Casek stared, wide-eyed, at the woman for a moment, before he felt a viscous pull on the arm he was being held by, and he was yanked off his feet. He hit the floor on the other side of her with a painful thud and she used the momentum to pull herself up to her knees and pull back her other arm high above his head.

  It was only when he felt cold steel against his throat that he realised she had let go of his arm, the hand closest to him pinning him to the floor with a short-blade pushed into his throat. A black steel blade, not unlike his own, crackled to life in her other hand, thrumming with power.

  He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, but his words failed him. Hers, however, did not.

  “Who—what—the fuck are you?”

  “I’m—I’m Casek,” he blurted, eyes wide.

  Hers narrowed, and the sharp edge of her swords pushed harder into his throat. “That doesn’t answer what.”

  “A… person?” he suggested, at a loss for how to answer.

  “A person can’t do what you just did. Try again.”

  “It’s the truth,” he ground out, the pressure on his throat becoming unbearable. His vision was getting spotty; lungs burning in his chest. “P-please.”

  “That was a shitty attempt at declaring your innocence—even for a demon. Perhaps we can start with a bigger question: why even let me out at all?”

  But Casek no longer had the air to speak. The surrounding earth spun, and everything but the woman’s two blades had fallen out of focus. Blackness closed in around him. He reached for his power and summoned his own sword in one last attempt at keeping himself alive.

  The woman stood up, movement a blur, and stamped down on the offending arm, driving it into the dirt. All he could focus on for now, however, was the lack of pressure against his throat, and the glorious sensation of breathing unimpeded. When he gathered himself enough to peer up at her, she gazed back down at him, a thunderstruck expression plastered across her face.

  “But, on the other hand,” she murmured, half to herself. “The Shadow can’t use the foci. Their magic won’t allow it—even if their possessing a person who wore one. So how did you do that?”

  “Because I’m a human being,” he gasped between deep, gulping breaths. “I had no interest in hurting you until you tried to throttle me, and you’re clearly strong enough to stop me either way, so if you wouldn’t mind letting me up, we can talk.”

  She peered down at him through narrowed eyes, ink-black hair falling around her face, before clicking her teeth and stepping away from him. She never broke her gaze, though. Her weapons never flickered in her hands.

  “How. Explain quickly. No human has ever been able to even affect the stasis crystals. Only the Shadow.”

  “I don’t know how. I don’t even remember most of my life. I woke a few days ago in a ruined building close to here. Found a foci inside, fought my way out and ran into a Drau.”

  She scoffed, and Casek allowed himself a self-pitying smile. “Yeah, it went about as well as you’re imagining. It trapped me in one of those crystals, only I found I could feel it. I used my own magic from the foci to break out.”

  Not the entire truth, but Casek got the impression this person didn’t need to know about the other source of power he’d discovered within.

  “I’ve been surviving in the woods since. Luckily I haven’t run into anything worse than Shades,” he smiled and shot her a look, “not counting you, obviously.”

  She scowled. “That is about the most unlikely story you could have come up with.”

  “And, yet, it’s the truth.”.

  This brought the first crack in her stony facade. “So you say. I don’t know what you are. I still think you’re just as likely to be of the Shadow as you are humanity.”

  “…But?”

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  “But I might have a way for you to prove yourself.”

  “If that involves me not dying by your hand, I’m all ears.”

  She turned towards the forest, eyes distant. “When I was imprisoned, I was the last standing. There are others—my team—trapped.”

  Realisation dawned on Casek. “You think I can help free them?”

  “If you can do it for me, why not them?”

  “Do you even know how long you were imprisoned for? Is there any guarantee that they’re still—”

  She whirled round, eyes blazing, striding towards him until they were only a few paces apart. “They’re alive,” she hissed. “The Shadow rarely kill—especially binders. They keep their prey alive to—to feed.”

  Casek pretended not to notice the quiver in her voice when she got to talking about what might be happening to her companions and instead nodded slowly.

  “If they’re still alive, there’s no reason I can’t help—especially if it will go a ways to convincing you I’m not some kind of monster.”

  She kept her eyes locked on him for a moment, searching for any sign of deception or trickery. Then, her shoulders relaxed slightly, and her blades faded from view.

  “I am called Raelynn. If you can help me with this, you will have my gratitude and my trust. I will vouch for you when we return to Oreia, if you choose to come with us.”

  “Oreia?” he asked.

