17

My desk hadn't seen this much action since AP Bio. I flipped through page after page of half-legible Greek, translated notes, sketches of symbols that made the shadows behind me twitch like they recognized them.

"Erebus wasn't a god in the same way Zeus was," Max said, tracing his finger over a passage. "He was... older. Primordial. The embodiment of shadow and deep darkness. Born from Chaos."

"Fitting," I muttered, leaning in. "This part says he was everywhere light wasn't. That he didn't just exist in the absence of light, he chose the places light wouldn't touch."

Max glanced up. "You've felt that, haven't you? Like the darkness in you wants to seek out truth. Secrets. Things people hide."

I swallowed. "Yeah. And it likes it. The rawness of it. Like... it makes me more honest."

He nodded. "Erebus wasn't evil. Just... inevitable."

I paused on a passage written in a firmer hand. "It says here that mortals who carried a fragment of Erebus were called his Vessels. They could see through lies. Bend space. Move unseen. Some even say they could unravel a soul."

Max raised an eyebrow. "Unravel a soul?"

I looked up. "Whatever's inside me... it might not just be power. It might be a piece of him."

He nodded slowly. "Maybe that's why you were chosen. Maybe it's always been there."

"Maybe the Nogitsune didn't infect me," I said quietly. "Maybe it woke something up."

The shadows in the corner rippled.

Max smiled faintly. "Looks like they agree."

I closed the book carefully. My fingers tingled from holding it. The air around me felt heavy, full of potential.

"So what now?" I asked.

Max stood, eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. "Now we figure out what this fragment can really do."

—————————————————————————

My thoughts kept circling back to the book Max showed me, to the shadowy pages on Erebus, the whispers of a god that had once been carved out of primordial darkness. The more I read, the more something inside me hummed with recognition.

And it wasn't just theory anymore.

Because now I could do things.

Real things.

Like make the shadows curl and twist on command. Make them shape themselves into forms. It started as a joke, me standing in my room, trying to focus on the image of a dog I used to have when I was a kid. I didn't think it would work. But the shadows around my bed had other plans.

They stretched and thickened until they grew legs, a head, a tail. A dog made entirely of darkness, with silver-flecked eyes and a wagging shadow-tail.

I laughed.

I laughed so hard I almost fell over.

Then I made a cat. Then something bigger, something like a panther. Then I made a creature that had wings. It hissed at me once and flared its shadowy wings so fast they knocked some of the books off my shelf. And I just stood there, beaming like a total lunatic.

I had to tell Max.

But I didn't want to text. I didn't want to wait. I wanted to show him.

Which meant I had to try it, try that. Step through the shadows. Move through them, like they were tunnels.

I didn't know how. But the book had said Erebus "sank into the spaces between things, slipped through realms, through the veil, through the world, unseen."

So I tried.

I focused on Max. I thought about his voice, his annoying little smirk, the way he always acted like nothing surprised him. I pictured him standing in some dark alley, wiping blood off his mouth and making a joke about being "well-fed." I focused on the shadows in my room, thick and warm and waiting.

And then...

I fell.

Not physically, but it felt like my stomach dropped a thousand feet. Like the floor just vanished. I couldn't see, couldn't feel my body, but I felt motion, movement without moving. I pushed harder, like swimming blind, and the second I felt a flicker of something, I opened my eyes.

And I was in someone's living room.

Max was there.

Standing calmly, like I hadn't just burst into existence three feet from him. There were two bodies on the floor, men, unconscious or worse, I didn't know. A girl lay on the couch, eyes wide, skin pale. Max was leaned over her, mouth at her throat.

He was feeding.

And it should have scared me. I should've flinched. Should've run.

But all I said was, "...Seriously?"

Max blinked at me, fangs still out, his face smeared with blood. "You found me."

"No thanks to you," I muttered. "I was trying to impress you, not walk in on a buffet."

He straightened up, licking the blood from the corner of his mouth, eyes flashing silver. "You did impress me. You just also surprised me. Which, by the way, is extremely rude."

