I narrow my eyes. “Have you encountered one before?”
He shakes his head. “No. But I’ve heard all the tales and recognized the signs.” His eyes lock with mine. “Impenetrable darkness, the total silence, not to mention the rotten stench.” He ticks off each of the signs on his fingers as he speaks. “I must admit, I wasn’t sure the stories about them were real, and I never thought I would meet one myself...” He trails off, lost in thought for a moment. “I honestly thought I was dead. That we all were.” He gives me his brightest smile yet, sporting dimples on both sides. “Until a human saved our asses.”
“I don’t know what’s more impressive,” Seniia says. “Being saved from an umbra by a human or Vilder stringing more than two sentences together.” She taps her nose with her index finger. “I’m inclined to be most impressed by the latter.”
A dagger whirls past me, spearing the wall right next to where Seniia sits, taking with it a piece of her powder-pink hair.
I stare at Vilder in shock, but Seniia throws her head back and laughs. “You missed.” She winks at him, and I make a mental note to ask him to teach me how to handle my dagger.
“Say that again, and you’ll find out.” He leans back, crossing his arms over his chest, remarkably relaxed for someone who thought he was dead just minutes ago.
How did they do that?I can’t help but admire how easily the Reans seem to shake off their fear and let things go.
Seniia hands me the shadowshard, and I tuck it back into my belt while Vilder finally has the decency to pull a shirt over his head.
“What’s it made of that makes it so special?” I ask. “The shadowshard.”
“Well, the stone of the shadowshard is nightstone, but its magic was likely forged inside the nebula. The legend says the two twin shards—one light, one dark—carry the essence of the two primordial deities, Mah and Zerex, respectively.” Vilder gets up to open the door, and despite his size, he’s nearly run over by his wolf as it storms into our small cabin.
“I’m fine, Gray,” he says as he falls back onto his bed, allowing the wolf to stand over him. “The human saved me.”
Gray cocks her head at him.
“Laïna,” he says, gesturing toward me.
The wolf turns toward me, immediately captivating me with the intelligence shining through her eyes. She stares at me for a moment, then lowers her head in what I can only assume is a gesture of gratitude.
“She understands you?” I ask, a little perplexed.
“Something like that,” he says, pushing the wolf off of him. He makes his way back up onto his feet and crosses our berth in two strides.
From the corner of my eye, I notice there’s a slight narrowing to Seniia’s eyes, but she doesn’t comment, so I stay silent as well.
He pats Gray on the head. “Let’s get some fresh air, girl.” Retrieving his knife from the wall, he gives us a curt nod. “Later, ladies.”
I stare at the door for a moment before I sink back on my bed. Seniia takes a seat by my side and grabs my hand, two worried lines between her brows. “You’re shaking.”
Pulling my hand out of her grasp, I roll over onto my side, my back facing her. I draw my knees toward my chest, curling up into a ball, but I’m unable to stop the shaking. The minister clearly wants me dead and will not give up until he succeeds. Parts of me wishes I were back being a property for Master Coperie, however horrible it was. Life was predictable, at least.
They would have burned you eventually.
It’s what they do to women who don’t bleed, as if we’re nothing but livestock they can’t bother to feed when we can’t reproduce. If it weren’t illegal for men to sexually interact with women who don’t bleed, we would probably be sold into prostitution instead.
Seniia strokes my back and my hair in long, soothing movements. “You are allowed to be scared,” she says.
Not knowing what to say, I remain silent. It’s surprisingly comfortable like this, the only sound the calming rhythm of her heart as I lie beside her.
Was my dream a warning? Without it, I wouldn’t have known that my dagger has the power to take out an umbra. I let my thumb glide across the sleek stone shaft. The dreams about Nana are strangely vivid, unlike my regular dreams, and not just because of the lucid awareness. They feelreal. As though I’m actually present in a past event.
These dreams have me wondering... Is it possible I’m mentally ill? But if what I saw was real, Aster must be beyond repair. I have my doubts that losing your mate can be handled as casually as Seniia and Vilder seem to deal with umbra attacks. How long ago it happened, though, I don’t know. Reans age slower than humans, I knowthat, but based on that, Aster could be anywhere from thirty to one hundred and still look the same. So the question is, When did those dreams take place?
I roll over onto my other side, facing Seniia. “How do you do it?” I ask. “How can you go through a life-threatening experience, like the umbra, and then just continue as if it never happened? Burn me. It almost seemed like you were having fun.”
Her mouth tilts to the side in a half smile. “Probably because we were.”
I groan. She can’t be serious. “Buthow?”
“It’s easy.” She pushes herself to a seat beside me. “We shake it off.”
