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Love is an expensive piece of bullshit, and its price is your fucking soul.
The man who broke your heart, shattered it like it was nothing. The family you were about to run away from. The life you never got to live. Everything.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he growls. I stop but I don’t respond. I’m in survival mode. Home… I want to go home. Where it’s warm and I can rest—wake up from this heinous nightmare and hug my parents one last time.
“I asked you a question.” My limbs shake violently. Turning back toward the village, I murmur, “Home.” “Bad news, you’re mine now, sweetheart. My Shadow claimed you, so I’m home now.” His words drip with disdain. “Shadow? You’re fucking delusional.”
“Don’t believe me? Let’s find out the hard way then, sweetheart.”
I’ve been in love with him since we were children and apparently the feelings were reciprocated; he’s only ever had eyes for me too. We were lucky in that sense. Not many get to say they spent their earliest years falling in love with their best friend.
“I’ve been invited to join my father in the war.” What. The. Fuck. A pit drops into my stomach.
“My father got promoted to Leading Commander of Heirah’s army. All the unionized forces in Heirah are looking to him and he wants me to be by his side in the victory against Fernestia.” His eyes fill with fear—a deep, animalistic look. His voice trembles as he whispers, “I… I don’t want to go.”
“Terra, I want to stay here with you—I only want to be with you.”
“I’d walk a thousand moons to never leave your side. The thought of you without me… It’s selfish, but it’s unacceptable. I want you. I love only you, Terra.”
“You’d really walk that far, huh?” I trace my thumb over his bottom lip and he shuts his eyes at the affection, nodding and grabbing my hand to press kisses into my palm. “Farther if I could.” “I’ll be right by your side. Forever. I’ve loved you since we were five and you threw a rock at my head.”
“I’ve wanted to hear you say those words my entire life. Now I don’t even have a day to show you how much they mean to me.”
He’s always felt everything deeper than I have. He has a tough exterior, but I love Finn’s guarded heart. It’s who he is… or at least who his father beat him into becoming.
I had a feeling this was too much for him. I mean, his father has groomed him since he was a child. Beaten him, mentally abused him, and broke every part of the happy boy I once knew. Of course, leaving like this would go against everything in him.
“I want to go. I want to be with you because you’re all that’s ever mattered to me. You’re my best fucking friend and I love you… but I can’t do this. I have to face him.”
“I’m sorry… This is goodbye, Terra.” He stares into my eyes for a moment, then lets go of my shoulder and walks back the way we came. My heart breaks a bit more with each step he takes. He’s choosing war over us. His father over me.
I turn my head, not expecting anything more than a squirrel, and find a man dressed in black Fernestian tactical gear. Hair as white as the world around us, eyes as gray and cold as the clouds above. My heart stops as he bursts from the bushes, coming toward me. And then I’m running for my fucking life.
I won’t let anything happen to her. She’s the only good thing that’s ever been in my life. This is the only way I can keep her safe—that’s something I’m sure of.
My dad’s disappointed face looms in my mind. His cold, scarred hands reach for me from the dark. I furrow my brows and fist the blanket. It wouldn’t be the first time that asshole choked me. Sweat builds along my spine at the memories.
She’s pretending to be happy for me—she fucking hates Dad too. He’s cruel to her, but she always puts that same sad smile on for me.
I gaze at the mountains nostalgically. Terra’s probably up there right now. I always loved that about her—she’s constantly chasing things in her head and she lives in a sea of fairytales, as if that’s where she’ll find all life's answers.
The black specks in the sky enlarge as they approach us like falling stones. A wave of murmurs surges through the crowd. A man shrieks, “The war is here, oh my fucking gods, run!”
I let the shaky breath out. It seems only the older folks are dying. This must be the horror that has been spreading over the nations. How… how have they created such a weapon? Why hasn’t anyone warned us?
Why would Fernestia do something so heinous? I glance down to the bones of the man at my feet. Mom… I need to get back home to Mom.
Something groans behind me. Slowly I turn my head, trembling, eyes growing wider with agony as I take in my reality. “F-Finn…” a distorted voice croaks from a few steps away. I hold my chin high, trying to save myself from the ruin that’s coming, the horrible, bone-rotting destruction that I’ll never recover from.
No matter how I fight it, my mind won’t let me believe that I just slipped on my own mother’s melting body. I clutch my head with both hands and cry, letting out a wail I didn’t know I could make. Not her. Please. Not her.
