In the morning, it was still dark. The sky was permanently black now, with shades of red mixed in. Was the voice still there, or had it all been a dream? I will always be here, the voice whispered. My fists clenched at Vellair’s sentence. I didn’t want to disobey, or I’d die. But the life of a shadow-man was a terrible one.
“We are very close,” my father whispered from behind me. “Everything is full of evil.”
I turned around, my eyes stuck on him. His face was gaunt, and his frame had somehow become emaciated over a very short period of time. He was very sickly, even after I had saved him twice. I had no light left to give, and he could only be saved a certain number of times. My eyes stung, and soon my face, so I had no choice but to turn back around.
I still was a bit curious about Vellair, even though I was imprisoned by him now. I imagined he was the worst creature that ever lived, gruesome and rank and fiery. But predictions can always be wrong, as my father had shown me. So I sat, scared I would do something wrong and die, scared for my father’s life.
I shivered, even though my shadow-man body couldn’t get cold. I stared at the back of Kikona’s dark head as we continued. Who was she before her light got stolen? Did she give up her own life for someone she loved? It would all remain a mystery.
The world was made of shadows now, only faint outlines of trees and blood in the sky remained. Ice rained down from the sky, though the sensation of it hitting my skin was no more than a light touch.
In front of us, a castle, hundreds of feet tall, loomed. It was carved from black stone. Surrounding it was towering red flames. Behind the castle, even further from us, was water. I shook, knowing the dangers of the sea.
The ground that the aglusken hovered over was made of ice. Rather than shimmering like normal ice did, it was dull and gray. Dead trees grew out of it, cracked as if they had been struck by lightning.
I looked back at my father, lying limp against the bottom of the cart. He looked so tiny, swallowed up by the wood. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was dead. Ice rested in a thin layer on his body and his breath came billowing out as smoke.
Suddenly, the aglusken disappeared with a whiff. Startled, I landed on my knees. The cart vanished as well. Kikona, who had landed on her feet, looked at me with her eyes narrowed. I stood up on wobbly legs. She lumbered over to my father and scooped him up. His pale face stood out in stark contrast to the dark setting of the castle.
“Why did it disappear?” I asked. I let out a sigh of relief when there was no pain for my words.
“Once the aglusken and the cart have completed their purposes, they vanish,” she explained.
She started toward the castle. I stood, frozen. It was strange; though flames were normally bright, these were dull, barely flickering. Flames also melted ice, and these didn’t seem to affect the solid water at all.
I started after Kikona. Ice was normally slick, this ice just felt like cold stone under my feet. It was strong; it didn’t crack under my large body.
I peered at one of the dead trees. The bark was peeling away from the wood, and frost rested on the cracked branches. It was black as the sky was. I wondered how it had grown out of the ice, or if it had just always been there with Vellair.
“Come on,” Kikona growled.
I hurried up to catch her, looking ahead again. In front of us was the tower of fire, about a hundred yards away. I clenched my fists. Somewhere, waiting inside of the castle, was Vellair.
As we approached the flames, it felt like a funeral march. I was going to die, I felt it. Some day very soon.
And then, we were there. Five feet from the flames, standing in the frostbitten air.
Kikona paused, setting my unconscious father on the ice. Then, before my murky brain could sense what she was doing, light started flowing from my father. So much. I screamed, but she couldn’t hear me. The ball of light surrounded him, until there was just . . . shadow.
The light vanished, and there lay my father, now a shadow-man.
“No!” I cried. Tears flowed down my face, leaving burns where they had been. Pain surged from my head as I stared at my father’s muscular, dark form. His eyes, misty, confused, and scarlet, stared at me. “Daughter?” he asked, and then howled and shook. I wanted so badly to tell him it was going to be okay, but it wasn’t. We were in the hands of the most evil thing who ever lived, with no hope for escape.
“Get up,” Kikona commanded gruffly. “Vellair is your master now.” Hate for her surged through me, and I wanted to slap her, but her words were true. Also, as I had figured out along the way, I didn’t know my own strength.
My father shakily stood up. “Where are we?” he asked, and clutched his head for a few seconds.
I wanted so badly to say, This is Vellair’s castle. And also, I love you, Father. I always will. But I couldn’t bring myself to say those words. Not unless I wanted to be in terrible pain.
“Follow me,” said Kikona. And then she walked through the dull flames. I gasped, and my throat stung. What was I — How was I — Pain rattled in my bones. Go forth or you will pay, seethed Vellair in my mind. The pain would keep persisting, until —
I threw myself into the fire, holding my breath. The flames licked me, but I felt nothing. Then, all of a sudden, I was on the other side. Gray stones covered the ice, which peeked through in between them. The sky somehow was blacker than on the other side of the fire gate, making everything barely visible.
Stretching far above my head was a giant arched entryway, with intricate, jagged designs covering it. Steps wound up into the entryway, and beyond it, there was blackness.“We must get to Vellair,” Kikona persisted. She was about twenty steps ahead of me. I looked behind me to see my father a couple steps back. I started up the steps, and the claws on my feet made scritching noises against the stone. The staircase seemed to last forever, and by the time my father and I reached Kikona, I was panting.
CCPL Writers' Block 