Ch. 40

“The Clever Edge”

The memory wants to fade like the other. My skin still tingles from the thought of his hands, his lips… the warmth that ignited at his touch. I clench my fists, trying to push the sensation away, to bury it under the cold edge of rationality. But is he already here, a wisp of smug laughter tickling my thoughts.

Oh, this just got much more enjoyable, Zanir's voice rumbles, a sound I can’t ignore. I knew you’d remember eventually… and now I get to know exactly how I made you feel.

My face flushes as I spin around, but his shadow remains, now curling at my feet close, but not too close. With a growl, I turn on my heels, my thoughts a swirl of denial and confusion. I start marching away, quick and deliberate, as though I can outpace the pounding in my chest and his stupid voice. I can feel him laughing, sensing his amusement at every step.

You know you can’t run from me, Mihaela, his voice teases, smooth and utterly annoying. At least not from my voice.

I clench my teeth, then a throw misguided smirk over my shoulder. Right. How unfortunate for me, I say, my words would cut if they could. It is like you’re everywhere so, absolutely agonizingly so.

His shadow, the rebel, doesn’t let me go. It winds up my leg, sliding over my shoulder as if claiming something, a phantom touch that seems to mock my attempts to leave. My mind flashes back to the faint marks of teeth probably still on me, a reminder that everything seems to want a piece of me. The shadow brushes my face, gentle, but completely unwelcomed now.

Stop that, I groan, swatting at the shadow as it moves past me again.

Or what? he taunts, his voice rougher now.

Excuse me? I feel my head tilt, as though he is coaxing me to look back, even though he isn’t truly here, in the void, that is my mind.

The shadow slips beneath my hair, lifting it just enough to fall in my face. I narrow my eyes, but the playful darkness only pulls at something deeper within me, something raw. The instinct to chase flickers, a thrill sharpening in my chest, and with it, the sky begins to change. Light fractures through the distance clouds, casting strange grays across the ground as the clouds give away.

Is Kiza your beast? The sound of the beast’s name from his lips jolts something loose, deep, buried, under layers of self-protection. My pulse quickens, and a hint of fear, cold and ungraspable, cuts through me like a pick through ice. My jaw tightens, but my hands betray me, trembling with a warning I keep ignoring. I try to steady them, clenching them tighter, forcing control over the current of cold coursing through me. But it is then that shadow slips past my guard, just beyond my reach, taunting me as I swipe at it. It coils like smoke between my fingers, impossible to hold.

In that momentary distraction, the words escape without my guard up. Kiza has always been there, laying dormant until called upon. But Kiza rages when my power shift — when something strikes me deep enough to wake it… My words sound more certain than I feel. There is so much about my past that remains a blur, fragments I have never been able to grasp… like this damn shadow.

So, he’s… you, then? Zanir presses, his shadows swirling around me with as much intrigue. Not two beings, but one?

Kiza says we’re inseparable. I mumble, voice barely steady. Like two sides of the same dangerous coin.

In response, the shadow twists with a playful flick, brushing against my neck, filling my senses with mint. I lash out, my hands coming away empty again as the tendrils of shadow slip away.

I let my words hang, their weight heavy in this voided space, but I don’t give him time to dig deeper. If he can slip around my guard, then I can twist the spotlight back on him just as easily.

Why do you smell like mint? I say, watching his shadow flicker at the corners of my vision. I tilt my head, pretending at causal curiosity, though I am as sharp as ever, waiting for him to answer. You never did say, back before… well, before our little interruption. I cross my arms, waiting to see what he gives away, as his shadow twirls around me.

Reminds me of my mother. She was skilled in healing and used to carry mint with her everywhere. Zanir voice softens as he speaks of his mother, a trace of an admiration woven into each word. My chest grips, and for a fleeting second, a pang of jealousy pulses within me. I push it away just as quickly, a reflex that is becoming second nature.

But I can’t ignore the memory his words bring up. The port — the first time I saw him. Beside him, there was a woman, tall, pale with flowing golden hair, an image strikingly different from Zanir’s sun-worn tan and dark mahogany hair. She must have been his mother, the healer he admired. How odd, this contrast between them, like day and night, yet bound by something deeper.

So, I say, pushing myself toward the shadow with renewed force. At least mint smells good. She could have been partial to garlic or — skys forbid — rafflesias.

A genuine laugh escapes him, his shadow slipping through my fingers as if daring me to catch it. Thankfully, no, he chuckles. I never could stand garlic.

I launch for the shadow with a quick step, but it dances around me, slipping away with ease. I pause, considering. So.. is hating garlic a vampire thing?

He lets out a laugh, a rich sound. No, it is more of a personal preference, so don’t get any clever ideas.

My thoughts flicker, moving faster than I can track. I remember him mentioning something about being turned more than two hundred years ago. But when I first saw him, he wasn’t a vampire, even mortal then, and yet… able to bend shadows to his will. How much of him is still hidden from me?

His voice returns to me… and I keep forgetting that he senses everything, annoyingly so. My shadows have always been a part of me, he says, softer. Like your Kiza, I suppose. They made me feel different — set apart from others. They weren’t something I could control, at least not fully, but they responded to my will if I didn’t try to bend them to it.

