Cara sat cross-legged on the gritty floor of her domed chamber, imagining the warm cluster of candles behind her was the sun. She slid her hand under her long shadow and tugged it, feeling the rubbery texture. Not sunlight quality, but it would do. She winched the shadow, slowly folded it over her hands, and began weaving it into a shawl.
With every stitch, she imagined the World Above, where time was defined not by the chime of the bell towers, but by a celestial ball of fire in the sky. What would it be like to live in that world? To taste a ray of sunlight on her tongue? To weave shadows without having to hide from her mother?
As she finished the thirtieth stitch, a crackle came from above. A great concrete lump bulged from the ceiling, slithering along its length. Cara turned, threw the shadow sheet on the candles, and it evaporated like salt crystals in water. The wall-swelling continued its descent along the wall, down, down, down. As if some burrowing animal crawled beneath it.
The lump rested at face-height with Cara. Contours formed along its surface and pop. The rock split, revealing a woman’s face—skin like cracked cement, wispy hair, and a fine chocolate-ink line for lips.
“Hi Mum,” Cara said, lowering her head.
“Playing with fire again, Cara Ludia?”
Cara pursed her lips. “Just some candles.”
Her mother walked out the wall, rock cracking and mending itself behind her. A poncho of shadows draped over her, frilled with loose dark threads that fluttered in the light of the candles. For all her mother talked down on shadoweavers, she loved nothing more than to dress herself in the garments of their craft.
She brought a cold stiff hand to caress Cara’s cheek—nails like burned paper, flakes of gray skin drifting off. “Never mind that,” she said. “The Velwarders made their decision. Your graduation passage is to begin today.”
A shiver ran down Cara’s spine. “So soon? I haven’t had time to practice glasscrawling.”
“Don’t make me laugh. You’re a master at all forms of crawling already. The faster you’re done with the initiation, the faster you’ll be assigned to a lucrative post at the Veilgates.”
And the faster you’ll be able to gloat about having a Velwarder daughter, won’t you, mother? Yes, my little Cara Ludia is the youngest crawler throughout Rhondo to ever guard a Veilgate.
A warm lump formed inside Cara’s throat. The voice of her best friend Fenster echoed in her mind: “Just tell her you want to work in the Shadow Refinery. You don’t have to mention the sun or the World Above. She’s wearing shadows herself, isn’t she?”
Her mother rubbed her temples, eyes narrow and weak. She was tired again. She was always tired. The words twisted in Cara’s throat. What came out instead was,
“I won’t let you down, Mum.”
Cara stood at one end of Rhondo Stadium, waiting for her trial to begin. The stadium was a long expanse of glass, showered by green lights, checkered here and there with tiles of wood, metal, and obsidian. The seated crowd produced a loud din that wrenched Cara’s stomach. She noticed her mother among them—eyes tired and filled with flickering hope.
A low hum came from all around, and the crowd fell silent. The walls around the stadium bulged like velvet sheets in the breeze. Slits formed on the far wall and opened to reveal big yellow eyes that stared right at her. The Velwarders.
She knew they could be everywhere at once when they merge with their surroundings, but she’d never seen it up close. Was this what she had to become?
She shuddered, suddenly more aware of the night’s chill. She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. She imagined bubbles encapsulating the disturbing images of the Velwarders. She imagined the bubbles drifting up to a sunlit sky and popping to nothing. Until her mind was as clear as the eternal night.
Cara stretched down, squeezed her fingers between her toes, arched her back and imagined a wave of light passing from her shoulders down the soles of her feet. She imagined that wave taking everything from inside her, gathering it all into a ball that could fit into the crook of her elbow. Until she felt light as a feather.
A bell echoed. A bass voice followed, reverberating from all around her.
“Initiate. Begin!”
Cara pressed her finger into the glass panel beneath. It dipped inside, forming ripples. Sharp cold penetrated through her muscles to the marrow of her bones. The arm was in. She exhaled and slid inside the panel. Sand pushed against her nostrils.
I am lightning flashing through the frozen sand. I am the sound of thunder, quaking the windows of a massive temple.
The next tile was wood. She made contact. Clack-clack the splinters crackled around her as she slid into it, merged with it. Twigs scratched her stomach from within.
I am water flowing through the pith. I am the blood in the vessels of a great tree.
She moved to steel. She smelled bitter smoke and tasted metal. A great weight pushed against her heart. Iron dust suffused her lungs.
I am heat burning through a tempered sword. I am fire swallowing the railings of a bridge.
Glass came again, thinner this time. Then wood. Steel. Glass. Earth. Ice.
Cara slid through everything and slipped out on the other side. Bones encased her marrow, flesh encased bones, skin wrapped tightly around flesh, hair prickled like a million tiny needles. She took an airful of the cold night into her lungs.
“Cara Ludia,” a voice quaked the stadium. “You pass!”
Cheers erupted from the crowd. On the stands, Cara saw her mother clapping and smiling a bright chocolate smile. Then Cara’s gaze drifted to the stadium wall, where a toothed crescent stretched like bulging graffiti.
It was the smile of a Velwarder.