Stories From the Shadowlands (12 page)

Like Sil targets him. Like Juri targets me.

I’m wondering if we’ll encounter either one of them tomorrow. I’m wondering if I’ll once again face the choice to condemn Juri to the tower—or to condemn the innocent human whose body he stole to eternal suffering. And I wonder what I will choose when the time comes.

Or maybe I don’t. Mercy is a gift. And too often in this world, and in the one where I spent the first nineteen years of my life, it is withheld from those who need it. I don’t have to offer mercy to those trapped human souls. But what kind of man would I be if I didn’t?

Day 16091

I have been waiting for this day for a very long time. Not with any eagerness, but not with dread, either. It’s been the strangest feeling, waiting for my Captain to finally admit that what’s real is actually real.

I am up in the tower at the top of the Station. I have been here for hours. Takeshi has just left. I don’t know if I helped him or not.

"I have done a terrible thing," he said. "I have fallen in love with Ana."

For many moments, I sat here and stared up at the sky. I couldn’t believe he had finally said it. “Why is it terrible?”

"Look at this city. It is not a place for anything as fragile as love."

"Is your love so fragile?"

He laughed, a bitter sound. “If this is a fragile love, I fear the powerful kind.”

"Then tell me again why it’s so terrible?" I looked over at him. For thousands of days, he’s pined for her, watched over her, held himself back from her. Trained her and teased her and fought with her. Stared at her when he believes she isn’t looking. And I see that longing written on his face. His love may not be fragile, but his heart appears to be.

"She can’t love me back," he said quietly. "I know that."

"I’m not sure," I said. I can’t pretend I understand Ana. I admire her. I like to spar with her. She is a skillful fighter and a good Guard, even though Takeshi still refuses to let her go on multi-day patrols. She seems to hate him and adore him in equal measure. "Maybe you should talk to her."

His laugh was louder this time. “That’s an absolutely awful idea.”

"Well, I know absolutely nothing about women, so neither of us should be surprised. But, indulge my ignorance. Why?"

"It would place her in a terrible position. I’m her Captain. I give her orders. How is she supposed to feel if I confess my feelings to her? She can’t escape from me." He shook his head. "I would never do that to her."

He loves her, and so he will not tell her he loves her. Ever.

Suddenly, my chest was aching for him. “You are a good Captain,” I said. “And a good man. Perhaps if you give Ana time, she will see that, too. And she might love you for it.”

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the metal railing. “Again, look at where we are. Does this seem like a place where it is possible to be happy? What you suggest could only happen in the Countryside. And maybe one day it will. For now, though…” He rubbed his hands over his face and stood up. “Thank you for listening.”

He opened the trap door and disappeared down the stairs. And now I’m sitting here, wondering whether I feel envious that he has found someone to love that deeply or fortunate that I have not and probably never will.

Fortunate, I think.

Day 16863

The three of us trained together for the first time in over two hundred days this morning, and it was a tense affair

Takeshi has been going out on long solo patrols, leaving Ana and me to patrol together nearer the Station. I don’t mind so much; it gives me more time to work on my map, where I’ve been sketching based on all the notes I’ve taken over the past thousand days or so.

Ana, however, does mind. She rarely talks to me about it—her frustration with Takeshi is now so deep that there don’t seem to be words for it. Instead, she speaks with hurled knives and utter ferocity. She kills at a distance, never visible to her prey. We are a good team, as she hits the Mazikin with blades and I finish them off, up close.

I’m teaching her some of the Mazikin language, too. A few days ago we lured an old one into an alley by calling out—really, it’s a bit more like barking and growling—that we had found a good recruit. Unfortunately, this Mazikin saw Ana’s face, and to keep my vow to Takeshi, I had to take it to the tower so it would not be able to return to its homeland and tell its comrades about Ana. It hurt, to think of the soul I was abandoning to that terrible realm. But again, I had given my word, and Takeshi seems to need my loyalty more than ever.

