Aric Vale
We set up before daybreak, no one eager to linger beside Thorne's grave more than they had to. The mood was blacker than ever, heavy, there was no talking, tense, all soldiers watching me like I was about to shatter at any second.
Perhaps I would.
The further we rode into the Wastes, the stranger reality became. Trees grew out in curls, their bark curling like water. The ground shifted color, brown to gray to purple, beneath the horses' hooves. Time felt fluid, stretching and compressing at will.
"How much farther?" Captain Lyons queried, checking his compass for the third time in an hour. The needle spun futile, unable to tell north in a place where direction didn't exist.
"By the princess's prints, maybe six hours," Garrett said, studying the prints we'd been following. "But there's no telling here. It could be three hours. It could be twelve."
I recognized it too, the wrongness pressing down my skull. The Wastes were most intense here, reality stretched and rented asunder by whatever cataclysm had shaped this place. Madness and magic leaked through the ruptures.
"This is where it happened," I stated aloud. The knowledge was somewhere deep, maybe from the shadow, maybe from buried memories of my own. "Where the curse was thrown. Where I was split."
"How do you know?" Garrett asked.
"I can feel it. Like a scar that never healed properly." I touched my chest. "Everything's been tugging me towards here since we started. The shadow's gotten stronger the closer we get."
As if responding, my shadow trembled on the ground. Not disintegrating, not yet, but agitated. Expectant.
"What does it do when we reach the source?" Lyons asked. "When curse and cursed return where it all began?"
"I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe…" I paused, considering. "Maybe finishing. Maybe the curse completes what it started seven years ago."
"Which is?" Garrett pressed.
"Either I am made complete, both halves joined together for all time. Or one half consumes the other whole." I looked at my hands, not knowing which part of me would remain. The part that had forgotten and borne the blame? Or the part that had remembered and sought justice?
Or maybe neither. Maybe the curse would merely erase me, leaving only the shadow to walk the world with my face.
We proceeded. The land became hostile, thorny vines that wept black fluid, waters that showed distorted reflections, rocks that hummed with wicked energy.
At what must have been midday, we arrived at the first sign.
A stone cairn, deliberately piled up, with a mark cut into the largest stone. Not the Mark of the Vale. Something older, something more complex. Lines that pained to see with your eyes, edges that seemed to be present in more than three dimensions.
"What's that?" Jenkins asked. The younger soldier had been subdued since Thomas died, only talking when he needed to.
"Waymarker," I said to him. The memory rose up out of the mist. "The patrol used them seven years ago. Someone built these to mark along the path to," I frowned, pausing. "To something. Can't remember what."
"The princess knows," Garrett said, indicating fresh boot prints continuing past the cairn. "She's following along these waymarkers. Along the same path you took seven years ago."
"Taking us back to the beginning," I said. "Back to the start."
We trudged the markers deeper into the Wastes. Found another cairn after an hour, then another. Each of them with those reality-bending symbols, each of them preceded by a growing sense of wrongness.
My head pounded with each marker. Pressure mounted behind my eyes like a storm about to burst. The darkness below me grew darker, heavier, straining against the restraints that kept it in place.
"Aric," Garrett breathed, riding closer. "Your shadow. It's growing by itself."
I looked down. He was not mistaken. My shadow was growing on its own, crawling across the ground as if it were testing its freedom.
"It's the distance from the source of the curse," I growled. "The closer we are, the less strong the attachment becomes. The faster it is for the shadow to escape."
"Can you control it?"
"I'm trying to. But it's like holding water in a sieve. The tighter I hold on, the faster it leaks through."
"Maybe we should stop," Lyons said. "Make camp. Wait until you're able to control it better."
"No." The word was uttered roughly, by both myself and the shadow. Our voices intersected, creating an uncanny echo. "We're too close. Can't stop now."
Lyons drew his sword. "That wasn't Aric speaking."
"It was both of us," I replied. "The shadow and I, we were bleeding as one. The difference is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain."
"Is that the merge?" Garrett asked. "Is that how you feel when you're whole?"
"Maybe. Or maybe it's the curse falling apart completely. Maybe we both are dissolving into nothing."
I ought to have been terrified by the thought. I was oddly calm instead. Seven years of being split, half-living, the threat of ending altogether seemed to be almost peaceful.
We found the fourth marker as the light was beginning to die. But this one was different, larger, more complex. And at its base, new supplies. Food, water, first aid kit. Someone had been here recently.
Very recently.
"The princess," Garrett verified, reading over the provisions. "She slept here. Ate. And continued on." He pointed where her trail led, to a shallow gash that cut through the wasteland like an open wound. "She entered. Maybe three hours ago."
We stood at the mouth of the ravine, gazing out into blackness. The walls were close on either side, drawing together in places to form a tunnel. No light penetrated more than the first few feet.
"That's a kill area," Lyons said. "Perfect ambush site. She can be anywhere there."
"Or the shadow might," Jenkins answered hesitantly. "Have wandered off while we were sleeping. Be inside there right now, waiting for us to pass through."
"It isn't," I answered firmly. "The shadow hasn't bifurcated since Thorne. It's been saving itself. Building up strength. It senses the encounter is close at hand."
"How do you know what it means?" Lyons demanded.
"Because I'm it. It's me. We're not two people, we're two halves of the same. What it knows, I know. What I feel, it feels." I stared at him. "That's what makes this so horrific. All of it that it's done, every murder, every signature, every act of violence, part of me remembers. Part of me owns it."
The group fell silent.
