A Flame in the Shadow

The sky burned red as fire rained down on the city of Celestial Falls. Thousands of large leathery wings flapped blocking out most of the light. The city felt as if it was midnight in the middle of the day.

The roars of the beasts were deafening as they swooped down grabbing anyone who was unfortunate enough to be on the streets. People screamed in agony as their loved ones and children were taken never to be seen again.

Celestial Falls had been a quiet place to live before the portal opened and the creatures arrived. One day they were happily going on with their lives and in an instant, they were living in a city of fire and blood.

They came when the portal opened, demons, beasts, and shadows that appeared directly from nightmares. They poured from the mountains like a sickness, crawling down through the trees dragging darkness behind them. Crops rotted in their wake. Churches burned in their unholy fire, and no prayer could stop the hunger coming in waves.

The people begged for mercy; none came. Not until she arrived.

Sariyah.

She stepped from the heart of the Black Woods, alone and cloaked in shadows, as the city writhed in what would have been its final hour. The skies split above her. The monsters turned toward her with open jaws and dripping claws.

She did not raise a weapon; she raised her hand. Shadows formed from her fingertips. With a whisper the air turned to ash. The demons screamed, shadows peeling from their forms as they dissolved into nothing. The ground split, the sky howled. Every creature that hunted in the name of darkness was banished.

When the smoke cleared, she stood alone at the edge of a ruined temple. Her skin untouched, her eyes black as the void between the stars. Her dark hair flowing as if blown by wind that wasn't there.

The people bowed to her and wept in gratitude, she only smiled.

"I have delivered you from this evil," she said. "And I offer my protection to this city. I will keep the darkness that stirs at bay, but all things have a price."

She would sit on the Obsidian Throne in the Black Spire Castle and an offering would be made. Every hundred years, on the blood moon, one man would be given to her. He would be hers, body and soul for all eternity.

The people, desperate and grateful agreed. The first offering came willingly, seeing it as an honor. A war orphan who believed her to be a goddess. He kissed her hand before the gates closed behind them. They heard his screams for three days.

The second offering tried to run. The city guards dragged him to her feet.

The third was a priest who believed he could pray her away. He could not.

And so, the centuries passed. Celestial Falls rebuilt, not with stone, but with blood and sacrifice. The monsters never returned; the crops never failed. The city grew proud, prosperous, and untouched.

All she asked was obedience, all she took was one man every hundred years. No one spoke of what she did with them. Until the tenth offering refused and the fire she once saved them from began to rise again.

"Ember, wait up." Bastion yelled from across the street as I exited the corner store. I turned to see him waiving me down. My heart fluttered at his smile. Bastion was the neighborhood hero ever since he returned from training in the military. The perfect example of the boy next door, tall, strong, light brown hair with blue eyes, and a jawline that made every girl blush when he looked at them.

I stopped, waiting for him to catch up. He walked up throwing his arm around my shoulders casually. Bastion had been my best friend for as long as I could remember but since he returned things seemed to have taken a turn.

"Are you going to the festival with anyone?" He asked.

The Festival of the Offering was a tradition going back a thousand years. One we celebrate every hundred years on the same night of the Blood Moon. This year the festival just happens to land on my birthday. Not that anyone would care, the festival was the biggest event anyone in the town of Celestial Falls would ever experience. A forgettable girl's twenty-first birthday would never come close.

"Who says I am going?" I asked him.

"You have to go, Em. It only happens every hundred years. We are so lucky to get to experience it. They are already setting up in the town. There are tents and booths setup. The food is going to be so good. Plus," He smirked. "it would be a perfect way to celebrate your birthday! You didn't think I forgot, did you?"

To be honest, I did think he forgot. I smiled my cheeks heating up. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday. The festival was going to be extravagant. There would be no expense spared and I had always wanted to get a look at her.

Sariyah. The name was like a whisper one the wind in our town. One spoken for centuries. She had become a legend at this point, one that seemed too fantastical to be true. She only ever leaves the castle and her Obsidian Throne for the offering. I couldn't explain why but I needed to see her for myself.