  Raelynn blinked. “You really don’t have any memories, do you? Oreia is a city. The last. At least, it’s the last one not smothered by stasis crystals and, for all intents and purposes, lost.”

  It was Casek’s turn to look thunderstruck, jaw dropping, and eyes wide with horror. “What do you mean, last?”

  For the first time, Raelynn looked at him with something that might have been sympathy, or pity.

  “I mean last. Oreia is what is left. Our last bastion against the Shadow. Gods, how long have you been sleeping? This war we’re fighting? The Shadow cannot lose—not unless something changes. No matter how many we bind and kill, they are endless, and we are not. This world is a ruin, filled with shattered cities and peoples lost to time and darkness. Even our knowledge is dwindling—our history…”

  She trailed off, idly palming a leather-bound book strapped to her side. It was a deep brown, and intricately carved with a web of spiral patterns all interlaced with each other, its nest of cream parchment bound tight with black chord.

  “An avid reader?” he asked, nodding towards the book.

  Raelynn jerked back as though she had forgotten he was even there, and shifted her body, shielding the tome from his inquisitive gaze.

  “That is not your concern.”

  Casek bit the inside of his cheek to hold his curiosity in check. “Personal, then. Got it. So, our deal is I help you free your friends, and you vouch for me in Oreia?” She nodded, and Casek smiled. “Then I accept your terms. To be honest, I would have done it for free. I spent a few hours trapped in one of those crystals, and that was plenty. I’ll not leave somebody else trapped in one if I can help it.”

  Her face softened, and the corners of Raelynn’s mouth upturned into the faintest of smiles. “Then let’s not waste any time. I had some supplies stashed close by. They should at least be enough for a couple of days. By the looks of things, it’ll be the best meal you’ve had in centuries.”

  Casek snorted, and Tauph chimed in for the first time since meeting Raelynn, muttering, if only she knew…

  But, as he followed Raelynn into the trees, Casek’s smile began to slip, until it fell away entirely. The afternoon sun illuminated the forest floor well-enough, despite the thick emerald canopy above, but his thoughts had quickly darkened.

  Things were worse than he could have possibly imagined. The last human city. One. Scraps of hazy knowledge buzzed around in his mind. Memories of great, continent spanning empires. Shining fortresses. Gleaming cities and spectacular marvels dotting the landscape, numerous as ants.

  Now, there was nothing. Crumbling rock gathering moss and dust, whilst humanity dwindled and died. Of the great civilisation he’d known when awake, only one city had survived to see his waking. And even that, if Raelynn was to be believed, was dying slowly, fighting a losing battle as more and more of its warriors were encased in crystal.

  He stopped suddenly, breath catching. Surely, he could do something about that. What if he didn’t stop at rescuing Raelynn’s companions?

  If he could save them, what was to stop him rescuing everyone else?

  One thing at a time, Casek. One thing at a time. If you really want to do that, you’ll have to get stronger than you can possibly imagine. Frozen individuals—Raelynn, for example—will not be so well or jealously guarded as groups of folk. The more people trapped in one place, the more powerful the Shadow entities guarding it. We’re talking far worse than just Drau.

  “This is exactly why we sacrificed what we did, Tauph,” he whispered, trying to keep his words hidden from Raelynn as she forged ahead through the underbrush, her blade cutting swathes of bramble and ivy aside, clearing them a path. “To win the war. If I have the power to free people, I could never stand by and not use it—not when it could save the number of people it could.”

  I know. I just want to keep you safe, Casek. Strength doesn’t mean much to me in its own right. Nor do other people. But you do, Casek. You have no idea where this road might lead.

  Casek sighed at the cryptic warning. “I understand the dangers, Tauph. But how can I turn my back, knowing what I know? Knowing that I could make a difference. Save lives. I can’t walk away from that.”

  Suddenly, Raelynn stopped dead up in front of them, raising a hand to halt them, too. She glanced back, steel in her eyes and held up four fingers, and pointed into the knot of twisted trees ahead of them.

  The sign was clear enough in meaning, even if he hadn’t already known.

  Up ahead. Four enemies.

  Four fingers became two, and a quickly mouthed word.

  Two Drau.

  Four enemies, two of which were Drau.

  Fuck.

  Thank you all so much for reading this far! If you've enjoyed what you've read, please consider checking out one of my other stories below - just click on the pictures to go to their pages!