"And then you're a killer," Lyons said finally. "Shadow or not, split soul or not, you're guilty."
"Yes," I replied. "I am. And when this is over, when the princess is confronted and truth is revealed, I'll accept whatever punishment the king dictates. Prison. Hanging. Whatever justice dictates."
"If there's anything left to punish," Garrett said softly. "If the merge kills you first."
Good point.
We camped at the entrance of the ravine once night fell completely. No one had suggested entering by night. Even Lyons agreed that going in to such darkness would be suicidal.
But we all knew what the next day would do to us. Knew that tomorrow, sooner or later, this would be over.
The guards stood watch in rotation, as was customary. But this time, they didn't just stand watch around the perimeter. They stood watch over me. Watched my outline, which still rippled and shifted about even when I remained immobile.
At a little past midnight, the pulling sensation started again. Stronger this time, like thorns in my chest that were attempting to tear me open.
I fought against it, digging fingers into the earth, focusing on staying whole. But the shadow was stronger here, in this place where the split had begun. It wanted to split, wanted to go off hunting, wanted to complete its work.
"Garrett," I gasped. "It's beginning. The split. Can't, can't stop it…"
Garrett was by my side in an instant, with Lyons. "What do we do?"
"Knock me out. Drug me. Anything so I won't wake up so the shadow can't."
Too late.
The world fractured. My awareness fell apart neatly in two, and I was again in two places at once.
One half of me stayed bound, falling forward as the shadow's will took hold.
One half of me stood, dark, solid, separate. The shadow, made real.
The soldiers recoiled, guns leveled.
"Don't shoot," my frozen body said in the shadow's voice. "Not yet. Listen to me."
"Speaking of which, give me one good reason," Lyons ordered, an arrow cocked and ready against the shadow's heart.
"Because I'm going to tell you how to stop me," the shadow said. "How to finish this once and for all. How to kill me if the princess won't confess."
That got their attention.
"Speak," Garrett ordered.
The shadow curled cross-legged, a reflection of my trussed-up form ten feet away. "The curse split one soul in two halves. To remove it, the halves must come together willingly. Must choose to be whole."
"Then come together," Lyons said. "Let's get on with it."
"Cant. Not yet. Not until the purpose is complete." The shadow moved its finger towards the ravine. "The princess is within. The last conspirator. The one who started it all. Until she is brought face to face, until the truth is revealed, the curse will not allow the merge."
"Why not?" Garrett asked.
"Because the curse was made with purpose, to shut the witness to Dorian's murder. To bury the truth. As long as the princess goes free and unfettered and unindicted, the curse keeps cleaving. Keeps the witness broken and untrustworthy."
"But if she's exposed?" Garrett continued. "If she comes clean or gets convicted?"
"Then the work of the curse is finished. The division can mend. The witness can be made whole and reliable again." The shadow looked at me, at my bound shape, with an expression like pity. "But only if both sides want it. Only if we find merger more desirable than breaking up."
"Why not?" Lyons asked.
"Because merger is a compromise. Accepting both sides, both memories, both moral systems." The tone of the shadow was heavy. "Aric's half wants justice through the proper channels. Wants to believe in the system, believe in the king, believe that truth will out. My half does know better. Knows that power protects power, that the king will not want to believe his daughter's a killer."
"So you won't unite," Garrett instructed him. "You'll stay split apart and keep on searching."
"Unless you give me cause to believe in the system. Unless you show me that equitable justice will prevail." The shadow rose to his feet. "Tomorrow, when we confront her, when she confesses or condemns herself, you'll see which of us is right. You'll see if honesty outweighs authority."
"And what if it doesn't?" Lyons asked. "If the king likes her better than the truth?"
"Then I stay aloof. Stay hunting. Stay beastly." The shadow sneered out across the black ravine. "For better a monster pursuing justice than a good man accepting lies."
"That's not for you to decide," Garrett said.
"Someone has to do it. Someone has to do something when the system fails." The shadow retreated, edging back into my bound form. "Sleep well, gentlemen. Tomorrow you'll see who's right. Tomorrow, the truth will come out."
"One more thing," Lyons bellowed as the shadow faltered to reattach. "Thomas. Why did you murder him?"
The shadow faltered, half-rejoined. For a moment, genuine remorse flickered across its surface, my surface.
"He made me remember what I used to be. Young, idealistic, believing there would be justice. I saw myself in him, and it eroded the confidence I needed to keep pursuing. So I ended the threat." A pause. "Wrong. The only kill I'm regretful for. But done, nonetheless."
Then it became nothing again, folding back into place beneath me.
I gasped, whole once more. Living the memories of the shadow and my own, the conversation I'd heard from both sides simultaneously.
"Did you hear that?" Garrett asked.
"Yes. I was there for everything." I collapsed forward, exhausted. "And it's true. Tomorrow, we'll know whose truth it is. Tomorrow, it ends."
They didn't tie me up that night. What was the point? The shadow would escape no matter what restraints bound us. Instead, they simply sat, weapons poised, and waited for daylight.
I didn't rest. I sat there and felt the shadow under me, compacted and clenched. Felt the curse pulling us toward it, pulling us toward completion.
To the woman who had started it all.
As the first light crept into the sky, we were preparing to cross the ravine. To enter darkness and deal with what existed at the other end.
Princess Elara. The actual cause of Dorian's death. The source of the curse that had split me in two.
And either way, I was going to be whole again.
Or erased from existence altogether.
Either scenario seemed equally likely.
Both scenarios seemed strangely acceptable.