He spends so many of his days alone. We rarely patrol together anymore, but when we do, it is miles of silence. He has withdrawn into himself. We have not spoken of his love for Ana since the first time he confessed it. But today, as I watched them spar, it was there, in the smile on his face as he watched her train, in the sigh he let out whenever she brushed past him, in the way he never looked away from her eyes as she fought him.

And oh, did she fight him. With everything inside her.

She’s trying to prove herself. She doesn’t realize that she already has. She’s nearly as good as either of us with the staff, and better than both of us with the knives. Perhaps not as good in hand to hand combat, but enough to hold her own. These days, she is much more composed, as well, much more controlled. But today her anger overflowed. She hit Takeshi so hard that he staggered back. She screamed that he was lucky her blades were dull, or she would happily stab him in the heart. Then she stormed out of the room.

I looked over at Takeshi. He held up his hands. “I don’t want to hear it,” he said, and then he cleaned up his weapons and left as well.

I think I need to speak to Ana. Things cannot go on as they are.

Day 16864

I should not be allowed to talk to women. I’m quite terrible at it.

This morning I went to Ana’s quarters. I had thought about my strategy all evening after yesterday’s training debacle. It was sorely tempting to simply tell her that Takeshi is in love with her, and his worry for her is what keeps him from assigning her dangerous missions.

However, I was smart enough to realize this was a very bad idea for multiple reasons. So I decided to try to puzzle out her feelings, in the hope that she might have developed some over the last several thousand days.

She opened the door and scowled at me. “Our patrol isn’t until tonight,” she said.

"I know. Can I come in?"

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”

"Takeshi is leaving for Harag zone tomorrow." I watched her carefully for her reaction.

She clenched her jaw and stepped away from the door. “Of course he is.” Her hands were fists.

"You’re upset."

"You have a gift for stating the obvious."

"Why is it so upsetting?"

Her brow furrowed. “Are you really trying to talk to me about my feelings? Is this what we’re doing?”

It felt like I was walking on dangerous ground. “I thought you would be happy to see him go. You did threaten to stab him yesterday.”

She folded her arms over her chest and glared at my knees.

"You’re not happy to see him go," I concluded.

The tip of her knife blade was against my chest before I could blink. I knocked it away and captured her wrist. She tried to draw another blade, but I twisted her arm behind her back. She stomped on my foot and kicked at me, but I didn’t release her. “So if you’re not happy to see him go, why is that? Do you want to go with him? Or do you want him to stay?”

She jumped and threw her head back, slamming into my nose. I let her go. My ears were ringing.

She backed into her room, a knife in each hand. “You and I are not friends, Malachi.”

I wiped my face and my sleeve came away covered with blood. “Obviously.” Pain and irritation loosened my tongue. “But I am a Guard, and so are you, and so is Takeshi. And the two of you are becoming ridiculous.”

Her brown knuckles paled as she gripped the blades tighter. “He’s the one who’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “He spends more time away from us than he does with us. Every time he goes out, I wonder if he’s going to come back.” Her eyes were shining. With tears. “He’d be safer if he took one of us with him!”

I stood in her doorway, staring. “You care for him,” I said quietly.

"Don’t you? And you—oh, he’ll take you out there. But he won’t take me. He avoids me, especially lately." Her lovely face contorted with what I swear was sadness. "Does he hate me?"

"Not at all." My heart was beating very fast.

"Then why won’t he speak to me or look at me, except when we’re sparring?" she asked in a choked whisper. "He hasn’t talked to me, really talked to me, in ages. So long I’ve lost track."

"And that hurts you," I said. Despite the fact that my nose was dripping blood, I was thrilled I’d been able to get to the heart of the matter. It made me a bit reckless. "Because you don’t hate him at all. You feel the opposite, in fact."

One of her blades sliced across my shoulder and hit the wall behind me. If it had been anyone else throwing, I’d have called it a miss. But since it was Ana, I knew it was a warning. She gripped the door with her free hand. “If you say one word to him about this conversation, I’ll bury the next one in your chest.”

She slammed the door in my face.

I returned to my quarters, full of new realization. Even better news: I have now managed to stop bleeding.

Day 17250

Ana and I spent the day throwing knives at one another.