The truth of his words lingers, and I feel a twinge of something I don’t want to name — a resonance, maybe, a shared understanding of what it means to hold darkness close. I glance down at my hands, thinking of Kiza. This wild, fierce part of me is there, pulsing beneath my skin, awakened by every shift of power or flare of emotion. Something I can influence but never fully rein in.

Zanir’s shadow curls around me again, a whisper of a touch. Just like Kiza, he says, A force that is yours but not yours to control.

I look up as if I could see him, but it is his… the shadow that greets me. So we’re both… more complicated than we appear, I guess.

The shadow twirls lazily in the air behind my head, teasing at the tip of my hair, lifting a few strands. I spin, but it darts away, wrapping around my face for a split second, leaving only a brief warmth against my skin as it slips past.

Little bat, always hunting. Always chasing… His voice whispers through my thoughts.

I have been told I have a pretty active brain, I say dryly, tapping a finger to my temple. Doesn’t help to have extra voices up here, either. I spin again, but the shadow flits around my ankles, just out of reach, skimming like a persistent breeze I can’t catch.

An active brain is a clever one, he says, curling through my thoughts.

I pause, mulling over his words. Clever… I had heard that before — too many times to count, really. Mother’s voice rises, cool and distant in my memory. She would always insist intelligence was nothing without control, that cleverness could as easily become disobedient if I wasn’t careful. Clever meant cunning. Clever meant questions. Clever meant knowing too much. Cleverness, she had taught me, came with a cost — one that I played for many times.

Although yours is also a mean one. Zanir’s voice breaks through, yanking me back to the present. There is that unmistakable edge of mischief in his tone again.

I let out a low, exasperated sigh. Oh, you think I am mean, do you? Good.

Hmm. His tone is teasing and fluid. More like… tastefully ruthless. He laughs, and his shadow moves with the sound, circling around me in lazy spirals. But that only makes you clever, doesn’t it?

Selective ruthlessness is just practical, I counter, narrowing my eyes. Better to keep a sharp edge. I say, letting my eyes follow the shadow as it dips and weaves, my hand twitching to reach for it.

A clever one sees both sides of a blade, he replies, and knows how to wield it.

My hand hovers mid-air, a voice clear and focused. So, a clever mind just… learns?

His shadow pauses, slipping just outreach of my fingers. More, he says slowly, they just accept what is there. Knowing they don’t have to master whatever is… only learn to move with it.

The words linger, which isn’t hard in this white void, weaving around me like his shadow. His view on power, on cleverness, is so different from Mother’s — she drilled into me that anything worth holding had to be conquered, controlled, made to bend. There was always a cost, some danger to beware of. But Zanir is suggesting a kind of strength that doesn’t come from breaking things to my will but from finding the rhythm of what already exists.

It is… disorienting. And I wonder how different I might be if I learn about the world, and myself differently.

Then his voice, cuts through me, tinged with that quiet amusement. Seems we have company. His shadow slowly fades as if smoke is being blown away in the breeze.

Oh, wait, so you get to just leave whenever you want? I ask, arching a brow. What happened to me dragging you in here?

Little bat, your mind rages, but your body sleeps peacefully. Your face scrunches a lot. Wonder what you're thinking? His laugh pulls at my chest.

Teach me that trick, and I bet it’ll stop scrunching. I say, crossing my arms, as if that makes some sort of defiant notion here.

Patience, Mihaela, plus I like to make a good first impression. Don’t want to ruin that. I am quite fetching visually, he replies, his tone almost a caress against my thoughts. But keeping out other voices you don’t want? That I might teach you. He falls quiet for a moment, before leaving me with a whisper, playful and unmistakably his. Of course, I would also rather you not grow too fond of any voices but mine.

So you’re a merchant sailor’s son, a philosopher, and an ass, huh? My eyes roll as a scowl tightens my face, even as my pulse unwillingly quickens. He is far too pleased with himself — and I hate how effortlessly he sneaks under my skin, each word settling like something that might never truly leave.

Little bat, you remembered, but let’s not forget I am a lot of things… His voice becomes quieter. Handsome, tall, smart… Until his voice is gone, slipping away into the stillness.

The void around me feels sharper somehow, more serious. A deep, silent emptiness spreads, and even the distant sound of clouds fades into nothing. No flashes of a mischievous shadow. Just this… silence.

I feel my chest squeeze against my lungs. Each breath grows heavier, as if the air itself had filled with heavy mist, pressing in on all sides. An invisible weight sits over me, and I am not sure if my pulse is racing or slowing down. The void shifts, moving closer around me, smothering me. I swallow, trying to shake the sensation, but it claws at me. Aline with only my own thoughts — a lovely thing, really. Exactly how I love to spend my time.

I let out a shaky laugh, but it doesn’t fill the quiet. Somehow, though, it makes the emptiness grow. Am I really missing the sound of his voice? The dark flicker of his shadow? Of all the ridiculous things I could seek out… maybe I have fully lost it.

“Great,” I whisper to myself, trying to mask the shiver slipping through me, “just me and my brilliantly chaotic mind.” I glance around, every direction stretching into blinding white. It is too bright, too stark. Too silent. The mind I know is loud and so very dark.

I brace my palms against the void’s ground, forcing a breath. “Hey! If you’re still lurking because I know you are, just wait till I wake up. This game isn’t over.” I yell, my voice just keeps going in the void.

Nothing answers.

I force a laugh. “Yep. I have definitely lost it. I am not out of my mind… I am in it.”