Shadowlight (Lightkey: The Intrepid Lucy Duceaul, Book 3 - PART 1)

by Elon Vidal

  Doppelgangers are somewhat similar to what Lucy was going through. They spelled death.

  Lucy sat on the edge of Madge's bed as Madge shut and locked the door, while Phoebe stiffly perched on the only chair in the room, a frown pulling her lips. Madge's room was identical to the one Lucy had, but with a green and brown theme.

  “Aeron wants to prove his worth in the family of elemental powers,” Madge explained. “He's going to wreck the balance in order to achieve that.”

  Lucy rubbed her eyes. She was tired from all the stress, but apparently she had to stay up some more and understand why both elemental powers were so worked up.

  “Do you mean Aeron's quest in switching the living with the dead?” Lucy asked.

  Madge nodded. “If we let him succeed, there will be no life soon. Everything and everyone as we know it will be dead.”

  “The thing is we knew about this earlier,” Phoebe spoke up, still stiff as a stick. “When we were younger, a few millennia ago, Death wanted to be like me; to bring life. Everyone loves Light, but Death… he was sorely hated for bringing souls to the gate.”

  “You give life?” Lucy asked. “I thought that was Madge's job.”

  “I work with her,” Phoebe responded.

  “But it was something Aeron couldn't control,” Lucy continued. “He is Death; that's what he was born to do.”

  Madge muttered, “Not many people see that. That wouldn't stop multitudes from wishing he never existed.”

  Lucy wondered how Aeron coped with such a life after millions of years of existence. Anyone would get depressed and tired of that, and envy Light, because… well, the only people who probably didn't like her were a handful of the dark powers, and we're talking about trillions of beings from other worlds who love Light. Now, imagine those number reversed for Death.

  “So now —” Lucy was suddenly cut off when she felt energy sucked from her body. She cried out and doubled over, and would have toppled off the bed if Madge didn't reach out to catch and steady her.

  Phoebe stretched out her hands as if sensing something. “There's a magical siphon attached to you, and it's draining your energy.”

  “Yeah, I kinda made this deal with Death,” Lucy grunted. “Not the best idea so far.”

  “That wasn't very wise of you, Lucy. Don't you know the consequences?” Madge hissed.

  Mental facepalm.

  “Yeah, I realized. It was either me, or we were all doomed. Ivar, Snack, they had come to rescue me, only to find themselves in far more danger than they had thought. I had to prevent that, even if it meant taking the chance.”

  Phoebe exhaled sharply, then procured a bright orb of light. Like a moth to a flame, Lucy quickly pulled out of Madge's hold and came as close as she could to the light. It felt like Lucy should just be submerged in it. She craved it, more than chocolate or ice cream, or anything else she had ever wanted. She needed the light so bad, standing next to one was not enough.

  Go to the real world.

  Go to the real world.

  Go to the real world.

  Somehow, the thoughts were no longer intrusive and scary. It almost felt like her thoughts, but something was different. They weren’t hers. They came from somewhere, or something else. A being inside her, a different voice. She didn’t recognize them as her Sidhe or Druid side, nor as her inner self. These were different, external yet connected.

  She traced back to her latest experiences. What had changed? She was now undead. Tangled with…. A shadow dweller!

  Yeah, these were the shadow dweller's thoughts. Why could she still hear its thoughts?

  Go to the real world.

  Why would it want her to go to the real world? Was there something it was going to accomplish if she did so? Now she wasn't very sure what to do.

  Go to the real world.

  But Tesha claimed she could reverse the spell when she got to the real world. She had to go and try.

  Go to the real world!

  “I need to go to the real world,” Lucy blurted.

  She had always wanted to return to the real world, but now the shadow dweller’s repeating thoughts made her homesick. It was almost as if she was starving and the only thing that could fill her was a trip to the real world, the warmth of real sunlight on her skin.

  Phoebe frowned and retracted the orb of light, making Lucy whimper as tears gathered in her eyes. That was so unfair, she needed the light! Worst still, she could remain in this undead state and then die.

  “Seriously?” Phoebe cried out in annoyance. “Out of all the things to spell you with, a death spell to become a shadow dweller? Can this get any worse?”

  “I'm eventually going to fully die if something isn't done about this,” Lucy added.

  “It got worse...” Phoebe said with a mirthless chuckle. She and Madge simultaneously pinched the bridge of their noses. They had similar long, straight noses.

  Phoebe turned to Madge, her steel blue eyes looking unsure for the first time. “What do we do?”

  Madge let out a breath as she rubbed her face with her palm. She looked like she didn't like what she was about to say.

  “The most urgent case right now is Anwar,” she said. “He has to be taken to the Styx.”

  That reminded Lucy, she hadn't seen Anwar since she arrived.

  “Is he alright? How's he doing?” she asked.

  “He's lost not just his sight, but also his hearing and speech,” Phoebe said. “We isolated him till we're ready. We don't know what would be affected next.”

