A Shadow's Tale (27 page)

At the end of the month, I strode through the corridors of the palace, eager to get to the courtyard, where Ilrune was apparently waiting for me. I wasn't just excited to see him though. The courting law for the Careen states that a courtship must last only a month. Today was the last day of that month. One month was perhaps not a long time to have known someone, but over the time I had spent with him, I had started to see that he was, for all the stigma attached to his rank, a man with a heart, who treated me not as a princess, not as a ruler of a dimension, but as a girl who still dreamed of love.

Ilrune was indeed waiting for me in the courtyard, astride a fiery red pegasus, another one standing beside him. I stroked the doe's silvery coat, admiring her build. Ilrune, ever the gentleman, swung himself off his stag in order to help me to mount.

‘A final gift, My Lady,' he said formally. ‘Not as fine as the doe bonded to you, but one of the finest of our herds.'

‘She is wondrous,' I breathed, running my fingers through her silken mane. From what I knew of the pegusi, she was a carnivore, a heavier build compared to the herbivores, like the Earthen draft horses. I touched the plate on her collar, reading her name: Moonmaiden.

We flew out over the walls of the palace, leaning low over our mount's necks. My hair streamed out beside me as I raced Ilrune, not even knowing where we were racing to. He smiled at me as we flew side by side for a moment before he pulled ahead, starting to angle for a descent. I straightened up, leaning backwards a little to aid my doe in her landing. I pulled Moonmaiden up next to Ilrune's stag, looking out over the villages. Demons moved in the streets, oblivious to us watching them, finishing the repairs from the bloody battle fought against Alena. The red sun cast its warmth over the black ground, bringing out the crimson flecks in the palace stone. Pride swelled my heart as I looked out over it. There was no way I could let this
fall into the hands of Teran or Melek. These demons, these people needed better than that. Ilrune turned his gaze to me, swinging himself off his mount's back. Standing next to me, he cleared his throat.

‘My Lady, we have been courting for a month now, and it is traditional in Careen circles for each side to state their feelings following the courtship. What I wish to say, My Lady, Shadow, is that I would be honoured if you would consent to allow me your hand in marriage.'

In true girly fashion, I flung myself off Moonmaiden, into Ilrune's arms.

‘Yes, goddess, yes!'

We set the date for another month's time, as I was scheduled to visit another dimension in order to secure a trading deal. Ilrune took to disguising himself as one of my guard, with permission from Captain Nergal, in order to stay close to me as for the moment, he had no need to be at my side, and it was not ‘proper' for him to get involved with the affairs of state before the marriage. The one place Captain Nergal refused to let him accompany me to were other dimensions. That job mainly fell to Kaleb and a few others. It was considered that my guard was composed of the finest warriors of my army and the captain didn't want an amateur making a rookie mistake to jeopardise that image. He knew that the weaker my guards appeared, the more danger I was in. What they hadn't counted on was how much danger I could put myself in.

Spending several days in another dimension to secure a trading deal was not my idea of a riveting activity, not even with the amusement of watching Kaleb trying to hide his boredom. Although my mask hid a lot of my own boredom with the proceedings, it did nothing for my irritability. My vulnerable period was fast approaching and the long, roundabout diplomatic language was definitely not helping my headache since I
had to be on alert for every single tiny detail that could be seen as ambiguous. Not to mention that my broken arm had yet to finish healing and it was very much taking its own sweet time about it, much to the healer's annoyance. I absent-mindedly scratched at the splint discreetly hidden by my sleeve. I froze. I was getting better at predicting the exact strikes of my vulnerable period, and this one was imminent. I tugged on Kaleb's cloak as inconspicuously as I could. Sensing the urgency in my actions, he nodded once. He knew the score and would take care of excuses. Desperate to get back to Aspheri before losing my magic, I teleported.

I vanished not a second too late. I materialised a little high and fell the remaining few feet to the ground as I felt the change come over me. I pushed myself to my feet, staggering a little, grabbing onto the wall to steady myself. I closed my eyes, fighting down the feeling of nausea.

