Chapter 4: The Shadow & The Prophet

When Lior opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Duke Veylan Drex in a black void. Standing beside him were the other two rulers of Leseron: Duke Rhys Volanar and Duchess Isolde Mariwyn. All three were wearing their heraldic badges of the Crownwardens. They were smiling at him, and Duke Veylan was beaming with pride.

“What is this place?” Lior asked. “What happened?”

There was a figure behind the Crownwardens. They parted to make way for him and he stepped into the light. Lior had never seen the man before, but he knew from history lessons and drawings and the crown exactly who this was: King Wendell. The sight of the King was all it took for Lior to realize wherever he was, whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t real.

“What do you want from me?” Lior asked instead.

“I am here to offer you my power,” King Wendell said. “Not just to become Crownwarden, but to take my own place as King.” Lior opened his mouth to ask why, but the King didn’t wait. “I have seen you, Lior. You are worthy. Perhaps the only one. Someone needs to lead and I have chosen you. I know you will do right by our people.”

“I would,” Lior said, pride filling his chest. “Given the chance, my King, I would.”

“And so you shall have that chance,” the King said as he knelt. He took the crown from his head and bowed to Lior. “Taking this power will erase me, but I am willing to be forgotten. It is time for someone with a stronger heart and a more noble disposition to take my place.”

Lior’s pride began to disappear. “I don’t want to be King, nor do I want to replace you.”

“You must,” Veylan said as he took a step forward. “Leseron needs strength now, and a strong ruler must take power when a weaker man surrenders it.”

“No,” Lior said as he stepped away from the four legends before him. “That isn’t what I want. I want the power to serve, not the power to rule.”

“Would you step into the shadows and serve me, then?” King Wendell asked. “Would you help me lead from the darkness, with no power to change anything at all, and be forgotten after sacrificing everything?”

Is that really what Lior wanted? Did he want obscurity? Was he content with the idea of being erased and forgotten? Of fading into the shadows forever? He had only ended up here because he was after power in the first place, the power of one of Duke Veylan’s Bestowed.

But he wanted power so he could change the kingdom for the better. If he could do that without power, would he still?

“Yes,” he finally said. “I will serve my King however he sees fit. Even if weak and lowly, even if only from the shadows.”

King Wendell replaced his crown and stood. The other Crownwardens faded away into smoke behind him. “Then the shadows shall call you one of their own,” the King said.

Then there was nothing.

Lior was in the dark void alone, floating and confused. The darkness around him grew thicker, like a bog. He struggled against it, trying to swim or reorient himself. But soon the air was so thick he couldn’t even breathe it. The shadows forced their way into his mouth, down his throat, and he became one with them.

He gasped, finally able to breathe again, and despite his eyes already being open, he felt himself open them again. This time, he was falling through a cerulean glow. No, not falling. He was being lifted by it.

The Well spit him out and he hit the stone floor of the Umbral Tunnels hard enough to knock the wind from him. He coughed, rolled onto his stomach, and scrambled to get back to his feet. He looked around the cavern in a panic, remembering that only moments ago he and Zeke had been pursued here by some monstrous creature. But the creature was nowhere to be seen.

The Well began to hum and buzz. He turned to look, and its light flashed once with a brilliant glow. Zeke came tumbling out of the Well, landing on his side and rolling a few feet. Lior rushed to Zeke and pulled him up.

“Stand, brother,” Lior said. “The beast may still be nearby.”

Zeke squinted and reached a gloved hand up to push against his eyes. “My head hurts,” he groaned. “I haven’t had rest in days.”

“No,” Lior said. “Wherever we went, it was for only a few minutes.”

Zeke looked up at Lior, brows furrowed in confusion. “Lior, I was in there for days. Duke Veylan wanted to have you executed. I died trying to stop him and save you. Many times. Every time I died, I was sent back to try again and I tried for days.”

Something in the darkness made a wet, slithering sound.

“Later, Zeke,” Lior said. “We’ll discuss this when we’re safe.”

“We have no idea where we are,” Zeke said. “Do we run? Look for an exit? Stay put?”

Lior felt the shadows calling to him, beckoning him to take shelter within their embrace. “Hide first,” Lior whispered as he moved from the light of the Well and into a dark corner of the cavern. He pulled Zeke with him, and just as they stepped into the darkness, the monster arrived.

