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The Shades were Necromancers. Keepers of the dead. Some say they harvested the organs of the newly deceased and consumed them raw in order to acquire their powers. I didn't know if such stories held any truth, but I would not be surprised if they did. They were monsters of a different sort. Not even I relished an encounter with them. Yet here I was, on the way face their leader. Again.
I'd crossed over into their world as easily as I had the last time. Trods into their realm were not easy to come by, but I knew where to find each one. When you had dealings with devils, it was always best to keep a close eye on their comings and goings.
I inhaled deeply. The scent of rich, damp earth filled me as I set off running. My feet hit the ground soundlessly with each step. Aside from the occasional snap of a twig or crush of ice-crusted leaves, all was silent. They wouldn't hear my coming, and they certainly would not expect it.
But one of them would. Keelian was the highest of the Shades. Not that they had any formal levels of rule, but he was unofficially in charge because he'd had the most kills, fed on the most souls. Their measure of a true leader. Some regarded him as beyond royalty...they saw him as deity. To me, he was nothing more than trouble.
My steps came to an abrupt halt. This was the place. I could sense it. Feel their presence. And I could smell it. Shades were notorious for their feel. Like all Necromancers, they fed on the energy of death, and death had a pervasive smell. Not a good one.
"Show yourself." My voice echoed in the darkness, mocking me.
Cold laughter greeted my words. I looked for the source and found nothing but shimmering ether. A shiver passed through my body as I recognized his scent and his form took shape from the shadows.
Keelian.
I stepped toward him with a lazy grin. A blade flew at me, and I stepped aside as it zipped past me.
"Good reflexes."
"Good throw," I said, relaxing my stance.
He pulled up his sleeve, then released another three blades he'd kept concealed, threaded between his fingers. Each took a different path as it sped for me. I managed to leap out of range of the first, somersault away from the second, but was hit with the third as it nicked my neck. I fell to my knees.
"Poison." I peered up at his shielded face. "Was that really necessary?"
"You know we work best when I have you in a submissive position, Zanthiel. That Faerie temper of yours al—"
I lifted my hand and conjured a spray of ice shards. Blue sparks sizzled through the air as they charged him, striking the side of his face.
"—always gets the better of you," he finished, then muttered a string of profanity as the ice dissolved into acid on his skin. He wiped the blood with his sleeve. "Touché."
I rolled to my side and hurled myself behind a table. I pressed my hand over the small wound on my neck to freeze the area and slow the toxins.
"I propose a truce in the games," Keelian said with light laughter. "Let's dispense with the formal greeting."
"Personally, I prefer a glass of faerie wine," I grunted, rising to my feet. He was dangerous and unstable, but he was a being of his word. If the he said the games were over, they were over.
He extended a hand, and I clasped his forearm as he clasped mine in return. "To what do I owe this auspicious visit?"
My eyes narrowed. "To what do I owe such an inauspicious greeting?"
He released my arm to tug back his hood, freeing a jet-black mane. "Ah. I'd assumed you'd come about a girl. Only I assumed the wrong one." He pointed at me. "Not the redhead, who I sent to the human world. You're here about a different girl. I can see it in your eyes," he said, then vanished from sight.
I rolled my eyes. "The games are over, Keelian, remember. You've been sending me cryptic messages. Let's not pretend they weren’t your doing. You asked to meet with me, and I'm here. Now tell me why." I didn't need to turn around to know he had reappeared behind me.
He stood tall, reed-like, waif-thin, and, thankfully, unarmed. That last blade still stung like hell. I knew better than to underestimate his strength. He gleaned it from the dead, and the dead would always outnumber the living.
Keelian's lips curled upwards. "Zanthiel. Shadow Prince of the Unseelie. I am honored that you came solely on my bequest," he said with a slow drawl.
I didn't respond.
His arms spread open wide. "Welcome to the party of the dead. Are you ready to play a new game?" He gestured to a path up ahead. "Please, follow me."
We approached a building, but instead of leading us toward the front door, he took us through another door around the back—the lock rusted open—and down a night-black corridor to a flight of stairs. With each step, we descended deeper and deeper into darkness, until we reached the bottom. I couldn't see anything but the all-encompassing blackness surrounding us.
A spark flashed as he lit a torch using merely his thoughts, and wavering green flames flickered to life.
Faerie fire. Interesting that he should have access to that. A gift from my father, perhaps. I nodded toward the blanket of nothingness behind his silhouette. "What is with all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy? Surely this is something we could have discussed above ground," I said.