I looked at the girl. Her chest still rose and fell. Barely.

Max sighed. "She'll be fine. Mostly. She was a volunteer."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, maybe not volunteer, but she was really rude earlier," he said with a shrug.

I ignored that. I was still too amped. "I did it. I traveled through shadows, Max. I made creatures. One had wings. I think it hissed at me."

Max watched me like I was a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. Not with suspicion. With interest. With that kind of quiet intensity that made me feel like I was standing under a microscope, every twitch, every breath, observed.

"You're telling me you made... animals?" he asked, licking the last bit of blood from his lower lip.

"Creatures," I corrected, trying to play it casual but already bouncing on the balls of my feet. "Dogs, cats, some kind of... shadow panther. And something with wings. I didn't mean to make it angry but it hissed at me."

"Did it obey you?"

"Kinda," I said. "It wasn't like, telepathic or anything. More like... the shadows wanted to move, and I nudged them."

Max walked over, slow, predatory, like I was something rare. "Show me."

I nodded, stepping back. The living room was dim already, but I pushed it further, willed the shadows from every corner to crawl forward, to thicken, to rise. They obeyed faster now, more eagerly, like they wanted to move for me.

Max stood still, arms crossed, watching.

I held my hand out, palm up. "Come on," I whispered.

And they did.

A dog formed first, large, wolfish, sleek and black with glowing silver eyes like wet ash. Its tail swished low and slow. Then a second shape took form, feline this time, elegant and sharp. The panther sat beside the dog like it had been waiting for the command.

Max's eyes widened just slightly. "They're stable."

"Yeah." I grinned. "They like me."

"That's not nothing," he muttered, circling the constructs like he was inspecting a fine sculpture. "A lot of darkcasters can barely hold a shape for ten seconds before the shadows fall apart. You've made... sentient shadowforms. They're more than just smoke and fear."

"I named the dog Toothless," I said.

Max made a face. "Like the dragon?"

"Don't ruin this for me."

He crouched beside the panther, which growled low but didn't lash out. "They react to me, but they don't attack unless you tell them to," he said.

"No. But they did try to kill Scott the other day when he tried barging into my room," I said, only half-joking. "I didn't even give the order. They acted on their own."

That finally made Max still.

"You're developing sentient shadows," he said slowly. "That's... extremely rare."

"Rare good or rare dangerous?"

He stood up. "Yes."

"Not helpful."

Max rubbed his jaw, pacing now. "If Erebus left a fragment of his power behind, and you really are carrying it, then the shadows may not just be obeying you. They might be starting to bond to you. Choose you. Which means they'll protect you whether you want them to or not."

"They're like emotional support hellbeasts," I said.

"You're laughing," Max said, "but this kind of magic isn't just parlor tricks and pets. If you create too many at once, they'll start draining you. If you give them too much autonomy, they might evolve without your input. That's how corrupted shadowmancers were born. People who think they're in control until they're not."

The wolf leaned against my leg. I scratched behind its ear, its body wasn't solid, but I could feel resistance, like a current of warm air shaped like muscle.

"Are you saying they could turn on me?"

"No. I'm saying you might turn into something you can't walk back from if you're not careful."

That sobered me.

I sat down on the edge of the couch. The shadow creatures stayed close, like guardians.

"But you'll help me," I said. "Right?"

Max looked at me, eyes sharp but honest. "Yeah. I will."

There was a weight to that promise. Something that sank deeper than the words themselves.

"I think I can make more," I said quietly. "Not just animals. Something bigger."

He raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

I hesitated. "I don't know. But when I feel the shadows now... it's like they're asking me what I want. Like I could make an army if I wanted to."

Max walked over and stood in front of me. "Don't think about armies," he said, voice soft but firm. "Think about purpose. Control. Intention. That's how you stay yourself."

The shadows around me pulsed, like they were listening too.

And I nodded.

Because I was starting to understand something important.

I didn't just have this power.

It had me.