The morning began with a cry.
Nox woke instantly, his instinct honed by years in the slums where a slow awakening could cost a life. He was already sitting up in bed with the dagger in his hand before he realized that Lin was the one who had cried out. Not from pain. Not from fear. From surprise mixed with something else he did not immediately have a name for. Delight. Wild, almost childish delight, the likes of which he had never heard from her before.
She stood in the middle of the room barefoot, in her dark blue shirt that was too large for her and hung almost to her knees, and she was holding her hands out before her. Around her palms swirled the Abyss. Not the trembling, uncertain haze he had seen in the basement during their first joint training session. Dense, thick, with silver sparks that circled in a slow, mesmerizing dance, it coiled around her fingers, ran down her wrists, and rose back up again, alive, like a tame serpent that recognized its master.
«I woke up, and it was already here,» Lin said, not taking her eyes off her hands. Her voice was strange, muffled, as if she were speaking from somewhere far away, though she stood only two steps away. «I did not call it. It just came. As if it was waiting for me to wake up.»
Nox lowered the dagger but did not put it away, simply resting it on his knees. He looked at his sister and felt two feelings warring inside him: pride, sharp and hot, that she was making such progress, and fear, cold and sticky, at how quickly it was happening. Sylvana had said Lin would grow faster than him. Much faster. And here was the proof, right before his eyes.
«Are you controlling it?» he asked.
Lin frowned, concentrated, and the Abyss in her palms obediently condensed into two small spheres, dense and dark, with silver veins, like miniature planets from some unknown galaxy. Then she spread her hands, and the spheres stretched into thin threads that spun around her wrists, weaving themselves into something like bracelets. She smiled, widely and openly, and in that smile was so much pure, unclouded happiness that for a moment, Nox caught his breath.
«Yes,» she said. «I am controlling it. It obeys. Not like your Shadow, differently. It is not alive, do you understand? It just is. And I can tell it what to do, and it does it. Like an arm or a leg. Just another part of me.»
From downstairs came Sylvana's voice, sharp and demanding, the way it only was in the mornings, before her first cup of bitter herbal brew.
«If you are both awake, come down. Breakfast is getting cold, and we have a lot of work to do.»
They went downstairs. Lin still wore the Abyss on her wrists like jewelry, and when she entered the kitchen, Sylvana, who was standing by the stove, turned around and froze. Her gaze fixed on the dark bracelets pulsing in time with the girl's heart, and Nox saw something flicker in her violet eyes. Not surprise. Confirmation. As if she had been expecting something like this and had now received proof.
«When did this start?» she asked, setting plates of something hot and herb scented on the table.
«I woke up, and it was already there,» Lin answered, sitting down and eyeing the food with interest. «I did not do anything special. I just opened my eyes, and there it was.»
Sylvana sat down across from her, took her usual cup of dark brew, and took a sip before speaking. She looked better than yesterday, but still tired, with shadows under her eyes that Nox had not noticed before.
«This is a good sign. And a bad one. Good, because the Abyss has accepted you completely, without resistance, without a struggle. That is rare, very rare, and it means you could become stronger than your mother. Bad, because the faster a power grows, the harder it is to hold it back. Imagine you are holding the reins of a wild beast. While it is small, you can manage. But it grows, every day it becomes bigger and stronger, and one day you might wake up and realize that you are no longer holding the reins, but it is holding you.»
Lin stopped chewing and looked at Sylvana seriously, like an adult.
«What do I need to do to stop that from happening?»
«Train. Every day. No leniency. No self pity. Your power will grow whether you want it to or not. Your task is to grow with it, to stay ahead of it, to always be one step in front. If you stop for even a day, it will catch up and consume you.»
Lin nodded, and in that nod was something so firm, so unshakable, that for a moment, Nox saw in her not an eight year old girl, but someone much older. Perhaps their mother. Perhaps someone else he had never known, but whose blood ran in their veins.
«Today I will teach you to take,» Sylvana said, setting aside her cup. «Not to release the Abyss outward, not to shape it into weapons or shields. To take. To draw into yourself what is outside. Pain, fatigue, fear, even magic, if you can manage it. This is the most dangerous thing I will show you, and if you lose control for even a second, you could take too much and either destroy what you are taking from or destroy yourself. Are you ready?»
«Yes.»
