“Skull is our strongest shadow walker. You’ll bewalkingwith him to our destination,” Scorpius tells me, and I nod my assent. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of questions as we go, but I ask that you stay quiet and vigilant unless there’s a threat. When we hunker down for the night and it’s safe, we will answer anything that you may want to know.”
“If we somehow get separated, you are to shadow walk to our first destination and then wait for us there,” Skull adds. “I’ll point out the best way for you to find it when we first arrive,” he assures me.
“Got it,” I confirm, and he nods once.
“Let’s go,” Scorpius commands, and with that, each of them moves to the darkest corner of the room.
I follow closely behind Skull, my pulse now humming in my veins. Excitement flows through me, and even though I don’t know where we’re going or who we’re meeting, I know I’m ready. I’ve trained for this, and the Scorpions have expanded on that, refining and sharpening me even further. We’re not out to spill blood on this hunt, but even without it, tonight will be poignant. It’ll be a night I will always remember because it will be the first time we go out as a team. The first time I step into the light of the moon as a Scorpion, fully relying on the others to bring me back in one piece. Everything that comes after this, my future…ourfuture, will be built on the foundation of what happens under the stars tonight.
I never thought in a million years that I would be here.
I used to spit the taste of hope from my mouth. It was a venom that exacted a steep price, a price that I refused to pay. However, a different venom now runs in my veins, one I’m learning is so potent that it burns away everything until all that’s left is hope. A hope that’s survivable because it’s wrapped in safety and acceptance, devotion and respect, adoration and so much more.
And it’s all mine for the taking.
Scorpius disappears into the shadows, and Bones traipses in after, offering me a wink before he’s swallowed up by the inky depths.
“Ready?” Skull asks, and I pull in and then release a deep breath as I nod.
I’ve only traversed the shadows fewer than a dozen times. I was always too aware that I could be caught at any moment in the ludere, so I used the surprise ability sparingly. It was a means to breach a wall or two, that was all I ever risked. Scorpius and Bones aren’t popping into the next room over though, and the only time I’ve ever traveled more distance than that was after I’d ripped Gartox’s throat out. So when Skull presses into my back, one arm circling my waist while the other snakes across my chest, I blow out the worry that was settling in my lungs.
He’s got me.
“Try to sense the signature of the space,” Skull murmurs against my ear, and I automatically lean back into him. “It’s instinctual with this thura; the more you use it, the more you’ll be able to discern one collection of shadows from another. Step into it,” he guides me, pressing me into the shroud that just claimed his brothers.
Skull’s tone is assured and comforting, and his physical presence grounds me, making what’s being asked seem far less impossible than it ever has before.
“Do you feel the little tug?” he asks me, patting his hand low on my stomach.
“Yes,” I answer.
“That’s the thura inviting you in. We’re going to follow that tug until the stones in front of us melt into an infinite number of shadow patches.”
I nod and try to keep my breath even and my jitters settled.
“Once we step into that in-between, I’m going to take over. I’ll walk us to where we need to be, okay?” Skull asks me, his cheek softly nuzzling mine.
“Got it,” I tell him a little breathily, and then he plants a soft kiss just below my ear.
It’s a battle, but I refuse to get distracted by it. Instead, I follow the pull exactly as he just instructed. Like a rake through sand, I’m gently dragged from the front room of the castle into a gray space filled with endless speckles of dark possibilities. I know Scorpius said that Skull was the best at this, but a part of me didn’t think I’d be able to do what he was asking so easily.
“That’s it,” Skull rumbles, the vibration of his approval tickling my neck and moving down to settle at the top of my shoulder.
Cool pressure entwines around us, and then in a puff, Skull is pressing me out of the gray in-between and into a dark storeroom. The scent of herbs and onions weakly permeates the thicker smell of hops. Large wooden barrels are stacked against the back wall of the chilly, white-washed stone room. Shelves occupy the other side, piled high with various root vegetables and spices.
I look over to see Scorpius and Bones waiting at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Skull presses on my stomach, and my attention snaps back to him.
“Every shadow has unique qualities, the thickness, the temperature, its proximity to light. Sometimes even scent is a component. If you want to shadow walk back to this room, you’ll need to recall how this particular shadow feels to you and then use that to locate it amidst all the others. It sounds complicated, but when you step into the void between light and dark, all you need to do is call the shadow of the destination you want, and then you’ll be connected to it.”
I think back to when I shadow walked from Gartox’s room to the female washroom in the ludere. I didn’t understand how I did it then, I was simply chasing my instincts, but I remember wanting someplace safe and quiet. The tiled room with its rows of tubs popped up in my mind, and the next thing I knew, I was stepping out of a shadow into the very space I’d just pictured.
“The more you shadow walk from place to place, the more familiar you’ll become with the shadows themselves. That will make it easier to come and go,” Skull assures me before he pulls his arms from around my body and moves away from me to join the others.
I take a quick moment to close my eyes and get a better sense of the shadow we just exited. When I feel like I’ve cataloged it well enough to call on it again, I move from the dark depths and fall in step behind Bones as he begins to ascend the stairs.
Wherever we are, it’s quiet. I feel both wary and soothed by the hush that wraps around us as we climb up the narrow stairwell. The top step gives a small squeak of protest as Scorpius treads on it, but the sound doesn’t give him pause or make the others tense. They’re not sneaking around, even though they move with pure predatory grace. I want to ask where we are, but no one else is talking, and Iwastold to keep my queries to myself until later. I swallow down my curiosity and tabulate the first of what I’m certain will be many questions by the time this hunt is over.
When we left Scorpion castle, it was dusk, but as I file out of the storeroom stairway into a large kitchen, the view through the large windows shows that it’s much later here. Waning moonlight spills into the large room that’s built to feed an army, and I realize the placid lull of this place is the sedate quiet that accompanies the early hours of the morning. It’s too late to deny sleep and too early for the first risers of the day to be shuffling out of bed.
