“Oh, yeah.” I nodded. “They didn’t seem unusual, but I guess there was some… interspecies breeding going on there?”
I really needed to get my judgy hat off.
“We don’t procreate in the exact same way as humans,” Shadow told me. “But you’re also not wrong. The different creatures all have varying levels of intelligence, and some are on the same par as freilds. Once you learn to communicate with them, it’s really not as… depraved as you’re thinking.”
I held both hands up. “Seriously, no more judgement from me. I can hardly talk when it comes to living an alternative lifestyle.”
I mostly hoped to see these clordees at some point so I could experience this particular mesh of two different species. It was an interesting concept, and as long as no creatures were taken advantage of, I was all for diversity.
This strange protectiveness I had for the creatures was growing with time. And now that I was here, seeing the beings of Shadow’s world, I could no longer ignore the urge to wrap them all up and keep them safe from those who would hurt them.
As we continued on, there were no more encounters with any of the realm’s inhabitants, and Shadow ended up creating another oasis for us to sleep in when night fell. I’d been worried that someone in this world was going to notice these sanctuaries, but Shadow reassured me that it was fairly common to see them pop up from those who crossed the lands. The oases would die over time, without nourishment, until eventually the black rock claimed them again.
None of us rested particularly well, especially not after Shadow told us we were basically on the border of Trinity and would soon be crossing into his family’s territory. Our days of moving undetected were numbered.
“Do you ever sleep?” I asked him when he settled in against another new tree.
“Someone has to keep watch,” he told me.
The sentiment was very noble, but at least half the times I opened my eyes that night, he was staring at me.
He made me feel safe. Safe and uneasy at the same time, the dual nature of my emotions toward him intense.
It was ironic that the beast who had starred in my nightmares for so long was now the one to bring me safety and peace. Life was funny like that.
“Sleep, Sunshine,” he said to me when I tossed and turned for the twentieth time. “Tomorrow we face the royals.”
I closed my eyes against his words and wondered if this was the last peaceful night I’d ever have. The thought that Shadow was going to go up against his asshole of a sister, who had thousands of years to amass power, and who’d destroyed his life in the first place, was terrifying and liberating at the same time.
“Do you think she knows you’re here now?” I asked him sleepily, keeping my voice low.
He nodded, a single hitch of his chin. “No doubt at all. She’ll be ready, but so will we.”
He was strong enough. He was not the same young royal who had been kicked out centuries ago. He would destroy them if it was the last thing he ever did, and I had no idea what would come after that.
“Do you think I’ll ever learn what I am?” I asked, my eyes opening again, despite the exhaustion pressing on me. “Will someone in your family know?”
He shifted, and in the low light of the moon above, I couldn’t quite tell what expression he wore. Possibly pensive or… worried.
“My sister is the first I have to destroy, but she’s not the only one in my family. I’ll have to wade through all of them to figure out who was involved in my betrayal, but I expect some will be left standing when it’s all over. If there’s information among them, I’ll find it.”
I felt satisfied with that. Shadow would do a thorough job in figuring out what I was, and how I’d come to exist, and when I finally had my answers… well, I’d deal with it once that happened.
Before Shadow had stolen me from Torma, I’d thought I’d had a pretty solid handle on who I was. Shifter; book lover; broken but fighting to stay internally strong; full of sarcastic quips; fan of old action movies and sappy romances; aficionado of flipflops and denim cutoff shorts; unruly hair of indeterminate color; good friend; sometimes terrible friend.
So many facets of me, Mera Callahan.
All the colors of my rainbow spread out before me, visible and vibrant. And I got them, I embraced them. Now, though, there was a new streak of midnight threading it all—kind of ironic, considering I was bonded to a mist called Midnight. I didn’t understand this darkness dripping into my colors, and I had no idea how to handle it. Did I embrace it and say this was me now? Or did I fight it so the darkness no longer bled through, muddying the blanket of my being?
“You’re overthinking.” Shadow broke through my thoughts as he leaned forward. “Whatever we find out about your new abilities, it doesn’t change who you are. You’ve always been you; some of it was just hidden. Like your wolf. You never shifted, but she was always there. It was only that you had knowledge of her existence that you didn’t freak out when it first happened.”
I nodded, rolling over to use my arms as a pillow, staring up into the starless mists above. “You’re saying that this affinity I have with your world, with the mists and creatures, was always part of me? I just wasn’t aware until it all rose to the surface?”
“Yes.”
Well, okay. That did make me feel a little less like a foreign entity was living inside of me, ready to burst freeAlien-style at any moment. As cool as Ripley was, I didn’t have any ambition to live her life.
“Thanks,” I said softly. “I’m sure you didn’t sign up for keeping me sane when you already have a lot on your plate.”
