Shadow and Night

CHAPTER ONE

"Forty-five coins."

"Fifteen."

"No. Forty-three."

"No. Seventeen."

"You are brutal. Forty-two." He snapped.

I dipped into a graceful curtsy and gave one of my honey-sweet smiles. "Why, thank you so much for your compliment, sir. My offer stands unchanged. Seventeen." A young woman appeared behind the man and watched the scene with arms crossed, leisurely leaning against the wall, looking very proud and pleased. Giving her a quick wink, I turned to her very grieved husband.

I smiled at the thirty-year-old man who seemed to age three years more with every passing second under the dire stress of a seventeen-year-old girl haggling up to every single quarter that she could save.

"That is not fair at all! That's less than half of its actual price!"

"Three small wheels, fifty coins? I don't think so. Seventeen."

"Three wheels, seventeen coins? I don't think so." He shot back. "Forty-two. And also, they are not small."

"We'll see. Eighteen."

"For giving away three wheels of cheese for eighteen coins, I might as well sell them for free!"

"You will?" I asked him, eyes alight.

"Of course not!" He said, defensively and disbelievingly.

My face fell. "Oh."

His wife chuckled softly and came up to my side. "How about we start with thirty coins?" She suggested gently, picking up Alya and Erik in her arms.

"Yes, yes, we can go with thirty," her husband hurriedly nodded, looking too eager to finally make me part with my money.

I frowned. Tugging at the shell of my ear, I tried again. "Twenty-seven?" I put in, hopefully.

The man grunted. "Fine. Twenty-seven it is."

I smiled, very pleased. Turning to Sasha, I gave her one of my brightest smiles. "Haven't I perfected haggling?" Sasha laughed, buoyantly. Alya gave me a thumbs-up, giggling. Erik grinned.

"You were not haggling. You were robbing me."

We chose to ignore her beloved, grunting husband.

"Well, well. We've got places to be," I chirped after handing him the coins and Alya stretched her arms toward me. Sasha gently set down the kids and Erik bounced to his feet. "You really do have the strength to hold two ten year old brats in your arms, Sasha," I shook my head, smiling.

"I'm twelve, actually." Erik said in a muted tone. I gave him a look.

Sasha smiled at Erik whose eyes roamed the market scene－busy shops in ochre, sun-beaten tents that lined in rows along the streets with enough space for a nice good brawl, with people thronging in the lanes; there was a young couple few paces away, holding hands, smiling and laughing, a father with his daughter on his shoulders as the girl squinted her eyes to see the distant places her father was pointing at, adolescent boys guffawing at each other, tall men with broad shoulders laughing and talking too loud, the traders haggling expertly－and the small boy took in everything, his eyes keen and curious, and I thought I saw there something that was more than just a smile in Sasha's eyes. I swallowed the small lump in my throat and ushered the kids to stay put.

"Okay, we'll get going then," I said, holding Erik's and Alya's hands.

After exchanging smiles and waving goodbyes, we started our way home.

***

"Erik, I know you won't accept that I'm obviously better than you."

"No, you're not. Keep quiet."

"Oh, really? Want to bet?"

It was going to be a really long way.

I sighed. And thus, it went. Lots of meaningless chatter from the brats that were now walking ahead of me, arms swinging at their sides freely.

"Really, Alya? Are you sure? I can make the water－"

I stopped in my tracks. Their heads whirled in a moment. Good.

Yet. Yet.

"Alya, Erik. What did I tell you both to not talk about when were outside home?"

They walked over to me slowly. "We're sorry." Alya said, worrying her lip. Erik clutched Alya's hand and nodded. "We're sorry."

Maybe I wasn't doing this right. Maybe I did. I never knew it, really. Still, I did it in my own sharp way. "I don't want you to be sorry. Tell me that you'll never repeat the mistake again, both of you."

"We won't, we won't make that mistake again," they said together.

A small sigh escaped my lips and I realized I'd been holding my breath without knowing it. I held my arms toward them and gestured to them to come closer. "Come here," I said softly, gathering them in my arms. "Just don't, alright? You might not understand, just－you trust me, right?" I whispered. They said nothing but just held me a little more tighter.

             We lived in a small cottage that was two stories high, a few miles away from the Fold's edges, in the farther beginnings of Tsibeya's humble wilderness. The kingly beasts, slithering snakes and howling wolves lurked in the darker, denser depths, where the trees were tall and old, their canopies so wide and huge, hardly any light snuck in through the bare slivers between leaves and somewhere far, far from our home. We lived safe.

              Now walking with a little more spring in my step, clutching the basket near my elbow, I whistled along my way, enjoying the sweet, cool breeze that kissed my skin, happily enjoying a day off the farm. We were walking a little farther from the Fold, the dark inevitability that had destroyed all life that it had touched, a terrifying creation, the result of some horrendous mistake.

              And I used it for sight-seeing when I was bored. When I'd been alone, and when the waters of the vast lake at the back of my house were too cold to play in, I would come sit at the foot of a huge tree that stood at the very edge of the forest, quite distanced from the Unsea, with knees pulled to my chest, rocking back and forth, wondering what lay inside it. Then the sun would sink, drenching the sky in bright, vivid colors and I'll go back home, sulking.

             The Fold was still every bit the same unkind mystery.

Alya and Erik now seemed bearably disagreeable to each other than they had been earlier. I was just about to take a long, deep sigh when Alya stopped short. Erik went rigid. My eyes snapped up to the distant place they were staring at. My eyes widened. I sucked in a sharp breath and pulled Erik and Alya harshly against myself.

There were three men stumbling out of the Fold; a man with his arm ripped apart by the shadow monsters, his shoulders mercilessly bleeding as the volcra had clawed at his flesh all the way from his bones, who was dragging a bleeding corpse that had been ripped and butchered grotesquely, and the second man was grabbing another man's shoulder, gripping the wedges where the volcra had sunk its claws. And then I saw that man clearly, or rather saw the knife that had been driven right to his chest, clearly.

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Tadaaaaa! So what do you think?!  :D I hope you stick around for more, ahhh I'm excited! See you soon with the next chapter, until then! - SA