Night pressed against the windows like a living thing.
I stood in the center of my chamber, the candles guttering in their holders, their flames bending away from me as if repelled. The shadow at my feet trembled, thin and sickly, barely clinging to the edges of the room.
Pathetic.
I knelt and pressed my palm to the cold stone floor.
“Rise,” I whispered.
The shadow shuddered. Tried. Failed.
A sharp, hot anger flared in my chest. “I said rise.”
It pulsed once, weak, apologetic,and then collapsed into a smear of darkness that barely reached my fingertips.
My breath hitched.
This was wrong.
This was impossible.
This was not how my power worked.
The shadow had always obeyed.
Always answered.
Always held me when nothing else did.
But now,
A knock shattered the silence.
I stood, spine straightening. “Enter.”
General Varyn stepped inside.
“Mistress,” he said, voice hoarse. “A report from the southern border.”
“Speak.”
He swallowed. “A village near the cliffs of Sinthia has awakened.”
My pulse stilled.
Awakened.
Not unfrozen.
Not stirred.
Awakened.
“How many?” I asked.
“Dozens,” he said. “But… there is something else.”
He hesitated.
A mistake.
“Say it,” I commanded.
He licked his lips. “The villagers claim they saw a woman walking along the cliffs. Alone. Barefoot. The sea moved around her.”
My breath caught. My head began to spin.
“The sea moved?” I repeated.
“Yes, Mistress. They said the waves bent toward her. As if… as if she commanded them.”
A cold, sharp thread of dread slid down my spine.
Not Kathera.
Not any seer I knew.
Not any soldier or mage.
Something else.
Someone else.
The shadow at my feet curled in around me as if it were finding comfort in this person.
I froze.
The shadow had never found comfort in anything.
“Describe her,” I said, voice low.
“They couldn’t,” Varyn said. “They said she looked… wrong. Like she didn’t belong to the world she was standing in.”
My heart hammered once, hard enough to hurt.
A woman walking the cliffs.
A woman the sea bowed to.
A woman the world recognized.
A woman who should not exist.
“Is she part of the group?” I asked. “The ones trying to bring Kathera back?”
“We don’t know,” Varyn said. “But the villagers said she moved like someone who had been waiting for the world to wake.”
Waiting.
The word scraped across my bones.
I stepped closer to him. “Find her.”
Varyn blinked. “Mistress?”
“Find her,” I repeated, each word sharp as a blade. “Bring me every witness. Every rumor. Every scrap of information.”
He bowed. “At once.”
When he left, the chamber fell silent again.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
Something was moving in Celentra.
Something old.
Something powerful.
Something that made even my shadow tremble.
Kathera was waking.
But she was not the only one.
I closed my eyes, breath shaking.
“Who are you?” I whispered into the darkness.
The shadow pulsed once, faint, frightened.
And for the first time in my life, I felt it:
Not power.
Not destiny.
Not prophecy.
A deeper feeling.
A feeling that was not something I could possibly feel.
Recognition.
The moment Varyn left, the silence became unbearable.
It pressed against my skull, thick and suffocating, as if the entire chamber were holding its breath. The candles guttered again, their flames shrinking away from me like frightened animals.
My shadow trembled at my feet.
Not in obedience.
Not in readiness.
In longing.
For her.
I dug my nails into my palm. “No.”
The shadow pulsed once, a soft, aching throb.
I staggered back.
This was wrong.
This was impossible.
This was unacceptable.
I paced the length of the chamber, each step echoing too loudly. My thoughts spun like a storm, sharp and frantic.
A woman who moved the sea.
A woman the world recognized.
A woman my shadow reached for.
I pressed a hand to my chest, breath shaking.
Why did it feel like something inside me was waking up?
Why did it feel like something inside me was… answering?
I couldn’t stay here.
I couldn’t sit and wait for reports and rumors and frightened villagers.
I needed to see her myself.
The thought struck like lightning, sudden, violent, absolute.
I froze.
The shadow at my feet curled around my ankle, warm and trembling, as if relieved I’d finally understood.
“You want her,” I whispered.
It pulsed.
“You know her.”
Another pulse, stronger.
My throat tightened. “How?”
The shadow rippled, stretching toward the door, toward the world beyond the palace walls. Toward the cliffs of Sinthia.
A pull tugged at my ribs, soft at first, then stronger, like a thread winding itself around my heart.
I gasped.
It didn’t hurt.
It comforted.
A warmth spread through my chest, unfamiliar and terrifying. I pressed a hand over my sternum, trying to steady my breath.
“What are you doing to me?” I whispered.
The shadow didn’t answer.
It didn’t need to.
Because the pull grew stronger, a steady, rhythmic tug, like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine. It guided me toward the door, toward the night, toward her.
I did not follow.
I could not follow.