The second day began with Nox unable to get out of bed.
He tried. He honestly tried. He pressed his hands into the mattress, tensed his back, lifted his shoulders off the pillow just enough for his muscles to howl in unison, and collapsed back down. The pain was everywhere. In his legs, his arms, his back, his neck, even in the fingers he had tried to strike Sylvana with yesterday. Every cell of his body screamed that the previous day had been a mistake, that he should have stayed in the slums, that starving to death was better than enduring this again.
He lay and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling was white. Clean. Without a single stain. In the slums, ceilings were gray with soot, cracked, with cobwebs in the corners. Here, the ceiling was simply white. And for some reason, that annoyed him more than anything.
The door opened. Lin entered. In her hands was a mug with something hot, steaming, smelling of herbs.
«Drink,» she said.
«I cannot.»
«You can.» She set the mug on the floor by the bed, because he could not reach the table. «Sylvana said it is a muscle brew. You will drink it every morning. In a week, you will be used to it.»
Nox turned his head with difficulty. He looked at the mug. Then at Lin.
«In a week, I will be dead.»
«You will not.» She sat on the edge of his bed. Her gray eyes looked serious, without mockery. «You are Nox. Nox does not die. Nox gets up and keeps going.»
«Nox hates it when you talk about him in the third person.»
«I am learning from you.»
He almost smiled. Almost. The muscles in his face hurt too.
Somehow, he sat up. Every movement brought a new flash of pain somewhere in his body. He took the mug. The brew was hot and bitter, with some earthy aftertaste, but he forced himself to drink it all. After a few minutes, the pain grew slightly quieter. It did not go away. It just stopped screaming and started grumbling.
«Thank you,» he said.
«You are welcome.» Lin took the empty mug. «Sylvana is waiting downstairs. She said I am giving you fifteen minutes. Then you come down on your own, or she comes up and drags you down by the scruff.»
«Did she say that? By the scruff?»
«She said "by the collar." I translated.»
Nox came down in fourteen minutes. Not because he was afraid Sylvana would drag him. He just did not want to give her a reason.
The basement was colder than yesterday. Or it just felt that way because his body was burning after yesterday's training. Sylvana stood in the center of the hall, but today everything was different. Beside her, floating in the air, were three stone dummies. They were crudely carved, faceless, just human silhouettes of gray stone. And they hovered half a meter above the floor, slowly rotating on their axes.
Nox stopped at the entrance. He looked at the dummies. Then at Sylvana.
«What are these?»
«Your new partners.» She walked around the dummies, running her hand over one of them. The stone beneath her fingers glowed faintly. «Yesterday you worked with your body. Today you work with Shadow. But with a condition.»
«What condition?»
«You do not attack. Only defend.»
Nox frowned.
«Defend against stones?»
«Against what they will do.» She snapped her fingers.
The dummies came alive.
Not in the sense that they grew faces or voices. They simply stopped floating motionless. The first lunged at Nox with such speed that he barely had time to jump back. A stone fist whistled a centimeter from his temple. The second dummy came from the left. The third from the right.
Nox dove to the side, rolled across the floor, sprang to his feet. His heart pounded somewhere in his throat. The dummies turned, synchronized, like parts of a single mechanism.
«Shadow,» Sylvana said calmly. «Use it. Not to attack. To defend. Raise a wall. Dodge. Dissolve into the shadows if you can. But do not strike back.»
«Why?!»
«Because defensive Shadow is harder than offensive. Any fool can strike. You will learn to take a hit. Literally and figuratively.»
The first dummy lunged again. Nox pulled on Shadow. It came faster than yesterday, responding to his call almost instantly. He raised his hand, and dark mist condensed into something like a shield. The dummy struck it, and the shield shattered into black shreds. Nox was thrown back, slamming into the wall. The air left his lungs in a rasping exhale.
«Bad,» Sylvana said. «You raise your shield like a door. Shadow is not a door. It is alive. It must move with the blow, absorb it, not take it head on. Again.»
He tried again. And again. And again.
On the tenth attempt, the shield did not shatter. It bent under the blow, like taut skin, and returned to its original shape. Nox stayed on his feet.
«Better,» Sylvana said. «Now two dummies at once.»
They attacked from both sides. Nox raised a shield to the left, but the right dummy struck him in the shoulder. Stone met bone, and the pain was sharp, instant, like a red-hot needle. He fell to one knee. The dummies did not stop.
«Get up,» Sylvana said.
He got up.
