Shadow Lives

Prologue

Celeste

There are parts of our history that we prefer to forget and ignore, parts we are not proud of, wars that did not need to be fought, or conflicts that should have been resolved long ago.

Every people have their own dark page in history, although those of the magicians are the darkest and we very much try to ignore them.

Magicians were never the strongest and largest people who ever lived; those were the Elves. Still, we do our best to forget that magicians murdered half of the elven population during the Green Nights.

Werewolves were once the fastest growing and largest people we had, and that too we seem to want to forget after plundering their lands until there was no food left.

Magicians portray themselves as a progressive and strong race when in fact we are only so due to our thirst for power.

All of this is relatively innocent if you know the real truth, the darkest page of our existence. We try to erase it en masse, forget about it, and forbid each other from talking about it. But if you dig very deeply, you come to the part of our history that we would most prefer to burn in hell.

The cheeaths.

Werewolves were not the only animal shape-shifters our world has known, and certainly not the strongest. Alongside the Elves, their good friends, stood the cheeaths in the ranks of powerful peoples. These shape-shifters, who could transform into large, swift, and bloodthirsty felines in an instant, were stronger than all magicians combined. Their magic came from the moon, their strength from nature. It would be easier if I were to say now that these beings were unfriendly and uncivilized, but they were not. They were a friendly, self-sufficient, clever, and well-organized people.

Lenor von Dira was the first in the line of the von Dira family who sought to make the magicians the strongest and most powerful people. The Elves were allies of the magicians, insofar as you could call it that. They tolerated each other, engaged in good trade, and even met regularly for coffee.

The cheeaths, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the humanoid magicians. Lona, the leader of the cheeaths, kept her people as far away as possible from the cities and villages. She had no trust in Lenor, and in hindsight, she had every right not to.

Lenor felt threatened by the cheeaths, found them repulsive, and did not understand them. Inhuman cats, he often called them, if the stories were to be believed. This hatred for each other continued like a softly flowing stream, until it turned into a waterfall. Rila von Dira, Lenor's eldest daughter, turned out to be in a relationship with Mikia, Lona's youngest son. For a long time, this remained secret, until the princess was found to be pregnant.

Lenor was furious when he discovered that his daughter was pregnant by a cheeath. He locked her in her room, and with an army, he marched to the cheeaths' territory. He accused Mikia of rape and demanded the death penalty for the 17-year-old. Although Lona was far from pleased with the news, she believed her son that it was not rape. She refused Lenor's demand, but this was not well received.

The magician departed, but not for long. He had Mikia kidnapped, castrated, and crucified in front of Rila's window. The young woman lost her sanity at the sight of her beloved lover. Some say she tore out her own hair, others that she could only scream, and there are even stories that she clawed a hole in the wall with her nails. She lost the baby and her life shortly thereafter.

Lona was determined to avenge her dead son. She attacked the magicians with her army and killed hundreds. Unlike Lenor, she still had some goodness in her heart. She returned home without killing all the magicians, leaving the women and children unharmed.

If she had known how this story would end, she undoubtedly would not have done so.

Lenor was not strong enough to attack Lona, and the night riders had their eyes on him. He devised a cunning plan. The Elves traded with both peoples, supplying food. Lenor had the food supplies intended for the cheeaths poisoned. The poison was not strong enough to kill the cheeaths but weakened them significantly.

When the people were severely weakened, Lenor invaded the area and spared no one. No woman, child, or man survived the attack. During the Night of Furs, he wiped out the entire cheeath population until nothing remained. He had the bodies skinned for their furs and proudly hung them on the castle walls. His triumph did not last long; the Night Riders killed him the next day, and his son inherited the throne.

After that day, no cheeath walked the earth, and the Elves never forgave the magicians. There are legends that tell of a day when a new Cheeath will rise to take revenge, but like any legend, I must see it before I believe it.

Although legends often turn out to be true more often than I care to admit. I stopped investigating legends years ago, but Alisha hasn't.

'I don't want to hear it,' I say as I make the seventh bed of the day. Alisha buzzes around me like a fly, continuing to chatter about the legend of a four-year-old human child.

'Yeah, right. It's exactly as the previous stories tell it. The girl has bright blue eyes and almost white hair,' she continues. I tuck the bottom sheet under the mattress and sigh deeply. This has been going on for days since her visit to Runcast.

'Many children have that,' I grumble as I tuck the other side of the sheet under the mattress.

'No, this was different. Her eyes looked almost like mine. And especially, it was said that her parents reported to the guards that their daughter went completely wild during the full moon. She reportedly had cat eyes and attacked her father.' This is the moment I've had enough. I stand up, turn around, and fold my arms.

'Alisha, do you really think this is true? A four-year-old girl, in Runcast, with two normal human parents attacked her father during the full moon with cat eyes? The people in Runcast are as magicless as a chicken. If that legend were even remotely true, she wouldn't be a human child of four and would have been missing for nine years already. Let it go,' are the last words I say about it today. I turn around again and continue making the bed.

'You'll see, it's true,' is the last thing I hear before I hear the click of Alisha's heels leaving the room.