The Weight of Shadows

The rock walls constricted as Jessica inhaled. Her hands skimmed the walls as she briskly walked down the shadowy passage, her lantern illuminating strange carvings. Some symbols, circles in circles, spirals that seemed to rotate when she looked away. There was pain smashing into her chest. She felt like she was walking further away from her own world with every step. It had been hours since the ritual. The black shadows scored down both sides of her forearm, the music perilously low in her memories, the chant composed of sounds and syllables that shouldn't have existed, and onward she walked toward the gate. Walked through a shifting wall of darkness. And now she finds herself here. Here is wherever. Jessica's boots bit against stone, the reverberations jumped back at her, shining a hollow impression, or a living impression, or both. She clasped the lantern tighter and murmured, " This isn't real," but the cut on her arm was. The sting was sharp and the warmth stuck. A voice slithered out of the shadows: You're late. Jessica turned. There was no one in the darkened expanse, only the shadowy forms huddling together, collapsing like smoke. She let the words escape her before she could reabsorb them. "I don't belong here." The corridor swallowed her words.

Once again, Adam was stuck indulging himself a little too long in the archives. The candle was low, and wax dripped onto his fingers as he steadied it in the iron holder. The pages of the book barely wisped as he fanned through the centuries-old parchment, which held ink scrawls of men long dead.

The Order needed him to find the girl, the chosen one.

He should be honoured. Instead, he felt sick to his stomach.

The records did not discuss salvation in the way the High Keeper said they would. They spoke about sacrifice. A vessel is sent into the Threshold to bind the creaks between worlds. To keep them out.

And they had chosen Jessica.

He remembered the way they had led her through the gate with a look of confusion and fear. The way her lips quivered as if they might beg someone to concern themselves just for a moment.

If the records were true, he had only a few days before the Threshold had her.

He slammed the book shut. He could not let that happen.

She discovered a chamber with an arched ceiling so tall, it could have belonged to a cathedral. All the constellations were carved into the surface of the stone, and they were constellations that did not belong to her. She walked among the stars that had been twisted into shapes she didn't even know the names of. Some seemed to frown down at her, glowing brighter, alive.

Jessica fell onto the cold stone floor. The lantern sparked to life, and for a moment, there was enough light for her to see that she was not alone.

Someone was leaning against the wall furthest from her. It was human-shaped, but far too tall. Far too skinny, too. It appeared to have onyx skin that shimmered, and its eyes lit like silver that reflected her flame- beckoning and hungry.

Jessica pushed herself backward, air biting from her lungs.

The figure tilted its head. "A living one. Flesh and fear. The order still supplies us, I see."

" I-What?"

The creature smiled a grin with too many teeth, too sharp. "Your kind open the gate. We take what is given."

"No," She whispered. "No, they said? They said I would be saving them."

It laughed, a sound like glass breaking. "Save them? Little lamb, you are the meal."

Jessica turned and ran.

Outside the monastery, the storm thundered. Adam was in the stables, saddling the black mare, feeling his heart beat in his chest. He knew where the outer gate was - an old ruin carved into the cliff, only the Keepers had permission to be there.

If he could slip in there quickly before the patrols spotted him, he would reach the Threshold.

He should have been afraid. But the fear had transmuted into something more: a purpose.

Jessica never chose this. Jessica never got the full story. He was going to find her. He was going to bring her back or die trying.

As the storm horse galloped off into the night, Adam grasped the hilt of the dagger. The Order had already taken everything from him - his brother, his freedom, now his conscience.

They weren't taking her, either.

The Threshold moved like a kaleidoscope: hallways wrenched at angles where they should not have bent, doors appeared to be there, then not there, time came and left like it no longer desired to exist, minutes became long, and hours became short.

Jessica's body was heavy; she hadn't eaten since - who even knows anymore? Do you really care about time anymore?

She stumbled into another hall. Veins that slithered on the walls like rivers of death. In the middle of the room was an altar, and on it, a bowl filled with something thick and black; it reflected only her face.

Her face blinked - she did not blink.

"Drink."

The voice must have come from the wall; it reverberated inside her skull.

She was so thirsty - she could feel her throat, and it was sore. At this point, she was not even sure if it was food she was smelling, perhaps rain and metal. She scooped the bowl to her lips.

"No."

That was not her voice; that was an echo. It belonged to someone else.

She dropped the bowl; it shattered, bleeding thick, black blood across the floor.

And then she heard footsteps; human footsteps.

He finally found her.

Jessica stood trembling in the darkness, surrounded by shards of black glass at her feet, eyes wide with surprise as he stepped through the door. He felt the air forced from his lungs like he had just been hit by a truck. For a moment, he did not even know if he would be able to breathe again. She wasn't dead.

"Who are you?" she stuttered, voice trembling.

"Adam. From the Order. I—" he struggled to find the words, and she backed up. "I am not going to hurt you. I am just trying to help you, to help get you out."

Tears filled her eyes. "They lied to me. They said..."

