A SACRED TALE COLLECTION: THE WAY SHADOWS LIVE [PREVIEW]
Part 1: The Hollowed Shadow
Tab drew her hood up, covering her pectoral fins and scales with its thick, heavy fabric. Though the alleys she crept through were shrouded in shadow, she could not risk a passerby uncovering her true identity.
As an Olphin, she knew her place in this world, and it was not free to roam the streets, even in the desert city, Varaar—Eslura’s bottom-of-the-barrel place for no-good people.
She knew deep down that her kind wanted nothing more than peace. A reclusive race, the Olphins kept to Treenode, their swamp kingdom, farming their own land and leaving the rest of Eslura to go about its business. But the Olphins’ sudden change of sides in the recent War of Shadows had made them suspect and unwelcome…anywhere.
Tab paused before the end of the alley and turned back to ensure that she’d properly tied her pergonzia, Nupika, to her post near the community grazing pen. With her evening’s mission racing in her mind, she wouldn’t be surprised to have missed the vital step in securing her escape. Though the floppy-eared desert dwelling-kangaroo was unlikely to move from her grazing trough, she double-checked the rope and slipped down the alley to enter Varaar’s main plaza.
Vagabonds milled around in the yellow light of the moon, begging alms from the evening shoppers and restaurant patrons. Tab edged around them and avoided the merchants who craned their necks out of their booths to thrust forward whatever secondhand goods they had to offer. Had they known she was an Olphin, they might have paused their pitches to berate her.
Across the plaza, children rolled in sand mounds, their mothers screaming at them for dirtying their clothes. She passed a tavern and peered through its stained-glass window. Rhinos sloshed tankards of ale across tables covered with decks of playing cards. Scantily clad dancers paraded on the bar while humans and creatures alike tossed money and jeers at them. Tab might not have noticed the dancers had they not reminded her of the many hours her lover, Fawn, had spent in the profession. Stolen from her family at a young age, Fawn had been forced to perform a near similar “parade” at the Hollowed Shadow, a regular haunt for Tab, and where she met Fawn.
Had it not been for the Shadow, Tab might have never met Fawn. Had it not been for its owner, Burkhan, they might have lived a happy, carefree life and Fawn might have had skin free of bruises.
Tab remembered the last time she visited the Hollowed Shadow. She could not get the black, swollen ring around Fawn’s eye out of her mind. She also could not forget the words Fawn mouthed to her when she pulled her into a draped alcove, her grip tight on Tab’s shoulders. She had drawn Tab close, her lips touching Tab’s ear, and had spoken quickly through heavy sobbing. Tab tried to calm her, but a tall, orange lizard swept aside the curtains of the alcove. Before he yanked Fawn away, she had shoved a crumpled napkin in Tab’s hand.
At first, Tab had not understood what Fawn had told her, and the numbers written hastily on the napkin made no sense. But on her ride back to her campsite, the meaning of Fawn’s sobbing words had become clear.
Tab had halted Nupika so fast she nearly fell off her back and screamed into the desert void. She wept into her hands and prayed she was mistaken. Burkhan, the man who had stolen Fawn from her home, killed her family, and imprisoned her in his club, planned to wed her and strengthen his bloodline. He’d told her moments before Fawn had pulled Tab aside into the alcove.
Walking across the plaza, Tab gripped the hilt of her dagger beneath her cloak. She pretended it was Burkhan’s neck and clenched her hand as if to strangle it. That night, she would wait until Burkhan arrived at the club, slit his throat, and free the women of the Shadow.
Tab broke from the crowd and snuck down a narrow alley. On any other night, her heart would not have been pounding so loud in her ears and her legs would not have felt like wet noodles. She knew what to expect at the Hollowed Shadow—but tonight she would need all her wits and more to perform her rescue act.
Tab traversed the alley and emerged into an empty courtyard—a rare sight in the densely packed city—covered by the canopies strung between the buildings.
A small, rusted bench sat in the center of the cobbled yard, and beyond that, a bear leaned against the door of the Hollowed Shadow, an etching of a snake with swords for fangs on the brick above it. On the outside, it appeared nothing more than an abandoned building, its dark windows broken and covered with cobwebs.
The bear straightened as Tab approached. He stood over three heads taller than her, but Tab was not intimidated. Shaved into the fur on the bear’s arm was an upside-down naked pine tree, a sign that the Shadow was protected by the Khaylant gang, a protection racket for criminals. In the case of the Hollowed Shadow, it was by the Damaziko gang, run by none other than Burkhan.
Growing up in the streets of the canyon, Tab had learned a thing or two about the city’s five governing gangs. Admirable or not, they were ever-present in Varaar, lurking in the shadows and often on the rooftops.
Tab despised the gangs, but as long as she could pay her share at their establishments, they didn’t care that she was an Olphin.
As a precautionary measure, Tab returned her hand to her dagger’s hilt. Her gut churned with the possibility that the bear might know why she was coming to the Shadow that evening, but how could he? She swallowed the thought and looked him in the eyes. If she was going to save Fawn, she could not let this bear, or her own nerves, get in her way.
When she reached the door, the bear extended a massive, clawed paw to stop her. “A little late for someone so small to be out alone,” he said in a low growl. Tab could have let the feeble insult offend her, but she knew size didn’t matter in a fight between professionals.
“I have my reasons,” Tab replied. The bear held her gaze, evidently waiting for her to crumble beneath it. When she did not, he lowered his claw and opened the door. Tab slipped inside.
To her left, a staircase spiraled deep into the ground; to her right, a red door led to what she knew was a side corridor into the adjacent building where the dancers of the Shadow lived. She wouldn’t need to enter the quarters. Her partner was hard at work beneath her feet.
Unlike the blistering hot weather outside, the stone walls of the staircase around Tab kept the small space relatively cool. She descended the steps, grateful for her thick cloak.
She came off the last step, arrived at another door, and knocked twice. From the other side, she heard the muffled rhythmic beat of various string, drum, and pipe instrumentals. She clenched her fists, knowing that Fawn would be forced to dance to the music until she could move no more. The door cracked open, and the music swelled out.
A fox stood on his hind legs and studied her with his dark brown eyes. Like the bear upstairs, he too bore the tree sigil of the Khaylant on his forearm. For a moment, Tab thought she might have to explain herself to the animal, but the fox stepped back and opened the door for her.
“Welcome. Enjoy your stay.”
She wouldn’t.