"Ok. I guess I could make an appearance, for you." I smiled at him as he grabbed the bags from my hands and began walking me home.

The Festival began just before sundown. Bastion met me outside my house so that we could walk together.

"Happy Birthday." He said as he handed me a bunch of wild flowers in all colors. He took a purple one out, my favorite color, and slipped it behind my ear. "There, you need a little color in your life, all you wear is black."

We walked down the cobblestone pathways to the festival lands. The music was blaring and the dancers and fire-eaters were mezmerizing. There was a massive bonfire right in the middle. We walked down the paths of vendors, the scent of all the greatest foods wafting past us making me delirious with hunger. Bastion grabbed my hand pulling my attention away from the food.

"I want to tell you something, I have been wanting to say it for a while now Em." His bright blue eyes piercing my soul. He opened his mouth to continue when the slecting bell rang. One note, long, low and cold enough to cut bone. The crowd of people rushed to the stage where the High Priest of the Veyl stood in his long crimson robes of velvet.

"It's happening." Bastion said beside me, his jaw locked. He hadn't let go of my hand. I could feel the tension vibrating beneath his skin, like his body was already preparing to fight something we couldn't see yet.

The townspeople gathered near the stage, faces pale, under the Blood Moon. Mothers gripped their sons. Girls whispered prayers not to be chosen to weep this year. I didnt pray. Not because I didn't believe, but because if the gods had been watching Celestial Falls, they were cruel.

The Priest spoke and his voice echoed across the crowd. "Celestial Falls," He addressed the crowd. "this year we are proud to offer the pride of our town as consort for the goddess. Bastion Thorne, in three days time Sariyah will come to claim you as her payment. We have faith you will make us all proud!"

The world started to spin and everything went dark.

I awoke to a local healer splashing water on my face. There were people everywhere. Some were looking at me many were crowding around Bastion offering congratulations, or condolences, depending on how they saw the offering. Bastion, however only focused on me. As I came to the people began to clear away until it was just Bastion and I again.

"Tell me I was dreaming. Tell me they didn't say your name." I begged. He just frowned and at me as if he felt bad for me. How could he feel sorry for me when his name had just been called as the offering.

"You don't have to go," I said desperately. "you could run. We could run. I would help hide you. We could go somewhere no one could ever find us."

He tilted his head and frowned, his blue eyes darkening. "Em, you know there is nowhere we could go that they wouldn't find us." He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my forehead before turning to leave, shoulders slumped, looking more defeated than I had ever seen him.

They say no one ever hears her arrive, but I did. I heard the hush of the wind change, the way the shadows twisted unnaturally along the stone path.

I kept my eyes on the road where the procession always came. No horses, no carriages, just shadows.

And then she came. Sariyah. Cloaked in starlight and silk. Shadows clung to her following her like a cape. Her face was ageless and beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. Her eyes were empty, black as ink, and her mouth curved into a smile that had a thousand screams.

"The tenth offering," she said, her voice laced with honey and leather. "I have come for him."

Bastion stepped forward before I could grab him. "You will not have me."

The world went silent. Even the flames of the torches stilled.

"You would deny me?" she questioned, tilting her head.

"I love Ember and I will not leave her." He said. "I choose her, not you."

I should have felt relief, I should have clung to him. But all I felt was dread. Sariyah didn't scream, she didn't argue. She only smiled wider.

"Then I suppose I must take you, willing or not." I didn't see her move. I only felt the way the world shifted, as if a door closed that never should have been opened.

Bastion vanished in a swirl of wind and shadow. In the silence he left behind a new shadow stepped out of the dark. He looked at me with silver eyes that burned like molten metal, his brown skin shimmering in the moonlight.

"Well," the stranger said. "That was dramatic."

The moment Bastion vanished, I felt something in me crack. Not snap, not shatter. Just... crack. A fine, jagged fault through the center of everything I had ever let myself believe was safe. A fault that felt ready to errupt at any moment.

One breathe, he was at my side, defiant, trembling, mine. The next he was gone. Swallowed by her shadows.

