Shadow Breach

  Konrad’s heart was awake a second before his mind, racing in his chest as he wrenched his eyes open. The darkness surrounding him was hallowed and deep, the same midnight which had chased away the final dying embers of last night’s fire. 

  A shadow shifted to his left; Spence. Konrad would know the shape of his body in any lighting. He scented him on the breeze like a feral creature and moved to tug Spence deeper into his embrace.

  In the distance, something howled.

  They’re close, Spence thought, his mind a map of possible escape routes, depending on which direction the howl originated. 

  Konrad was too tired for this. They’d spent all of yesterday reconnoitering this hideout location and installing nuts, hexes, and chocks into the cliff face below them so they could rappel down the wall if necessary.

  Konrad had not expected it to be so imminently necessary. Usually they had a week, sometimes more than a month, before needing to move to a new site. Not less than a full night. What had they done wrong?

  He wanted to sleep. They cannot be close, he groaned. His mind threatened to slip back into slumber, into the safety and darkness of their hideout.

  Kon, Spence said. Konrad did not stir. Even his muscles had yet to recover from the work on the wall. Spence stood. Konrad felt, rather than heard, the way Spence shifted as he promised, I’ll lead them astray.

  He would do what? Konrad sat upright, gripping his head. Dehydrated. That was his trouble. He needed water; to have not overexerted himself yesterday; time to rest. He gripped Spence’s forearm. “Not alone.”

  Oh, you’re awake now? Spence teased. He brought his lips to Konrad’s, light and playful.

  Konrad considered him in the darkness. If you’d told him twenty years ago he would fall for this man, he would never have believed it. Spence was an intricate chaos of stubborn intention and unbridled thoughts. He’d learned to tame some of his mind, but most of it ran wild. It was, against all odds, one of the things Konrad loved most about him. Perhaps he envied the freedom from discipline, or perhaps he simply sought solace in an opposite.

  Whatever it was, it was never enough to simply kiss him. He pulled Spence closer, reveling in his taste. Hydration be damned, what he needed was Sp-

  The thing howled again. This time, it was undeniably closer. Alarmingly close. Damn.

  I know, Spence groaned. We need to move camp.

  All that work, only to be found the first night. It was unconscionable. The universe—like the geometry of this place—was against them. Every part of this land designed itself around challenges for them. 

In the underbrush, something stirred. Konrad pulled away from Spence. We should move now. I hear rustling. It wasn’t whatever was howling; this creature rustling in the undergrowth had a small mind focused on seed and nest. However, it was likely to draw the howling thing’s attention.

  Spence moved through their hideout, silent as a creeping fog, and touched the shoulders of their sons, Sebastian and Luthor, and their wards Caspian and Alde. It was lucky they were all boys, because Konrad could not have stomached watching a pregnancy unfold in this place. It was unlikely this place could sustain a pregnancy.

  Each boy opened his eyes in complete silence, nodding in response to Spence’s whispered words. The only one to make a sound was Bash. He groaned in the same way Konrad had done. “Ngh. Not yet. It’s summer.” He pushed Spence away.

  It had been years now since any of the boys had been in school. Years, since summer had meant freedom and not monotonous heat in a dangerous place.

  Guilt cascaded in Konrad, closely followed by a discipline that clamped it down. Now was not the time to wax emotional. 

  Something larger rustled, beyond the mind of the scavenging rodent, and Konrad had only the briefest moment to register the depth of the mind outside their hideout before a teenage girl ruptured through Spence’s plant screen and collapsed on the floor. Caspian called forth his fire magic and lit the little two-room hideout well enough to see that the girl was blonde, her hair braided, and that she was covered in blood.

  “Help,” she gasped.

  Close examination revealed the blood to be from an ear injury: likely to bleed profusely but not likely to endanger her life. Konrad drew his sword, in case she was a threat pretending to be endangered, or in case whatever she was fleeing followed her. Across the cave, Spence did the same.

  “What is the matter?” Konrad said.