“What’s this one? Class, age, and health.” “Sir… this one is a… a Solas.” “What? Are you sure?” The male’s voice is sharp and anxious.
“Shit—let’s keep this quiet for now. I’ll report to the commander once we arrive. Just throw him in with this bunch.” “Yes, sir, and their class?” “This bunch is Tauri. Let’s finish rounding them up.”
“I didn't do anything.” He reaches up to my forehead and brushes my hair to the side. The pad of this thumb is cold. “The Shadow that chose you keeps the vessel safe. Heals your flesh from mild wounds. You called me delusional, remember, sweetheart? Fuck around, find out,”
“You’re like me now.”
“Elias—my name is Elias,” he murmurs as his eyes glide down to my lips. I swallow. “Um… Terra.”
“Elias. I want to go home.”
He leans closer and inhales, taking my scent in like a wild animal. “I told you—I’m home to you now.”
I like looking at her emerald eyes. More so now that she’s scared, life brimming within her. It sucks that she was given a powerful Shadow. Worse still that mine is obsessed with hers, but at least she’s interesting. I’ve always liked a girl with some fight in her. She’s beautiful too, so that helps. But I’ve always been a lone soldier. I work alone. I exist alone.
“I’m taking us back to the academy.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Academy? But I thought you were killing us all? I’ve heard rumors about what happened in Lamnah and Cyprin…” Terra’s voice quivers.
“I can promise you all those rumors are lies. You and your nation have no idea what’s really going on in Fernestia. We’re the real monsters of this world, sweetheart. If you don’t believe in demons and gods, you better start now. The Shadow in your veins is proof of them.”
“I should be afraid… but I don’t know. This thing—I mean Shadow—is pulling toward you. I don’t think you’re as bad as you try to play at being.” I roll my eyes. “No, I definitely am—I was going to kill you.”
“You were asleep for two days, sweetheart, you know that?” I shoot him a glare and clench my fists at my sides. “Don’t call me that. It’s Terra. And obviously I didn’t know that, I literally just woke up.”
“I wouldn’t go out there if I were you.” My heart sinks. “Why?” He turns me and presses my back against the door as he pins his hands on either side of my head. Our chests are touching and our noses are a mere breath apart. “They’re dead.”
“Feeling better?” I furrow my brows, because yes… I’ve felt completely fine about all of this and that very thought is absolutely disturbing. I’m bothered by the fact that the only part that particularly upset me was the dead people’s ash on my skin. I’m twenty feet away from my deceased parents—my entire town is destroyed.
So why can’t I process it—why doesn’t it matter even a little? “I feel… fine.”
“Because you have a Deathless Shadow now, sweetheart. As I do. Yours is similar to mine, it seems. It has devoured your initial trauma to keep its host sane. You’ll have to determine what it takes from here on, but take it from me, kid. It’s better to let it have the bad things.”
“Let it have… the bad things? I can control that?” I shake sense back into my head but my heart wars against my mind. The thought of those feelings gone doesn’t bother me at all, but the deep ache in my chest that Finn left behind is gone too. I hated the weight he left me with, but it was my pain to keep. What if I wanted to keep those bad things?
“Mature souls are too expired for the unification. They can’t merge with the Shadows, so they melt and burn. But the young souls, the ones that still aren’t complete, can meld with their fated Shadow. Like you have.” A smile tugs at my lips, one I’m wishing I could feel guilty for. “So my brother and Finn… are alive?”
“Are they your age?” I nod. “Then probably.” He stands and offers me a hand. I take it and rise with him. “We’ll likely find them at Alkrose—where we’re bringing the majority of the fresh Shadows. But I have a stop to make in Barkovah first.”
“You know they won’t take you back, right? Even if you somehow escape me, you’ll never be welcome to their human world ever again,”
“And why’s that?” A flicker of amusement fills his gray eyes. “Because you’re one of us now. How many times are you going to make me say it, sweetheart?”
“I’m not like you,” I say, though I don’t sound so sure. Elias stands and stretches his arms behind his head. “You are, and we’re still going. I’ve decided to keep you, so you don’t get a choice in the matter.”
“Here,” he says, tossing pants and a jacket at me, “we’re riding Velis so you’re going to need to wear these.”
“My name is Terra,” I growl between my teeth. “And you didn’t answer what the Velis thing is His gray eyes shimmer with mischief. “Velis is my Shadow.”
