chapter 14
658 Words
She woke to firelight.
Not the gentle kind.
The hungry kind.
Her hands were bound at the wrists with rope stained by too many desperate fingers. Rudy lay nearby, tied, gagged, trembling like a leaf in a storm.
The Shepherd’s Wolves patrolled the courtyard like clockwork toys—perfect strides, perfect posture, empty souls.
The Shepherd himself stood over the blood trough, staring into it like it was a mirror.
“It’s almost time,” he murmured without looking back.
“Your shadow’s half grows restless. Your twin-self burrows upward. Soon, the earth will split, and the child of fire will be whole again.”
“You call that thing a child?” she rasped.
He turned slowly.
His eyes glowed.
“I call it everything you could have been.”
She spat blood at his boots.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said.
Before he could answer, a tremor rolled through the ground—deep, resonant, a heartbeat from hell itself.
The Shepherd grinned.
“He hears us.”
The Wolves began chanting—low, guttural, rhythmic.
The blood in the trough bubbled, rising like something was pushing up from beneath.
She twisted her hands, working the rope against a loose shard of stone.
Dig.
Twist.
Bleed.
Twist.
Her wrists burned.
Her skin tore.
The rope began to fray.
The Shepherd raised his arms. “Tonight, the circle closes—”
A scream ripped through the air—
A scream from beneath the courtyard.
Rudy cried behind his gag.
The ground cracked.
A second shadow rose.
Not smoke.
Not spirit.
A shape of raw hunger—twisted, furious, unfinished.
The other half.
Her brother’s darker mirror.
The Shepherd laughed like a madman. “Yes. YES. The lost twin rises!”
The Wolves bowed.
She tore free of the rope.
The Shepherd turned toward her—
too late.
She grabbed the shard of stone and slammed it across his jaw.
He stumbled—just a step, but enough.
His staff slipped.
The blood trough dimmed.
The Wolves broke formation, snarling like feral beasts, sprinting toward her.
She dove for her revolver—
snatched it—
and fired into the first Wolf’s skull.
It staggered—
but her new gun wasn’t ordinary iron.
The Wolf collapsed and stayed down.
Rudy screamed through his gag: “DO—THAT—AGAIN!”
She shot another.
Blood sprayed the stones.
The Shepherd raised his staff, ready to rip her shadow apart—
But he wasn’t the only danger anymore.
The second shadow tore free of the earth—
Tall as a man, thin as a needle, twisted like burned branches.
Her brother’s rage.
The Shepherd beamed.
She broke for Rudy, slicing his gag, cutting his bonds.
“Run!” she barked.
“To where?!” he screeched.
“Anywhere I ain’t!”
He scrambled like a man who’d never prayed but was suddenly willing to try.
The ground cracked deeper.
Light spilled up from the fissure—wrong light, sick light.
The two shadows—the one bound to her and the one born from the Shepherd’s ritual—locked eyes.
Silent.
Trembling.
Recognizing.
The Shepherd lifted his hands, ecstatic.
“REUNITE!”
She fired at him—
He blocked the bullet with his bare hand.
Fire flared from his palm.
The bullet dropped, melted.
“You cannot kill a prophet,” he hissed.
She smiled grimly.
“Good thing I ain’t tryin’.”
She aimed at the chains carved into the glowing floor sigils—the ones holding her shadow.
The gun roared.
The sigils shattered.
Her shadow collapsed to the stone, heaving like a wounded beast.
Free.,,
The Shepherd’s smile died.
“No,” he whispered.
“No—NO!”
Her shadow rose—slow, furious, trembling—
and faced the Shepherd for the first time without chains.
His eyes widened.
“…child?” he whispered.
The shadow lunged.
The Shepherd screamed.
The courtyard exploded into madness.
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