bright enough to awaken those who were somehow still slumbering.

Bi Gho flashed her lovely smile around, as, with a flourish, she sent a damp cloth wiping Bi Chanjuan’s forehead all on its own.

“Everyone stay calm, please. I am here to oversee the situation, as is my prized student Finley Fellner. These two young women are experiencing the agony of the Day of Shadows. We are in control of the situation. My deepest apologies for disturbing your sleep — allow me to mute this sound for you…”

While Bi Gho waved her fan several times and thickened the air around various patients’ beds to muffle the profanities and growls emitting from Abrial and Bi Chanjuan, Finley appeared at Abrial’s bedrollside, her face drawn and apprehensive.

“Here,” she said quietly, “drink this.”

She lifted a wooden cup to Abrial’s squirming lips. She had to hold Abrial down and press on her pale chin to get her to stay still and open her mouth wide enough to pour the mildly sweet, smoking tea-like draught down Abrial’s throat.

After a moment, Abrial’s eyes that were clouded with pain seemed to clear. She relaxed into the bedroll, panting heavily with her hands still resting tensely on her temples as though to ward off any surprise attacks of pain.

Finley smoothed back the damp black hair from Abrial’s forehead with a gentle hand.

“How is it now? Is there still pain? Should I give you more?”

Abrial drew in a few more shaky breaths before answering haggardly:

“N-no. It’s not — bad. ” she sucked in a breath, closing her eyes momentarily. “I’m fine now. I don’t need any more. Thanks, Finley.”

Finley handed the second wooden cup of pain draught, which she had been saving in case Abrial was still in pain, over to Bi Gho. Her honey eyebrows curved with worry as she studied Abrial’s white jade-pale face.

She had never seen Abrial so incapacitated by pain before.

Abrial had an extremely high pain tolerance, but she reacted worse to the agony of the Day of Shadows than even Bi Chanjuan, the Wei camp’s most well-known practitioner of shadow magic. If Abrial was experiencing even more pain than Bi Chanjuan…

An apprehensive shadow flashed in Finley’s eyes.

What could this mean?