"Be still," she said as she aimed. She was wound tight as a spring, and to throw her off, I delivered a bit of news.

"Takeshi said he’d come by after his patrol." I said it right as she hurled her blade, and it bounced off the ceiling and landed at my feet. It was hard not to smirk. "You told me to be still. You didn’t say you also needed complete silence."

As she stewed, I threw my own blade, and it hit the wall a few inches from her neck. She scowled and turned around, trying to yank it from the wall. I smiled as I heard Takeshi’s boots on the steps. Ana’s pulling became more frantic.

"I think my work here is done," I said as Takeshi stepped into the room, smelling of the streets. His dark gaze skimmed over me and fixed on Ana, like he’d been waiting to see her, like he couldn’t wait another minute, like he had no room in his thoughts for anyone or anything else. I saluted him and left.

My smile disappeared as I climbed the stairs. Something is going to happen between them. Soon. And I don’t know if it will be a relief or a disaster. I simply know it is inevitable.

Day 17255

I was lying on my cot when I heard it, Takeshi’s door opening and closing, voices murmuring on the other side of the wall. I recognized Ana’s voice. She was in there with him. Late at night. I stared at the ceiling as their indistinct back and forth went on, words indistinguishable but tone clear and fraught with emotion.

She was confessing. He was confessing. No more secrets and no more hiding. I was sure of it.

Then I heard something else: the sound of two people sinking onto Takeshi’s cot. Their voices, closer now. Together. The distance between me and them was only the thickness of the cinder block wall and a few layers of dingy paint.

All at once, the realization that I was eavesdropping on something intensely intimate and personal hit me like a staff to the gut. I got up and came up here, to my tower, where I can be alone and look at the sky and try not to think about how… lonely it is.

I can’t believe that’s what I’m thinking about. How pointless.

I hope that Ana and Takeshi are well. I hope that whatever is happening between them tonight is good and not destructive. I truly have no idea what will happen. All I know is that things among the three of us will never be the same.

Day 17382

We spent today scouting the dense cluster of high rise apartment buildings in this zone about five miles south of the northern wall. The recently discovered nest is located in the basement of a twenty-story tenement five blocks from the northeastern edge of the zone.

Now I have returned to an apartment of my own. Ana and Takeshi have taken one down the hall. We used to stay together, but I prefer to be as far away as possible from the two of them at night.

This nest will be tricky. Ibram has posted lookouts throughout the zone, and I fear they know we’re coming. We are awaiting the arrival of three squads of Guards to assist. Ana will be leading one, but by Takeshi’s request, she will wear a mask and hood to hide her face and hair. I can tell he wants to require her to stay behind, but I can also tell that at this point, he is terrified he would lose her if he does not allow her to do her part.

I feel for him. It is a terrible choice, and he is risking his heart either way. Their happiness is so tenuous, every day a walk on the knife’s edge. And yet they risk that terrible blackness because right now their days are bursts of color and life, things not found in this dark city. They see things I can’t; I know it by their smiles and the palpable relief that flows from them when they reach, and find, each other.
I can sense it, but I will never feel it, because I am alone and will always be alone
.

Sometimes I am so envious of the two of them that it burns me
.

I should get some sleep. I need to be at my best as we prepare for the battle to come.

Day 17383

Nest destroyed. T badly injured, gut wound. I think some of my ribs are broken. Hard to breathe. But I can walk. Leaving soon to help carry T back to Station.

Ana is distraught. I do not want to imagine her reaction if we were to lose him now. Or ever.

Day 18190

Ana and I had quite a day. This time I was the one who acted as bait. We were in a neighborhood twenty-seven blocks due north of the Gates, a place where a few of the other Guards have been reporting sightings of Mazikin.

I pretended to be injured. It’s the only way they would dare approach me now, I think. Lately it’s been getting very difficult to catch any Mazikin because we believe they clear out when we’re in the area. But I gave myself a bit of a nick on the forehead, and it bled nicely. After that it was simply a matter of staggering down the street, my armor unfastened and flapping against my shirt.