by M. L. Greye
“It’s not like Enlennd has Turanga Squalls,” she muttered.
“Some of my people have immigrated to Enlennd,” he told her. “How else do you think those brutes in Kruth learned to swing a staff.”
“Would I find some in Breccan?” Emry blinked.
“I did.” Trez knocked back the rest of his ice cup and tossed it into a barrel filled with other discarded ones for a Pale to dissolve later.
“Where?” Emry demanded. If there was something like this in Breccan, then Emry could keep up with her skills. Her heart began to race at the thought.
“When I visited your kingdom, I found a Heerth canteen in Breccan,” he replied with a shrug. “The patrons informed me of what they called the Ranga Pit next to the canteen. I ended up going there a few times. It’s open all day and most of the night.”
Emry’s heart was threatening to burst from her chest. Canteen was the Heerth word for a tavern, and in Breccan she only knew of one area designated for the consumption of alcohol. Restrictions were tight because of her family’s dicey pastime with strong drinks. That meant she had somewhat of an idea where to look when she went home.
“Thank you, Trez.” She meant it. He might have just solved one of her problems.
“I figured I should let you know.” His smile slipped a little. “I received a message from my father today. Your own father and his retinue will be departing for Zyntar in a month. It will take him two weeks to get there. He’ll stay for two more weeks then take you home.”
Had it really been ten months since she’d arrived in Heerth? Emry’s excitement over the Turanga in Breccan sank into her stomach like a rock, rendering her sad and a little ill. Her time in Heerth was almost at a close. She tore her gaze from Trez and bit the tip of her tongue. The dancers twirled and thwacked away contently. Did they have any idea just how lucky they were? Tears pricked the corners of her eyes at the sudden rush of emotion. She’d always known the day would come when she’d return home to Enlennd – she just hadn’t expected it to come so soon.
“Emry.” She turned to find he’d been watching her – he liked to do that. His eyes were soft as he said, “You asked me once about running on light. I’d like to teach you how to do it.”
“I only have two months left.” She let out a short laugh, swallowing back the burning in her throat. “Why bring this up now?”
“Because it took me this long to find the scroll to tell me how to do it,” he replied sheepishly.
She stared at him – for what he was admitting. “You’ve been searching your library for a scroll about how to teach Silvers to run on light?”
He nodded. “And I found it a couple days ago.”
“For how long?” Emry asked quietly. “How long were you looking for it?”
“Since you arrived in Acoba,” he confessed.
“That long,” she breathed. She wasn’t sure if she should be shocked or flattered.
“I wanted to help you.” Trez shrugged. It was the most bashful Emry had ever seen him.
“Careful, Trez.” Emry gave him the smile she’d been secretly practicing in her mirror – the one Sabine gave her conquests. “One might suggest you’ve gone and gotten yourself attached.”
“All anyone would have to do is take one look at you and realize they couldn’t blame me,” Trez shot back with a grin of his own – all semblance of discomfiture gone.
It was her turn for her cheeks to flush as she said, “Thank you.”
“Of course.” His gaze held an intensity that made her shuffle on her feet.
“When do we start training this new ability?” She asked in an attempt to hopefully distract him from staring at her.
“At the next full moon.”
“Tonight?” She blurted.
“Tonight.” He nodded. “Why else do you think I waited until today to tell you?”
:::::
“That’s it?” Emry stared at him. “Couldn’t you have just told me that earlier rather than bringing me out here in the middle of the night?”
They were outside the back of the palace, near the expansive pool. Emry was still in her training garb – the color of ripe lemons and limes – and beneath the full moon its light made her look like she was glowing. Trez was barebacked and wore a pair of loose ivory pants – a shade Emry rarely saw him don.
