Shadows and Stars

by Becca Fanning

  I wondered what Mara was doing and if she was okay. What would happen to everyone who was human? I doubted they would just be given homes or anything for free. Were there jobs they could be given? There didn’t seem to be apartments or even a town nearby, so where did everyone live?

  Eoghan hissed and stopped his forward progression. I stopped, sliding behind a tree to hide myself from whatever it was that he was looking at. He hissed louder and then growled. I wanted to peak around the tree so badly, but I held myself in check to remain hidden.

  “What are you doing here, Eoghan?” a female stranger asked in a singsong voice.

  He growled again and she laughed. “Alright, I’ll steer clear of you. Though you are a handsome male, I don’t feel like being scratched or bitten like last time. I had to give myself two stitches.”

  He hissed and shook his head.

  “I suppose I did deserve it. I wasn’t trying to kill you, honest. I just wanted to take a bit of your meat and see what you taste like. You wouldn’t have died.”

  She was mad! Taking a chunk of him to taste him? How horrible! What type of woman…maybe she wasn’t a woman. Maybe it was a vampire or some other mythological thing that I hadn’t seen yet.

  Eoghan held his ground a few minutes longer and then looked over at me and nodded.

  The way was clear.

  We resumed our walk and it wasn’t long until I smelled smoke and cooking meat. A bit longer and I saw a couple houses built close together in what seemed to be a small town. Eoghan moved closer to me until my hand rested on the top of his shoulders and then we walked into town.

  There were more houses than I had been able to see, at least ten along the street that was wide enough for six people to walk side by side. A few people were out and all of them turned to look at me curiously, but when their gazes landed on Eoghan, they stayed there.

  An older man with a cane walked out to meet us and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Eoghan stared up at the old man silently, but every so often the man would nod as though Eoghan were talking. Could they hear him? Maybe it was a gift some people had that I didn’t.

  “I’ve got a place you can rest tonight,” the old man said and then looked up at me. “You must be someone special if Eoghan is letting you touch him.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I just didn’t respond.

  The old man led us into one of the houses and I sneezed when we entered it, dust from the doorway having gotten into my nose.

  Eoghan sneezed too and the old man laughed. “Shifters have the most sensitive noses.”

  “Why can you understand Eoghan, but I can’t?” I asked the old man.

  “You’re blocking him,” he told me as we walked into a back room that had a bed and a fireplace. “You have to take down your shield so that he can talk to you.”

  “How? I don’t know how to do that. I didn’t know that I was even doing it in the first place.” There was so much that I needed to learn. There was so much that I didn’t know about this world.

  He squatted down and pulled on a metal ring I hadn’t seen in the otherwise dirt floor and lifted a wooden square door that revealed a set of stairs leading underground. “You don’t know how to use your magic?” he asked. I shook my head. He whispered a word and a small ball of fire appeared in his hand. The fire illuminated the stairs as we walked down them, deep under the house and to a room made of stone with a dirt floor. “You have to imagine opening a door and letting Eoghan walk in.”

  “Uh, okay. I’ll try it later,” I replied with no confidence that I would be able to do what he said.

  The room had a few torches on the wall, a fire pit in the center and a large bed on the far wall. Eoghan leapt up onto the bed and curled up to go to sleep. He must have felt safe with the old man to sleep without standing watch first.

  “I’ll bring you down some supper later,” the old man said and walked up the stairs. The torches suddenly began burning and gave me enough light to see.

  Eoghan opened his eyes and made an odd mewing sound.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said, frustrated. I wanted to be able to talk with him.

  He hopped off the bed, rubbed his body against my left leg and walked back to the bed. Did he want me to go to sleep? I wasn’t tired yet. Plus, that bed didn’t look particularly clean, even by my orphan standards.

  “What?” I asked him.

  He huffed and then yowled softly at me.

  I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. What had the old man said to do? Open a door? I tried to imagine a door opening and Eoghan walking through it, but nothing happened. Nothing changed.

  I opened my eyes and Eoghan stood next to me and looked at me with what I assumed was sympathy. Or I was just projecting what I wanted him to feel? He gently put his mouth around my hand and tugged me towards the bed. I followed him to the bed, took my bag off, and lay down, surprised to find it was dust free and actually seemed to be pretty clean. He jumped up next to me and lay down beside me, his huge paw coming to rest on top of my face.

  I laughed and pushed his paw off. “What are you doing?” I asked with a smile.

  He put his paw back and then lifted it and yowled softly.

  “Boo, to you too,” I said and pet his face. “I wish I could talk to you.”

  He closed his eyes and purred loudly with his bulky paw resting on my shoulder.

  “Maybe I’ll find someone who can help me with my magic. Then I wouldn’t have to worry so much or have to have you protect me. I don’t like being helpless. What if I never figure out how to unblock you? What if we can never talk to each other like you can everyone else? Am I going to need someone else to interpret for me?”

  He opened one eye, put his paw over my eyes and made a snoring sound.

  I pushed his paw down and laughed again. “Alright, you’re tired. I’m sorry for keeping you awake. You deserve sleep since you kept me warm last night.”