The creature was a massive, mucus-colored slug that barely fit through the tunnels it moved through. It was a near-perfect fit, as if the creature had bored all the tunnels itself. Pseudopod tendrils, like the growth of slime mold, were spreading from its mass to connect to the stone with thick strands of muscle. It pulled itself forward with the tendrils before retracting them and repeating the process. This made the creature appear to have hundreds of membranous, chaotically shaped arms growing from every inch of its body. 

Its head emerged from the darkness into the light cast by the Well. It flinched back for a moment, as if in pain, but only for a second before it pressed forward again. As its ropey tendrils grew from its body to pull it closer to them, the creature’s head opened. Flaps of layered skin, like the petals of a flower, peeled themselves back to reveal layers and layers of thin, sharp teeth. The teeth extended down the creature’s gullet, deep inside its mass, where Lior could see other things moving.

They were more slugs like the one that had been controlling the bear. They were writhing along the inside of the creature, squirming in and out of the pitted interior of the creature’s mouth and throat. The grotesque abomination didn’t growl or scream. It gave no warning before it suddenly lashed forward to swallow Lior.

Move! Lior thought, as he threw himself sideways. He knew it wasn’t fast enough. He knew he was going to die.

But then he vanished.

The shadows of the cavern swallowed him whole. He didn’t understand what had happened, but for a sickening heartbeat he was nowhere. It felt like the void he had occupied before the Well had spit him out. He barely had time to have the thought before he was back again . . . but somewhere else. Lior slammed into a cavern wall with a grunt, skidding down the damp rock. His stomach lurched with a sickening wave of vertigo. He looked up to see that somehow, in the blink of an eye, he had moved all the way to the opposite side of the cave’s chamber.

But Zeke hadn’t.

The creature turned and its tendrils fired in all directions, leaving Zeke with almost nowhere to go that wasn’t waiting to grab hold of him.

Then Zeke moved like Lior had never seen him move before.

Zeke was a sight to behold, a master of acrobatics as he jumped and spun out of the way of every tendril the beast fired at him. He resembled a dancer, landing amid the tendrils scattered across the floor without ever touching one. Every move ended with him on the tiptoes of one foot before he launched himself to another position, always just a hair away from being grabbed. It was like watching someone carefully navigate a field of broken glass, but he was repositioning from one place to another faster than Lior had ever seen him move. The creature was growing visibly frustrated as it tried and failed over and over to grab the catlike boy.

Lior’s lower half, from the stomach down, tingled. He looked to see he was standing in shadows, his top half barely illuminated by the glow coming from the Well. He took a step backwards, the tingling sensation spreading to all parts of him that were covered in darkness. When it covered his whole body, he could feel a connection to the darkness. Not just the darkness he was in, but all the darkness in the cavern. He looked at the far end of the cavern where another patch of darkness was. He could feel it calling to him, asking him if he wanted it. He felt himself answer.

Yes.

Then, in an instant, he was there in that patch of darkness, across the entire cavern again in the blink of an eye. He drew his sword, not knowing what this was but determined to use it to save Zeke’s life. He looked for a patch of shadow near the massive, disgusting fiend. He willed himself there and jumped to the shadow, moving the whole length of the cavern without taking a single step. He plunged his sword into the beast’s slimy skin when he appeared, and called to the shadow at the far end of the cavern. The beast howled and struck out where Lior was just a second ago. He would have been caught, but he was back where he began.

The realization finally struck Lior: I can move between shadows.

Lior watched as Zeke used the opening Lior had created to strike against the creature with his own sword. He struck the side of its head and ochre-colored blood poured from the wound. The creature struck out at Zeke as quickly as a viper, but Zeke casually stepped out of the way as if he had practiced fighting this thing his whole life. He plunged his sword into the beast’s head once more. It tried in vain to slam him against the cavern wall, but Zeke moved like the fight was choreographed, like he had memorized the exact moves enough to do them with his eyes closed. He struck the beast once more with his sword.

This time, the creature pulled back. It hesitated, its damaged head moving to look between Zeke and Lior. And then it fled.

The tendrils pulled the creature’s bulk backwards down the tunnel it had been emerging from and it disappeared into the depths once more. It moved quickly, flailing and throwing around its weight with the blind terror of a creature knowing that it had lost. Its bulk slammed into the walls of the tunnel as it retreated and the cavern began to rumble.