By the end of the second hour, he could hold a shield against two dummies at once. By the end of the third, against all three. Shadow obeyed him better and better. It flowed around him, alive and obedient, taking blows, absorbing them, returning them to the stone. Nox was no longer just defending. He could feel each blow before the dummy landed it. He could feel the stone's movement, its weight, its inertia.
«Enough,» Sylvana said.
The dummies froze. They sank to the floor and stood still, once again just stone blocks.
Nox stood, breathing heavily, and looked at Sylvana. Sweat streamed down his face. His hands trembled. But inside, there was something new. Something he had not felt before. Confidence? No. Rather, an understanding. He could. He really could.
«Now a break,» Sylvana said. «Half an hour. Then we continue.»
She left the hall, leaving him alone. Nox sank to the floor, leaning his back against the wall. He closed his eyes. Shadow inside him pulsed quietly, rhythmically, like a second heart. He felt it constantly now, even when he was not using it. It was part of him.
Half an hour later, Sylvana returned. But not alone.
Lin walked behind her.
Nox opened his eyes. He sat up straight. He looked at his sister, then at Sylvana.
«Why is she here?»
«Because today you will train together,» Sylvana said.
Lin stood in the middle of the hall. Small, in her dark blue shirt, with her light hair that in the glow of the magical lamps seemed almost white. She looked at her brother and smiled. Slightly. Just the corner of her lips.
«Hello,» she said.
«Lin, this is dangerous,» Nox said. «You do not control your power yet. If something goes wrong…»
«That is why we will train,» Sylvana interrupted. «Your sister has awakened the Abyss. This power grows inside her every day. If she does not learn to control it now, in six months it will be too late. The Abyss will consume her from within.»
Nox felt a chill run down his spine. The tattoo on his spine responded with an anxious pulse.
«Consume her?»
«The Abyss is not just magic, Nox. It is absence. Emptiness. If it is not controlled, it begins to devour its bearer. First emotions. Then memories. Then… everything else.» Sylvana looked at Lin. «Your mother knew how to restrain it. She learned. Lin will learn too. But for that, she needs an anchor.»
«What kind of anchor?»
«You.»
Nox turned his gaze to his sister. Lin looked at him calmly, without fear. As if she already knew everything Sylvana had said. As if she had already accepted it.
«You knew?» he asked.
«She told me last night,» Lin said. «While you were sleeping.»
«And you did not tell me?»
«You were too tired. And I did not want you to worry.» She shrugged. «I will manage. You manage Shadow. I will manage the Abyss. We are family, remember?»
Nox looked at her and felt something inside him slowly turn over. Pride? Fear? Love? All at once, mixed into a tight knot that made it hard to breathe.
«What should I do?» he asked Sylvana.
«Stand across from her. Take her hands.»
He stood up. He walked over to Lin. He took her hands. Small palms, cool, with thin fingers. She looked up at him, and in her gray eyes danced silver sparks. The Abyss. Already here. Already straining to break free.
«Now close your eyes,» Sylvana said. «Both of you. Feel each other. Not with words. Not with thoughts. Deeper.»
Nox closed his eyes.
At first, there was only darkness. The ordinary darkness beneath his eyelids, with blurry spots from the magical lamps. Then something changed. He felt Lin. Not her hands. Not her breath. Her. As if she stood not across from him but inside him. As if their souls had touched at the edges.
And he felt the Abyss.
It was… unlike anything. Cold, but not the cold of winter. Emptiness, but not the emptiness of an abandoned house. It was absence. Absence of warmth, sound, light, life. A hole in the fabric of the world, slowly expanding, trying to pull everything around it inward.
Nox opened his eyes. Lin was looking at him. Her eyes had changed. The gray was gone, replaced by a deep, bottomless blackness in which silver sparks floated like stars in the night sky.
«I feel it,» he said quietly. «It is… enormous.»
«It is part of me,» Lin answered. Her voice was hers, but it sounded different. Deeper. As if not only she were speaking. «I am not afraid of it, Nox. It is not an enemy. It is just… there.»
«Can you control it?»
«Not yet. But I am learning.»
Sylvana stepped closer. She placed her hands on their shoulders. Her left on Nox, her right on Lin.
«Now slowly,» she said. «Lin, pull the Abyss toward you. Do not release it. Just gather it in your palms. Nox, keep Shadow close. Be the anchor. If the Abyss begins to spiral out of control, Shadow can contain it. They are opposites, but connected. Like light and darkness. Like life and death.»
