Like fire we burn

Chapter eighteen

Shadow swallowed the panicked pain in her twisting stomach as her identity crumbled, and found her voice. "No one knows – not even Alaric. How?" The sound was deceptively smooth, edged with magic. Her heartbeat was in her throat. How could she have been so foolish to think this camp would be safe when an Elite resided here. Coming was a mistake, but staying might ruin everything she'd worked for.

Tyrin could do anything with the information – and if he knew who she was, he wouldn't think twice about using it against her. If he told, she'd be a pawn for every ruler to squabble over, doomed to collars of iron and corsets of steel.
"My queen was there when the Sun Priest announced the results of his... experiment."

The word experiment was foul and rotted in the air. It was more a mistake, but she'd never tell him that. There had been one other before her – hundreds of years ago. He'd been found and created by chance. One of the priests of Aste'ra got a hold of him, and once it was discovered what his blood could do...
Luckily, that information had been largely forgotten once he'd died and no one could figure out how to recreate a magic half-breed.
"Have you told her – or anyone else?" Shadow's mouth tightened of its own accord – the slightest slip in control, but she knew he'd notice. If he had, she would run, and she wouldn't stop running until they'd forgotten her name and the space she used to occupy.
There is no safe place for a girl like you. There never will be.
To her surprise, he stepped back, face opening to let her read the sincerity in his eyes, the slant of his mouth. He was done joking and playing around. "Not a soul," He swore. "Knowledge like this can start a power-play no one wants to see set in motion. I'm going to keep them in the dark as long as possible, but you need to be careful who you tell your inheritance to. Half the Elites know – only as a fairy tale, admittedly, but one slip and it could be the end of everything you know."

Something in her chest eased at his tone and the unguarded silver of his eyes, but she was loathed to trust it. Suspicion had kept her alive.
Shadow levelled him with a cool gaze. "Why not use this as leverage? Why warn me?" The question was cold and emotionless. She'd already prepared her escape route if he answered wrong; it would take her mere minutes to disappear and never be found again.
"Because I want you to know that I can be trusted, and that even if I answer to the Royals, their orders do not override my judgement."
An Elite who had little loyalty to his monarchs. Interesting, but she wanted a better read on him. "That is a very risky thing to tell a girl you met only a few weeks ago."
"Not as risky as what you've told me."
Shadow narrowed her eyes before pushing the curtain aside and walking back into his half. Tyrin padded softly behind her.
"I need my steel." She said, scanning the unnaturally clean room. It wasn't acceptance by any means, it merely said I will see. She found his belt slung over a chair, her ash daggers still in the loops. She stuck them in her own and opened his closet, but the rest of her weapons weren't there.

"The ash daggers are more than enough for you." He glowered as she rummaged around, upturning clothes and various papers as she went. But he didn't say anything.
"I can be trusted too," She threw back without shame. It was an inconsequential situation – what was one more blade to someone adept without them – but she knew he'd get it. Trust went both ways, and she was loathed to give it. He needed to prove he wouldn't report anything to the War Leaders or the Queen.
Shadow grinned and knelt beside the bed, pulling a polished wooden chest from underneath it. Weapons – hers and others – had been placed carefully between layers of cloth. Each gleamed as if they had just been polished.
"What is the Shadow of the East doing with a pair of ash daggers?" Tyrin busied himself by tugging on his boots.
Her fingers flitted over the shining metal. He had a pair of small, curved swords made of ash by the Firedancers himself – easy to distinguish due with their glittering black blades.
"They were a gift – or a payment. Depends on who's being asked." She drew her sword from its bed of cloth. The hilt wasn't fancy, wrapped in black leather with silver studs at the top and bottom to keep it in place. The pommel was also smooth silver, but engraved with the initials A. A. B. Only the blade granted a second look – steel edged in the black obsidian of ash blades and worked to a hair-thin edge. The sword was light and made a sound like a whip when she twirled it through the air. She'd missed this blade. She bent to look under the bed again and pulled out another, smaller chest with scabbards and belts. She took only her own and secured the sword. The weight was comforting, familiar. It reminded her that she was something to be feared.
"Ready?" Tyrin asked, an eyebrow raised. "Or do you want to change into that suit too?"