Zeke slowly and calmly grabbed Lior’s arm and pulled him a few feet to the side. A few chunks of stone fell from the ceiling and smashed into the ground where they had been standing only a moment earlier. The tunnel the creature had slid back into collapsed, and all that was left of the monster was a glistening trail of its blood disappearing underneath the newly formed rubble. If the creature had made these tunnels, it would not be trapped for long. But at least this gave them time to stop, rest, and think.

“What was that?” Lior asked, his heart still beating hard and strong with adrenaline.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Zeke said.

Lior jogged to Zeke to check him for injuries. “No, I mean what was . . . whatever you did? What was that? I’ve never seen you move like that.”

Zeke pushed himself away from Lior with a huge smile on his face. “Lior, I was blessed! I can’t be harmed. Try to hit me. Right now. Punch me.”

Lior frowned. “I’m not doing that.”

“Come on!” Zeke stepped closer, grinning. “One punch. Right in the face. I just—”

Lior mentally shrugged and swung. The iron backing of his gloved knuckles met Zeke’s nose with a sharp crack. Zeke stumbled backward, hands flying to his face. “Ow!” He doubled over, blood trickling between his fingers. “Wh—ow! Damn it, Lior!”

Lior didn’t know whether to feel guilty or angry. “I only did what you told me to do! What happened to ‘I can’t be hurt?’ Are—are you alright?”

Zeke sniffled and spat a glob of blood onto the cave floor. His voice was thick and muffled and he spoke as if his nose were clogged. “I dink b‘abye I just cain’t die?” He wiped his nose, sniffling and spitting once more. He took a deep, clear breath through his nose. “Lior, I was killed. Like in my vision in the Well, I died over and over. But every time it happened, I just . . . got to try again. I remember the pain, the fear, and then time just reset. I got to keep trying until I got it right. I must have died over a hundred times to that thing. It took so long.”

“To me you appeared to try only once,” Lior said. “It just looked like you could . . . I don’t know, see the future?”

“In a way, trying again after I die is the same thing,” Zeke said. “Lior, I’m unkillable!”

Lior crossed his arms. “I just punched you in the face.”

“That’s different.”

“What next, you want me to run you through with my sword?”

Zeke’s smile returned, wider this time. “How is it so hard for you to believe?” He gestured wildly at Lior. “I saw you move like a phantom! Do it again. Just vanish—go somewhere, right now. There!”

Lior hesitated only for a moment before he sighed and looked at the spot Zeke pointed at. But it was a place touched by the light of the cavern and he couldn’t go there. The closest spot that called to him was in darkness. So Lior willed himself to move there instead, and it happened. He was in one shadow, then he was across the cavern, then he was back to where he began again, all before Zeke could so much as blink.

Lior’s voice dropped to a whisper as he said, “It only works in darkness . . .”

“You can move between shadows?” Zeke asked.

“That was my vision,” Lior said. “In the Well. King Wendell was there, and he offered me his power, if only I would take it and lead the kingdom in his place. I refused, and he asked if I would serve him from the shadows. That offer was one I accepted and then . . .”

“It makes sense,” Zeke said. “It’s like . . . it was like a trial. Mine was saving you over and over. Each time I tried I was struck down by Veylan. No matter what I learned or how many times I tried, he always knew exactly how to defeat me.”

“Did your trial end when you saved me?” Lior asked.

“No,” Zeke said. “It ended when . . .” He took a deep breath. “Don’t be angry with me, Lior, but it ended when I finally gave up on you and let you die.”

“I’m not angry,” Lior said. “It was only a vision.”

“Still . . .” Zeke looked up with a renewed vigor in his eyes. “But Lior, I think that’s the King’s Well. I think Monty had it right. I think we’re Crownwardens, now.”

“Hush,” Lior snapped, glancing around as if someone could hear them. “We cannot say such things until we know for sure.”

Zeke laughed through a grin. “You’re still doubting this? Lior, you are a living shadow and I can defy death itself. What more proof do you need?”

“It’s not doubt that has me worried,” Lior said as an uneasy realization settled in his gut. “It’s how we got them. The Crownwardens were granted their gifts by King Wendell. We just took ours. What will the other Crownwardens think?”

Zeke’s grin didn’t waver. “You think the Unceasing wouldn’t have stopped us if they didn’t want us to have these gifts? Think of the trials. They even tested us first to make sure we were worthy.”

“We don’t know that,” Lior said. “We don’t know anything.”

“Now we have all the time in the world to figure it out,” Zeke said. “You finally have the power the Duke refused to give you. You don’t have to have his ear as his most trusted general. You’re his equal, now.”

