Kite - Chapter 9: Shadowsworn

“What is the meaning of this chancellor a’Len? What happened to you?” I asked, incredulous and partly fearful. They put on a formidable show of their transformation. They looked unliving yet not dead. The room seemed to darken around them.

“We’ve found the solution to your… predicament, Idhdardil” said the creature that was once a’Len in a voice that sounded like the rasping of century-old parchment. I nearly gave a start, realizing he had used my true name. As he spoke, flakes of grayish skin fell from the corners of his mouth and his words blended with each other in a sort of guttural music. He opened his mouth revealing a blackened tongue marked with a strange glyph.

“Who is this… Idhdardil you speak of?” I said, aware that my voice had cracked and faltered in the course of uttering the question. “I know no man here of this name”

“Do not act ignorant, child, we know it is your true name. Our God, blest be the name of Qyxymenos, has revealed to us much of the worlds’ truths in the dream” said the one who was once high-priest of Noundele with the hiss of a snake. Around his neck hung the symbol of ultimate blasphemy, the ultimate sacrilege, the crescent moon stabbed through the heart of the sun.


“What… are you saying?” I mumbled, confidence fracturing. There was something in the penetrating gaze of the four that inspired a fear I had never felt before.

“We mean that we have found a way to evoke your eternal eclipse. You need only become one of us, sworn to the shadow. You have a day to tell your people, a day to decide to become one of us, or die trying!” said another. Only then did I realize that their lips were all moving in sync. “Hunger forever for the taste of mortality or for eternity satiated by becoming sworn to the shadow…”

The four abominations released a screeching high-pitched laughter and disappeared as all the shadows in the room leapt to them and melted into the floor. I stared, in stunned silence, unable to move. Stiff, I turned around and slammed the door open. To the servants waiting in attendance outside, I growled “Get someone to saddle my horse and ready a pack-animal with enough to survive for a month. Someone else gather the people. I don’t care if they’re in their baths, or if they’re asleep. Stab them in the leg if they are. They would thank you for it.”

Things were becoming worse. I thought about how harshly I had treated the servants and considered an apology. No, there was no time for that. I thought of what I had said and thought “In fact, I would be thankful if someone did stab me in the leg right now” Then again, in the middle of the day, I would not even feel it.

I strode into the throne room and out into the balcony facing the palace square, hoping for some time to think before the Kindred gathered. I was not granted that hope, already, the gaunt faces of the kin were staring up at me expectantly. A servant glided next to me and began to whisper “They—“

I continued his sentence for him “—know.” I should have known the vile creatures would find a way to broadcast what had happened. I had been outsmarted.

A lone voice rose from the crowd “Sire! We heard, we saw, we felt.” Nods of agreement rippled through the crowd. A few mutters of assent joined them.

“Then you must know that we must not let such vile ways corrupt our kingdom!” I yelled, believing that the kindred thought the same as I did. One look into their eyes shattered that belief. There was a yearning, a hunger that could not be fulfilled in them. I took a step back.

“My king, the need is too great, we cannot refuse this” came the words from my most trusted friend who had stepped up beside me, tutor of my father and I. “Perhaps one day you shall find the truth behind your roots, the reason why you do not feel the urge as strongly as us. This… This is an offer we cannot refuse, your majesty” He continued.

To the crowd, he turned and yelled “To the shadow!”

I took another step backward, turned around and then ran through the palace to the stable. I wished to stay, but I decided that I would not be much help to my people dead. For a night and a day I rode my steed to exhaustion until I arrived at the gates of our mountain city stronghold. I decided, from there I would take back my people.

And so, the heart of the Kindred of Sol became the heart of the Shadowsworn.