Shadowborn exile a litrp.., p.9
Shadowborn Exile: A LitRPG Progression Fantasy, page 9
Their formation was tense, quiet. They stood along the ridge, their focus locked on the thing they had dragged back from the wilds.
The shield-like flashwraith had been secured with thick ropes wound around its jagged frame, its once-floating body now unnervingly still. A harness had been rigged, made of heavy flashwraith-leather straps and braided cord designed to loop over a body and distribute weight for the long descent.
Hadrian was already prepared.
The older man stood near the edge of the first tier, his frame draped in a heavy cloak, his movements sluggish but deliberate. Two Vanguard assisted him, adjusting the straps over his shoulders, securing the bindings at his waist. His breaths came in uneven bursts, his gaze flickering between lucidity and something else entirely.
Attica’s stomach tightened the moment he finally saw his face.
Hadrian’s eyes were too wide, and his tongue flicked out occasionally, wetting his lips like a man tasting something only he could perceive.
Hadrian whispered to himself. He pointed to a rock near the edge, one with symbols on it, and mumbled incoherently. He reached his hands out as if trying to grasp something unseen. His shade flickered at his back, warping at the edges, its form struggling against whatever force was unraveling him from within.
His gaze snapped to Attica, and for the first time in years, there was something bright behind Hadrian’s eyes, something too bright.
“Ah! There you are, lad!” He clasped Attica’s hand with surprising strength. His grip lingered, as if testing to make sure Attica was real. “You are so much larger than you used to be. Why, you’re a man … you’re a man!” Hadrian’s eyes watered. “A good man, good lad.” He peered off into the distance. “You see it, don’t you? The way the light bends? The way it moves?” He motioned to the rock with symbols carved in. “The words? You see them, yes?”
Attica didn’t answer.
Hadrian let out a breathy laugh. It was not the dry chuckle of the stoic man Attica had known his entire life, but something else, something unmoored. “It’s all there, just waiting! We have all been so blind! I thought we had forgotten, but I hadn’t! Not really!” He started to sob and stopped, his eyes once again flashing with intensity. “The flask—it opens the door, lad. Do you see? Do you see now?”
Attica exchanged a glance with Eve, who had moved up beside him. Concern darkened her expression. “You’re really going with him?”
“I am.”
“What does Dayanne think?” Eve asked, a question that took Attica by surprise. Eve rarely mentioned Dayanne, if ever.
He hesitated. “I won’t go past the end of the second. That’s her only concern.”
“Attica …” Her voice was barely above a whisper, meant only for him. “Hadrian has drunk from the flask. His mind isn’t his mind any longer. You must understand this about him.”
Attica hesitated, watching Hadrian pull against his harness with the restless energy of a man half his age. The flask had given him a new strength—but at what cost?
“I will be back,” Attica promised Eve. “I will make sure he completes his … mission.”
A hint of sadness flickered across her eyes. “When?”
“By tomorrow. Or sooner.”
Her lips parted, a thought caught between silence and speech.
“We do not know the extent of what may happen,” he told her, the words forming before he could fully process them. “And the Vanguard must always be ready. Have the ashlings assist the scouts. The settlement must be prepared.”
“The ashlings are not ready.”
“No one ever is,” he said, though his tone was distant, his thoughts already moving ahead of him.
“Attica—” Eve began.
Hadrian turned abruptly, clapping his hands together. “Enough of this waiting! Let’s go, let’s bring the shieldwraith to the depths together, lad!” The older man slipped the last part of the harness into place, gripping the lead rope in his hands, dragging it taut. “Argh!” He took a staggering step forward. The shieldwraith scraped against the ground as it shifted, its weight unnatural even in its stillness.
Attica’s shade unfurled, wrapping around his legs, steadying him. He didn’t look back to Eve and the rest of the Vanguard.
He didn’t need to.
Attica was certain he would return.