  It took a minute of rolling around for me to find a comfortable position, but once I got comfortable, I fell asleep shortly afterwards.

  Sometime later the old man brought food down which woke me just enough to see him put the food down, and then I fell back asleep. Halfway through the night I swore that I felt arms wrapped around me, a body spooned around me, but I knew that it was just Eoghan’s paw and body keeping me warm and safe.

  Eoghan woke with a start at some point later, his body making cracking sounds like Miss Jonas’ did when she sat too long. He yowled at me and bumped his nose against mine.

  “Five more minutes,” I begged.

  He yowled softly again and grabbed my wrist in his mouth, careful not to bite hard enough to puncture my skin.

  “Okay, I’m up,” I muttered. I sat up with my eyes still closed and yawned. When I opened my eyes, he was drinking from a bowl that was on the ground. There was a second bowl on a table that I hadn’t seen before. I tentatively sniffed the bowl and it smelled like chicken soup. I sipped it and confirmed it was soup and then chugged the soup, chewing the bites of food in the soup quickly. It was very flavorful and filled me up quickly. “That was delicious,” I said to Eoghan who was watching me.

  “There’s a door to your left, Eoghan knows where it is, take it and follow the tunnel until it dead ends and climb the ladder there to the door,” the old man said from the top of the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” I asked nervously. I had thought Eoghan just wanted to get going, not that something was wrong.

  “Some of the Queen’s people are here looking for you,” the old man told me. “I added some additional supplies to your bag while you slept, don’t want anymore. Go before they get here.”

  The bag was a bit heavier, but nothing that I couldn’t handle carrying. Eoghan walked up to the wall to my left and nudged it with his nose. I pushed on the wall and it slid open slowly. We walked through and it closed behind us with a whisper of sound. Torches in the narrow hallway lit by themselves and Eoghan led me away fro
m the old man’s house.

  “Will he get in trouble?” I asked Eoghan softly as we walked.

  He growled and I wasn’t sure if that was an answer or an order to be quiet. I chose the latter. My heart beat fast in nervousness as we made our escape from whoever it was that the Queen had sent. I really hoped that the old man, whose name I should have gotten, was going to be alright. He had magic so hopefully they wouldn’t be able to or want to hurt him.

  The tunnel went on for miles and we walked for over an hour. The tunnel looked the same and we could have been walking in a circle for all that I knew, but thankfully sometime later we came to the end and a rope and wood ladder. I knew our walking wasn’t over and as soon as we climbed up we would have to resume our escape, but I was glad to be getting out of the tunnel.

  I looked at Eoghan and asked, “How are you going to get up?”

  He nudged me towards the ladder so I climbed up it and pushed the heavy door above my head open. The sky was dark when the door fell away and I climbed out into night. How long had we been asleep? It couldn’t have been for very long if it was still night time. After climbing out of the hole that was in the middle of a field of corn, I turned and looked down for Eoghan. I fell back onto my butt to get out of the way as he leapt from the floor of the tunnel up out of it onto the ground beside me.

  “That’s quite a jump you have,” I commented and swallowed my heart back down to it’s normal location.

  He closed the door with his nose and we started jogging through the field. With rows to go down, I was less conspicuous and I hoped we would be harder to see if someone was searching for us out here. Where were we going?

  Curse my inability to communicate with Eoghan!

  Eoghan stopped and I had to put my hands on his back to keep from falling onto or over him. He raised his muzzle into the air and sniffed a few times. I held perfectly still to keep from distracting him. Plus, I was terrified of whoever was after me.

  Flapping wings in the distance between to grow louder and closer. Eoghan’s eyes widened and he grabbed my arm with his teeth and pulled me forward. When I was lower, he straddled me, pushed me down, and lay down on top of me. His body covered mine and I realized that he was doing it to camouflage me from whoever might fly over. I also realized that his fur pattern had changed from white and black to light brown and black. The black dots and patterns were the same, but the light brown fur made it easier to camouflage himself in the corn field. How could he change his fur like that?

  Obviously, the answer was…magic.

  The flapping wings grew louder and closer until I was certain that they were right over the top of us. It sounded like at least two pairs of wings, but I couldn’t be certain and I sure as heck wasn’t going to risk being captured just to look.

  The flapping went over us and then grew faint as it continued. Eoghan held still as he watched the sky and listened and we stayed on the ground for a few more minutes before he finally felt it was safe to get up. I brushed off my backpack and bum and hoped the contents in my bag were still safe.

  “Those were vampires, weren’t they?” I asked softly.

  He nodded his head and then strong arms grabbed me from behind and pulled me against a hard body. I screamed in shock and Eoghan spun around, his lips raised in a snarl and hissed.

  “Eoghan, what are you doing with this girl?” the vampire who had caught me in the woods with Treyce asked.

  “Please let me go,” I begged.

  His grip tightened painfully and I gasped. “Silence, human. I’m talking.”

  Eoghan growled at him and the vampire laughed. “Cat got your tongue? Why are you in that form? Why haven’t you changed?”