His frame filled the doorway, and the light from behind him cast a shadow that stretched from where he stood across the room to me. Shadow had no substance. With a beam of sunlight, I could erase him, I thought foolishly, as if it were that easy to stop him. He may have been of the shadow, but he was more than that.
He circled around me to shove closed a series of doors I didn't even know we'd walked through. One by one they shut and then vanished, sealing us in. The room smelled damp, like water that had been trapped without air for too long. Musty and full of mold.
It was known by most that the Shades resided in the underworld. A realm so far removed from the surface of the world that many referred to it as the seventh circle. I knew better. It was propaganda perpetuated to spread the illusion of fear and terror—strategies I'd been known to use myself. They were merely sub-dwellers. Dangerous and undead, but sub-dwellers nonetheless.
Keelian eyed me with an amused smirk on his lips. His skin was such a pale shade of gray, it was nearly translucent from lack of direct sunlight. Jarring in combination with his jet-black hair, ruby lips, and snake-green eyes. Even more jarring was the long, woolly beard that hung from his chin to his chest.
Slowly, my gaze returned to his, a deeper mossy green in the flickering light.
"Well? I could not be more curious," I said dryly.
"I would imagine not." He smirked. "We've much to discuss, you and I, Zanthiel. And I felt it would be better done here in the privacy of the void, than above ground where nosy ears and eyes are everywhere, as you know."
His expression implied I should know whose eyes and ears he was referring to. Had Sylos followed me? Against my wishes? I'd no time to ponder the thought before he drew my attention back to him.
He sat down on a chair that did not appear until he willed it.
"Surely you are somewhat pleased to meet with me again."
"I would have to say not really." Then I added, "Your timing is not the best." I'd amassed enough enemies for one lifetime. Adding the Shades to that list seemed reckless even for me.
He nodded. "Indeed. Which is why I have summoned you to me," he said, smiling.
A smile on the face of a Necromancer, commander of the undead...nothing good could possibly come of that. Something wicked this way comes. I braced for whatever devilry lay behind that grin.
"Your father's passing must have been difficult for you." He reached for me, and I grabbed hold of his wrist, thrusting him back.
"Do not touch me," I said with calm control.
He raised both hands and stepped away. "I mean no disrespect, Lord Zanthiel," he said, but the words were full of mockery and belligerence. The sort of tone my father used to use. The sort of tone that could make me forget my vows.
There were many moments as a child when I wondered what it would be like to have a loving father. One who would teach me and talk with me, explain the ways of the world. But those days were long past. I was too old to need a loving father by my side. I no longer cared what words of inspiration he had to impart. I no longer cared that he was dead.
"He was a good man, your father." He reached into a pocket inside his waistcoat and came out with a folded parchment. "He spoke so highly of you, his only son, in our correspondences."
"If by good you mean sadistic and hateful, then yes, he was." I glared at the paper.
"Here, read for yourself. His words oozed with fatherly love."
I felt nauseated. Fatherly love. Did that include the time he buried me alive with sea serpents to teach me humility? The fact that I'd been served a second butter biscuit at dinner before him was cause enough for the torture he'd put me through. And I’ll not speak of what befell the poor serving girl. Three days I remained there underground, while creatures as desperate to live as I was to die, fed on my flesh. Three. Days. And when I resurfaced, after clawing my way out, he merely glanced past me with a look of sadness. Not for what he'd done, but that I'd survived.
I crumpled the parchment and tossed it at his feet, raising my eyebrows at him. "There is nothing you or anyone else can tell me about my father's feelings for me that I do not already know."
He shook his head. "I know you must see things differently now that you are an adult. The two of you are more alike than you might know."
My stomach knifed at the comparison. Suddenly the cloying scent of wet earth took on a sour stench.
"You did not meet with me to reminisce about my dead father. Stop wasting my time. Why are we here?"
"You ought to have read the note. Your father was implicit in his instructions to you."
"I do not care what the note said." I stepped closer to him. "What he wants doesn't matter to me," I said, struggling to keep my voice even.
Keelian threaded his fingers into his beard and tugged them through. "I think you do care. I think you care very much. Which is why you're doing all of this." He gave a small smile. "Your father owes me a great debt. One he pledged repayment for with your life. You are beholden to me, Zanthiel, and the time is coming when I will require repayment of that debt."