Sariyah didn't gloat. She didn't grin or whisper threats as she vanished into the mist. She just looked at me with those blank eyes like she had left a mark on my soul and didn't need to say a word to make it permanent.

Then she disappeared. In the echo of that silence I was left standing in the square, surrounded by stunned faces and unspoken horror, clutching a hollow in my chest where Bastion used to be.

My knees buckled, but I didnt fall. I couldn't, not in front of them. The priests dispersed quickly after the offering. Cowards in crimson robes, whispering prayers to the dark queen as if their hands weren't soaked in blood. No one looked at me. No one dared. I was the girl left behind. The one who couldn't save him.

I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could, trying to will this moment to be an awful dream. The next time I opened them I was no longer alone. A shadow stepped forward from the edge of the courtyard, boots silent on the stone. The torches flared, flickered, and then died. One by one.

He came out fo the dark like he belonged to it. His hair was ink black and cropped short to his scalp. His eyes glinting like polished steel. His coat was long black leather, fastened with obsidian clasps that pulsed with a sick kind of magic.

His presence was... wrong. Not like Sariyah's. Hers was cold and ancient seeming inevitable. His felt like a trap. One that was drawing me closer with every heartbeat.

"You really thought you could defy her and live?' His low voice purred. "Cute."

"Who the hell are you?" I asked my voice raw and barely able to sound more than a whisper.

He gave a mocking bow. "Orion St.James, at your service."

I looked past him, the entire square was empty now except for the ashes she left behind in the shape of sigils on the ground.

"I didn't ask for company." I snapped.

"Good, I'm not offering it."

I turned my back on him, but he didn't leave. He let the silence stretch like something sharp between us.

"So you must be Ember Morrigan the girl bastion was willing to risk it all for? That worked out well for him didn't it?"

I didn't answer.

"You know, She will break him first. Mentally and physically. Then once he is completely broken, she will devour him."

"You dont know him," I snapped. "He will fight."

"Oh, I hope he does. It will be more entertaining that way."

I whirled back around, fire boiling in my stomach, rising into my throat. "Why are you here?"

He took a slow step toward me, head tilted like he was studying something behind my eyes. "Because I felt the ripple. Something cracked when she took him and youwere at the center of it."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fire you are trying to swallow." He said. "The kind that doesn't belog to mortals. Not really."

"I'm not-" I stopped, because something was rising. Something wrong.

The sigils Sariyah had made were left on the ground, drawn in ash. I stepped back into one without thinking. The wind shifted. A strange pressure wrapped around my ribs like a second heartbeat pulsing under my skin.

"Don't go in the-" Orion started, but it was too late. My foot crossed the line of the sigil. A sharp heat lanced through my body. I gasped, falling to my knees. The ground blazed with light, white and violet, and it burned.

Orion lunged forward, trying to pull me out. His hand closed around my wrist. The fire inside me exploded. There was no sound, just light and heat and shadow surging together in a violent dance. The sigil ignited. Runes etched in stone flared beneath us, and the energy between us cracked like thunder.

A tether of gold and black wound together, fire and shadow, latching from my chest to his. I screamed, he did too.

Then everything wnet still. The runes were gone. The sigil burned out. I collapsed into the ash, panting, my fingers scorched with glowing threads.

Orion staggered back, staring at his hand. "You idiot. Do you have any idea what you just did?"

"I didn't do anything." I coughed, the taste of ion in my mouth. "What- what was that?"

He looked at me as if I had just set the world on fire. "Binding magic. Ancient. Blood-forged and unbreakable. You and I just got tethered."

My heat stopped, but I could feel a steady beating. I knew instantly it wasn't my own. I could feel his heart beating. Not hear it, but feel it, like it lived inside of me now.

"Do you know what happens when a shadow-marked creature like me gets bound to a flame-born girl who doesn't know what the hell she is? Chaos. Lots of it."

I shook my head fear rising. "I don't have magic. I'm not-"

He stepped closer, eyes narrowed. "You have no idea what you have done. If you think you escaped the monster, you are wrong. You just bound yourself to one."