  “Let her go!” I heard a male voice shout in my head.

  I stumbled a step away from the vampire in shock, but he pulled me back closer to him.

  What? Who?

  Eoghan took a step forward and hissed. “Let her go now,” the voice said.

  Was that, Eoghan? Why was I able to hear him all of a sudden?

  “No. Queen Pella has demanded her returned to the castle.” He slid his finger along the side of my neck and whispered, “Though a small taste on the way would surely be within my rights since I found her. It could be my reward.”

  “Try it and I will kill you,” Eoghan, I think, said.

  “Was it you who helped her escape?” the vampire asked. “Were you the one who got her out of there? How did you do it? Was it through a teleportation spell? The witch couldn’t smell magic. Treyce hadn’t smelled any shifters so it doesn’t seem like it was you. Did you even know that she was a criminal? If you didn’t, Queen Pella will forgive you for harboring her.”

  “I’m not a criminal,” I protested.

  He slapped my cheek with his palm just hard enough to sting and said, “I warned you to be silent while I’m talking.”

  I jerked around to face him and snarled at him. “I don’t care who you are! You don’t get to hurt me just because you think you’re better than me.” I smacked his face and despite trying to deliver my hardest possible hit, his head didn’t move and his skin didn’t even discolor.

  The vampire wrapped his hand around my throat with an angry snarl and lifted me up off the ground. I tried to kick him and grabbed onto his forearms to try to lift up and keep from choking.

  Eoghan sprang from the ground, knocked me out of the vampire’s hold, and bit into the vampire’s throat. I ran away from them both, hiding but in a spot that I could at least see them. The vampire didn’t move anymore and Eoghan walked away from the motionless body back to me with blood on his face.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked him from a sore throat. He hadn’t had hold of my throat long, but it hurt a lot. He had been really strong.

  “No, I’m not. You shouldn’t talk out loud though. Your vocal chords are likely damaged,” he said in my head.

  “I can hear you now,” I whispered happily.

  “Hopefully it lasts, but I’m sorry that I had to break your shield. It wasn’t on purpose.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t care. I’m glad…wait? You broke my shield?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I was trying to use my power to break through the vampire’s shield, but I broke through yours as well. Thankfully it didn’t hurt you and we can communicate to each other. Now, stop talking out loud. I can hear whatever you say through our minds. No speaking necessary.”

  “Awesome,” I said in my head and he nodded.

  “Let’s keep going,” he said and headed down the open row with corn stalks on either side of us.

  “What are you?” I asked him tentatively.

  “Why was Treyce with you in the Queen’s chambers?” Eoghan asked at the same time.

  “I have some shifter blood in me so he was trying to have me sent to his clan instead of the witches’ or the vampires’ who were the other two trying to get me,” I explained.

  “You’re a mage though. Why would Pella even consider sending you to the witches?”

  “Who else can teach me magic?”

  “The wizards would be better teachers.”

  “Is that what the old man who gave us shelter is?”

  He nodded his head.

  “And you are?” I asked.

  He huffed a breath out. “I’m complicated.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked with irritation.

  “The less you know about me, the better,” he said. “Once we reach our destination, I can explain everything to you.”

  “Where is our destination? Where are you taking me? Are we just going to run from Queen Pella and the others forever?”

  “There’s one place that she doesn’t have power and that’s where I’m taking you.”

  “Why shouldn’t I go with Treyce?” I asked. “He didn’t seem bad.”

  “He’s not bad, but you aren’t shifter enough to belong in his clan. The others there would give you nothing, but trouble.”

  “I’m sure no matter where I went I
would be harassed.”

  He paused and looked up at me. “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m not from here. I’m an outsider.”

  He rubbed his head against my thigh. “I’ll protect you.”

  “Why are you protecting me? Where did you come from and how did you find me in the castle?” I had so many questions that weren’t answered and so many more just rolling around in my head that it made me dizzy.

  Eoghan turned around, sat down, and met my eyes. “I saw them bring you in and saw what you are. You are the last mage in existence and as such you need to be protected. Since the mages disappeared our world has been off balance. I think you might be the key to restoring the balance and fixing what’s wrong with everything. I was part of the group who designed that castle so I know the hidden passages better than anyone and I heard Pella order them to take you to her chambers. There are many questions I can hear you wanting to ask, but here is what you need to know. I am your friend. I will protect you from anyone who tries to take you from me or who tries to harm you. You never need to be afraid of me or worry that I might betray you. I will take you someplace safe, somewhere that we don’t need to watch our backs, someplace that we can sleep at night without worrying or running through a dark tunnel to escape.”

  His friend? He didn’t even know me. Why would he want to be my friend or go through all of these troubles when he didn’t know me?

  “That’s a complicated answer,” he said.

  “I didn’t ask a question,” I said in shock.

  He nodded. “You may not have meant to, but I heard your thoughts. In time, I hope you’ll think of me as a friend as well.”

  The rest of the day I tried as hard as I could not to think about anything that he might not want to hear. I sang a few songs in my head and then remembered that I had brought my music with me. It took a bit of digging, but I found the player and ear buds.