The Shadow

Chapter 40

 Kai's eyes widened. He forced himself to huff a laugh, despite the doom that rolled through him. "You must be crazy. I came here to kill you, not save you. Besides, you don't seem to need saving."

Skade groaned in annoyance. "Me? No, the prophecy speaks of freeing my brothers and sisters trapped within Jehana. How exactly, I could not say. You possess more power than you know, of that much I have no doubt."

Kai considered. What was Jehana? The world of the Dark Ones? He had never heard of it.

"Adekin said that you had lured me here so that you could kill me," Kai said.

Skade snarled, darkness growing around him. "Ah, of course he did. That coward. He lied. Adekin lied, so that he might keep his green hills and dutiful minions. He would choose peace, and forsake those in Jehana."

"What about the wraith you sent after me?" Kai asked. "If I am to save your people, why would you try to kill me?"

The Dark One sighed. "I was simply keeping pests away from my army. My men tend to desert when their fellow soldiers die. It is tedious. I found your little party of scouts and realized that you were different. I threw the knife to test you—to see if you were Shadowborn. The Shadow of the prophecy would not fall to such an attack—your shadows repel light."

Kai scrunched his forehead. Skade talked as if he had been there—had personally thrown the knife of light. Did he control the wraiths, then? He grit his teeth. "You nearly killed my friend with your 'test.'"

Skade seemed to shrug, the darkness around his shoulders building for a moment, then dispersing. "And I am to blame? You possessed the power to stop my attack—you simply chose not to."

"I didn't—" Kai snapped, but stopped. He swallowed. Skade was right. He had failed Harper—had nearly let her die, for him. She had nearly died for him.

"Regardless," Skade continued, as if he were talking to an old friend, rather than a potential enemy. "You do seem to be him. The Chosen, that is."

Saif growled. "Again, what does that mean? To what prophecy do you refer"

"You are too young to know of it," Skade said. "And even if you are four thousand years old, the prophecy was told on Jehana, not your world. As for what it says...the prophecy promised that the gates of Jehana would be opened one day, which should be near impossible. Its doors have been closed for tens of thousands of years, shut by the Erog—creatures more powerful than the gods themselves—in a war that nearly decimated us Dark Ones, and turned our home into a pile of rubble."

Kai swallowed, steadying his breathing. Prophecy, gates, Jehana, Erog—what did it all mean? Just how large was the universe?

"According to the prophecy," Skade drawled, "the Chosen would be a human—the weakest of creatures. This special human would possess an unnatural power. The power of the Dark Ones. And most importantly, the Chosen would have a black heart to match his dark magic. Would be as evil as us on Jehana, as terrible as a devil."

Kai thought he might vomit. He backed up a step, unable to form words. He had been chosen...because of his black heart? No. It could not be. He had stopped, he had turned away from murder, he had—

He had killed hundreds. Had ruthlessly slaughtered men who failed to pay their dues, or looked at Kai's employers the wrong way, or fought with Saif. He had murdered them. So, so many.

Faces flashed past Kai's vision. A black haired male, eyes young and bright. A male who might have changed the world for the better, might have met a wonderful wife and had children and lived a long and happy life. Another face, this one older. Brown hair speckled with gray; a bushy mustache and pointed beard. Kind eyes. The next face looked to be little more than a boy, a mop of blond hair plastered against his sweat-covered forehead. Perhaps these men had done wrong—perhaps they had stolen, or even killed. But did that give Kai the right to kill them?