  “She’s been hurt,” Spence provided. He approached, studying her wounds in Caspian’s firelight, but it was Caspian who fell to his knees at her side; who ran his finger over her bloodied ear and neck, his face a mask of torment.

  “Not the wolves,” Spence concluded. “Something else is out there.”

  “They’re coming,” the girl gasped.

  Caspian cradled her head in his hands. His expression was one of tenderness which Konrad had never seen on his face before. He must have bonded to this stranger: His heart and soul were instantly bound to her by ancient magic which promised to ensure a species continued even in the most dire circumstances.

  “Up,” Spence ordered everyone, shifting from confusion to authority in the time it took Konrad to slide on one of his worn leather gloves and pick up his sword. Spence kicked the fire, ensuring all the embers were dark. 

  Konrad helped Caspian lift the stranger until it became apparent Caspian could lift her on his own. Alde gathered both his and Caspian’s belongings, ready to move.

  Konrad rolled his and Spence’s bedroll, and murmured, “Who is coming? You need only think of it.”

  Shadows. Quick and competent, a hunting party capable of intelligent maneuvers to steer their prey into a trap. The girl had been evading them for days, only to realize she’d played right into what they wanted. 

  And now, Konrad’s family was in deep danger. This was a new predator, neither Salamander nor wolf, and it was close. How would they fight it? How many would they lose before they discovered its weakness? How many were there? Could it rappel down the cliff? 

  He stood, bedroll secure against his pack. “We need to move.”

“I know,” Spence groaned.

“Do we have to?” Alde complained, though he was the nearest to the cave entrance. Luthor stood beside him.

  “Do we even get breakfast?” Bash complained.

  One of the creatures howled. The sound was close enough it might have been a signal it had found their cave entrance.

  The girl moaned.

  “I’m sorry,” Caspian murmured. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” the girl insisted, looking at Caspian with something akin to adoration.

  “Guess that’s a no on breakfast,” Bash observed. Across from him, Luthor deflated, likely equally hungry. Bash grinned at the girl. “You look a picture of perfect health.”

  Spence nudged him to tone down the sarcasm.

  “I’m feeding the delusion,” Bash defended.

  Caspian laughed, rather than be offended or protective of his new bondmate. He met Spence’s eyes. “Can we keep her extra safe?”

  What he meant was: Can we prioritize her safety over our own? Because she’s the only thing in the universe that matters now.

  It would change how they fought, how they fled. Caspian’s attention would always be more focused on the girl than on the survival of the group as a whole. Once they were settled, Konrad would have to grill into him that the girl’s survival depended on group survival. Until then, Caspian and the girl would both be liabilities.

  “Extra?” Spence challenged, wondering what extra safe looked like. Everyone healthy, the girl…what? Suffered not even a splinter? Had someone to dig holes for her when nature called? Or perhaps someone to guard her at such times, which Spence suspected she would hate.

  Konrad nodded in agreement. She’d made it this far on her own; she was unlikely to welcome help from an overprotective partner.

  “He’s in love,” Bash teased. He stepped out of the protection of the cave, Luthor and Alde close behind. Konrad’s fingers twitched on the hilt of his sword. It ought to have been him in the lead. But then how would any of the boys build their confidence?

  He needed to trust Bash.

  He did. He trusted Bash. What he did not trust was the world with Bash.

  Whatever hunted them was close enough to send a flurry of panicked wildlife—and wilddeath—their way. Dust stirred in the wake of the animals, as Spence and Bash followed them toward the cliff.

  “Off the cliff,” Spence decided, watching the animals flail into the air as they scrambled for purchase and found none. Their group, at least, had a superior plan. “I’ll go ahead. Make a way down.”

  He approached the cliff edge, reached for his side as though he had a stitch there, and dropped his hand with a sidelong glance toward the children.

  “I’m not in love,” Caspian was insisting, more toward his newfound young woman than toward anyone else in their party. “It’s a bond. That’s different.” He propped the woman on his leg and used his temporarily free arm to shift her hair away from her face, out of the matted blood on her forehead. He bit his finger just enough to make it bleed and dripped the blood onto her wound. “You’ll heal, okay?” he murmured. “You’ll be safe.”

