Page 17 of Sanctuary of the Shadow
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The woman on the other side of his cage was close enough to touch. From the height of the wagon, he positively loomed over her, but she didn’t shy away, which surprised him. He could practically smell her fear, it was so strong. She ought to be recoiling from the sight of him as others had done.
Instead, she’d asked what his name was. And suddenly, it mattered to him that he had one.
He cast about the room for inspiration, and his eyes landed upon Loren’s misspelled sign. A sense of rightness sparked inside him, and before he knew it, he was opening his mouth and speaking for the first time in his memory.
“Raith.”
His voice was hoarse and quiet from disuse, but the woman heard him anyway.
“Raith?” Her eyes huge in the dim light, she followed his gaze over to the sign before looking back at him. “That’s your name?”
Yes, he thought. He supposed it was.
He was no longer nameless, no longer just a “creature” or an unclassifiable abomination. He was Raith. Not a wraith, but something else. The misspelled version, the mistake with no past or future.
The woman continued to stare at him. She seemed torn between fear and intrigue. He wondered why she bothered fighting her instinct to flee, and he studied her, trying to understand.
She wore a loose white gown with a colorful robe on top. Bare feet poked out from beneath her dress. Her hair was a wild mess of black curls, tied back by a colorful band of silk. Her skin was deep tan, several shades lighter than his current color, her eyes a luminous silver reminiscent of the moon’s glow.
She was…beautiful.
It almost surprised him to be aware of this. Everyone he had come across since awakening in the desert had been ugly, of face or personality, but not her. He supposed he must’ve had some unconscious knowledge that beauty existed, but until he’d laid eyes upon her, he’d been unaware of what it looked like. Now, he knew.
He hadn’t verbalized his response to her question, but she seemed to understand anyway because she said, “Nice to meet you, Raith. I’m Harrow.”
Though he knew he hated to speak for some reason, he opened his mouth and used his voice once more.
“Harrow.” Her name.
To his great surprise, her silver eyes suddenly filled with tears.
As if shot from a bow, she sprang into action so quickly he instinctively retreated to the middle of the cage. She seized the steel bars and shook them violently, rattling the door and lock that held it shut. The sudden clanging of metal pierced his sensitive ears.
“We have to get you out of here.” She sounded so distraught, he found himself scanning for some unseen foe to save her from. But the tent remained empty save for the two of them, and he sensed no one else nearby. His brow furrowed as he fought to understand.
“Why are you in this cage? How do we open this door? The lock!” She seized the padlock and yanked on it. Her eyes shot back to his. “How did you light those lamps? Maybe you can open this, too.”
He stared at her. He hadn’t done anything to light the lamps. He’d just wanted them to be lit so he could see her better, and then they had been.
“You have to try. I can’t just leave you here.”
Finally understanding the source of her distress, though scarcely believing concern for him was the cause, he crouched again to her eye level. Slowly so as not to startle her, he reached out and touched the back of her hand, still gripping the bars tightly. She froze, silver eyes fixed on the point of contact.
He didn’t try to cut her, strangle her, or rip her arms off as he would have done to anyone else who got this close. He just…touched her.
She had no idea the level of trust such an action showed, but he didn’t mind. Every soul he’d encountered since waking had used him in some way—imprisoning him, selling him, forcing him to be a circus act.
But not her. She had asked for his name. She had fought her fear instinct to speak to him.
He wasn’t sure he trusted her—wasn’t sure he even understood the concept—but he did know he didn’t want to kill her. He wanted to kill everyone he’d met so far, but not her. That had to mean something, right?
To express his conflicting feelings, he did freely for her what others would torture him into doing. Perhaps it was in some vain attempt to connect, or perhaps it was so he could understand her better. He wasn’t sure which. He didn’t think too hard about it.
Still touching the back of her soft hand, he changed his skin once again. This time, he studied the subtleties and shades of Harrow’s skin and matched his own to it. He could have reverted to his original colorless void, but for some reason, he didn’t want her to see him that way.
The change trickled over his body, starting from the point of contact at their hands and spreading down his arm to his torso until their skin matched exactly.
