“Is that such a bad thing?” I ask.
Perhaps I’m imagining it, but his back seems to stiffen at my voice. It takes him a few moments to answer. “I would never endanger a village for my own ambition, but Shadowbanes earn accolades for defending their posts. The faster they de-escalate an active Shade attack—either by putting an end to an ongoing nightly threat or by dispatching an Incarnate—the more posts they’re given. The more posts they defend, the more accolades they earn, and the higher the chances are that they will be chosen to complete their Absolution.”
My stomach sours at that. Another reminder of what he seeks to become.
“But the most important accolades,” he says, “are those earned in the months leading up to the summer solstice celebration in the Year of Bastien.”
“That’s next year,” Harlow says. She’s right, and with it already being twelfthmonth, the Year of Bastien begins in just a few short weeks.
Still, I don’t know what’s significant about that. An annual celebration occurs at the capital city nine out of every ten years for the god-of-the-year’s holiday. Since next year belongs to the God of the Sun, that’s summer solstice.
Every decade has one year dedicated to each of the nine gods, and a tenth dedicated to atonement. During each annual celebration, King Kaelum performs a ritual sacrifice of convicted criminals. He offers their souls to the patron god of the year to demonstrate that the criminals are but a small fraction of mankind and do not represent humanity. Then he tests his thirst. If he sets the sacrifices free, it means his thirst has ended; the gods have forgiven us, and the Shades are no more. However, if he drinks from them, it means we’ve yet to earn forgiveness. For five hundred years, the ritual has ended the same way—the sacrifices dead and drained of blood at the king’s feet.
At least that’s what I’ve heard. It’s not like I’ve witnessed one of the annual rites. The capital is even more exclusive to residents and visitors than the other Sacred Cities are.
Dominic speaks again. “Shadowbanes are guaranteed to be turned full Sinless when they retire, usually after three decades of service. Rarely are they allowed to retire and complete their Absolution earlier than that. However, during the Year of Bastien, one Shadowbane is selected from a pool of nominees to be turned on summer solstice, regardless of how long they’ve served. These nominees are chosen by their patron princes.”
“Each prince can only nominate one Shadowbane,” Calvin adds. “Dom’s patron, Prince Leeran, employs about a dozen shadow hunters. So the competition is fierce. Being late to our post already looksbad enough, but having to relinquish the post to another team…” He lets out a low whistle.
“You want to complete your Absolution that badly?” I say, glowering at Dominic’s back.
He shifts his head to the side and eyes me from his peripheral vision. His jaw is tense as he speaks. “I always finish what I begin.”
I’m not one to complain about sleeping arrangements, seeing as I’ve had no true home of my own for two years, but sleeping in a moving wagon next to three other people is fucking awful. It’s almost as bad as waking up with a shadow monster invading my space. Again.
At first I think it’s Harlow, as the body snuggled into my chest is smaller than me, but not by too much. Then I shift, preparing to push the girl over a few inches so I can gain some space between her and the endgate behind me, but instead of a solid body, my hand falls on something light and soft and just a little wiry. Like fur.
I open my eyes, blinking into the dark. It takes me a few moments to make out the shape, but sure enough, Sloth the shadow dog is lying next to me, his back pressed against my belly. Biting back a yelp, I launch backward, but the endgate gives me nowhere else to go. And where my alarm startled the creature awake last time, now he merely shifts to the side, stretches out, and rests his face on his enormous paws.
The sight does something strange to my chest. For a moment, it makes me forget he’s a Shade. Under the blanket of night, where everything is bathed in shadow, he looks so much like a real wolfhound. Same long legs, giant paws, enormous head. Same wiry fur, same small ears.
I had a dog when I was a child, for a few short months. I fell in love with the beast, named her Butterscotch, but Mother couldn’t stand the way she’d bark at night to alert us of Shades wandering outside. Not only was it disruptive to sleep, but Mother feared it would provoke the monsters to attack. I didn’t mind the barking, and I’d never heard of a Shade attacking because of provocation from an animal. Yet one day I came home from running an errand for Mother at themarket, and Butterscotch was gone. Mother said she ran away. That may have been true, or she may have let her out on purpose or sold her to one of the farms. Whatever the case, the sense of loss was too deep. I never sought the companionship of a pet again, not even after I took up the trade of a seamstress and moved to my own home.
Looking at Sloth now brings back that same tender feeling from when I had Butterscotch, and it opens a deep well of longing and nostalgia in my heart.
I reach out a tentative hand, half expecting it to fall through the creature. He was solid when I attempted to nudge him away, thinking he was Harlow, and there have been plenty of times where I’ve felt the pressure of the Shades’ touch. But there have also been times where I’ve reached out to shove the touch away only for my fingers to close on air. So I’m surprised when my palm splays over fur again. Sloth doesn’t stir or startle, so I let myself pet him, just out of curiosity. It’s a strange sensation. Fur-like, but lighter. Like the texture is only a dream of fur. And he’s warm too, at least somewhat, his belly rising and falling in a pantomime of breathing, his body pulsing with a slow yet steady heartbeat.
Maybe I’m being reckless. Maybe I’m just delirious from poor sleep and too much change these last couple days. But in the end, I decide not to push Sloth away. Instead, I close my eyes and continue to stroke the shadow monster’s fur.
The next time I wake, it’s to screaming.
Chapter Thirteen
Inana
As we drive down Thornfal’s main thoroughfare, a single word leaves Dominic’s lips in an impressive display of extending a single syllable into a self-contained sentence. “Fuuuuuuck.”
“Fuck indeed,” I say behind my mask, only now understanding the cause of the screams I woke up to. We were still up the road from the village when Dominic roused us from sleep and had us don our masks in preparation to get to work.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Harlow mutters, her hand covering her mask’s mouth slit.
Calvin, who only has the hood of his cloak to obscure his face, peers from beneath it. “Is that…”
“Dragon,” Bard says.
The fact that none of us question what he just said shows none of us had righteous upbringings. For dragons are a thing of fiction, lost to centuries-old tales that no one is supposed to tell. Yet it’s hard to stop children—so unfamiliar with the concept of sin and so drawn to awe and whimsy—from exchanging fantastical stories or sharing myths.
And here it stands before us now, myth made nightmare. A godsdamned shadow dragon screeching in the center of town.
