Ferius and Rosie were still engrossed in their card games when I got back to our campsite. Reichis was off hunting – or murdering, as he liked to call it. Seneira was gone.
‘Where is she?’ I asked the two Argosi.
Ferius looked up from her cards. ‘She ain’t here?’
She started to get up but Rosie put a hand on her shoulder. ‘The child sometimes prefers to be alone when the attacks come, as they inevitably do at night.’
‘Attacks?’ I asked. ‘What attacks?’
Rosie tilted her head as she looked up at me. ‘Do you not suffer symptoms from the shadowblack?’
I did of course, but once in a while, maybe every month or if I let myself get too angry – certainly not every night!
‘Leave her be,’ Rosie warned. ‘This is something she must endure alone.’
The Argosi made suffering in solitude sound so obvious, so noble, but I hated having the shadowblack. The pain and the horrible visions I would suddenly see before me … The last thing I wanted when I was affected was to be by myself.
‘Go on, kid,’ Ferius said, staring down Rosie before she could stop me. ‘Do what you think is best.’
I ran back to the campfire and traced Seneira’s steps, following them into a copse of straggly desert trees until I could hear her breathing in the shadows. ‘Seneira?’
‘Go away,’ she said, her voice rough, as though she’d been screaming for hours, though I would have heard her if she had.
‘I just want to help.’
‘How?’ she asked. ‘Can you make the episodes stop? Can you make the shadowblack go away? Can you make the markings stop hurting, even a little?’
I could make out her silhouette now, huddled by a tree. Very slowly I walked towards her. ‘I’ll go if you want, but you don’t need to suffer through this alone. Why don’t you come back to the fire where it’s warm?’
‘I don’t want the others to see it,’ she said.
‘See what?’
I was close enough now that when she turned to me I could see her face in the dim light of the moon. The shadowblack markings around her eyes were swirling, shifting as if they had come alive.
Despite all my good intentions, I very nearly backed away. I’d had the condition longer than Seneira, but even during my worst episodes I’d never felt the markings twisting and turning like that. Worse, I could see that hers had grown, become a fraction longer, winding their way even further around her right eye. She’d told us that the shadowblack had first appeared a month ago, and yet it was progressing so much faster on her than on me.
‘It hurts, Kellen,’ she said. ‘Why does it hurt so much?’
I swallowed my discomfort and knelt down next to her. She was holding a small oval object attached to a thin silver chain between her hands. ‘Is that a charm?’
She shook her head and handed it to me, pressing a small button on the top that made it pop open into two halves. I had to hold it up to the moonlight to see that it held a tiny painting of a young boy. His features had enough in common with Seneira’s that I guessed he must be her younger brother. ‘Tyne saved up every penny he had for a year to get that made,’ she said. ‘He’ll have turned seven since I’ve been gone. I’d promised him that for his birthday this year I’d make him one of me, so we could … It doesn’t matter now.’
I gave her the locket and sat down beside her. ‘How long does the pain last?’
She slid the chain back over her head. ‘It’s different each time. Sometimes just a few seconds, other times for hours.’
‘A stabbing pain?’ I asked. ‘Like something burning inside your eye.’
She nodded, but then looked unsure. ‘It’s … It’s hard to describe. It feels like someone’s dripping acid on my skin, but it’s what I feel inside that hurts the most.’
‘The visions?’ The worst part for me was the nightmarish images that came to me whenever the episodes took over – the way the whole world and everyone in it turned ugly. Cruel. It was as if all I could see was the very worst in people.
‘I hear voices,’ Seneira said. ‘They say these awful things to me, Kellen. I can hear them laughing at me, taunting me, telling me they can make me do anything they want. It’s like … It’s like …’
‘Like the demon wants you to know that one day it’s going to take control of you?’
She nodded and looked at me as though she was waiting for me to say something that would make it better. When I didn’t, she started to cry.
Not knowing what else to do, I took her hand. ‘It’s going to be—’
‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t lie to me.’ She looked past the trees to where the campfire glimmered in the distance, a tiny speck of light in the dark. ‘The Argosi, they act like everything is just … the way it is, like I need to make peace with whatever is happening to me. I can’t. I can’t pretend it’s okay when I can feel in my soul that it’s not. Whatever this is, I need to face it head on.’
There was a determination in Seneira that I couldn’t help but admire. I leaned back against the tree, still holding her hand in mine. ‘The shadowblack is awful,’ I admitted. ‘When the episodes come … it’s pretty much the worst thing in the world. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’
‘What do you do when the attacks come?’
I shrugged. ‘Do my best to ignore the visions and wait for the pain to pass.’
She opened her mouth to speak, then suddenly doubled over as though someone had punched her in the stomach. ‘Oh gods of sand and sky, it’s back again! Make it stop!’