“We, know, nothing,” Lior said as he leaned into his words. “We don’t even know how our powers work or what their limits are. We don’t know what consequences or burdens come with them. We don’t even know if we’ll find our way out of these tunnels.”

“We have all the time in the world to discover the exit,” Zeke said. “I can rewind time.”

“No, you can’t,” Lior said. “You could have stopped me from hitting you otherwise.”

“I can now that I think about it,” Zeke said. “There’s a way. Watch me. Strike me again.”

Lior could hear the confidence in Zeke’s words. He knew the boy would argue, so Lior did as instructed. This time, however, he punched at Zeke’s gut.

And Zeke deftly dodged the blow.

“Try again, as many times as you’d like,” Zeke said, smiling.

Lior punched again. Another miss. This time he threw a punch at Zeke’s face. Missed again. Lior, driven by curiosity, heightened his assault. He threw blow after blow, trying his damndest to land a single blow on Zeke. But it was impossible. Zeke knew every single movement that Lior would make. The boy even began to taunt Lior by covering his eyes with one hand and dodging the blows without looking.

Lior finally stopped and leaned over to catch his breath from the exertion. “Alright, impressive,” he admitted. “How are you doing that? Do you always see the future, or do you have to rewind time from the present you experience?”

“Nope,” Zeke said, pulling his dagger from his hip sheath and flipping it around in his hands. “I only go back when I die, so I cut my throat each time you hit me. It let me try again and again until I got it right.”

Zeke said the words with a smile, and Lior suddenly felt very, very ill. “You killed yourself over and over just to glimpse where my blows would land?” Lior could hear his own voice trembling, hushed and horrified. “There is a reverence we were meant to have for death, Zeke, and you just spit in its face.”

Zeke chuckled. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

Lior grabbed his wrist. “It is! You play with suicide like it’s a game!”

“It’s not suicide if I don’t stay dead,” Zeke said as he tried to tug his wrist free.

Lior’s grip tightened. “You don’t know that. You don’t know if there’s a limit to this. What if there’s a death you can’t come back from? What if there is some limit you’re unaware of and time just doesn’t rewind?” This time Zeke hesitated, so Lior pressed forward. “Listen to me: the Well changed us. I understand your belief that it is a blessing. But you don’t see what’s happening to you. What if something went wrong and I had to wonder why my best friend cut his throat and bled out in front of me for seemingly no reason?”

Zeke’s smile faltered. “I—”

“The Crownwardens are not invincible, nor are they truly immortal. They may not age, but everything can die. You are not invincible. You are not immortal. You are Ezekian. But if you keep thinking like this . . . I don’t know if you’ll be him for much longer. Because the Zeke I know wouldn’t play with death in such a casual, callous manner.”

Zeke didn’t respond. The air between them was heavy. He looked down at the dagger in his hands and his fingers trembled, his breath uneven. He squeezed his eyes shut, inhaling slowly. Then, finally, Lior let go and Zeke sheathed the dagger.

“I’m sorry,” Zeke murmured. He rubbed his face, as if trying to wipe away the exhilaration. “You’re right. It’s just . . . so much. I don’t know how to process it. I hadn’t given a single serious thought to the things Monty had been saying. I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“I know,” Lior said. He rested his hand on Zeke’s shoulder. “And we will figure it out, brother. But not like this. Not by killing yourself just to glimpse the future. Promise me.”

“Alright,” Zeke said. “I promise.”

“But we can still put these gifts to good use,” Lior said. “We’ll use them to keep ourselves safe as we search for Gravemont. At the very least, we can try to bring his corpse back up to the surface.”

Zeke nodded and took a steadying breath. “Understood. Lead the way, Shadow.”

Lior’s expression darkened. “Do not call me that unless you want me calling you a prophet.”

Zeke smirked. “Tempting. Prophet suits me just fine. The titles have a nice ring to them, ones befitting Crownwardens. Lior Drevan, The Shadow. Ezekian Sim, The Prophet.”

Lior sighed. He still didn’t like it, but at least for now he had pulled Zeke back from the edge. But the fear still sat in his gut. Because what if next time he couldn’t? Would Zeke change into someone he didn’t know? For that matter, would Lior himself change into someone he didn’t know? And what about the other Crownwardens? How were they to break this news to them?

But Lior shook the thoughts from his head. None of it would matter if they never found their way out of the Umbral Tunnels.