The Shadow Of What Was Lost

Chapter 5

Asha stared dully at the ceiling.

She’d been doing that for the past few minutes now, ever since she’d woken and remembered what was happening today. She knew she should be leaping from her bed and finding Davian before the Trials began, even if it was only to spend just a few extra seconds with him. Her body, though, refused to move. Today would be the last she would see of him for a long time – probably ever. Getting out of bed felt like it would just bring his leaving a little bit closer.

Finally she gritted her teeth and found the energy to throw back the blanket; she rose, shivering in the morning chill, and quickly dressed. The first true rays of dawn were brightening the horizon outside her window, and Asha grimaced at the sight. The Athian Elders would have already departed their inn in Caladel. When they arrived, the Trials would officially begin.

Suddenly she paused, puzzled.

She’d seen several Trials during her time at the school; from her experience there should have been a cacophony of sound from the courtyard outside – certainly something to indicate students and Elders preparing for such a big event. The silence was decidedly odd.

The more she thought about it, the more she realised that the entire feel of the morning was… off. From the corner of her eye she could see that her roommate, Quira, was still fast asleep in her bed. That wasn’t unusual, though; the younger girl tended to sleep well past dawn. Asha turned and was about to slip outside when something made her hesitate.

The room was quiet. Moreso than normal. Now that Asha thought about it, Quira hadn’t stirred once. The girl was a restless sleeper at best, as well as a terrible snorer.

Asha crept over to the bed, frowning. Quira was lying on her side, facing the wall. Gently, Asha placed a hand on her shoulder. The slight pressure caused Quira to roll onto her back.

Asha’s breath caught in her throat. She just stared for a moment, paralysed.

There was blood everywhere. So much blood. It was pooled mainly around Quira’s head and chest, staining the mattress a dark, violent red where it had poured from the gaping wound in her neck. Dark smears streaked across her face; Asha realised numbly that it was from where Quira’s attacker had covered her mouth to muffle any screams. The young girl’s soft brown eyes, wide with shock and fear, stared into Asha’s. Pleading.

Suddenly there was a voice, screaming for help, desperate and afraid. It took a few moments for Asha to register it was her own. She slumped to the ground beside the bunk, dazed, waiting for someone – anyone – to come to her aid. She sat there for what seemed like hours.

Nobody came.

Finally gathering her wits, Asha forced her body to move, trying to shake off the shock that was rapidly setting in. The female students’ quarters were adjacent to the courtyard; even at this early hour, someone should have been awake to hear her cries.

Outside in the hallway, the school again seemed unnaturally quiet. Limbs heavy with dread, Asha moved to the next room, where Taranne and Jadan slept. The door was ajar. Somehow, she knew what she would find before she entered.

There had been no attempt to hide the slaughter in this room. The blood had spilt out onto the grey stone; the girls’ heads were twisted at odd angles, with Jadan’s body hanging in grisly fashion halfway out of her bed. Unlike Quira, their throats had not been cleanly slit, but had rather been torn out so completely that the sharp white of the spine was visible through the pulpy red tissue.

Asha fled.

She stumbled along the hallway, too numb to cry, to scream, to do anything but keep moving, look for someone else who had survived. She couldn’t be the only one. She couldn’t.

Room after room of people she had grown up with passed in a blur. Tessia, the sweet girl who had shown more promise in her first two years than even Wirr. Danin and Shass, who had arrived only a few months ago and couldn’t have been older than ten. She had comforted them during their first night as they had wept, helped them accept the difficult truth that their family had abandoned them. They had made her a daisy necklace to thank her, which she still kept pressed in one of her books. Now they just stared after her with horrified, vacant eyes. In each room there were more.

It only got worse.

Outside, the courtyard was littered with corpses. She almost collapsed when she saw Jarras. The Elder’s head had been torn completely off, a trail of blood between it and his torso glistening wetly in the early morning light. Jarras’ expression, usually full of warmth and mirth, was frozen in a contortion of pure, wide-eyed fear.

Fenred and Blaine – the two boys who had evidently been on guard duty with him – lay a few feet away. Like the others, their throats had been ripped away, leaving only slivers of torn flesh and bone between their shoulders and heads.

She moved on, wandering almost mindlessly now; each room seemed to have more bodies, some of them barely identifiable with so much blood covering their features. Mistress Alita’s plump figure and long dark locks lay near the entrance to the kitchens, her face blessedly turned away from Asha. Elder Olin was still in his bed. Administrator Talean lay just outside his office.

Then something registered through the haze of panic and grief. The boys. Davian.

She was sprinting towards the North Tower in a moment, all other fears suddenly pushed aside. He had to be alive. She ran up the steps and burst into his small room in the tower, breathing heavily from both exertion and anxiety.

A quick scan gave her a sliver of hope. The bed was empty, the room devoid of any signs of violence. Her heart began beating again. Maybe he’d escaped. Maybe he’d been miraculously left alone, the same as she.

