"Yes."
Something about that felt significant, though I couldn't say why. The idea that we would literally transform one another seemed both terrifying and strangely intimate.
The vehicle rounded a bend, and suddenly the view opened up. Before us rose the Navi Mountains in their full glory, towering peaks of black stone veined with silver, wrapped in mist that seemed to move with purpose rather than at the whim of wind.
"The Shadow Realm," Varkolak said, a note of pride in his resonant voice.
My new home. My prison. My future. All three at once.
As we drew closer, the panic I'd been fighting bubbled up again, tightening my throat, making my hands shake. This was real. This was forever. There was no going back to the colony, to the familiar crash of waves and smell of salt. I was bound to this shadow creature, to this alien landscape, to a life I couldn't imagine.
"I can't breathe," I gasped, pressing a hand to my chest. "I can't, I made a mistake. I can't do this."
Varkolak's form shifted beside me. Hesitantly, he reached out, his shadow-hand hovering near mine but not touching.
"You feel fear," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Of course I feel fear! I've just been bound for life to a stranger, told my body is going to change, and that I can never go home again!" My voice cracked. "Wouldn't you be afraid?"
"Yes." The simple admission caught me off guard. "Fear is natural when facing the unknown."
He didn't dismiss my feelings or tell me everything would be fine. There was something honest in his response that cut through my panic.
"What happens now?" I asked, forcing myself to take deep breaths.
"We reach my dwelling before nightfall. You rest. Tomorrow is new."
Tomorrow is new. Such a simple phrase, yet it resonated with unexpected hope. Tomorrow would be new. And the day after. And each day would be a step away from this moment of terror and toward something else. Something unknown, but not necessarily terrible.
As the vehicle continued its climb into the mountains, I stared at my reflection in the window glass, a scared young woman with wind-tangled brown hair and eyes wide with uncertainty. Beside me, the reflection of my shadow husband, his ember eyes watching me watching him.
Bound together. Changing each other. For better or worse.
CHAPTER 4
Varkolak
I carried Aya through the twisted mountain paths leading to my home, her slight form cradled against my chest. The journey from the human colony had been long, but she hadn't complained once. Her breathing had settled into a steady rhythm, and occasionally her fingers would tighten around the fabric of my shirt.
"Are we almost there?" she asked, her voice small against the vast emptiness of the mountain range.
"Yes. Just beyond that ridge."
The shadows along our path behaved strangely. I'd noticed it halfway up the mountain, the way they seemed to reach for her, curling like smoke around her ankles when I set her down to rest. Normally, shadows bent to my will alone, but these moved of their own accord toward Aya. It was unsettling.
"The shadows," I said before I could stop myself. "They're drawn to you."
She looked down, studying the dark shapes that stretched unnaturally toward her. "Is that bad?"
"No. Just unusual."
The final ridge revealed the hidden valley where my people had lived for centuries. Cave openings dotted the mountainside, connected by narrow paths invisible to outsiders. Warm lights glowed from within some of the larger openings.
"Your home is beautiful," she whispered.
It wasn't what humans typically found beautiful, but hearing the wonder in her voice made something shift inside me. Pride, maybe. Or relief.
"Most humans find it foreboding."