‘Oh sh—' This wasn't Aspheri. I was back on Earth! And even worse than that was the all-too familiar figure someone I really didn't want to see leaning against the wall a couple of metres away from me.

‘Well, well, well, the little princess is a little lost. It would seem that you are without your guards as well. This is not a good situation for you, is it?'

‘Teran Dementius,' I growled, glaring at the demon who seemed to be determined to take the throne from me as I reached for the sword at my hip. ‘Just because I seem to have teleported at the wrong moment doesn't mean I still can't take you down!' Even thought I knew that, in human form, I held no threat against the powerful demon. A blade already glinted in his hand. I scrabbled desperately in my mind for an idea to get away from him, to escape from this situation. Late night reading came to the rescue. ‘Law dictates that in order to fight for leadership, the duellers must be on equal footing. I'm in human form, so that would invalidate your claim.'

Teran growled low in his throat, obviously not pleased that I had found the time to look up the old laws of the dimension (all seventeen volumes of the damn thing. Took me near enough a year to get through them).

‘Shadow?' called a voice. I cursed in my mind. Now was not the time for Bart to turn up. As much as I loved the demon Kraferr hybrid, he had yet to grasp a better sense of timing. ‘Is everything okay?'

‘Who's that?' Teran snarled. ‘Yet another hybrid that you've added to your clan! How many hybrids are you planning to accept? All you're doing is diluting our blood. I would have thought better of the supposed princess of our kind. What would your father have said? Then again, your father sired hybrids left and right. What an example to give. But a three-way hybrid? That's just senseless.'

‘Don't worry, Bart,' I called to him, my gaze not shifting from the demon in front of me. ‘Teran was just leaving. He won't attack me until we're on equal ground.'

‘What're you doin' here in the first place?!' Bart hissed at Teran, his eyes glowing red in the gloom of the alley.

‘I had come to confront Shadow,' Teran drawled. ‘But it would seem that she's human. As she cleverly stated, I can't challenge her now.'

‘And thank the goddess for that.' I muttered under my breath before addressing the demon. ‘So you can shift! Go on! Scoot!' Teran mockingly bowed to me before vanishing from sight. ‘I have never been more glad for that rule,' I added to myself. A few moments later, Bart relaxed, the bolts of magic disappearing from his palms as he straightened up, staring at the place where, a few seconds ago, Teran had stood. He sighed, grabbing two silver bracelets from his pockets and clasping them around his wrists. A wave of brown streaked over his fur, transforming it back to his Kraferric pelt, before he twisted his head to look at me. I leant against the wall again, pulling my mask off and running a hand
though my hair. What a fine mess I had managed to get myself into now. Human and no guards with Teran on my tail. Just brilliant.

‘What happened, Shad? Who was that guy? Why're you here instead of Aspheri?'

‘Can you slow down on the questions please?' I asked, rubbing my temples. Boy, did I have one hell of a headache. ‘I was visiting another dimension, sensed my human period coming on and tried to teleport back to Aspheri. Unfortunately, I screwed it up and landed here.

‘And human.'

‘And human, yes.'

Bart sighed heavily, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘As far as I'm concerned,' he said, ‘you can't go back to Aspheri or Synairn for quite a while now. I think the more wise decision would be to take you to where Dominique and I live. It'll give you shelter while you're…vulnerable.' He held out a hand to me. I grasped it gently, bracing myself for the teleportation.

Bart's teleportation may have improved in the way that it only took him two attempts to land in the right place, but his method still left you with the unpleasant feeling that you had just been pulled through a cheese grater. I had to close my eyes and force down the feeling of nausea for the second time that night as we landed. Goddess, how much trouble was I in now? There was no way Teran was going to let me get away. He'd be on my trail for the next three days just waiting for me to get my magic back. The only way I would be able to fight him now would be to get angry enough to discover my true form. A demon or half-demon had an extra morph known as their ‘true form'. The picture I had seen of Karthragan in the Book of Demons, the flaming wolf that was his true form. A full-blooded demon knows their true form from birth. A half demon only discovers theirs if they get angry enough to approach what is called the ‘point of no return', the point where the demonic possession is so strong that it overlaps
the other side of a half-demon's blood. It was the only power a half demon had up his or her sleeve during their vulnerable period, but it was a difficult power to control and not one ever taken lightly. In fact, there were only six documented instances where a part demon had done so, and five of them hadn't come back. Bart touched my shoulder lightly. Nodding to him, I dragged a sleeve across my eyes, following him down into the flat.