  Safety was hardly a guarantee in this place, but with Spence in their party they had better survival odds than others. Konrad ushered them toward the cliff edge, toward the ropes they would need to step into in order to rappel safely down the cliff face. They might not need the ropes—Spence could contour the cliff to make them a path that closed as soon as the last of them traversed it—but it was better to have them at hand than not.

  “Careful,” Spence urged. The ground hardly shook as a narrow pathway emerged down the side of the cliff. 

  They tiptoed, one at a time. First Bash, in his father’s footsteps. Then Luthor, lighter of foot but taller. Then Alde, with his own bag as well as Caspian’s. Then Caspian, carrying the girl. Last, Konrad ducked below the side of the cliff and padded a slow descent. It was always awe inspiring to watch one of Spence’s creations fade to nothing behind him, but in the darkness it had the added element of being terrifying. The path behind him was closed, vanished into the rock as soon as his treads left the earth. The path before him was the only way forward, inching along the cliff and between shrubs and unhealthy pines.

  “They got away!” someone bellowed from the top of the cliff.

  “Not by more than five minutes,” someone else said, a note of disgust in their voice. 

  Metal chinked. They had found the bolts and hexes quickly—too quickly to seem natural.

  “We’ll get them,” the first voice promised. “We need food.”

  They did. Badly. It would have to wait.

  I’ll hold them off, Konrad said. Fall back to our recon position.

  Spence was determined to follow his own course today: He thought no and sank them into the red-toned earth on the side of the cliff face, into a hollow in the mountain. The rock face closed behind them, leaving them immersed in total blackness. 

  Konrad felt for Spence in the dark and tugged him into a warm embrace. “Once we’re settled in, we’ll re-terraform so they cannot sort where they found us.”

  We stay together, Spence rebuked him in turn. No more thoughts of holding them off.

  Konrad nodded. He listened to the sounds of their hunters on the cliff face beyond their wall. “Are you dreaming again?” he mused. “The other you.”

  There were two Spences connected with this place: Konrad’s, and another who dreamed up nightmares for them to have to survive. Spence was all about survival, but the other Spence seemed to want his dreams to each tell a horror story.

  This Spence touched his side again, illuminated in the light of a fire Caspian had started. He was focused on his new girl, on whether she was healing well and warm enough.

  Spence’s hand lingered on his side before he gave Konrad an ominous look. “His dreams are getting stronger.”

  “He’s getting closer,” Konrad guessed. What would happen if a second Spence joined them in this place? Would he and this Spence argue? Would they hold terraform wars over terrain lost and gained? Konrad could not imagine his Spence doing so, but this other Spence with the violent nightmares seemed capable of anything.

  Spence frowned. What if that means I’m slipping away? “A few weeks ago, they never would have found us.”

  This was true. Spence seemed to be thinner somehow, like a late summer leaf hungry to drift to the ground. His body was fine, healthy as any of them, but there was a difference in his being, in the core of his selfness, which Konrad misliked.

  You will have to fight him with willpower. Konrad had no idea how one might achieve something like that, especially given the state of their lives. No doubt he is healthier than we can manage to be. Stronger.

  Spence nodded and sat. He glanced at Caspian. “How is she? Healing?”

  “Yes,” Caspian said. Some color had returned to his face. “But we need to find. I need.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, a trait he had apparently acquired from his father. Caspian came from a place where his father was king, married to a princess Konrad had failed when she was still an infant. Caspian was their son. He knew Konrad as capable, as a heroic figure.

  It was impossible to reconcile with the reality of this place, so Konrad stayed out of Caspian’s mind and memories as much as possible. Somewhere, there had been success and joy and love, but it was not this place. Yes, Konrad had love, but successes and joys were measured in small moments earned, rather than in broad strokes across lifetimes.

  In truth, he envied Caspian and the world he had known.

