“Dian, Goddess of Beauty, gave us awe and envy.
“Kole, God of Purpose, gave us diligence and sloth.”
The awe leaves her face. “You’re saying the gods gave us not only the seven holy virtues but the seven human sins too?”
“Those aspects weren’t always called sins,” I say, “nor were they considered evil. Before One Hundred Days of Darkness, Vanna was just as respected as Bastien. Back then, darkness was seen as necessary, the way night is essential to balance out the day. Harvests must be reaped. Life must end. One must understand sadness to also know joy. Those darker aspects, those endings, it’s simply lunar energy. Vanna’s influence reflected on our planet and in our souls.”
Inana shrugs. “If this story is meant to illustrate that sin isn’t evil, then that means Shades aren’t inherently evil either, which I suppose I can understand. They’re more like…terrifying wild animals. But that doesn’t change anything. Whether we call it sin or lunar energy, Shades are drawn to it. I hate that it’s true. I hate that it includes art, but hating something doesn’t make it false.”
“It is false,” I say. “Art isn’t human darkness. It’s a miracle of life.”
“Why are Shades attracted to it, then?” There’s desperation in her eyes, a war between wanting to believe what I’m saying and all the evidence she’s witnessed. All that she’s been taught to believe. Her expression falls. “How do you explain why Shades are so obsessed with art that they’d kill us for it?”
I know she’s thinking of the Incarnate and its fruitless attempts at replicating art. She’s right that the carver died because of her craft. The Shade was so obsessed, it killed the woman and her entire camp to try to become her. To try to do what she could do.
But not because art is a sin.
“Shades aren’t what you’ve been led to believe they are,” I say, my pulse quickening as I stumble dangerously close to words I shouldn’t say out loud. But I can’t keep it from her any longer. “We’re all told that Shades are drawn to sin because they manifested from sin. That’s partly true; they are attracted to lunar energy because theyarelunar energy. Sin, if you will. But they’re also attracted to that which makes them feel alive.”
“So art…makes them feel alive?”
“Yes,” I say. “The same way other mundane aspects of the humancondition make them feel alive. The lies we tell for survival or wickedness or even just for amusement. The passion stirred between lovers. The violence between enemies. The miraculous act of procreation and childbirth. It’s all brimming with life and humanity, and they’re hungry for it.”
I can practically feel how her heart races, how the wheels in her mind turn. She holds my gaze without blinking. “If they aren’t what I think they are, then what are they? If they’re merely lunar energy, what created them? Was it Vanna, like the holy texts say?”
I shake my head. “Shades may be made of lunar energy, but it was not the moon goddess’s will for them to manifest as monsters.”
“Then where do they come from?” She rises to her feet as if she can’t bear to sit still any longer. Her eyes flash with accusation as she paces around her side of the fire. “You said so yourself: Your sin has created Shades. You said you were theonlyone of us who could have created a Shade.”
“I meant that,” I say, my voice quavering with anticipation. My chest hums with it, a blend of terror and excitement. She’s getting so close to the truth now. So fucking close. I flip my blade once more. “In a sense.”
“Then what did you do?”
I sit up straighter, my hand clenched around the hilt of my knife. “Not what I did. What Iam.”
Her brows lower to a glare as she asks me the same question she voiced earlier, her tone sharpened to a point. “What are you?”
Slowly, I rise to my feet, sheathing my dagger. I stride closer to her, but not too close. “I am a Shadowbane. A halfsoul. Not because half my soul has been cleansed of sin in a religious sense, or in any other intangible way. I am a halfsoul because half my soul has had its lunar energy physicallyremoved.”
She goes still, eyes wide.
“Four pieces were cut away entirely.” I lift a tentative hand to my scarred chest and bring my index finger to the top half of the ritual circle carved there. I’ve never used my scar to convey the truth to a Summoner before. Inana is the only person aside from Calvin who’s seen it. But I want her to know. Need her to fully understand.
I tap one glyph. “This meanscut.” I point out four places wherecutis marked beneath the glyphs of four different gods, carved at the ends of four different lines. I tap on the glyphs for each of the gods’ names. “Herald, Dian, Lilith, and Sylas. Their lunar aspects were cut from my soul. In other words, Greed, Envy, Wrath, and Gluttony.”
I move my hand to the bottom half of the circle and the three lines there, with the glyph forcutmidway through each line. Again, I tap the names of the gods, then voice their associated lunar aspects. Or what we now call sins. “Malen, Serafina, and Kole. Pride, Lust, and Sloth. These were only partially severed from me. Enough that I still feel through them and control them, but they can act as separate entities, no longer fused to the rest of my soul.”
Her expression goes blank as she pieces together what I’ve told her. All the clues I gave her along the way. All the half-hidden truths I wasn’t sure if I should share. She takes a step back. “Your Shades…they don’t look like you because they tried to Incarnate from you. They look like you because they’re…pieces of your soul?”
I nod.
“And the ones you catch in vials…those are the pieces that were cut away entirely?”
Another nod.
Her chest heaves with shocked, weighted breaths. “Does that mean some of the wild Shades might also be slivers of someone else’s soul?”
My heart slams heavy against my ribs. “Notsome.”