‘Seneira,’ I said, trying to make my voice as soothing as I could, ‘just look at me, all right? Look at me.’
She looked up and I watched in horror as the markings began moving again. The green in her eyes disappeared as they filled with black. ‘I hear them, Kellen. The things they’re saying to me … the laughing … Please, make them stop!’
‘Ignore them, all right? They aren’t real. Try to think about good things. Think about your brother, about all the people you love or the places you enjoy the most.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and I could almost hear her teeth grinding. Soft moans escaped her lips, becoming names. ‘Tyne … Father … Revian … the Academy …’
She repeated the names over and over again, squeezing my hand so hard I could feel the bones pushing together, her nails biting into the flesh of my palm. I forced myself not to let go. ‘I’m here,’ I said, which sounded particularly useless, but somehow it must have made a difference because after a few seconds Seneira looked up at me. The markings around her eyes had stopped moving and the irises were green once again.
‘Thank you … Kellen.’
The pain and the voices seemed to ease after another minute, then resumed again. It went on like that for an hour or so. Somewhere in there she asked, ‘Will you wait with me? Just a little longer?’
The way she spoke … it was as if all her strength was slowly sinking away beneath the onslaught of pain and confusion, her resolve being drowned out by the terrifying voices taunting her. I felt her stiffen again as another attack began, and I looked out at the desert to the east of us, hoping to see the first sliver of morning appear over the horizon, but finding only darkness. Dawn was still hours away.
‘I’ll wait with you,’ I said. ‘As long as it takes.’
Seneira fell asleep after a while and lay against me, shivering from the cold, so exhausted that I wasn’t able to rouse her to walk back to camp. I ended up carrying her, which wasn’t easy – she wasn’t especially heavy, but a lifetime of training to be a mage hadn’t exactly made me particularly strong either. I was grateful when Rosie saw us approaching and came to carry her the rest of the way.
‘Her skin is cold,’ the Argosi said, setting her down on a bedroll by the fire. ‘I take it the episode was somewhat pronounced?’
‘“Pronounced”?’ I repeated incredulously. ‘That’s what you call it? The shadowblack is torturing her!’
‘Rosie doesn’t mean to sound callous,’ Ferius said, kneeling down to examine Seneira. ‘She just can’t help it. The Path of Thorns and Roses isn’t big on sentiment.’
The other Argosi’s eyes narrowed. ‘I doubt her illness pays heed to sentimentality either. Or do you think bedtime stories and lullabies will ease the girl’s suffering?’
Ferius stroked the damp, matted hair from Seneira’s face. ‘Couldn’t hurt.’
‘The Red Scream was not swayed by your soft words or kind heart, sister. Those afflicted by the plague would have been better served by a clean death than by your futile efforts to comfort them.’
The firelight reflected ominously on the skin of Ferius’s cheeks as she locked eyes with the other Argosi. ‘This isn’t the Red Scream, Rosie, so just back off.’
The other woman showed no signs of being cowed. ‘You dishonour my charge’s courage with your coddling. If what she carries is some new form of magical plague, then we must prepare ourselves for the inevitable, and I fear you lack the –’
Reichis came padding out of the darkness. He sniffed at Seneira, then looked up at the two Argosi and hissed at them.
‘Reichis?’ I asked.
‘The girl’s only pretending to be asleep,’ he growled. ‘She’s terrified and these two are just making it worse.’
No one but me knew what he was saying, but Ferius caught my expression and soon figured it out. ‘Morning’s on its way. Best we all get some sleep and see where tomorrow takes us.’
Rosie nodded, conceding the point, but as she turned to move off she said, ‘An Argosi follows the winds wherever they lead, sister, but never forget that the way of thunder follows close behind.’
Reichis glared after her. ‘I am totally going to steal her stuff when she’s not looking.’
I glanced down at Seneira. Her eyes were still closed but I could see the tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks. I was trying to think of something comforting to say when Reichis surprised me by nestling himself up against her neck, sharing his warmth with her.
I’d never known Reichis to be protective of another human being … well, any human being, really, since most of the time he wasn’t all that concerned with protecting me. But I didn’t resent his instinct – if anything, I shared it. Seneira wasn’t a mage or even one of my people, and yet the shadowblack was hurting her even more than it did me.
Something wasn’t right. Reichis could sense it, and, even though he pretended not to like her, he felt a compulsion to guard her.
I guess I felt the same way.
Seneira’s eyes remained closed, but her hand reached up and gently stroked his fur.
‘Just so we’re clear, Kellen,’ the squirrel cat said as he closed his eyes, ‘you ever try petting me and I’ll bite your hand off.’