"I know," he laboured. "It is not salvation. It is a sacrifice. I have seen the files."

He saw something swirl over Jessica's face then, fear, enveloped in anger, enveloped with a stray flicker of hopelessness and desperation.

But before Adam could move two steps, the shadows were on them.

From the area of darkness, just behind Adam, it rose from the floor. The creature was long and thin. Its teeth sparkled.

"Another offering," it purred. "Two for one."

Jessica's body moved before her mind could comprehend the situation. She grabbed Adrian's arm and pulled him toward her. "Run!"

They charged down the corridor as a genuine testament in the air behind them. The stone trembled beneath the beast's pursuit.

Jessica's heart pounded. She didn't know where she was taking him, only that it was better to move forward than to get eaten.

The Threshold looped and twisted around them, opening up a path that Jessica could have sworn was not available before.

Perhaps the creature wanted them to run. But she wouldn't stop. At least not yet.

They eventually slumped against a wall in a room, the fresh air still carrying a faint smell of ash. The light was kind and soft. It reflected the edges of the deteriorating walls, each one covered in mystical runes. They were safe.

Adam's chest heaved as he turned to her. "You saved me."

She shook her head, her hair a ridiculous halo, her eyes wild. "You don't have to thank me, I just... I couldn't let it be."

There was a silence that preceded an unknowable amount of time.

Then she whispered, "I said it before I came here, a long time ago. I don't belong here."

The words landed in front of him, and he reached out to her hand. Tentatively. "Neither do I. But together, well, we at least have a fighting chance."

There was a small glimmer in her eyes. Not trust. Not yet. But something like it.

Days—or hours—lost all meaning. It was as if they floated down shifting halls with nothing on their heels but things with totally wrong faces that whispered bad things to each other in their sleep.

Adam stayed close as she walked, steadying her when she stumbled, stepping in front of her in the dark shadows with his dagger held ready, even though a dagger is limited against shadows.

Even at night, when the trees hushed their talk, they were able to talk in a kind of snippet form.

He told her about the Order. About how his brother had been called up thirty years ago, and how he had not come back.

She told him about her life in retail, working with her sister at a tiny store on the river. When she was living there, she never thought to appreciate the lovely little ordinary days.

Their pain mixed and braided into silence.

And still, always, there it was gnawing away, the thought: How can we go away, when the Threshold will not let go?

The archives had only spoken of one way.

A Rite of Reversal. The vessel, the chosen one, could close the gate from the inside and sever the connection. But there was a price. A blood price. A life.

He had not yet shared this with her.

As he watched her sleep next to a dim lantern - she looked softened even in her fatigue - his heart finally settled.

If a life were to be taken, it would be his.

She had been taken. He willingly followed.

She would not have to pay any cost.

She woke to him hurriedly drawing fast symbols of ash on the floor. Her stomach twisted and tightened into knots.

"What are you doing?"

He always spoke slowly and carefully, but his hands were moving very fast. "I found it, a way. A ritual. A way to open a way home."

Jessica squinted her eyes at him. "And what's the cost?"

He stopped. "Me," he breathed.

Jessica lunged at him and grabbed his wrist. "No. No, Adam, you can't—"

"I can." His eyes beamed with light. "Someone is waiting for you. A life. I have nothing but a choice."

Jessica felt her throat constrict. "Don't you ever choose for me."

The walls quivered and twisted, the shadows curling. The Threshold was listening.

He was ready to argue, but there was something about how she had taken hold of his wrist, and it was something about the way she deliberately made that sound that had emotionally unseated him.

"And now what?" he asked softly. "We just sit here, until it takes us both?"

She turned again to the black, the swirling black. Then turned back to him.

"Maybe there is a third way," "What if it isn't death? What if it is... truth?"

The shadows shivered with their memory.

Then it receded to Adam: The Threshold was not a cage. It was a mirror. A mirror that would feast on concealment, on silence, on a dead weight of ignorance.

If only we could put the poor thing out entirely - lay our truth out - maybe then we would liberate ourselves.

Her voice trembled as she spoke. "I wanted to be my sister. She was everything I wasn't: brave, beautiful, confident. I prayed that something would send me far away. Anywhere. Then I..." she blinked fast, "now I just want to go home." Adam's turn. His jaw locked. "I watched my brother go through the gate. I didn't stop him. I told myself it was fate, but the truth is - I was afraid. I let him die. I promised myself I would never do that again." The stones tremored. A brilliant white light erupted from the cracks. The Threshold barbarically shrieked. And silence.

She rose in the wreckage of the gate, the sun rising amongst the cliffs. The salt air was invigorating, the sea thrashed below.

Adam lay next to her, still, quiet, breathing shallow. Alive.

Her chest erupted with sobs she couldn't help; they were out. The Threshold was gone.

She twisted to him, holding his hand. "We made it."

His eyes opened, and he gave her the weakest smile. "Told you...together."

She touched her forehead to his. They didn't belong there. But maybe here they could build a way forward.

Together.