Dana Ilic and the Shadow Door (Lightwielder Chronicles #1) | ✔️

16 | You Are My Daughter

O.M.G.

Welp, I guess both Max and I had arsehole dads.

"Why do you think my Shades never did you any serious harm, Dana?" Chernobog asked. "Why does everyone at school avoid you? They sense the darkness in you. You are my daughter." 

Finally. The truth. Lying with my face pressed into the ground, I understood it all at last.

I always did find comfort in darkness and silence, at home. Dang, my favorite place to hang out was the basement, and that was saying something.

That delay of the golden throne in claiming me. The way Gamayun had said:

"Let it be known that Max Martinez has been officially claimed by the goddess of ice, Morana, as her son," yet she had omitted that last part when Belobog claimed me.

Belobog wasn't my dad. He was my uncle.

And my real dad couldn't have claimed me, because he had been trapped who knew where.

I could find Zhara's Tootie Frootie shop because I could follow the Shadow Trail. The same Shadow Trail I had seen in my basement, and in the boys' restroom at Oakgrove Middle.

And that time in Radogost's wood cabin. When I had hurled the stone at that expensive Samsung TV. Max had told me that... That my hair, for a moment, looked half-black and my left eye looked as if it were on fire.

Huh. I guess now we know why.

I fought the fury in my chest, trying to calm down, wondering if that would reverse my hair color back to normal as it had done once before.

But my body remained weirdly shady and transparent.

Chernobog. The god of the Shadow Plane. Hooked up with my mom.

Well, that's a weird thought to have.

The entire underworld, and a single god to control it. Could I really be a daughter of somebody that powerful?

"You are indeed," Chernobog said, as if he could read my mind. "You wield my staff as well as I used to."

My eyes burned. My dad hadn't left me at all, he'd just been locked away. Behind the Shadow Door.

My throat tightened, and tears pressed at my eyes. It didn't matter that he was my father. He was cruel, and cold. He was mean.

As we held eye contact, no matter how distant it was, Chernobog's aura was affecting me. The Lord of the Shadow Plane resembled pictures I'd seen of many political leaders. My dad had the same intense eyes, the same kind of mesmerising, evil charisma.

A vision formed in my mind.

The one I suspected he wanted to show me.

I was standing in his vast chamber layered with black marble walls and bronze floors. That empty, horrid throne of his was made from human bones fused together. Sitting next to me, on another chair, was my mother, peaceful, and smiling widely, her arms outstretched.

I tried to step toward her, but my feet wouldn't move. I reached for her, only to realise that my arms and legs were withering to shadow matter.

As I dissolved, I became featherlight, weightless and free. At peace. Floating like a bodiless grey astral projection of myself.

Resisting, I tried to recall ordinary things: the trees in blossom on my way to school, the smell of the hot porridge with raspberries mom used to make, before she got sick.

Even Osenya's weird, nightly cat-yowls.

Nothing came. It was as if all of my senses were dumbed down.