Page 2 of Taken to the Shadow Realm

“The next one, I swear,” I said, imagined strength intertwining my voice. “I’ll make you proud. I’ll do my duty.”

It was a lie, but I prayed they believed it.

“He’ll meet you in thirty,” Father said, standing up. “Dinner. And don’t try anything funny. You won’t like what happens if you do.”

Getting beat? Disownment? There was nothing else he could do to me that he hadn’t already.

But it didn’t stop the slight sliver of fear that ran up my spine.

“Understood, Father.”

Yien

A coldness settled over my chest as I looked out into the sea of darkness weaving through the forest surrounding my estate.

The fog I’d been accustomed to had grown weaker in the last few days as the souls moved on. I could feel them moving in the shadows. The weakening fog once scared me, but just like nature, the souls were on a cycle.

They would come and go, sometimes so many that the fog would be overflowing with them. Other times, it would lessen, the weight of the souls dissipating with each hour that passed.

It was a celebratory thing, the souls moving on. They had done their time, their cycle had ended. They could start over.

Something I’d never be able to do.

I had forgotten how many years had gone by since I was forced into this shell. The memories of my soul wandering through the very same darkness I overlooked were nothing but muddled thoughts that only visited me when I was sleeping.

I could feel the souls when they left, like a tugging at my chest before a wave of relief passed over me. A reminder that the fog—and I—had completed yet another one of our duties.

I didn’t quite understand why the souls attached themselves to me and not to any of my siblings born from the same fog. They were just as capable, if not more so.

I was unfeeling, apathetic, but they… they had room in their hearts for these souls.

Sometimes I wished I could be like them, carefree and wandering the realms however I chose. Playing and frolicking without the weight of the realm on my shoulders.

I could hear them, floors below me, where they chatted.

They didn’t often all come home for a reunion, but for some reason, they all chose that day to show up on my doorstep.

I was procrastinating. Trying to hide from them so I wouldn’t have those foreign emotions inside my chest. Just like the souls, they tugged at my chest, making me feel things I didn’t understand.

“Yien!” Allura yelled from the floors below, knowing I would hear her.

My time is up.

I called my shadows to me, becoming one with them, and slipped from the third floor to the first.

“Is there something you need?” I asked, pushing out of the shadows and into the dining area.

Allura and Xira sat around the newly polished marble table, demon meat piled high between them. They had been down there for a while, catching up for what seemed like hours as they snacked.

We were siblings in name only, all of us birthed from the fog. We had no mother, no father. Just the knowledge that we came for the very thing that protected this realm.

Allura was the last to join us three years prior, showing up dazed on the edge of my property. Xira and Uldria had come before, but Uldria had been torn apart in another realm years back for trespassing. It was too common of an occurrence for it to affect me like it had.

As soon as I took in their blackened eyes, the same as mine, and their grayed skin, something attacked my heart. I felt a sense of… responsibility for them. To them. To keep this place safe for them.

Allura had brilliant white hair, while Xira’s was deep red. They had become closest, mostly because they had no other choice. I wasn’t one for bonding, so it only left the two of them.

“Finally! Good of you to join us,” Xira said with a huff.

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