«Then finish eating and we will go to the basement. Nox, you are coming with us. Your Shadow may be needed if something goes wrong.»
Nox nodded, continuing to eat. He watched Lin, who was devouring her breakfast with appetite, and thought about how quickly everything was changing. Just a week ago, they had been just two children from the slums, trying to survive. Now one of them was learning to control Shadow, the rarest magic in this world, and the other was mastering the Abyss, a power that gods had feared. And somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, the Moon Goddess had already sent a new huntress after them. Ancient. Patient. Hungry.
The basement greeted them with the familiar smell of old stone and magical lamps. Sylvana stood in the center of the hall and gestured for Lin to come to her. Nox remained by the wall, in the shadows, where he was most comfortable. He could feel his own Shadow reaching toward what was happening, curious and wary at the same time, like an animal that senses something new and does not know whether it is danger or prey.
«Give me your hand,» Sylvana said.
Lin extended her left hand. Sylvana took it, turned it palm up, and placed her own right hand on top. Her skin was pale, almost transparent, and Nox could see the venous network pulsing beneath it, dark and alive.
«I am going to transfer some of my fatigue to you. Not much, just a little. Your task is to feel it, accept it, and draw it into the Abyss. Not into yourself. Into the Abyss. Do you understand the difference?»
«I think so. The Abyss is not me. It is part of me, but separate. I need to send the fatigue there, not keep it in my body.»
«Correct. Good girl. Let us begin.»
Sylvana closed her eyes, and Nox felt a wave of warmth pass through the hall. Blood. She was using her magic to draw out a particle of her fatigue and transfer it to Lin. The girl shuddered as it happened, her fingers clenched, but she did not pull her hand away. A struggle showed on her face, something invisible was trying to enter her, and she resisted it not physically but in some other way, on a level Nox could neither see nor understand.
The Abyss on her wrists came alive. The dark bracelets began to grow, to expand, crawling up her arms toward her shoulders, her neck. Lin bit her lip, sweat beaded on her forehead, but she held on. Nox could see something flowing from Sylvana to her, not light, not shadow, something third, something nameless, disappearing into the depths of the Abyss, which grew denser and darker with each passing second.
«Good,» Sylvana whispered. «Very good. A little more. Hold on.»
A minute passed, maybe two. Nox lost track of time, watching his sister do what had taken adult mages years of training to accomplish. She was taking fatigue from one of the seven strongest witches in this world and she was not even struggling. Only the Abyss on her body grew, spread, became more and more alive.
«Enough,» Sylvana said, and released her hand.
Lin swayed but stayed on her feet. The Abyss on her body began to slowly draw back in, to contract, returning to the form of bracelets on her wrists. She opened her eyes, and Nox saw that they had changed. The gray had become deeper, richer, and the silver sparks within them swirled faster, like snowflakes in a blizzard.
«I feel… strange,» she said. «As if I have become bigger. Not in body. Inside. As if there is more space there now.»
«There is,» Sylvana answered. She looked noticeably better than before the training, the wrinkles around her eyes had smoothed, her movements had become lighter. «The Abyss grows when it consumes. You took my fatigue, and your power has grown a little. That is natural. But remember, everything you take remains in the Abyss. It does not disappear. It accumulates. And one day, when the Abyss becomes full, you will have to release it back out. Or it will release itself.»
«And what will happen if it releases itself?»
Sylvana paused, looking at her.
«At best, nothing good. At worst, you will destroy everything within several blocks. That is why we will learn not only to take, but also to release. Controllably. Safely. But that will come later. For now, rest. You have done more than I expected.»
Lin nodded and walked to the wall, where she sat on the floor and leaned her back against the stone. The Abyss on her wrists pulsed in time with her breathing, and Nox noticed that she no longer looked tired. On the contrary, there was a new energy in her, collected and focused, like a predator before a leap.
«Now you,» Sylvana said, turning to Nox. «Come to the center.»
He stood and walked over. Shadow inside him immediately came alive, swirling along his spine, ready for what would follow. After yesterday's battle with the hunter, it had become different. More responsive. More alive. Or perhaps he had simply become better at hearing it.
«Yesterday you created a chain with a hook,» Sylvana said. «You did not plan it, did not think of it in advance. Shadow itself took the shape needed in that moment. That is the highest level of control, Nox. Most Shadow bearers take years to learn this. You did it on the third day of training. Either you are a genius, or the Shadow in you is stronger than I thought. Perhaps both.»