Lin closed her eyes. Her face grew focused. Nox could feel the Abyss inside her beginning to move. Slowly, reluctantly, like a great beast being roused from hibernation. It gathered in Lin's palms, condensed, grew denser.
The air around them began to grow cold. Not just cold. Something else was leaving it. Smells. Sounds. The light of the magical lamps began to dim, as if someone were slowly turning an invisible valve.
«Hold it,» Sylvana said quietly. «Lin, you are in control. Not it. You.»
Lin bit her lip. Sweat appeared on her forehead. Nox could feel her fingers squeezing his hands tighter, almost to the point of pain. The Abyss inside her thrashed, trying to break free, to expand, to consume everything around. But Lin held on. Clenching her teeth, trembling all over, she held on.
And slowly, very slowly, the Abyss began to calm.
The light returned. The smells returned too. The sound of breathing, which Nox had not even noticed he had stopped hearing, filled the hall once more.
Lin opened her eyes. They were gray again. Ordinary. Tired, but ordinary.
«I did it,» she exhaled. «I… I did it?»
«You did it,» Sylvana said. There was something in her voice Nox had not heard before. Satisfaction? No. Something greater. «You did what took your mother years. You gathered the Abyss and held it. On your first try.»
Lin looked at her hands. Dark smudges remained on her palms, slowly fading, absorbing back into her skin.
«I felt it,» she said quietly. «It… it spoke to me.»
Nox tensed.
«What did it say?»
Lin raised her gaze. There was something new in her eyes. Not fear. Not joy. Something else.
«It said it had been waiting for me. For a very long time. And that now we are together.»
A heavy, dense silence fell over the hall, like the air before a storm.
Sylvana looked at Lin with an expression Nox could not decipher. Then she slowly nodded.
«That is good,» she said. «That means the Abyss has accepted you. Not as an enemy. As part of itself.»
«And if it tries to take control?» Nox asked.
«Then you will be there.» Sylvana looked at him. «Shadow and the Abyss. Opposites that hold each other in balance. Your mother and your father were like that. She carried the Abyss. He carried Shadow. They balanced each other. That is why their union was so strong. That is why the Moon Goddess feared them so much.»
Nox looked at Lin. Lin looked at him.
«Will we be like them?» she asked.
«We will be better,» Nox said.
She smiled. Tiredly, but genuinely.
Sylvana walked to the wall. She took out a cigarette. She lit it. She took a drag. She exhaled smoke that looked silver in the lamplight.
«That is enough for today,» she said. «Lin, go upstairs. Rest. You have done more than I expected.»
Lin nodded. She walked over to Nox. She hugged him. Tightly. He hugged her back, feeling her small body still trembling from the strain.
«You did well,» he said quietly.
«I know.» Her voice was muffled by his shirt. «So did you.»
She left. Her footsteps faded on the stairs.
Nox remained in the hall with Sylvana.
«Now you,» she said.
«I thought that was enough for today.»
«For her, it is enough. For you, no.»
She stubbed out her cigarette against the wall. She walked over to him. She stood across from him.
«Your sister just took a step that takes most Abyss bearers months. She will grow fast. Very fast. If you want to stay by her side, if you want to be useful to her, you must grow faster.»
«I understand.»
«No, you do not.» She looked at him point blank. Her violet eyes burned in the semidarkness. «Shadow is not just power, Nox. It is a boundary. Between light and darkness. Between life and death. Between what is and what is not. Your father wielded Bloodshadow. A hybrid of Blood and Shadow. He could create shadows from his own blood. Living, obedient, deadly. He was one of the strongest mages of his generation.»
Nox listened without interrupting.
«You are not ready for a hybrid yet. Perhaps you never will be. But you can become stronger in pure Shadow. Much stronger. To do that, you must understand its nature.»
«How?»
«Through pain.»
She raised her hand. Blood began to gather on her palm. Her own blood, seeping through her skin and hanging in the air in dark drops. They merged together, forming something like a whip. Thin, flexible, with a sharp tip.
«What are you doing?» Nox asked.
«What I must.» She looked at him without pity. Without cruelty. Just with necessity. «Shadow learns best through pain. Through fear. Through survival instinct. I will strike you. And you will defend yourself. Not with a shield. With your whole body. Shadow must become your skin, your muscles, your reflexes. You must feel the blow before it comes. Dodge before it touches you. Become shadow before the pain reaches your body.»
The blood whip cracked in the air. The sound was sharp as a blade.
«Ready?»
Nox looked at her. At the whip. At the blood that was part of her body and simultaneously a weapon.
«No,» he said honestly.
