The Covenant of Shadows Collection

by Kade Cook

  Gabrian steals one last glimpse in Eva’s direction then turns to tail the man, skipping a few steps to catch up. “Do I know you?”

  He only grins at first then replies coyly, “Do you think you know me?”

  Gabrian twists her brow at the queer answer but continues trailing her new companion in silence.

  Her awkward expression causes him to give a slight chuckle. “I am Rhadamanthys, the eastern keeper of Erebus.”

  In her clouded state, Gabrian tries to retain the name. “Ra Daman…” The word forms queerly in her mouth but she continues, “I’m sorry. Could you say that again?”

  His chuckle grows louder as she tries to say it again. “It is alright. You may call me whatever part of my name that sticks with you. That way it will be easier for you to remember.”

  Odd, Gabrian thinks but his logic makes sense.

  The further they walk, the more distance is placed between themselves and the mist. Gabrian begins to have flashes of memories, more lucid and familiar, which had been void since her arrival into Erebus. More and more they come, bombarding her, vivid distractions cutting through her once calm mind. Swirling within them, she becomes lost, unaware that she has stopped moving to digest what’s happened to her.

  “Are you alright?” His soft words hum across his lips, delicately breaking her from her entrapment of visions.

  Gabrian blinks hard, returning from her internal journey, and presses a curve to paint her lips. “Yes, no…” she offers, lifting her eyes to meet his. Her mouth flattens, letting the corner of her lips drop. The golden sheen of his irises catch her attention, burning brightly against the hazy world they drift in. “I am feeling a bit peculiar all of a sudden.”

  His cheeks rise, and his golden eyes pinch at the edges, watching her dissect the situation of her mind. “They are your memories,” he offers her. “The images running through your mind are small coherent pieces of your life trying to break through the bonds this dimension tends to forge upon the consciousness of souls.”

  “Memories?” She glances around, face contorting and eyes searching for clarity. “These images and strange sensations…these are mine? These are my feelings?”

  “Yes, my dear. Don’t let them worry you. It is just your thoughts clearing.” Rhada smiles and extends his elbow, offering it to her in an invitation to continue on their journey.

  Gabrian’s eyes glance down briefly at his chivalrous offer then accepts, slipping her hand through the loop of his arm as they continue on their uncharted trek.

  “The Gargons who dwell here have an uncanny ability to enchant those harboring in the mist. They can captivate every thought and delude any ability to reason. They deluge the soul to drown, so to speak, within their own creation of euphoria. It is an unnatural state of being, but a necessary gift they allow during the transition from one status of existence until one reaches the next.” Rhada’s words sing out slow and delicate in effort to allow her to ingest his explanation without sparking her natural reaction of fear. “In turn, they cast you into a dream-like state that helps keep everything in check, so to speak.” He narrows his eyes, observing Gabrian’s reaction to all this, and at her slow nod of comprehension, he continues. “And, that strange physical feeling of loss you felt as Eva left you to me was just her suggested illusion diffusing from its hold over your mind.”

  Gabrian’s eyes shutter as he speaks his truth and her mind grasps at the slivers of understanding still melding in the toxins of the dead. Watching her struggle as her conscious fights against the compelled delusion, he continues his deliverance of truth. “It was necessary for me to distance you from her spell. I need your ability to think clearly in play to resolve what we need to discuss. I need you to be able think for yourself without influence.”

  Still floating, Gabrian stares ahead, lost within the nothingness, but her eyes begin to blink rapidly. Bits and pieces of what she is being told gathers, and she forces them to mesh together in order to grasp hold of any understanding. Between the continual flood of emotions prickling and gnawing at her, and the complex replay of dramatic visions dousing her brain in fuel and setting it ablaze in torment, her attention to what she is being told is strained.

  “Did you like your life, Gabrian?”

  The simplistic sharpness of the question shreds through her chaotic turmoil like a knife, stopping her in her tracks, and snatches her back immediately. Her eyes narrow. She has to grip hold of the words to hear them. “My life?” she whispers, raising her head to look at him.

