Page 46 of Ryld's Shadows
In the center of the room, Ryld’s teachers waited. They’d been warned, but Hank still had a little jolt seeing them. Sometimes he had trouble telling aelfe apart, but these two were identical. Mirror copies of each other. Both tall and slender, with the elegant, dexterous hands he associated with mages, their long, ice-blue hair hanging loose at the exact same length, their new-grass-green eyes regarding them with the identical expression of appraisal and mild contempt. They even stood in the same hipshot stance. He had to wonder if it was normal or something they put on to confound strangers.
The one on the left made a gesture that wasn’t quite a bow. “I am Yarrow, and this is Yew. The little one is Ryld, we assume?”
“I am Ryld Varjo,” Ryld said. He didn’t snap, but his volume was a little louder than normal, and the one called Yarrow snapped his attention to Ryld, his hand vaguely fluttering over his chest as if he thought Ryld might bite him. Hank suppressed the chuckle, and also the warning that if they weren’t careful Ryld might indeed bite them.
“I see…” The aelfe seemed at a loss now that he had to speak to Ryld directly. “Well…shall we sit? Lady Jessamine has told us a bit about you, but I’d like to hear from you what you hope to accomplish with proper lessons.”
There were cushions a bit farther in, and they all settled, though Hank noted with some interest that Kai took his cushion a little farther off. He was making it clear that he wouldn’t interfere. This was all Ryld.
Direct as always, Ryld said simply, “I need to control my shadows.”
Yarrow peered at him more closely. “Your shadows. The ones…”
“They flutter around you,” Yew finished, his hands making fluttering motions in response.
Now Hank spotted the difference and couldn’t unsee it. Yarrow looked at them directly. Yew would not.
“Always,” Ryld responded. “Sometimes more, sometimes less. They move and grow, and sometimes they escape.”
“Escape. As in escape your control?”
“They are not in my control. I-I hold on to them…” Ryld was clearly struggling to explain something that was as natural to him as breathing to someone who didn’t understand the concept.
“And what happens when they escape?”
“I wonder why you ask what you already know?”
“I wish to hear it from you, what you think.”
Hank glanced at Ryld. His face was smooth, expressionless. Not upset exactly but perhaps annoyed. He wondered if he should warn the aelfe that they really shouldn’t annoy him. He decided to keep quiet for now. Kai was probably right in taking a hands-off approach.
“The shadows grow teeth and claws. They bite and rend and kill until they are stopped.”
Yarrow glanced at Yew who made an unfathomable gesture with both hands. When Yarrow turned back, he asked, “Ryld, you say you hold the shadows. Where do they come from?”
Ryld cut his eyes away. “The darkness.”
“Hmm. Yes. Shadows are the dark.” Yarrow cocked his head, gaze intent on the air around Ryld. “We all have shadows. Carry the dark.”
Yew’s leg twitched, his tone flat and without the polish of his brother’s. “They’re yours.”
“They come to me…”
“No, the shadows in this room are only the absence of light. Your shadows are different. They come from you.”
“I am small. The shadows can be much bigger. They don’t live inside me.”
This was actually interesting. Hank wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Blah, blah, blah, magic theory, boring stuff about firmaments—but the twins were surprisingly astute and direct in addition to being unsettling.
“Hmm, no.” Yarrow raised a hand, palm up. A tiny spark burned above his fingers, flickering blue-white before it grew into a red, swirling fireball the size of his head. “The fire does not live inside me. I use the magic in the air around me to manifest it. But it is mine. I have made this fire. It did not come to me on its own.” He banished it and called a miniature rainstorm over his hand. “Nor the cloud. It cannot simply come to me. I must make it from air and water and from what is in me.”
“I do not make the shadows. They come to me,” Ryld insisted.
The twins went quiet, both looking at Ryld curiously.
“You fear them,” Yew said.
“Youshould fear them, too,” Ryld told him, maybe a little more forceful than his usual tone.