It was just the two of them. Emry had continuously seen less and less of Sabine, who wasn’t even in Acoba at the moment. She was down in Prythius upon her father’s request. Emry missed her friend. She wouldn’t have noticed if Sabine’s honey brown skin gleamed in the moonlight – like she was with Trez. His muscular, lean, gleaming chest … The man needed to put a shirt on.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Trez smirked and drawled, “And miss the opportunity to be alone with you under the stars?”
Emry nearly swore at him in Heerth – a phrase she’d overheard at one of the Acoba markets. But instead, she glanced out over the stone pavers that surrounded the pool. From where she stood, one end of the pool to the other had to be at least a hundred feet, and Trez wanted her to make it across the length of it in just five steps. Apparently, for Silvers, to run on light was to run like a Teal. Under a full moon, Emry would only need to run for her ability to take over. Emry had honestly never ran during a full moon.
As a child, her mother had only taken her out at night to feel the kiss of the moon. After she died, Emry would go out alone, but never far from the estate. At the palace, she simply went up to the roof. She’d never thought to try running.
“You’re stalling.” Trez laughed.
With a roll of her eyes, Emry took a deep breath and ran.
The moonlight made her skin tingle where it touched. She threw all her energy into each pump of her legs, and to her shock, the world seemed to blur by. She counted five steps and came to a halt. She’d overshot the pool by a good ten feet. She whirled back around to Trez and found him jogging towards her. He wasn’t even halfway to her. Emry grinned, her own surprise washing through her. She’d run like a Teal. She wasn’t even winded. She wanted to do it again.
Emry ran two steps to Trez. He nearly collided with her. She had to twist to the side to avoid him as she came to a stop. He swore, and she laughed. “Thank you for the lesson.”
“Oh, that wasn’t the lesson.”
“It wasn’t?” Emry blinked.
Trezim’s lips split into a slow smile. “No. That lovely scroll taught me something else Silvers can do.”
“Which is?” She frowned. It couldn’t be worse than what he already knew she could do – yanking out a person’s soul. Or, at least, he wouldn’t have told her about it if it was … Would he?
“You can become the vapors of midnight,” he replied, his voice quiet. In reverence or awe or fear, Emry wasn’t sure.
She stared at him in the moonlight. It was bright enough that she didn’t need to adjust her eyes to see in the dark. What did he mean by turning into a vapor? “Like fog?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what it meant. The way the scroll described it, you can turn into something like the opposite of what I can do.”
“You’re really great at explaining things,” she replied wryly. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Just watch.” Trez angled his body towards the pool and vanished into a bright strand of light – stretching out across the pool’s water until he reached the other side and solidified. Trez waved one hand at her before shifting into that light beam again – darting back across the water towards her. And the cocky, irritating man that he was, he reformed no more than two inches from her. Emry yelped and fell back a step.
Trez only grinned. “Did you like that?”
“Was that necessary?” She grumbled, contemplating shoving him into the pool.
“I was trying to give you an object lesson,” he said, far too innocently.
Holding back another string of Heerth curse words, Emry glared. “So I’m to become something like the opposite
of that?”
“Exactly.” He nodded.
“You’re a horrendous teacher.” She bent one knee, putting all her weight on her other leg, and jutted out one hip as she’d seen Sabine do a hundred times. Then she folded her arms across her chest, just to prove her point with how exasperating he was.
He sighed. “When I run on light, I can travel at Teal speeds – faster even. But that’s only under sunlight for me – like how for you it’s during a full moon. Even though I can become light anytime, as you just saw, I can only move as fast as I can run normally when I’m not under the sun. You supposedly can do the same thing – just as this midnight vapor, not light.”
Emry stood there for a moment, trying to process what he’d done a terrible job at explaining. “How?” She finally asked. How was she to become the opposite of light? “What does midnight vapor even look like?”
He grimaced. “I think it’s what I’ve seen leaking out of Varamtha.”
“That Perth warrior?”
Trez scratched his chin with one hand. “It was like black wispy clouds – mist. Oozing out of her – from the ends of her hair, the back of her shoulders, the hem of her gown.” He shuddered, and Emry almost blinked at the sight of him – arrogant and confident Trezim, creeped out by a bit of darkness.