  “I need you to try hard to focus,” Rhada says, only letting his sight drop in a brief side sweep of her presence. “Did you like your life?” he repeats, returning his gaze forward—his tone gentle but firm.

  Finally gathering enough distance to break free from the hold of the fog and its incessant shroud, her mind becomes her own again. Gabrian’s eyes blink with clarity as she gazes across the vastness of the clouded shoreline. Colours form, taking contrast in their surroundings. “I think so. Or at least I believe I did once.” Her bottom lip quivers and a solemn tear breaks from the corner of her eye to slide down the side of her pale cheek. “Well, before the bottom of it fell out and I ended up becoming the monstrous screw up and nightmare that came with it.”

  With a huffy chuckle, the stranger nods his head. “Ah, yes, Cera certainly did make a mess of things, didn’t she? Undoubtedly, it was all done in regards to your best interest. But, as we both know, sometimes things are better left to their own devices.”

  All her memories, bad and good, rush back to her at the sound of her birthmother’s name. Gabrian halts, disrupting the smooth pristine placement of the white sands at her feet. “Wait a minute, you know Cera?”

  Rhada looks down at her, his face warm and inviting, to give her a quick golden-eyed glance painted in humor. A cheerful smirk curls upon his lips. “We have met a time or two.”

  Gabrian turns and grabs onto his white-cotton sleeves, pulling him into an unavoidable stop. “But we are in Erebus? How could that be? Is she dead too?” she pants, eager for his reply.

  But he only steps around her, continuing his journey without her, and offers her no solace, only a crooked grin His eyes meet hers, granting a strange otherworldly dilation in his passing.

  She gasps, watching a straight black line jet out from the center of his eyes, widening across the golden hue of his irises, and flaring out before returning as if never born. Gabrian staggers, nearly tripping over herself with the memory of why the man seems so familiar. “The stairs,” she stutters, stumbling over herself, “you are the young man on the stairs. The one who disappeared into thin air the night I went to the college to speak with Cimmerian on the night of my attack.”

  With a golden wink and a grin that doesn’t break his stride, he peeks over his shoulder. “You have a very good memory.”

  Chapter Two

  Decisions

  Pushing her toes hard against the sand, Gabrian rushes forward and blocks Rhada’s path. “I don’t understand,” she argues, bunching the edges of his cotton sleeves in her fingers. “None of this makes any sense.”

  Rhada lets out a long heavy sigh. “There is so very much you do not understand.” He drops his gaze and gently reaches up with his hands, grasping her wrists. His otherworldly touch sets her skin to chill and the hair on her arms stands in their embrace. But she does not falter. His eyes twitch, and his mouth curls sweetly at her. “Something I intend to remedy.”

  Gabrian stares deeply at him, grasping at his clothes once more. “What is that supposed to mean? How?”

  Rhada looks out across the water. His eyes fill with the reflection, the array of colours prismed and dancing on its easy edges. “Well, Gabrian, that depends on which path you chose to take next.”

  Gabrian shakes her head. Riddles and lies, deception and delusion roll around within her, waking her up to the reality of where she has come from and what has suffered. Rhada lets go of her wrists and motions forward, pulling free from her surrend
ered hold on his sleeves. “Come, we have much to discuss,” he says, leaving Gabrian to her decision.

  She glances back at the mist from which they came, almost wishing she could return to its easiness, but her conscious—well awake and unrelenting as ever—forces Gabrian to dart after her new acquaintance, eager for answers.

  His words spill out the moment she reaches his side. “Do you want to know?” he asks, his mouth impishly sweetened at one corner, already knowing the answer as she nods.

  “Yes, tell me.”

  “Very well then.” Rhada nods, his face barren of humor. His features look aged as his lips part to relinquish his wisdom upon her youthful soul. “Ultimately, it is your decision but I, being the judgement of eastern souls of who enters Erebus, feel it is not your time to pass. The scales of balance have been breached, and I am afraid an awful evil has managed to fracture its delicate plates. I cannot be certain how deep the infection has been spread, but I fear, if left untended, worlds as we know them will be left forsaken from the contamination.”

  With narrowed eyes and her chin draping as his words spill out, Gabrian takes them in, however convoluted they sound. “But what does this have to do with me?”