  What Caspian needed, given his new bond to this girl, was something Konrad was reluctant to provide: privacy. Privacy, coupled with a bond, meant pregnancy. It meant having an infant to provide for in a matter of mere months, and a gravid woman to protect in the meantime.

  It meant losing Caspian the asset and replacing him with Caspian the liability.

  “We can’t keep being all in one place,” Caspian said, his cheeks flushed and his breaths coming faster. 

  Perhaps it meant losing Caspian altogether.

  Spence glanced around the dark space they now occupied. “We need a defendable place,” he mused. He couldn’t imagine adding a second private space (on top of the one Konrad and Spence already needed) and having a hideout be as easy to conceal and protect in a crisis.

  “I can’t,” Caspian moaned. “I can’t survive it.”

  Konrad had seen bonds during the war, and he’d experienced a similar magical lust curse when he was younger, but it continued to surprise him how instantaneous the hunger for intimacy could be. Caspian’s life would never be the same. 

  Bash made a chicken. It was a mottled brown and gold pattern with dark lobes and a comb too long and thin to survive a freezing winter. It was the variety of chicken designed to fertilize eggs rather than lay them itself. Perhaps he’d picked up on Konrad’s concern about the looming pregnancy and the difficulties posed by protecting a newborn or—worse—a toddler in this deadly place.

  The girl gaped at Bash. “You can make things here?” Her voice was stronger; her healing, apparent. Soon she would be able to help them defend themselves, if she had any skills.

  “Ah.” Bash stammered. “No.” He cast a worried glance at Spence. “This rooster fell from…the mud. It fell up.”

  He was one of the worst liars Konrad had ever known. The absolute worst had passed in the war, but Konrad sometimes wondered whether Sebastian had a touch of him in his soul somehow.

  “You didn’t see it come with us?” Konrad lied. “It was in our last camp. We keep a small flock. The others are around somewhere.”

  Behind Konrad, a hen clucked. Then a second, and a third.

  Bless Bash, for knowing what to do.

  The woman only rolled her eyes. “Nice cover.” She flopped against Caspian’s chest. “I’ll pretend I believe it, if you promise not to hurt me.”

  Caspian looked down at her with a doting expression. “Do you need anything?”

  “To not be cannibalized?” she said, without a trace of humor. 

  In this place, it was a valid fear. Konrad felt Caspian’s heart shatter at the thought of it, felt his resolve to protect her grow.

  “We don’t do that,” Spence assured. He leaned against Konrad, and something about it was alarmingly frail. Spence had leaned against him hundreds, perhaps thousands of times over the years, but it had never felt…necessary. It had been intentional, an act of affection. This was different. In a voice that belied his frailty, he said, “We’re trying to survive, too.”

  The girl gasped. “You’re gay? Here?”

  If this was the true Sylem, and not some warped grayscale version of it in which nightmares came to life, Konrad might have found her concern reasonable. With nothing to lose, however…being gay here was arguably safer than being straight. “Ought we to be gay elsewhere? Would that be more convenient for you?”

  She blushed, rightly. “No. It’s…I guess it’s the end of the world. I’d be myself, too.”

  “Exactly,” Spence said. His hand was on his side again.

  A freight train of anxiety roared in Konrad’s ears. They needed to establish their safety so he could find out what was specifically the matter with Spence, and fix it.

  Caspian leaned over the woman. “Who is your self?”

  “Laety,” she said with a smile. “Who are you?”

  “Caspian. Cass.”

  They locked eyes and something heavy passed between them. Konrad glanced away. The time for privacy had come. “Bastian? Would you help us with this?”

  Bash nodded, and he and Alde and Luthor followed them into the other chamber. With a rumbling, Spence shifted the earth around them to separate the underground space into a series of chambers, and then grew roots enough to drape the doorway between chambers with a dense curtain of hair-like tendrils stretching toward the bottom of the chamber.

  The ground shuddered a second time, and some of the chamber collapsed in on itself. Fortunately, it was not the portion near any of them.