Because that was what he was talking about. Darkness.
“I know what the vapor is,” she told him.
“You do?”
Of course she did. She knew exactly what it looked like. She’d just been calling it shadow. It was what filled her room after her nightmares. It was what she’d learned to hide – to push down deep inside of her so no one would wonder what followed in her wake. So no one would cringe when she walked by. It was what she drew out of her family when they suffered. It was what exploded out of her when she was so angry she lost her grasp on her internal damper. It was what had caused actual terror in her sister’s eyes the one time Emry had lost control in front of her.
Oh, Emry knew the vapors of midnight. It was just an overly dramatic name for shadows. They had been her constant companion since the moment she hit puberty and her abilities began. But she’d never once become them herself. She’d played with them. Pulled them around her – pushed them through cracks in doors. Never once had she thought to try to turn into them.
“Emry?” Trez prodded.
Her eyes refocused on his face. “How? How do I become it?”
“I can only offer you my knowledge on how I become sunlight,” he answered after a moment. “But I think it may help you.”
She uncoiled her arms, dropping her hands to her hips, waiting.
“In order for me to become sunlight, I had to learn what sunlight felt like – warmth and glistening jewels and smiles and life and-” He stopped at Emry’s grin, as if suddenly embarrassed.
“Go on,” Emry told him. She wasn’t amused – she was surprised by his description of what sunlight felt like to him. It was probably one of the few times he’d ever shared a personal thought with her. Maybe the first time he’d ever told anyone what it felt like.
He just shook his head. “What do the vapors of midnight feel like?”
Like fear and death, Emry almost blurted. At least, the shadows she usually pulled out of someone did. But the ones she played with – the ones she drew toward her from around trees, where the sun didn’t touch – those felt different.
Those shadows were more like morning mist blown away on a wind. Secrets and slumber. The moon and stars. Dreams and disappointments. Those shadows were a mix of emotions. They could be thick or thin – both airy and heavy. They were the music of the night that called to her – soothed her. And Emry was to become them? Was that possible?
She shut her eyes, urging the shadows toward her. Her old friends.
They came willingly – easily in the dark where they lived rampant. They kissed her skin, skittering up and down her bare arms.
Emry knew the moment Trez saw her shadows. She heard his gasp and the step he took backwards. Let him see. He already feared her – what was the harm in scaring him a little further?
A smirk of her own curled up one side of her mouth, and she felt it then – realized the link Trezim had pointed out when transforming into light. She could do the same with her shadows. All she needed to do was take on the emotions of the darkness – let them flow into her, through her. Literally become them.
So she did. She became shadow.
Her body thinned, as if evaporating away. It didn’t hurt. No, it was like standing under a full moon – tingling and smooth.
Trez swore, and Emry opened her eyes, which didn’t exactly make sense as her body was no longer solid. She was swirls of midnight in the moonlight. It should have made her nervous, but it felt good. It felt right. Like a missing part of her soul she’d finally found.
“Run across the pool,” Trez whispered, his eyes no longer on her face. He probably had no idea where her face was now that she was shadow.
She turned to the pool and lunged across. Her shadow body slid through the air effortlessly, like oil on water. Because it was a full moon, she still moved like a Teal. In a heartbeat, she was at the other side. After another, she was back to Trezim.
“Good,” he said a little breathlessly, as if he’d been the one running. His gold eyes glinted in the moonlight. “Now make yourself solid again.”
How? She wanted to ask, but as shadow she had no voice. She was going to have to figure it out on her own. She should have thought about how to go back to normal before making the shift. Too late now.
The scent of jasmine stirred her. It was her own scent – the perfume and bath salts she’d usually pick for herself. Was she smelling herself? Hidden within the whirls of darkness?