  “Unfortunately, sweet child, everything,” Rhada delivers to her, voice low and sullen.

  Such queer words, she thinks, her eyes searching through the meaning. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?” she pleads, her grip firm now, pulling tight against his sleeves.

  “Even I cannot divulge this forbidden liberty of matters spoken. My tongue is bound to its limits of truth and knowledge. It is your will and choice of direction on the path taken now that will allow you this revelation,” he offers, his golden hue shimmering around the edges of his long black lashes, casting an enchanting glow across his cheeks. “So, answer me this child, search the innards of your soul. How do you feel at this very moment?”

  Gabrian swallows, pulling hard through her memories, drowning within her torn and mixed emotions, and tries hard to choose the right words to say. She opens the gates to let everything in, seeing the faces of all those she loved and still loves, and answers him with merely a whispered phrase. “I feel like I am coming undone. Like I am being pulled in a thousand different directions at once.”

  He cups her trembling arms and gazes on her with adornment. His face is soft and serene but shadowed in a moment of sadness as he smiles. “Then you, my dear, are not ready for this side.” Sliding his grip to the tips of her fingers, Rhada gives a gentle squeeze and lets them drop. “It is done,” he announces, stepping away, and utters something to himself undecipherable by her.

  “What is done?” she huffs, her eyes wild as she seeks understanding. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that you must be brave now. The worlds are counting on you, so you must believe. You must reach deep inside of your very essence and you must fight.”

  “I am sorry, but I really don’t understand.”

  Rhada’s lids close, and he inhales. “It is time. Are you ready?”

  “Ready? How can I be ready when I don’t even know what is going on?” she garbles at him.

  “You are going home.”

  “Home?” Her heart flutters at the sound. Home, she hums inside, caught somewhere between sadness and joy.

  The mist around them shifts and the colours dancing across the ocean’s flesh sparkle and intensify, cascading in fireworks across the sheen of Rhada’s eyes. Winds roll across the water, throwing Gabrian’s hair to float all around her face.

  “But first we must undo what has been done.” Rhada lifts his hand and cups her cheek gently. “I am sorry for what I must do now. There will be suffrage on your part, please forgive me, but you must find a way to persevere. You must fight.” His words are mournful and hushed in his warning. “Do you hear me? Fight for all you hold dear.”

  Not understanding much other than the fact that she is going home, Gabrian nods and forces her eyes to meet his. Rhada’s golden eyes of judgement swirl. The center of his pupils pulse as a thin line of blackness spears out either side—pulling the center clear across until it devours all that remains—opening some kind of internal anomaly. She gasps, seeing beyond what his human facade appears to be and into a depth beyond explanation, a state of eternal existence emanating within.

  “Now, close your eyes,” he whispers, hands gently cupping the side of her head, thumbs resting on her lids to coax Gabrian to lower them. He delivers one last tender grin as she does as she is instructed. Gabrian inhales, listening to the soft soothing waves of his voice. “Look through the darkness to find the light within for it will be needed to restore peace. Let them find you, and he will save you. Draw on his strength, and his love to pull you through to the other side.”

  In the darkness, the cryptic instructions begin to ring hollowly through her ears. She presses open her eyes to question his instructions, but before the words can leave her mouth, everything around her gives way. Her body is weightless and floating within the vast empty space between where she had just been and nowhere at all.

  Chapter Three

  From Erebus we fall

  In the painful silence that fills the Shadwell home, Tynan and Vaeda sit sipping the bittersweet taste of raspberry wine clasped between their fingers. Vaeda gazes lovingly at her host, running a delicate touch along his shadowed jawline, and feels the roughness of it nibble at her skin.

  His heart tightens with her touch, caught delicately within a web of pain that he cannot extinguish. Softening his face, his mouth plays the fool as it twists into a gentle upward fold.

  “Did Ethan say there was any change?” Vaeda knows what is on his mind so there is no sense making idle chatter about things he has no interest in. Direct and to the point is better, welcomed to Tynan, even if the words cause him to flinch.