Chapter Sixteen
The descent was silent at first, Hadrian erratic at the front as he led with the harness while Attica and his shade pushed the shieldwraith from behind. The massive, jagged thing scraped against the stone, its unnatural weight a constant reminder of the task at hand. The mist clung thick to the air, curling around their feet, filling the spaces between the broken terrain.
Hadrian whispered half-formed phrases under his breath that made little sense. He spoke of the Baffled King, the Council of Torn, the shattering of the Crown of Shadows. Twice, he spoke to someone he called the Mother of Whispers, Hadrian assuring her that he was on his way.
It pained Attica to watch the old man unraveling. This wasn’t exhaustion. This was erosion—of mind, of memory, of meaning. The man who had once led the Vanguard with absolute clarity now spoke in riddles to ghosts that weren’t there.
“Let’s keep going,” Attica told him again.
As they pressed on, Hadrian’s breath grew ragged, his steps uneven, not with strain, but with the slow decay of something vital unraveling inside him.
Attica knew it wasn’t the weight of the wraith that burdened him. It is the Seer’s flask. Whatever Hadrian had consumed had unraveled his mind, threading through his thoughts, a needle through cloth. The stoic, inspiring man Attica had looked up to for years was slipping away.
“You’ll see it one day, lad,” Hadrian said, wide-eyed, gazing out into nothing. “If you make it that far …”
The pair came to the bones of a long-dead flareback, its ribs removed, skull smashed to bits. Attica hadn’t been part of this hunt, but he had heard the story from Eve, how the Vanguard had left it behind when their gourds were filled, marking the place as if to ward off the unknown.
“You’ll see … you’ll see …” Hadrian kept saying. “One day, lad.”
“See what?” Attica asked, not entirely certain he wanted to know the answer.
“It all makes so much sense now. And at the same time …” The older man trailed off, his expression shifting. He dropped a hand from his harness and smoothed it over his twisted beard. “At the same time, it makes absolutely no sense. Why did we not go after the shards ourselves? Why did we allow the dukes and duchesses to hoard them away in the lower tiers? Why are the exiled only granted these powers now? We … we could have done something!” His shade flickered wildly, distorting at the edges. “I know, Arminius, I know.”
Attica frowned. “Who is Arminius?”
“That was my shade’s name. It still is.”
“We are not supposed to name our shades.”
Hadrian scoffed at this suggestion. “Arminius doesn’t need a name. He already had one, long before we were joined. There were other names, but that was his last. Yours is—”
“I’m not interested in knowing,” Attica said, which caused his shadow to tremble. He remembered what Dayanne had told him about the shades, how they were once members of the Shadowborn community. “Why didn’t you become a shade? Why exile?”
Hadrian snorted at the thought. “Me? I have served my role. There comes a time … not all can continue, young man. And I’m curious, boy. I want to know what it is I’ve been hiding from all my life.”
“I’m no longer a boy.”
Hadrian continued: “Not all are forced to remain in the community, to further it along, to delay … delay the inevitable. We earn the choice through sacrifice. I chose to drink from the flask, yes, I chose to have my eyes opened. I did this for my shade. For the shades before him. Because I wanted to know … selfish. I am selfish.”
“No, you aren’t,” Attica said, his voice firm. “You are the most selfless man I’ve ever known.”
Hadrian laughed, short and brittle. “I wanted to know, and now …” He slapped the side of his head. “Now, I do.” He slapped the side of his head again. “I know! Ha! And now? Now, I don’t want to know, now I can’t forget, now I must endure. It was all folly, all …” He trailed off, babbling phrases Attica didn’t recognize until he finally grew quiet.
Later, they came within about a mile to the edge of the second tier, the sky dimming into the half light of the Spiralrealm’s eternal dusk. The terrain here flattened as it pushed toward the edge, its surface fractured by jagged fault lines—the remnants of some long-forgotten shift in the world’s bones. The mist was thinner too, less oppressive, yet it still was impossible to see straight through to the other side of the Spiralrealm.
“We camp here,” Attica said, though every part of him wanted to push forward, to return to the settlement, to Dayanne and baby Eli. “You’re in no condition to keep going.”