I braced myself for the onslaught of homicidal fur, but the absence of such a phenomenon told me that Dominique was probably out. I stood in the hallway, unsure of myself or what to do. This wasn't my land to rule. This was Bart's territory and I was trespassing once again. The fingers of my broken arm twitched as the old injury throbbed. I followed Bart through to the living room, taking up a post by the window, looking out over the city where rain had just begun to fall. I watched Bart in the reflection of the glass. He had changed a lot since I had first met the Kraferr. He had been younger than me in physical years at that point, ageing as a normal human despite being a Kraferr hybrid. He used to have a kind of naïve optimism with the enthusiasm of a young person embarking on their first adventure in the footsteps of his Kraferr One predecessors. Now he was several years older, surpassing me in physical years as I had stopped, with a maturity superseding his age. I was, in no minor part, to blame for that. I had burdened him with demonic blood. If I could take it back, I would. It wasn't fair on him, already one of the last Kraferrs, to have to deal with the rapidly expanding, precarious world of part demons. As I watched him from my discreet positioning, his face was set in an expression of neutral seriousness that I knew all too well as one favoured by my siblings when sorting through their emotions from an objective point of view.

The front door opened again to admit one very wet Kraferrin,
who walked into the living room with her head down and, ignoring his protests, hugged Bart tightly. The Kraferr pushed her away, playfully grumbling about how she was getting him wet. I stood still, waiting patiently for her to figure out why there was something not quite right with her living room.

‘Shadow!' You're back!' she exclaimed. I smiled at her, unclasping my cloak and draping it around her shoulders as I realised that she was shivering. Dominique wrapped her arms around herself under the cloak before speaking again. ‘We haven't seen you for quite a while now…What brings you here?' she asked, lifting her head, her eyes glinting in interest.

‘I'm sorry about dropping in on you like this,' I apologised, ‘I had a little trouble with my magic.'

‘Basically, she's human right now and pretty much defenceless while also having an insanely evil demon chasing her,' Bart added.

‘Yeah, that just about sums up why I'm here.' I said before sighing. ‘Teran's father was Karthragan's right hand demon. Had Karthragan died first, then Teran's father would have made sure that Teran got the throne. As you can tell, he's a little sore. The whole Dementius clan now bears a grudge against the Roths and, by extension, the Mercians. That's the long story short.'

The door was thrown off its hinges as a blast of nearly white magic blasted it out of the way. Ilrune strode into the flat, sword drawn, confronting the two Kraferrs after pushing me to the side. He growled a challenge in demonic, glaring at Bart and Dominique. The Kraferr swept Dominique behind him, skipping backwards and turning the table onto its side. He bared his fangs, his eyes flickering red.

‘Stop!' I shouted, grabbing Ilrune's arm, trying to get his attention before he could hurt either of the Kraferrs. ‘They're friends, Ilrune! Friends!'

Ilrune's magic faded slowly as he pushed down his emotions. Closing his eyes briefly, he grabbed me in a hug, as if trying to
reassure himself that I was okay. I pressed my face into his chest, breathing in his smell. I hadn't realised how much I had needed the comfort after my run in with Teran. The two Kraferrs slowly emerged from behind the table, watching the crystal demon warily. As Ilrune let me go, I coughed nervously. I guessed that introductions were up to me.

‘Ilrune, this is Dominique and Bart, the last of the Kraferr race. Bart's also an Unborn of the Roth-Mercian clan. Bart, Dominique, this is Ilrune of the Wingless, part-demon and soon to be Prince of Aspheri.'

Bart choked on something unknown, spluttering and coughing. Dominique just stared. After a few moments, Bart began to recover a modicum of composure. ‘What do you mean ‘soon to be Prince of Aspheri'?'

‘In the way that we are engaged to be married.'