Shadow snorted and made a face. "In this weather? I'll freeze." She left the cabin, walking into the weak sunlight. The sun disappeared quickly in this Realm, and she found herself longing for the blistering heat of Aste'ra. There, space was not limited to the length between trees. Claustrophobia crept up on her without warning. Memories crashed through her head.
Shadow swallowed against her suddenly dry throat. "Care to race me?" She challenged, and took off before he could answer. Running from her demons at a speed that would break bones if she tripped and fell, Shadow buried her fears deep, deep down.
Tyrin kept pace beside her, silently weaving between trees and vaulting over rotting logs. He had the widest smile she'd ever seen him give, ice glazed with the primal joy of feet against soil and the burn of cool air in lungs. He was almost vibrating with energy. Shadow couldn't fade her own answering smile either, nor the laughter that bubbled out of her. Flashes of steel and chains still haunted her thoughts, but...
On and on she pushed her legs, chest heaving. Time was an endless loop of inhale and exhale and duck and swerve and jump. It went by unnoticed.

"Wait!" Tyrin shouted, skidding to a stop. She stumbled to a halt, almost colliding with a tree branch, and turned to face him. The smile and been wiped from his face.
"Can you scent that?" He asked, panting as he scanned the forest, nose tilted upwards. Shadow pressed at a sharp pain in her side and tried to regulate her breathing. Underneath the smell of pine trees and damp soil, there was a faint whiff of ash and something acidic.
"That scent does not belong here." Tyrin's back was ridged with tension, wings curled into his skin. He paced with a hesitation to his step that didn't go unnoticed. She closed her eyes. Familiar. This beast haunted Aste'ra's wild woods too. She'd never seen it, but the scent could be found laced between houses and stables.
"I want to track it. Like the ancients did." She hadn't had the opportunity to track for a while. The old method was dangerous if there was no one to keep guard. She pulled on the oblivion and a drop of her magic. Darkness encroached, rich and vibrant. The clothes on her back felt weightless and sounds dulled and blurred. If she opened her eyes, the forest would be a smudge of green and brown and earth, but scents – strong and pulsing and beckoning – wove through her mind. Each ribbon led in a different direction. She followed a dull grey to the rabbit sleeping in its borrow a few feet from her, and another to Aodhan circling above them.
"I thought you wanted to find Wildewolf tracks." Tyrin was trying to dissuade her, and if she hadn't already muted the environment around her, she'd take note of the hard planes of his face, the tightening of his mouth. "Why follow a mere distraction?"
"Curiosity. I've caught this scent before – just a faint whisper of it – near Alaric's manor. I want to see what it belongs to."
Tyrin's own scent was a silver smoke-smooth tendril weaving between her own black and gold. When she reached a hand out, it wrapped itself around her fingers and danced along her skin. She shivered at the cool sensation, though it wasn't uncomfortable. She opened her eyes to the male himself.

Shadow fumbled her ash daggers free and stumbled through the blurred forest, following the pale yellow-green scent. She began the slow ascent out of the trance when it became strong enough. Tyrin walked on silent feet behind her, hands white-knuckled.
The quiet she was met with was disconcerting. No birds flittered through the trees, no breeze ruffled leaves. Muted, oppressive. The trees bore fresh scars of claw marks and streaks of luminescent green. Even without the soft cry of Aodhan above her, she knew this was territory neither of them had been in before.
"How long have we passed this?" She gestured unnecessarily to the gauged branch by her right fingers before slowing for a better look. She traced the exposed wood and flicked free the splinters that came away.
.For about a mile or so." Tyrin whispered back.
"Have you ever seen anything like this?" Shadow's hand hovered cautiously above the green stains. It prickled with heat and started to itch. When she drew it away, red blisters lined her palm.
Tyrin grimaced while watching her. "Once. I saw what was left of the village."

"You know what I've been tracking?" She asked softly. That information would have been useful before she'd made the decision to trust him while she entered the oblivion of the hunt.
He shook his head and she noticed the long knife in his scarred hand. He didn't draw weapons unless he expected he'd need more than his fists. An uneasy feeling crept across her skin and whispered through her thoughts. "It's not what you've been tracking – it's what's tracking us."