“It’s only over the edge.”
“We rest,” Attica said. “It’s better. You taught me to take rest whenever it is offered.”
Hadrian made a sound in the back of his throat—something like a laugh but tinged with sorrow. “Aye, lad, I suppose you’re right. And Arminius agrees. A night beneath the open sky, then. Like old times. The Painter’s blood is our protection.”
Painter’s blood? Attica thought, trying to recall where he’d heard that before. Rather than respond, he busied himself with unfastening the harness, finally freeing his mentor. Hadrian staggered slightly but held himself upright, his hands trembling as he pulled his cloak tighter around his body. His eyes darted about, catching on things Attica couldn’t see.
“They’re here,” Hadrian murmured. “Do you see them, boy?”
Attica stiffened, the hair on the back of his neck rising. “See what?”
Hadrian’s lips parted, but before he could answer, a flicker of movement cut through the mist. Attica reacted instantly, his shade coiling around him in a predatory manner. His hand went to his weapon, eyes locking on to the figure emerging from the gloom ahead.
A flashwraith. An emitter.
Attica and his shade had been too distracted to notice it earlier. It was smaller than the others he had seen—almost humanoid. The emitter’s body was hunched over, its luminous core pulsing softly beneath dark chitinous plating. It seemed like it was lost.
Hadrian’s hand shot out, gripping Attica’s wrist with surprising strength. “No,” the older man whispered.
Attica’s muscles tensed, his shade mirroring his unease. “It has seen us.”
“It can’t see.” Hadrian’s grip tightened. His lips moved, but no sound came.
The emitter stilled, its core flaring once, twice, as it shifted toward the two of them. Attica felt a pressure in his skull, an odd, whispering static just out of reach. It was neither light nor dark, neither a threat nor a retreat.
And then, impossibly, the flashwraith hesitated.
It should have attacked. It should have released its core’s energy and killed them both. But it didn’t. It froze, as if it had seen a ghost.
“There,” Hadrian said, overcome with remorse. He loosened his grip on Attica’s wrist, and his shoulders lowered as though in quiet relief.
Attica didn’t hesitate. He moved in a blur toward the emitter, who had yet to act. He drove his shadowblade forward, slicing into the creature’s core. The emitter shuddered. Its light faltered, flickered, then vanished into the mist.
“What have you done?” Hadrian let out a strangled noise, his body sagging forward as though Attica had driven the blade through him instead.
Attica ignored it. He knelt, retrieved his gourd, and filled it with what little essence remained of the creature, sealing it tight.
When he looked up, Hadrian was weeping, his face twisting with grief.
Attica frowned, uncertain how to respond. “It was a flashwraith, Hadrian. Get hold of yourself, man!”
“You don’t understand. You don’t see!”
Attica said nothing. He grabbed the creature’s remains and dragged them away from their campsite.
When he returned, Attica found Hadrian sitting with his hood drawn, staring into the sky, whispering prayers of forgiveness. “Please,” the older man whispered. “For the Painter, for the settlement …”
Attica uncorked his gourd, inhaling the faint traces of essence inside. “Would you like some?”
Hadrian didn’t answer. Once it was clear he wouldn’t respond, Attica stowed the gourd and settled across from him, spine pressed to jagged stone.
They sat in silence for a long while before Hadrian spoke again, his voice softer than before: “You were always a stubborn one. A headstrong boy. But loyal. The makings of a true Vanguard. A good lad. The very best.”
Attica turned, frowning. Hadrian wasn’t looking at a fellow Vanguard. He was looking at a boy. A son.
“I’m no longer a boy. I’ve told you this.”
Hadrian rubbed his hands together like a man trying to remember warmth. “You mustn’t be too proud. Too sure of yourself. That is how ashlings die, you know.”
“I am no longer an ashling. I have a child myself,” he admitted, the words much quieter than he intended.
Hadrian’s expression flickered, caught between realization and disbelief. He squinted at Attica, as if trying to reconcile the image in his mind. Then, after a long pause, his lips curled into a weary smile. “A child,” he echoed. “You, a father? Ha! That’s a good one.”