  When the dust had settled, Konrad faced Spence. “What is the matter? Your power…I can feel the way it is stretched.”

  “It’s too weak,” Spence said, like it was a painful admission, as though he ought to be ashamed for being less strong than the version of him which had access to food and sunlight and restful sleep. “With the other Spence dreaming.”

  Konrad ran his thumb over the pommel of his sword. It was smoothed over from years of such self-comfort. “I’ll find him,” he resolved, “and destroy him.”

  Rather than argue—although Konrad could feel the veins of a weak debate weaving through his mind—Spence pulled his hand away from his side. It came away sticky with blood.

  “Spence!” When had he been wounded? Konrad took a step toward him before his mind caught up with what he was doing. His hand pressed against Spence’s side. The blood was older than this recent attack, but hadn’t healed the way it ought to have done.

  “I just need rest,” Spence lied.

  “Rest.” He was a fool if he thought Konrad would believe that.

  “It’s from the other day, isn’t it,” Bash said. He and Alde shared a look, and Alde shrugged. Bash met Spence’s eyes. “You aren’t healing.”

“Oh, good, life wasn’t exciting enough, now our wounds don’t heal?” Alde said. “Can you somehow tell the other Spence we were already playing on hard mode? Maybe add that he’s a masochistic dick?”

  “It will heal” Spence lied. “It’s new. From the walk down. A rock caught my side.” He tried to cover the wound again, but Konrad’s palm blocked it. They locked eyes, equally determined. Spence wanted this conversation over and done with. Konrad wanted the wound over and done with.

“And those chickens were alive a few minutes ago,” Alde said as he walked over to the edge of the room and began making another fire. Bash lined the room with plants and a spell to consume the smoke.

  Aware of all of this, Konrad kept his eyes trained on Spence. No distraction would cause him to waver. Spence’s health and safety was paramount.

  Spence looked away first. Konrad drew his sword, cut the outside of his upper right arm, and squeezed the blood onto Spence’s wound. His fae blood ought to have healed it, but nothing changed.

  “It’ll help soon,” Spence said in a ragged tone that admitted its own lie even as it spoke. Spence straightened, once again shouldering his bag. “Let’s get settled. Set up the bed rolls.”

  “I can take them,” Bash offered, and without waiting for a response he proceeded to unbuckle Spence’s bed roll from his bag. He and the other boys walked into the far chamber as a group, each carrying some of the bed rolls.

  Konrad rounded on Spence. “How long have you hidden that wound?”

  “A few days,” Spence said. “It’s nothing.” His mind searched for reasons the wound refused to heal. “If we could get a garden started…”

  If they could get sunlight, or soil alive with bacteria and insects, or food…

  Bash ducked back into their chamber. “Dad?”

  “What is it?” Konrad answered, before Spence could shoulder more responsibility.

  “Listen,” Bash said. Konrad closed his eyes and attuned his hearing to the ambient sounds of the cave. He tuned out Caspian’s exertions in the other chamber and focused on anything different, anything new.

  There. Howling, barely audible. Scrabbling at the dirt.

  These bastards had dogs to dig at the earth.

  Like the last hiding place, their time here would be limited. Konrad would need to tell the boys to only unpack what they absolutely needed and be ready to move with little to no warning.

  Konrad stepped out of the chamber and into one of the further rooms. If they could find the exact site of the scrabbling, he could have Bash shore up any weaknesses in the chamber ceiling. It would buy them time, but that would be hours to rest, not days to recover.

  “What is it?” Spence called.

  Konrad glanced back toward him. “Nothing. Rest, please. Bastian and I will sort it.”

  Spence sat, leaned against the cold stone wall of the chamber. “Okay.”

  There was nothing Konrad could do except follow Bash into the third chamber and track the digging sounds overhead. 

  “Is he dying?” Bash whispered, his attention on Spence rather than the task at hand.

  Konrad pinched the bridge of his nose.

  It would have been a much easier conversation if Bash were a naive child.