Chapter Eight: The Shadow's Whisper

The road to the Temple of the Sunken Moon grew more desolate with every mile.

They passed through dead forests and forded the Black River, its waters gleaming with a dark sheen, and traveled for five full days. In those five days, under Lia's care, Kaelric's wounds slowly mended; most of the shadow-venom cleared, and color crept back into his face. Yet he grew more silent with every passing day, gazing at the northern horizon, an unmelting cloud settled between his brows.

"The Temple of the Sunken Moon," he said one evening, suddenly, "was the Shadow Queen's old capital. After she fell, it was sealed by flame for a hundred years. No one has dared go near it."

"Then what will happen, when we go?"

"I don't know," Kaelric said. "All I know is that Isolde is waiting for us there. And there, perhaps, lies the secret my father most wants buried."

Lia did not ask again. She had discovered that the vow had given her a strange gift—she could more and more easily "read" Kaelric's feelings. It was a wondrous sensation, as though, through water, she could feel the rise and fall of warmth and cold in the flame at the other end. Just now she could sense that outward calm, while inside him roiled an almost feverish unease.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked.

Kaelric was silent so long that Lia thought he would not answer at all. Then he spoke, his voice very soft:

"My mother... had shadow blood too. When I was small, I saw it with my own eyes—my father ordered her burned to death, right in front of me."

A tremor ran through Lia. She turned sharply to look at him, and in those deep amber eyes she saw a thin film of water rise, gone in an instant.

"He told me it was for the dynasty, to root out a plague. Only later did I learn," Kaelric's voice cooled, degree by degree, "that she had done nothing at all. She simply... knew too much that she should not have known."

Lia's heart felt as though an invisible hand had closed around it. She wanted to say something, but found she could say nothing. Her own mother had been burned to death as well. She knew that pain too well.

"That is why I did not burn you," Kaelric said. "I do not want... to become the kind of man my father is."

That night they stopped in a mountain cave. The fire burned high, yet it could not warm the chill in Lia's heart. She lay on the dry straw, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, her mind full of Kaelric's words—that she had simply known too much she should not have known.

In the small hours she drifted into a half-sleep, and she had a strange dream.

In the dream she stood before a vast temple sunk deep into the earth. Its white stone was tangled with dark vines, its doors stood open, revealing a long, dark staircase winding downward. A voice rose up from the temple's depths—old, distant, as though through a hundred years of time:

"The blood of Melaira has come."

"On the Third Turning of the Blood Moon, when the blood of fire and shadow are made one, the Vow of Ash and Shadow shall be fulfilled. Then shall the Sunken Moon return to the world, and the old truth be laid bare to all."

"Find it, child. Find the answer your mother left for you."

Lia woke with a start, bathed in cold sweat. She opened her eyes to find that Kaelric had woken at some point, and was sitting by the fire, watching her fixedly.

"What did you dream?" he asked. "Just now... you were calling your mother's name."

Lia opened her mouth to speak, when suddenly she felt the shadow at her feet stir violently. She looked down, and saw her own shadow, in the firelight, slowly gather itself into the outline of a human shape—a slender woman, her long hair loose, reaching one hand out toward the distant temple.

"It is... it is my mother." Lia's voice trembled. "She is calling me."

Kaelric followed her gaze and said, his voice low, "The Temple of the Sunken Moon lies just ahead. By nightfall tomorrow, we will be there."

He rose, walked to her, and bent down to lift her from the ground. His hand was burning hot; the Flame Seal on his palm and her shadow pendant hummed, both at once, in the instant they touched.

"Whatever lies inside the temple," Kaelric said, "I will go in with you."

Lia looked up at him, and in those deep amber eyes saw no more hostility—only a still, almost oath-like resolve.

Suddenly she felt that this soul-vow, sealed only to save their lives, was... no longer merely a contract.