Nox did not know what to say to that, so he remained silent.
«Today we will develop this skill. You will create weapons from Shadow. Not one, not two. Many. Different ones. You will change forms as quickly as you can, until it becomes a reflex, until Shadow begins to change form on its own, anticipating your thoughts. Ready?»
«Yes.»
«Then let us begin with something simple. A dagger.»
Nox extended his right hand and called on Shadow. It came instantly, condensed in his palm, took the form of a blade. Black, matte, reflecting no light. The same dagger he had already created before, the one that seemed to him the most natural weapon.
«Good. Now a sword.»
Shadow flowed, lengthened, became wider and heavier. In a second, his hand held a bastard sword with a dark blade across which barely visible waves rippled, like water.
«A spear.»
The sword compressed, elongated, the shaft lengthened, a sharp tip forming at its end. Nox gripped the spear with both hands, feeling its weight, its balance, its readiness to be thrown.
«The chain. The one from yesterday.»
The spear dissolved into links that joined together into a long flexible chain with a hook at the end. The same chain he had used to pull the hunter toward him, giving Sylvana the chance to land the killing blow. It lay in his hand, warm and alive, and he could feel each link pulsing in time with his heart.
«Now quickly. Dagger. Sword. Spear. Chain. No pauses. One after another.»
And it began.
Dagger. Sword. Spear. Chain. Dagger. Sword. Spear. Chain. Shadow flowed in his hands like water, like mercury, like a living creature that wanted to be useful and rejoiced when it succeeded. Nox stopped thinking about what shape to create. He simply felt what was needed next, and Shadow obediently took that shape, sometimes even faster than he could consciously register.
After an hour, he could change weapons every second without thinking. After two, every half second. After three, Sylvana stopped him.
«Enough. You have mastered this faster than I anticipated. Now the next level.»
She walked to the wall and brought out three stone dummies, the same ones he had trained with in the early days. They stood in a row before him, silent and motionless.
«Now you will attack them. But with one condition. For each dummy, you must use a new weapon. No repetitions. And change weapons after each strike. Understood?»
Nox nodded and settled into a fighting stance. Shadow in his hand condensed into a dagger. He lunged.
The first dummy took a dagger strike to the throat, and in the same instant, the dagger became a sword that cleaved the second dummy from shoulder to hip. The sword became a spear that pierced the third dummy through. The spear became a chain that wrapped around the first dummy and tore it apart. The chain became a battle axe, the axe became paired blades, the paired blades became a scythe, the scythe became a hammer.
He moved in a dance he did not know, but that Shadow knew. It guided him, suggested which weapon would be best for the next strike, and he obeyed, because it was faster, more precise, wiser. For the first time in his life, he fully trusted the power he carried within him, and it did not let him down.
When the last dummy crumbled to dust, Nox stopped, breathing heavily. Shadow in his hand still pulsed, ready to continue, but he forced it to calm and withdraw back inside. It obeyed reluctantly, like an animal called back from a hunt too soon.
Sylvana looked at him in silence. Then she slowly nodded.
«Your father would have been proud of you. Today. And yesterday. And every day.»
Nox wiped the sweat from his forehead. The scars on the right side of his face burned after the long training session, but it was a good pain, the pain of growth, the pain of becoming.
«What next?» he asked.
«Next we will teach you to sense another's Shadow at a distance. But not today. Today you have earned your rest. Go upstairs, eat, relax. Lin, you too.»
Lin got up from the floor and walked over to him. The Abyss on her wrists still pulsed, but now it looked natural, like part of her. She took his hand and smiled.
«You looked beautiful. When you were fighting. Like in those stories you used to tell me. About knights and dragons.»
Nox could not find an answer to that, so he simply squeezed her hand in return.
They went upstairs, leaving Sylvana in the basement. She stood in the middle of the hall, looking at the dust that remained of the dummies, thinking about something of her own. Something that had been troubling her for several days now.
Somewhere far away, beyond the city, beyond the continent, the ancient Shadow continued its journey. It moved through forests and mountains, through rivers and wastelands, not stopping, not resting, feeling neither fatigue nor doubt. It knew its target. It knew its orders. And it would carry them out, even if it took an eternity.
Because that is the nature of Shadow. It always finds what it seeks.