  “That's the only reason I support trying the Styx,” Madge mumbled. “I still think it's a huge risk.”

  “Why didn't you go since? There’s no time to lose.” Lucy almost knew what the answer would be. They were probably too worried about her to do much.

  “We were trying to find you, not just for your safety, but also for Anwar's health,” answered Phoebe.

  Lucy was puzzled. “Me? Why would I be needed for Anwar's —”

  “You're a healer,” Phoebe cut in. “Anwar can't go to the Styx without a healer.”

  Lucy's face scrunched in disbelief as she said, “No, I'm not a healer.”

  Madge just stared at her until Lucy gave up and sighed, saying, “Okay, okay, so maybe I have some healing powers… but that doesn't mean I trust my healing. Sometimes it comes, sometimes… I'm disappointed, big time.”

  If she had healed Anwar back when the shadow dweller struck him, he wouldn't have to risk his life going to the Styx now. But no, her healing powers loved to play hide and seek.

  “What if I helped you train your healing powers?” Phoebe asked. “Would you go to the Styx as a healer, Lucy?”

  Lucy took a deep breath, then nodded. She had to help fix Anwar; it was her fault he turned out like this in the first place. Soon they would go to the Styx, one step closer to Anwar's deliverance… or death.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Children of Light shall flee,

  when darkness seeks the key

  But life and death shall be

  the reason to succeed

  Excerpt from the Lumenary Prophetiae

  After being with Madge and Phoebe, Lucy came back to the living room to meet the others, finding the room lacking both werewolf and vampire.

  “Where are Ranger and Tesha?” she asked.

  Alina pointed at the door. “They claimed they couldn't stand it in here anymore and left for their homes. Tesha said only jinns and shadow dwellers could survive here, unless you were dead.”

  “Or had one of these.” Ivar raised his pearl by the vine it was hanging from.

  Lucy felt for hers, then realized there was a black blotch on the shiny smooth, pale white pearl when she pulled it up to her eye level. What did that mean? Had it always been there, and she didn't notice till now?

  “Um, guys…?” Alina intervened. “I don't fall into any of those categories, so does that mean I'm...dead?”

  Ivar and Lucy exchanged glances. Ivar seemed to be thinking the
same thing as Lucy, as they both said at the same time, “I guess that's what that means.”

  They paused, then chuckled.

  “Jinx, you owe me a kiss,” Ivar told Lucy.

  Lucy burst out into unexpected laughter. “What?”

  Ivar shrugged and said, “It's my favorite kind of chocolate.”

  Oh, that kind of kiss. She found herself thinking of what Fivar said about her liking his hair, and she couldn’t help but glance at Ivar’s curls before looking away in a hurry, her cheeks warming a bit. Now that she was undead, she really was losing her mind.

  “Guys, guys, focus,” Alina cut in. “This serious.”

  “We don't have to pay for a laugh between the seriousness, do we?” Lucy asked. “Happiness is free, so be happy even in the midst of chaos.”

  “If I don't smile, I'll age faster,” said Ivar, pushing himself up from the couch and going to the mirror to run a hand through his tousled hair. “I still have some centuries to go and girls to impress.”

  Lucy burst out laughing again, while Alina just smiled and pushed her glasses back up her nose.

  Lucy pulled a gray pillow cushion on her lap and turned her upper body to Alina. “Alina, how did you get switched?” she asked.

  Alina rubbed her arms as if she were cold. “I can't really say. I was in my room making tea. I remember suddenly feeling paralyzed for a couple of seconds, before feeling extremely dizzy and zoning out, only to find myself in a chair with Aeron staring at me. That has got to be one of the weirdest experiences I ever had. Well, except for the time I accidentally started a mini-hurricane in my bowl of soup…”

  “So now, the shadow dweller is in your place?” Lucy asked.

  Alina blew out a breath and sighed, criss-crossing her fingers. “I guess so. We traded places, didn't we?”

  Ivar frowned thoughtfully and moved his index finger in the air as if writing some invisible sentence. “Wait, something's off.” He peered at Alina. “You were supposed to be at Scoil Solas, right? The switch is happening in the real world, not Inalion.”

  Alina let out a nervous chuckle as she rubbed the back of her neck. “Latest update: Scoil Solas' Lightbringer population is rapidly decreasing.”

  “Wait, what happened?” Lucy asked. She couldn't believe the largest gathering of Lightbringers would suddenly start falling apart.

  Alina intertwined her fingers. Her lips tugged down at the ends and her bright brown eyes now looked sunken in sadness and fear. “Witchfinders come and relocate Lightbringers every day.”

  No…

  “The Lightbringers they took never come back from their so-called trips to the lab.” Alina turned away as she said this. “Like my brother. Back then, no one had an idea what was going on. Some still don't. I fled to the real world, because I knew I'd be relocated soon.”

  Lucy's hands found their way into her hair and she clutch her golden locks. This was bad, big time. Could this, by any chance, be because of her?