Her fears far from allayed, Asha made her way back out of the tower and towards Wirr’s quarters at a determined run. She didn’t stop to look in the other boys’ rooms as she passed, but most of their doors were ajar, and the splashes of red she saw from the corners of her eyes told her all she needed to know.

Asha skidded headlong into Wirr’s room, only having a moment to register the three surprised faces turning towards her before a massive weight slammed into her, forcing her to the ground with her face hard against the cold stone floor.

Her first reaction was blind panic, and she thrashed wildly against the pressure. Then she stopped, breath coming in ragged bursts, too emotionally exhausted and grief-stricken to do anything more.

After a few seconds, she felt herself being lifted up. She glanced down to see coils of Essence wrapped around her body, raising her smoothly into a standing position.

She looked up again to see three people watching her grimly. She recognised them now. The Elders from Tol Athian, the ones there for the Trials. They weren’t responsible for this, weren’t going to kill her.

Every muscle in her body went limp with relief, only the bindings preventing her from collapsing to the floor. It took her a moment to realise that one of the men was talking to her.

“Fates, girl, who are you?” the dark-skinned man asked her again, his tone urgent. His face was drawn, haggard, and he kept glancing nervously towards the door as if he expected an attack at any second. “You’re obviously Gifted, else the First Tenet would have stopped us from binding you. What do you know?”

Asha forced herself to breathe slowly and evenly. She was far from calm, but the mania that had threatened to take over a few seconds ago was receding. She was safe with the Elders.

“Ashalia,” she said as steadily as she could manage. “My name is Ashalia. I woke up… I don’t know how long ago.” She glanced out the window. The sun was now well above the horizon. Had she been stumbling around the school for an hour? Hours? “Quira was dead… everyone in the girls’ quarters too. They’re all dead.” Saying the words made it sink in and she choked back a sob, trailing off into silence.

The Elders exchanged meaningful glances.

“She’s the first one, Ilseth,” said the woman.

The one called Ilseth nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll find out if she knows anything more. You two should go and look for any other survivors.”

The other man raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think we should stick together?”

Ilseth shook his head. “Whatever did this, Kasperan, it’s long gone. The danger has passed.”

Kasperan nodded his acknowledgement, and he and the woman left Wirr’s room. As they did, the cords of energy holding Asha vanished; Ilseth put a supporting arm around her shoulders, guiding her to sit on Wirr’s bed. “Now. I know this has been traumatic, but we need to know everything you can tell us. Are there any other survivors? We were in Caladel overnight; we only arrived a few minutes ago.”

Asha swallowed. “I think… I think my friends might still be alive. Wirr – this is his room – and Davian. Davian’s room was empty, and neither of them were in the courtyard. I checked.” She shivered. “They must have gotten away. But I don’t know about anyone else.”

Ilseth drew a slip of paper from his pocket, the wax seal on it already broken. He handed it silently to Asha. It was addressed to Elder Olin.

She opened it with still-trembling fingers.

Elder Olin,

Davian and I have had to leave at short notice, on a matter of some importance, and one I believe needs my oversight. Send no-one after us – Davian is under my protection. Please tell my father that if we are caught, I will use the name I used here. He can retrieve us both at his earliest convenience, and I will explain matters to him then.

Torin.

“I don’t understand,” she said, looking up at Ilseth in confusion. “Who’s Torin?”

Ilseth just nodded to himself, glancing towards the doorway. Then he gently removed his arm from around Asha, standing.

“It can never be easy,” he sighed, drawing a small black disc from his pocket. In a sudden movement, he leaned forward and pressed it against Asha’s neck.

Asha tried to jerk away, but the second the disc touched her skin it stuck like glue; she found herself paralysed, able only to move her eyes. She stared at Ilseth as he crouched down on his haunches in front of her, calm as he observed her for a few moments. She tried to talk, to ask him what he was doing, but no sound came from her throat.

“Becoming a Shadow is not so bad,” Ilseth said quietly. “It is quick, and you won’t remember the pain. In fact, you won’t remember anything since you woke up this morning. Almost a blessing, given what you’ve seen today.” He stared into her eyes. “Regardless, I can’t risk anyone realising that Davian got away. I would ask you whether he foresaw what I was planning, or whether he saved your friend through sheer dumb luck – but I doubt you know. And if you don’t know about that, I doubt you understand why the escherii spared you, either. But still… if it saw fit to let you live, then I suppose I should do the same. There are always reasons for these things.”

Asha tried desperately to move, to call for help, but it was no use. She watched in terror as Ilseth reached forward, pressing his finger against the disc on her neck and closing his eyes. For a few seconds a gentle warmth flowed through her body, relaxing every muscle.

Then the heat inside her became a raging fire, searing through her blood as if she were being burned alive from the inside. Every nerve shrieked in agony; her back arched of its own accord as muscles spasmed and convulsed. The tiny corner of her mind not screaming in pain watched as Ilseth nodded in quiet satisfaction, then turned and left.

Eventually the room, and then the pain, faded. She knew no more.