«Good.» She smiled slightly. «If you had said "yes," I would have thought you were an idiot.»
And she struck.
The whip whistled through the air. Nox jerked to the side, but not fast enough. The tip of the whip sliced the air by his shoulder and burned his skin even through his shirt. The pain was sharp, like a knife cut, and just as clean. No dull heaviness like from the stone dummies. Just a pure, ringing impact.
«Bad,» Sylvana said. «You are moving your body. Move with Shadow. It is faster. It already knows where the blow is going. Trust it.»
The second strike. Nox tried to call Shadow, but it came with a delay, and the whip caught him again. This time on the leg. The pain flared and then faded, leaving a hot numbness behind.
«Again.»
The third strike. The fourth. The fifth.
The whip whistled through the air, and Nox dodged, fell, rolled, jumped up, fell again. Shadow inside him thrashed, trying to understand what was wanted of it. It was used to attacking. Used to bursting forth and destroying. And now it was being forced to defend. To be a shield, not a sword. And it resisted.
On the twelfth strike, something clicked.
Nox did not understand how it happened. Just at some point, he stopped thinking about where to move. His body… no, not his body. Something deeper. Shadow inside him reached out on its own, pulling him with it. The whip sliced through the air where he had just been. Nox stood a meter to the left and had not even noticed how he had moved.
Sylvana stopped. She lowered the whip. She looked at him.
«Again,» she said.
She struck. Nox did not move. He just stood and watched the whip flying toward his face. And at the last moment, when the air already vibrated with the closeness of the strike, Shadow jerked him aside. Softly, smoothly, like water flowing around a stone. The whip passed by.
«Good,» Sylvana said. «Now faster.»
She struck again. And again. And again. The whip flashed through the air, scattering into multiple trajectories. Nox evaded every strike. Not with his body. With Shadow. It had become an extension of his instincts, his reflexes, his will. He no longer thought about where to move. He just knew. Shadow knew. And they moved together.
After an hour, Sylvana stopped. The whip retracted back into her palm, the blood absorbed into her skin, leaving no trace. She was breathing heavily. For the first time, Nox saw her tired.
«That is all for today,» she said.
Nox stood in the middle of the hall. His shirt was torn in a dozen places. Red welts from the strikes that had still found their mark burned on his skin. But he stood. And he looked at his hands.
«I feel it,» he said. «It… it is like part of me now. Not just magic. Part of me.»
«It is.» Sylvana leaned against the wall. She took out a cigarette. She lit it. «Shadow is no longer separate from you. It is in your blood. In your bones. In your breath. You are no longer a Shadow bearer. You are Shadow.»
Nox raised his hand. He looked at his palm. And slowly, without effort, he let Shadow flow from his fingers. Black mist swirled around his hand, alive and obedient. He clenched his fist. Shadow clenched with it. He opened it. Shadow spread across his palm like water.
«Tomorrow,» Sylvana said, «we will begin working on form. You will learn to shape Shadow into weapons. Blades. Claws. Shields that do not just protect but absorb blows. You will learn to become invisible in the shadows. To pass through walls. To disappear and appear where you are not expected.»
She took a drag. She exhaled the smoke.
«And in a week,» she continued, «I will begin teaching you to sense another's Shadow. Because in this world, there are other bearers. And some of them serve the Moon Goddess.»
Nox lowered his hand. Shadow withdrew back inside.
«Other bearers?»
«Yes. The goddess gathers them. Those who agree to serve. Those who can be broken and remade. Those who are born with Shadow and find no one to protect them.» She looked at him. «If I had not found you, you would have become one of them. Or died refusing.»
Nox was silent. He thought about what she had said. About the other Shadow bearers. About those who served the Moon Goddess. About those he could have been, if not for Sylvana.
«I will not serve her,» he said.
«I know.» She stubbed out the cigarette. «That is why you are here. That is why I am teaching you. That is why you will survive.»
She pushed off from the wall and walked toward the exit. At the door, she stopped. She turned around.
«Nox.»
«What?»
«Your father would have been proud of you. Today. And yesterday. And every day you get up and keep going.»
She left.
Nox remained alone in the empty hall. He stood and looked at his hands. At the scars that paled on the right side of his face in the light of the magical lamps. At the shadows that swirled at his feet, alive and obedient.
He raised his gaze. Somewhere up there, beyond the stone walls of the basement, beyond the wooden floors of the house, beyond the roof and the clouds, hung the moon. Pale. Cold. Watching him.
«I am coming,» he said to her. «Get ready.»