  “Do you know why the Lightbringers are being relocated?” Ivar asked what Lucy was about to. “Well, apart from the fact that they are Lightbringers.”

  Alina slowly shook her head. “I don't know. I don't even know what criteria they use for relocating. Witchfinders just come in and the principal calls students out to "do a lab assignment" or something like that, and that's the last time we'll see those students. At first, it was subtle, but then our numbers severely dropped and we noticed.”

  Ivar shook his head in disbelief. “That's messed up. Most of them are just kids who don't even really understand what they are.”

  Alina gave a small shrug with her slumped shoulders. “I kind of like that I was brought here. I can fight back, and maybe even see my brother again.”

  Lucy didn't want to give her false hope — they didn’t know where the Lightbringers were taken. Only a select group of Witchfinders and high-profile beings might. She could sympathize with Alina missing her brother, as her own father had gone missing for a while.

  Lucy was struggling with her own problems and seeing how her own group was being decimated, the witchpetal had been so close yet so far, and the stakes were growing on her quest at every new revelation. It was all a bit much for her to handle at that moment, and she couldn’t quite find a solution to it all.

  “I'm tired. I need to rest,” Lucy said as she got on her feet.

  Walking out of the living and into the hall, she met Madge walking out of her room with Snack on her shoulder.

  “I'm leaving,” Madge said before Lucy could say a word.

  “Say what now?”

  Snack tapped the tube clipped to his leg. “Summoned by the higher powers to be there ASAP.”

  Lucy asked, “When will you come back?”

  Madge shook her head. “I don't know...”

  Lucy sensed something was wrong, but she couldn't put a finger on it. But Madge couldn't go now… not when they were about to embark on a mission as serious as taking Anwar to the Styx. Madge seemed to know how to keep situations under control and how to navigate this awful place. Now she wouldn't even be there to make sure they didn’t run around in circles for another two weeks.

  Snack flapped his wings impatiently. “We have to hurry, Madge. Nyx hates it when you're late, remember?”

  Madge gave a stiff nod, then passed Lucy. “Stay safe and be smart. Listen to Phoebe,” she said.

  Soon, she was out of sight. Lucy stood in the hallway, alone, thoughts echoing in her head, trying to piece together what she could do to steer towards some semblance of a solution.

  Days of practice left Lucy exhausted. Sometimes, she would be jolted out of meditation when Aeron made a switch, using her energy. Phoebe always supplied her with more than enough Light energy, even though it was like a drug to her shadow dweller self. Without Phoebe, Lucy would have been in so much pain.

  “Concentrate,” Phoebe whispered, sitting on a chair across the room from where Lucy was sitting cross-legged and eyes shut. “Find the healing part of your energy.”

  Lucy tapped into her mind sight and saw her well of energy. She moved her hands and a blob of rainbow-colored liquid floated up from the well. Now to separate her healing powers from the rest. She mentally tugged at the blob and light green energy was separated from the rest. Now all she had to do was access it.

  Lucy stretched out her hand, trying to reach the green spherical energy, but it kept floating far away from her until it disappeared.

  “No!” Lucy hissed out loud in frustration. She opened her eyes, breaking her meditation. “I lost it.”

  “Again,” Phoebe added. “This has been the problem for the past two days, and the unfortunate part is that there's no way I can help with that. It solely depends on you.”

  Lucy let out a sigh, scratching her head. She was wasting time; Anwar's time. She had to get this right and have him taken to the Styx, but she always lost the healing energy. It was frustrating as heck.

  “Let's try again,” Phoebe suggested.

  Lucy shook her head. “I'm done practicing. We should take Anwar to the Styx.”

  “That is a huge risk to his life.”

  “And so is my staying here and wasting time,” Lucy countered. “We don't know what part of him would be affected next. Can you imagine how lonely and stressed he is now? Not knowing what's going on through his most important senses.”

  “Lucy —”

  “Maybe this would work there,” Lucy continued. “We won't know if we don't try.”

  Phoebe paused and thought for a moment, before sighing and giving Lucy a look that plainly said "don't mess this up".

  Lucy cracked her knuckles on her way out of the room to get the others prepared. Wolfe had been nowhere to be found since the day Lucy returned, and there was no way to reach him. The plan was to leave Didi, Crick, and Alina in the house—in case he came back—while Ivar, Molly, Phoebe, Lucy, and Anwar went to the Styx. Molly to trouble the waters, Ivar for transportation, Lucy for healing, and Phoebe for adult supervis
ion.

  As the traveling group got ready to go, a little doubt nagged Lucy from the back of her head; what if she couldn't heal Anwar?

  The weather in Netherim was perpetually cold, and flying on a dragon wasn't helping. Lucy felt like her fingers were going to freeze and fall off, her eyelids were going to seal shut. The land of the jinns and shadow dwellers was sparse. They flew over stretches of gray sand, caves, and an occasional building here and there.