Page 39 of Daughter of the Dark Sun
“Get. Out.” He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached.
What if I can help you?
Mireithren’s voice echoed around Therat, bending every last thought to her will. The siren materialized in his mind, a sorrowful smile on her scarred, yet divine, face.
“I will ruin you. I ruin everything I touch. Be it today, next year, or a hundred years from now. Death and darkness haunt my steps. I do not want you, please, leave me be! I am ruined, ruined!” A scream tangled with Therat’s final words in his throat.
You do not scare me, little lost boy. I will find you again, when you are ready.
A rush of cool air whistled past Therat’s ears. The spaces in his mind felt hollow again. He took a timid breath, but only the sickly sweet stench of death greeted him. Shaking his head, confusion curled into a frown. It seemed so obvious now: she wanted to ruin him, use him to spread the tainted darkness for her dread Mistress.
Therat froze in place, waves of conflicting emotions lapping over him. He wanted to hear his name on her tongue again and again.Little lost boy.What could she possibly know? He never spoke to anyone outside of family about the night of his parents’ murder, how a part of him remained forever stuck in the past.
The cool silver of his mother’s necklace burnt against Therat’s ankle. He wanted to forget Mireithren, push her away and reject the siren. Yet, he could not, his curiosity outweighing apprehension. Why did she, of all people, stir his near-dead heart with a rush of confusing emotions?
Consumed by the war between oath and desire, Therat walked without purpose. The metropolis of Av Madhira teemed with life, the thrum of millions filling the air each day. Never had a singular person titillated Therat so. Most faces elicited nothing at all, while some revealed the murderous whispers of the Shadow-weave.
Therat hated Mireithren. Hated what she could represent, how she would ruin him. Kill him, use him, love him—all would send him further into the twisted embrace of the Shadow-weave.
Why are you the exception? I am not worth loving, not worth saving, even if it is a sweet lie to lure me to my doom.
Trees gave way to a clearing with several small canopies erected in a semi-circle, the embers of a dying bonfire in the center. Discarded bits of food and a few cards from a game littered the rocky ground. The remnants of a joyful life all but a stranger to Therat.
A bottle of wine lay at his feet, almost full. He pulled the cork out with his teeth, spitting it aside before guzzling the red wine. Hints of clove and plum greeted his taste buds. Though dry going down, it meant sleep would soon embrace Therat. Bark scraped at skin already going numb from the wine. The world dulled and Therat’s vision blurred as relief came at last.
twenty
Deadly Urges
Aman with shortblack curls and a trimmed beard sits on a chair, bouncing a young toddler on his knee. A woman stands behind him, her soft auburn waves wrapped around another child clutching her breast. It feels warm, safe, loving. Home.
A child’s laugh, followed by another. Twins giggling together, chasing two tawny foxes running between their shortlegs. The small creatures yip, laughing along. One gray-eyed boy grabs the tail of the nearest fox, gently tugging it with a stubby hand. The fox jumps in response; the boy falls over in a fit of laughter.
The woman with auburn hair stands with a young black-haired boy, tousle of curls nearly swallowing his small face. A thread of inky blackness winds its way around the two, the woman clapping as the boy murmurs to himself. The shadows grow darker before fading away. A look of disappointment flashes across the young boy’s face.
The boy stands next to an older, grim-faced man, tears streaming from the child’s red-rimmed eyes, twin clutched to his chest. The two shake the ground with their heavy sobs. A woman talks to the older man, her face creased with unreadable emotions. A shout; the woman storms off. Silence and shadows. Suffocating, tearing, ripping apart the young boy’s heart.
Therat opened his eyeswith a groan. He rolled over and shut them again, trying in vain to cling to the happy memories he seldom dreamt of anymore. He clung to the fragments for dear life, the last remaining vestige of his unbroken heart. A reminder—albeit slim and ever weakening—that dark passions did not always enslave him.
It became harder to ignore the question burning at him since a small child: why did the Shadow-weave choose Therat? Why did Adon get to lead a life in the sun, know the happiness of love and friendship? His jealousy of Ninann became tangled withenvy of Adon, the two representing everything Therat would never have.
For the first time in almost a decade, Therat’s will to avoid memories of his childhood eroded. He wished nothing more than to talk to his mother again, to hear her musical laugh and sing-song voice as she taught him to control his powers. What would she say now of his hatred of the Shadow-weave? Would she tell him he was broken, heart born black, and his life a perversion of the gift she taught him? The white scar over his heart burned.
Grinding his molars together until they ached, Therat stood. His feet carried him along the back line of trees where the shadows gathered. They offered little comfort. Something compelled his legs to move. They carried him through the trees on winding paths carved by centuries of bare feet. Threads of gelid Shadow-weave wrapped around his body, their embrace a death-grip coaxing him forward.
The blood lust came calling, the foul Shadow-weave claiming its vessel to wreak death. Mireithren left Therat too weak to fight back.
A black umbra clung to Therat as he emerged in the open Market square. A woman with long silvery hair danced to the soft gurgles of the Fountain of Maidens in the dim moonlight. The dancer twirled and leapt through the night, fingers tracing a pattern in the air and leaving a shimmery mist in her wake. The dancer turned again and again, moving with such grace that even Therat found it beautiful to watch.
He took a silent step forward, the whispers growing louder. The woman turned to face him. He saw the familiar face of the waveweaver Tylei. Her silvery-blue hair seemed to defy gravity, eyes bright like the moon above. A wisp of shadows played at Tylei’s bare feet.
“I did not expect to find an audience at this time of night,” she said, moving closer. The Shadow-weave withdrew from Therat at the sound of her voice. “You are welcome to stay, though I am dancing only for myself tonight.” The blue pendant at her throat pulsed with a soft glow.
“The nights are my refuge as well. I will not bother you.”I will not tempt these shadows, not her…“You always enthrall the crowds, I imagine you crave the silence of night as much as I do.”
The woman smiled. “I have felt your eyes before, catching glimpses of me through the trees at night as you ran from the shadows.”
“I don’t know what you mea—” The words spilled from his lips, denial thick on his tongue.
