Page 77 of Ship of Shadows
“Why does that sound so familiar?” I mulled over the name. “Someone told me about that town.”
Leoni slowly closed her book. “Well, the only humans we’ve spent time with have been the Lost Boys, so it would probably be one of them.”
My eyes widened as it came to me. “Mia,” I said. “She said that’s where she, Kara, and Bastian were from. When was it destroyed?” I asked Driscoll.
He sighed like my question was the biggest inconvenience possible. “Uh... about eighty years ago. Pirates raided the town and razed it to the ground, I guess.” He wrinkled his nose. “Why do we have these records, anyway? What do the human lands have to do with us?”
I stared at the book while Leoni answered, “All the courts keep records like this. It’s important to document big events like entire towns being destroyed.”
“Eighty years.” I shook my head. “How did Bastian, Mia, and Kara grow up in a town destroyed eighty years ago?”
Driscoll and Leoni looked at each other, both of them with furrowed brows and confused expressions that likely matched my own.
“But that’s not possible,” Leoni said. “Bastian looks to be thirty-five, at the oldest.”
“He’s thirty-three,” I murmured, my mind unable to comprehend what I was hearing. “Maybe it’s a mistake in the book? Or maybe there’s more than one place called Aramis?”
“Well, then there’d be a record, right?” Leoni asked, voice unsure.
“Right.” I shot a look at some of the scholars, still up on the second floor, shoving thick texts into the shelves. “Maybe we can ask one of them?”
“Well, that is their job.” Driscoll stood. “I’ll do it.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “Okay, yes. Good plan. I’m sure we’re somehow mistaken about this.”
We weren’t.
“There’s no other human town named Aramis?” I asked as Driscoll stood over me.
“Nope. I asked them to check their records multiple times, which they were very huffy about, by the way.” He slipped back into his chair.
Leoni’s frown deepened. “What in the bloody waters is going on? How are the pirate lord and his sisters from a town that was destroyed eighty years ago? That’s not possible.”
I drummed my fingers on the pages of the book in front of me, which I’d barely had a chance to start reading.
“No one can live that long,” Leoni said. “Unless he’s using dark magic? But I can’t even imagine the price he’d pay for such a thing.”
“Or why he’d want to.” Driscoll shuddered.
“It’s not possible...” I trailed off as my gaze caught on a paragraph in the open book in front of me.
The shadow court has a dark history of taking people’s shadows in secret, directly in violation of the treaties they signed with the other six courts of Arathia. Many believe they were stealing people’s shadows for years in preparation forthe Shadow War, in which they attacked Arathia, waging war on the other courts. Ultimately, the courts won and banished a severely weakened shadow court back to their island. However, the damage had already been done. The shadow court decimated the star court, killing all of its people. Shiraeth fell into ruin and is now known as the Deadlands, a dangerous place that’s been walled off and largely left alone by the other courts for the last sixty years. That wasn’t the worst of the price paid, though. After the Shadow War, many leaders argued that those poor souls who’d been taken by the shadow court needed to be rescued, reunited with their shadows. However, in a historic vote, the courts agreed to not intervene. Those people whose shadows have been taken are still trapped in Sorrengard to this day, unable to age, unable to leave. One thing is for certain: this decision will go down as one of our biggest moral failings in history.
My heart pounded, blood rushing to my head. Dizziness overtook me, and I needed a moment to catch my breath.
“What’s wrong?” Leoni leaned forward. “Are you okay?”
I blinked a few times, the realization slowly hitting me. “Bastian doesn’t have a shadow,” I said, then thought back to all my interactions with his crew. So many of them had mentioned feeling trapped. Mia, Bartholomew, even Cook had said something to that effect. “I don’t think anyone on his crew has a shadow.”
“That can’t be,” Leoni said. “They’d be trapped in Sorrengard, with everyone else who doesn’t have a shadow.”
My brows furrowed as I thought back to every conversation I’d had with Bastian, every hint, every vague statement. “I don’t know. I don’t have the answers, but I don’t think I’m wrong about this.”
My hand went to my chest as I felt for Bastian’s necklace before remembering he’d taken it back.
Leoni and Driscoll both sat across from me with their mouths hanging open.
“It’s the only explanation,” I said. “That tyrannical lord Bastian told me about, maybe it’s some ruler who’s risen up in the shadow court and forces Bastian and his crew to do his bidding.”
