“What is that?” I cried.
“I don’t know,” he answered, staring at his reflection. When it disappeared into the scar, he grabbed his chest in pain and at the same time, an odd sensation began in my chest, but as soon as it started, it stopped.
“What’s going on?” I jumped out of bed, taking hold of his arm as he staggered backward. He reached for the side of the bed and sat down.
“I don’t know,” he repeated, breathing heavily.
“I’ve got to get my mom!”
“No, I think I’ll be okay.”
“There’s no way I’m not telling her about this!” Flinging open the doors to our room, I ran up the stairs.
“Mom!” I cried, pounding on their doors. There was a shuffling noise and she answered the door sleepily, tying a robe over her skimpy negligee.
“Something’s wrong with Thayde!”
Tammer leapt out of bed, clad in silk boxers and flew after us down the stairs.
Thayde remained where I’d left him. Mom stood over him, checking his pulse and inspecting the mark on his chest.
“How long have you had this?” She asked, frowning and touching the mark.
“Ever since The Judgment.”
“I don’t remember it being this bad. Has it gotten worse?”
“Yes.”
“He’s having pains in his chest too.” I added, not about to let Thayde merely dismiss the problem. “That thing was crawling up his neck to his face. It looked like it was making its way to his brain!”
Thayde massaged his chest with his hand. “I feel fine now.”
“This is very concerning – I’ve never heard of anything like this before.” Mom sat down next to Thayde, shaking her head.
“I have,” Tammer stepped forward. “It’s something Limus is able to do. I never thought he’d do it to his own son!”
“What is it?” Mom asked.
“He calls it The Shadow. I’ve seen him use it before.”
“What happened to the person he used it on?” I asked, hoping that it wouldn’t involve the most obvious answer. I was wrong.
“He died an agonizingly slow death.”
Wonderful. Not.“What are we going to do?” I cried. “How did he do this? When?”
All of us were filled with questions and Tammer did his best to explain what little he knew. Limus always had an interest in the crueler powers and it was rumored he took it upon himself to learn about them at an early age, dabbling in it, as it were, and often inflicted his newly learned powers onto unwilling subjects.
Tammer recalled a time when he watched Limus cruelly shock a homeless man with his power and then inflict The Shadow. It slowly overtook his entire body while he screamed in agony. By the time it was over, the man was an unrecognizable corpse.
Limus learned to fine tune The Shadow so it would work much slower, sometimes taking months to complete its task. By the time he had mastered the particularly cruel power, Limus had learned several others.
“He most likely mingled it with his born power when he subjected Thayde to The Judgment,” Tammer continued. “I find it inconceivable that he would do it to Thayde.”
“How do we stop this?” I asked in absolute horror.
“I don’t know.”
I slumped next to Thayde taking his hand in mine. It sounded ridiculous but the reality was that it was very real, and if we didn’t find out how to get rid of it, Thayde would die.
“Why does this always happen to you?” I nudged him in the shoulder.
“Because he’s your protector,” Mom answered.
“What, so he has to take every punishment, every attack that would have been for me? That’s hardly fair!”
“No, it’s not fair, but it’s what’s happening right now.” Tammer fell into a chair near the end of the bed. “I’d say we have a few weeks before it finishes what it’s supposed to do.”
“A few weeks?” I gasped, looking at Thayde. He hadn’t moved. He was staring at the ground as if in a trance. I squeezed his hand and he looked at me.
“I’m going to have to find my father,” he said.
“No, there has to be another way,” I argued. “What if he kills you on the spot? Besides, there’s no way to find him. No one but Troen knows what happened to him.”
“I agree with Morgan,” Tammer continued. “If he is capable of doing this to you, he’s capable of doing anything. You two are interwoven now. You corded and each of you is starting to feel what the other is feeling. By the time The Shadow grows to its killing state, there’s a good chance that if Thayde dies, Morgan will too.” There was silence - complete silence and nobody moved.