With a mental shove, Emry pushed away the shadows she’d called earlier. Then she clung onto her own scent as the shadows dissipated. She felt her body thicken and stiffen, coming back together. Then all at once she was back. Hands splayed out in front of her. The moonlight brushing over her skin.
Trezim loosed a low whistle. “Good work. Do it again.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
This forest was familiar to Emry. She was close now. Maybe ten minutes out – her father had told her a moment before. She was almost home.
Home in Enlennd.
That thought alone made her throat ache and eyes burn all over again. She’d been fighting back tears now for two weeks – on the ship, where she’d also fought seasickness, in the carriage she shared with her father, when she breathed…
She yanked at the cuffs of her long-sleeved hunter green gown. Even though her mind knew the fabric was soft and plush, her body felt itchy all over. She hadn’t worn this much clothing in a year.
Also, had Enn always been this cold? She couldn’t seem to get warm. It wasn’t even winter anymore. She’d felt the temperature shift on the ship, steadily dropping until she was constantly on the verge of shivering. Her body was going to have to adapt all over again to Enn weather.
“Citrine will be pleased to see you,” Onyx mused, breaking the silence. It was the third time he’d mentioned Citrine waiting to see her since they’d left Heerth.
Emry only nodded – too agitated to say anything. Her emotions were too tightly coiled – too close to the surface. She’d cried into her pillow too many times too recently.
A little over four weeks ago, her father had arrived in Zyntar with the Heerth prince she’d switched places with – Nakomis. Emry hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed Onyx until she’d laid eyes on him. A year was a long time. It was good she’d kept herself busy.
But seeing her father had thrown open some door she’d purposely locked within herself, and she now ached to see her sister again. Yet, she also ached for the friends she’d left behind in Heerth. Her Enlennd palace was both too far and too close.
It was hard to believe that she hadn’t seen Trez in two weeks. That she hadn’t held a staff in just as long – had now missed seven Turanga Squalls. A
t least she’d smuggled a couple shadow blades into her luggage. Once she got to Breccan she would find a forge that crafted Enlennd shadow blades, but for now her Perth ones would work. She hadn’t told her father about the blades. He did know about her learning the Turanga, though.
As part of her farewell and Nakomis’s returning festivities, there was a night of the Turanga as the entertainment. The Heerth king had asked her to join in with the other natives to show her father what she had learned of Heerth culture. She’d gladly agreed to it, proud of her accomplishment in learning it. Her father had smiled and applauded her. The advisor he’d brought along had frowned like her dance with sticks was offensive.
After her display of the Turanga, she’d shared one of her last meals with Trez and Sabine. They’d laughed and chatted freely with each other, knowing Emry’s time in Heerth was coming to a close.
Sabine had finally explained why she’d been so elusive – she was getting married again. This time to a lord from Prythius. The one she’d spent most of Night’s Crown with. Emry was sad she would miss the wedding but was happy for her friend. Sabine loved him – she hadn’t loved her first husband.
The morning after the farewell party, Sabine had left for Prythius, so she missed Emry’s goodbye with Trezim, which was most definitely for the best. Emry had brazenly hugged him in front of her father before getting into her palanquin to take her away. Right there in front of the palace – for members of both their courts to see. Both of their fathers to see – even though in Enlennd nobility rarely touched. She’d felt like if that didn’t show their courts they’d formed an attachment, she didn’t know what would.
And then Trez had kissed her. Firmly. As if they’d kissed before. As if they were parting ways as displaced lovers. As if Trez didn’t actually care about what she was – what her eyes meant. Trez could have kissed her anytime. They’d spent countless hours alone. But no, the egotistical, self-satisfying, pompous, swaggering…
Emry could feel her cheeks heating again. Just as they had that day. Between her tears and overwhelming homesickness for both Enlennd and Heerth at once, her mortification and outright anger at Trez had filled the spaces. The man had waited until everyone could watch before kissing her. He’d made a statement of it!
