The first thing I knew was the cold.
It was a deep, wet cold that seeped through my thin t-shirt and jeans, sinking right into my bones. The tearing sensation of the hallway pulling apart was gone, replaced by the hard, unyielding reality of a stone floor beneath my cheek. The air smelled wrong. It was thick with the scent of damp earth, old metal, and something else, something coppery and sour that my brain didn't want to name. Blood.
I pushed myself up, my muscles screaming in protest. My head throbbed with a dull, heavy ache. Hooded figures stood in a silent circle around me. I couldn't see their faces, just dark voids where they should have been. A single torch sputtered in a wall sconce, its weak light making the shadows around us twist and dance like living things. This wasn't my high school. This wasn't anywhere I knew.
A voice slid out from the deepest shadow. It was a dry, rustling sound, like dead leaves skittering across pavement. "He is here," the voice said. "The other has been delivered to the light. This one belongs to us."
My mind snagged on the words. The other.
Another figure, shorter and broader, stepped forward. His voice was a harsh rasp. "He looks weak. Frail. Are you sure he is the one?"
The dry voice seemed to smile, a sound that held no warmth at all. "The brightest light casts the darkest shadow. His potential is irrelevant. His purpose is all that matters. His training begins now. Let's see if he can survive the forging."
I finally found my own voice, but it came out as a weak croak. "Where am I? What is this? What happened to Lucas?"
The name hung in the damp air. The figures stilled. The dry voice focused on me, and I felt a pressure that was more than just sound. "You remember the other's name. Good. That will be useful fuel for you." The voice lost its conversational tone, becoming as hard and cold as the floor. "You are in your new home. You were summoned, just as he was. He was chosen to be a symbol, a hero to fight a great war in the sunlit world. You," the voice paused, letting the weight of the next words crush me, "were chosen to be his shadow. The Hero fights the war in the light. We win it in the dark. Your name, your past, they are gone. Here, you are nothing but a tool to be sharpened."
Before I could process the insanity of it all, two of the hooded figures grabbed my arms. Their grip was like iron. They dragged me from the chamber, down a narrow, dark corridor. The stone walls were slick with moisture. My feet stumbled on the uneven floor. They shoved me through a heavy wooden door and I fell to my knees in a small, square room. A cell. The door slammed shut behind me with a deafening boom, and the sound of a heavy bolt sliding into place echoed in the sudden darkness.
I was alone. Utterly alone. I crawled across the floor until my hands touched a wall, then followed it until I found a corner. I slumped into it, pulling my knees to my chest. There was no window. No light except for a faint sliver that crept under the door. A thin, scratchy blanket lay in another corner. That was it. This was my new world. A stone box.
Hours passed. Or maybe it was minutes. Time had lost its meaning. My mind reeled, trying to make sense of the words. Summoned. Hero. Shadow. It sounded like one of those fantasy novels Lucas used to read. But the cold floor was real. The smell of blood was real.
The sound of the bolt sliding back made me flinch. The door creaked open. An old woman stood there, her face a roadmap of wrinkles. She held a wooden bowl of thin, watery stew and a cup of water. She didn't speak, just set them on the floor inside the cell. Her eyes, however, were full of a deep, sorrowful pity. As she turned to leave, she hesitated. Her hand trembled as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, smooth black stone.
She scurried back, placed it in my hand, and pressed my fingers closed around it. She leaned in, her voice a barely audible whisper. "A tear," she breathed. "Just one. On the stone. Think of who you miss." Then she was gone, the door bolting shut once more.
I stared at the stone in my hand. It felt strangely warm. Hesitantly, I thought of my mom, of my dad, of my boring, peaceful life. A single, hot tear escaped my eye and fell onto the stone's surface.
It didn't glow. It didn't hum. Instead, the stone seemed to dissolve into my hand, and an image bloomed in my mind, as clear and vivid as if I were standing there.
It was a grand hall, vast and golden. Crimson banners bearing the crest of a roaring lion hung from the high, vaulted ceilings. Hundreds of people in fine silks and gleaming armor filled the hall, their faces turned towards a raised dais. And on that dais stood Lucas.
He wasn't in his usual jeans and hoodie. He wore shining silver armor that seemed to glow with an inner light. At his side, a beautiful girl with hair the color of fire—Princess Lilly, my mind supplied—smiled at him with open adoration. On his other side stood another girl, this one with eyes like a winter sky and an aura of cool elegance. Aurora. They looked just as they had in the school hallway, but more. Brighter. More real.
An old king with a golden crown placed a magnificent, jewel-encrusted sword in Lucas's hands. The crowd roared its approval, a sound like thunder. "Our Hero!" they shouted. "Savior of Aethelgard!"
The contrast was a physical blow. Lucas stood in a river of light and adoration, accepting a legendary sword. I sat in a cold, dark cell, holding a bowl of watery gruel. He was surrounded by royalty and beauty. I had spoken to a terrified old woman. He was a Hero. I was a shadow. A tool.
I didn't feel jealousy. It was something deeper and colder. It was the raw, brutal unfairness of the universe laid bare. We were both just 18-year-old kids from the same school. What had he done to deserve the light? What had I done to deserve the dark? The answer was nothing. It was just a coin flip. And my side had come up black.
The image in my mind faded, leaving me back in the suffocating darkness of my cell. The warmth from the stone was gone. The cold felt deeper now, more permanent.
The sound of the bolt echoed again. I looked up, my heart pounding. A tall silhouette filled the doorway. It was the man with the dry, rustling voice. The Curator.
He stared down at me, a predator observing its prey.
"Your forging begins at dawn," he said, his voice flat and final. "Most initiates do not survive the first week."
He took a step into the cell, his shadow falling over me, extinguishing the last sliver of light from the hall.
"We will see if you are worthy of being a shadow, or just another corpse to feed the hounds."