The Shadow That Shouldn't Exist

I ran.

The cold air sliced against my skin, but I barely felt it. My legs burned, my lungs screamed, but I couldn't stop. Not yet. Not until I was far enough from the blood-soaked ground where my sister had died.

Selene's body—no, I couldn't think about it. Couldn't let the memory sink its claws into me. If I did, I wouldn't be able to move. And if I stopped moving, they'd find me.

The assassins were dead, but I didn't know who sent them. I didn't know how many more there were. All I knew was that the power inside me was still burning, still whispering in the back of my skull, curling through my veins like living smoke.

Shadows that shouldn't exist.

I stumbled into the outskirts of the city, barely holding myself together. The towering ruins of what used to be a district before the wars swallowed it stood in eerie silence. This place had been abandoned for years, yet the weight of unseen eyes pressed against me. Ghosts of the past, or something else?

My knees buckled, and I collapsed against the crumbling wall of a shattered building. Every part of me ached, but it wasn't just the pain of exhaustion. Something was wrong inside me. My body wasn't just sore—it was shifting, struggling, adapting to something new.

I glanced at the ground.

My shadow moved. Not with the flickering of the moonlight, not with the natural sway of my body. It coiled, twisted, like a living creature tasting the air. My stomach turned, but I couldn't look away. It wasn't right. It wasn't normal.

And yet, I could feel it.

I clenched my fists, trying to force my breath into something steady, something controlled. But I wasn't in control—not of my body, not of my mind. And definitely not of the power that had forced itself awake when Selene fell.

Selene.

A violent tremor ran through me as the memory crashed over me like a tidal wave. The way she fought. The way she bled. The way her shadow had risen for that brief moment, as if reaching for me before it vanished into nothingness.

I'd been too weak to hold onto it. Too weak to stop any of it from happening.

And now, I was alone.

I didn't know how long I was out before the whispers started.

At first, they were faint. Echoes in the back of my mind, slipping between my thoughts like silk threads unraveling. I told myself it was just my grief, my exhaustion playing tricks on me.

But then they grew louder.

Dark voices. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

Deeper.

Further.

I saw her again. Selene. But not as I remembered her. This version of her was cracked, fragmented, her form breaking apart as though she were nothing more than glass held together by shadow. Her eyes weren't the fierce, determined ones I had always admired. They were hollow, staring straight through me.

I reached for her, desperation clawing at my chest. "Selene—"

She shattered.

I gasped awake, my body jerking violently as I shot up from the cold ground. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, and the icy sweat clinging to my skin made the night feel even colder.

My hands shook as I stared at them.

They were clean.

Not like before. Not like back in the alley, when they had been drenched in the blood of those who had taken her from me. My breathing hitched. I wanted to throw up. Not because of the bodies, not because of the way I had torn through them like an animal—but because of the part of me that had enjoyed it.

A noise.

My head snapped up, instincts screaming at me.

I wasn't alone.

I pressed my back against the broken wall, forcing my breath to steady as I listened. Footsteps—light, cautious. Trained. Soldiers.

My pulse pounded against my skull. If they found me… if they saw what I was now…

I forced myself to stay still, even as the unnatural energy inside me churned. I could hear them speaking in hushed voices.

"—bodies were torn apart. No one survived."

A pause.

"Selene Voss died taking them down."

My hands clenched.

That was the story they were going with? That my sister had fought them alone, that she had won before she fell?

That was fine.

Let them believe that.

Let them never know the truth—that I was there, that I had awakened, that the assassins didn't just die at her hands.

Because if they knew what I was now, they would kill me before I even understood it myself.

I pulled my hood low and stepped out of the shadows.

I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know who I had become.

But I knew one thing.

I wasn't going to die here.