Attica’s chest ached, though he wasn’t sure why.
Hadrian chuckled again, but it faded quickly, his gaze drifting toward the mist beyond their camp. “Strange lights out there,” he mumbled. “Not for us, though. Not yet.”
Attica followed his gaze, watching as faint glimmers pulsed far beyond the reaches of the settlement. They were too distant to be a threat.
As Hadrian drifted off to sleep, Attica watched the lights beyond, waiting for something. Though he wasn’t sure what. The world grew quiet, and soon, the mist swallowed the distant glow.
Whatever lay beyond would have to wait.
Chapter Seventeen
Attica couldn’t sleep.
He sat upright against a jagged stone, arms crossed, shade pooled around him like the living shadow it was. His gourd glowed faintly at his hip, its light barely illuminating his surroundings. It felt too bright in the oppressive gloom.
Hadrian was mumbling again.
The old man lay wrapped in his cloak a few paces away, muttering in the rasp of a fevered dream. Occasionally, his shade twitched beside him, shifting in ways Attica had never seen before.
The words that slipped past Hadrian’s lips were nonsense—disjointed fragments of history, myths, and battle hymns. He continued speaking to the Mother of Whispers about something called the Realm of Recumbency. He assured her that he would reach there, that it was his duty to serve.
Sometimes, in the quiet moments between his ramblings, Hadrian spoke as if addressing someone unseen, as if responding to a conversation only he could hear. “Arminius,” he whispered. “Tell me more. Tell me all.”
It wasn’t just Hadrian keeping Attica awake.
There was also the shieldwraith, which lay motionless at the far end of their camp, dark and inert, its mere presence gnawing at the edge of his thoughts. Attica kept thinking of the signal it had sent before it fell. A light, not like the flarebacks, not wild or erratic, but focused. A potential beacon.
The urge to return to the settlement itched at his thoughts—a low hum beneath everything else.
The mist had thickened since nightfall, pressing in around them, shifting in slow, deliberate currents as though something unseen was stirring just beyond his vision. Attica told himself it was nothing; he told himself that the paranoia creeping up his spine was just exhaustion. But at the same time, he knew to trust his instincts.
As much as it troubled him, Attica let his head rest back against the rock. He closed his eye just for a moment and eventually, rest came in shallow bursts.
The sharp scrape of stone against stone jolted him upright. This was followed by the howl of a glintfang, a sound Attica was all too familiar with.
Attica’s shade flared out instinctively, searching the blue morning twilight, his breath caught between sleep and waking. It took Attica a second to register the source of both sounds.
Hadrian.
The old man had harnessed himself up again.
He was already several paces away, dragging the shieldwraith toward the edge of the second tier. He stopped occasionally, cupped his hands around his mouth, and made the howling sound.
“Ha!” he said once he heard a reply in the distance. “It actually worked.”
Hadrian’s posture was hunched but determined, his boots digging into the gray dirt with each step. His breath came in steady huffs, and though his movements were labored, there was something methodical about them. Focused. Strong. Determined.
Attica surged to his feet, irritation flaring as he reached his mentor. “Stop howling,” he told him.
“Lad! Did you hear? One howled back.” A curious look came across his face. “I can’t remember a time one ever howled back. I saw Sevus pull it off once … or was that Garax?”
“Glintfangs are the last thing we want. And you couldn’t wake me?”
“You were dreaming,” Hadrian told him without looking back. “Dreams are important glimpses into your mind. And it’s not every day I get to drag a bloody monster to the edge of the second tier. What a fascinating thing, our world, and to know …” His eyes twitched. “To know it was once bathed in color.”
Attica fell into step beside him, grabbing the ropes to help. As they pressed on, the shieldwraith scraped against the ground, its jagged edges catching on loose rock, the sound grating in the silence.
Visibility grew worse by the minute. The descent to the second tier’s edge was still nearly a mile away, and the mist thickened even more, curling low around their ankles.