  “No,” he drones, lifting his glass to his lips. “He says that he cannot find her, but I am not ready to hand her over to the keeper of Erebus and his judgement. I know she is still in there somewhere. Gabrian is much too stubborn to give up.” His voice cracks under his words. “She cannot give up, I will not allow it.”

  Vaeda rubs his arm and gives it a tender pat, lifting her own glass. “Yes, well, if I have learned anything about the girl, it would be that.” Vaeda allows a soft chuckle to escape, easing back into the impending silence.

  *

  A soft voice whispers to Gabrian as she floats within the void. “Surrender Egni.” And she screams as her body explodes into a bright orange flare, engulfed with pain.

  *

  A loud shriek rips through the room, echoing off the walls as it strikes out at them for the bottom of the stairwell entrance. Tynan’s wine glass shatters on the floor, spilling its contents as his body falls into the shadows, leaving Vaeda alone with her thoughts. He reappears in the same breath, rigid and alert, at the side of Gabrian’s bed upstairs.

  Another ear-piercing wail exits the small decrepit remains of her earthly form as her extremities lunge out, clutching at the blankets with her fingers curled into claws and feet twisted and strained. A crimson glow flares out from her body, bursting with heat as it brightens the room.

  Laying his hand on the pale clammy surface of her forehead, he feels the fire that burns under her flesh. Ripping back covers, and gathering her into his arms, Tynan gently cradles her heated body against his own just as Vaeda enters the room. He pushes past her, entering the bathroom and cries out his plea, his eyes wide with fear. “She is burning up. You must find Ethan and Arramus.”

  Vaeda gasps, stepping aside when she feels the heat.

  “Bring them to me. Please, quickly,” he adds.

  She nods and swiftly eddies her hand in the space between them, hearing the urgency in his voice, and creates a portal of air. She slips within the folds of iridescent fractals and is gone.

  Thrusting the shower lever upward, he steps into the frigid blast of water with Gabrian still nestled in his arms, and settles onto the shower floor, lett
ing the downpour of icy pellets work their Magik against the feverish heat.

  Tynan feels his niece flinch in his arms as her flesh reacts, but instead of cooling her off, her own Magik rebels against the assault and ignites in a multitude of intense heat waves. Each surge increases in temperature as it hits and turns every droplet of water into steam, sizzling on contact, and hazes the air around him, coating the glass shower frame with its clinging vapors.

  Tynan grits his teeth. His flesh feels the intensity of the battle raging inside of her and he begins to smell the stench of burning flesh—his. He cries out as the flames consume him. His eyes glaze over, but still, he refuses to falter. Panting and clenching his teeth, he releases a guttural growl as he bears down hard, jaws aching under the pressure.

  His eyes roll back into his head, revealing the white stained with crimson streaks, as his skin blackens from the barrage of Egni Magik refusing to let go.

  He cannot let go.

  The cold bite of mist stings on his face and urges Tynan to opens his eyes. Water drips from his lashes as he stares upward. The fire within Gabrian’s soul releases from her body and pulls away. The heat is gone. Tynan greets its departure with a loud exhale of relief and slumps back against the wall, slowing his breath, and looks down. His arms are charred and black but still clutching onto his niece who remains limp and pale in his hold.

  *

  Once more, the voice whispers within the darkness of Gabrian’s mind, her body still and no longer aflame. “Surrender Derkaz.” Her eyes shoot open, irises swirling of violet, and in the sting of black Magik exiting her soul, she screams as sizzling strings of purple toxins slither and snake across her then strike, choking her, smothering her, sucking at her life force. She struggles, kicking out and clawing at the invisible force strangling her within the darkness.

  ***

  In the stillness, his senses detect something new as the room takes on an eerie purple glow, sifting through the haze of mist. The violet flare snuffs out the remains of Gabrian’s red hue, bringing with it a stinging layer of painted toxic fumes that waft on the air and catch in Tynan’s lungs. He coughs as they enter, searing his airway, making him gasp for breath. Tynan unbinds one of his arms and covers his mouth with his sleeve, pressing it tight against his face just as the watery air on the other side of the shower bubbles in front of him.