Monochrome

Someone was chasing us. We had to hide. Damian led the way through the forest that covered the mountain we had been assigned to protect.

"Come on," he called over his shoulder as he took yet another sharp turn to lose our pursuers. I could barely see him, as night was rapidly falling, but his constant twists and turns and dark clothes made him nearly impossible to make out amongst the trees.

I followed him between two trees, not noticing the way he jumped over the trees' roots and tripping. The frozen ground came fast at my face, and I feared that I would either lose Damian or be caught.

"Aslyn," Damian said as he reached to help me back to my feet. Without letting me go, he took off into the forest again, me running along behind him.

I couldn't see what we were running from, but I trusted Damian's senses; whatever it was and wherever it was, he would know. He had never been wrong before.

He cried out in front of me and released my hand. Through the frightened pounding in my ears, I could hear him fall to my left.

"Damian?" I said cautiously, frozen where I stood. Without him, I was blind and oblivious.

"Go," he whispered into my ear as I felt a light tap on my arm. "Just ahead."

Moving again despite not knowing what he meant, I tried my hardest to keep my pace matching his. Just ahead, I kept repeating in my head, trying to dispel the pain in my side. Just ahead.

Finally, Damian pushed me down into a small cave before tumbling in after me. He nearly landed on top of me as he tucked my head into his chest and pulled his cloak over the both of us.

"Don't breathe," he commanded, his voice breathless but nearly inaudible.

A second later, I heard a rustling of leaves as someone passed by the cave entrance. It sounded as though there was more than one person; could they have been a team? Like Damian and I? It was entirely possible, as we both belonged to organizations that relied on teamwork, though in different ways.

Damian and I worked for an organization called Sekanonne, based in the city of the same name. It was a part of the vast underground kingdom of Shadow, working to expand the kingdom and keep Shadow towns safe from the human world and from those who wanted to make Shadow known to the human world. Modern technology was not used, guns were not used. Instead, we replied on powers possessed only by Shadows, taking advantage of different mixtures of blood to create elite teams, skilled in direct fighting and defending.

The team chasing us, however, worked for Diadenn. Dark and powerful, Diadenn had managed to stay hidden from Sekanonne for centuries. Slowly, they were diminishing the number of Sekanonne fighters, tearing us down by stealing our strength. Their power lay in their ability to make sneak attacks, and to hide in the shadows where they can't be seen. They also used Shadow powers to fight, more recklessly and harshly than is safe even to their group.

The Diadenn team had managed to sneak a blow to Damian. Normally, Damian could at least have moved out of the way of whatever had hit him, maybe even have fought back. But he had been blindsided, and as I lay silently beside him waiting for the noise to pass, I realized that we were truly in danger.

They had sent a powerful team after us. One that knew how to get behind Damian's defenses, possibly knowing how to disarm him. I had never known anyone who could manage that. Not at the building where we trained and not in the higher ranking members of Sekanonne. Diadenn knew what they were up against, I'm sure.

At last, the noise of rustling leaves disappeared into the woods. I could hear as well as feel Damian let his breath out. He then released me and pulled his cloak off of us, moving to sit up as straight as he could in the tiny cave.

Night had completely fallen, and only the light of the waxing moon broke the darkness. There was complete silence except for our nearly silent breathing, nothing to symbolize life outside the cave in the cold of the Pennsylvanian November.

"We need to find somewhere else to stay for the night," Damian whispered. As he spoke, his breath condensed in the air before fading.

"Where?" I questioned, focusing on his dark outline.

"Not here," he replied, climbing out of the cave. He offered me his hand, saying, "Here."

I took it and he helped me up out of the cave. The air was frigid, and it froze the breath in my throat; winter was fast approaching. I suddenly wished that we were back in the cave, where it was still cold, but much warmer with heat from our bodies.

Damian placed a hand on the slight ridge that the cave was set into, using a form of mental imagery called Tycaanotryst to locate another cave entrance. Tycaanotryst only worked if whoever was performing it was touching whatever they wanted an image from, and apparently touching the ridge presented Damian with an image.

"Over there," he said, motioning higher up the hill that I hadn't even noticed that we were on. He pulled his hand from the ridge and started toward where he had indicated.

As we made our way through the woods, we stayed right up against the ridge. Neither of us spoke, mostly to reduce the chances of being caught wandering, but also because neither of us had anything to say. It was always like that: Damian seeming so distant and shy, and me, not wanting to interfere in business that was not my own.

A little ways up the hill, Damian slowed his steps. He moved his hand across the side of the ridge as he went, feeling for the entrance. After a moment, his hand found it, and he pulled me inside.

This cave was slightly larger than the last one; tall enough so that we could stand straight but with a thin entrance before it opened up about five feet. It was dry, it was safe; it was where we would spend the night.

Damian led the way into the cave, running his hand across the walls, performing a mobile Tycaanotryst search.

"Is it safe?" I asked quietly, taking the cave in and hoping that it was.

He turned to me and replied, "It's going to have to be." Glancing over his shoulder at the small dome formed at the end of the tunnel we were in, he added, "We shouldn't go in much further than this; any deeper and we won't hear them if they come."

"Do you think that there is a possibility of that happening?" I inquired.

"They shouldn't come back; they probably think that they're still following us." Damian sat on the ground and leaned back against the wall, sighing. "I should be able to tell if they do come back, though."

I moved to his other side and sat, placing him between the cave entrance and myself. Out here in the wilderness, he was the only thing keeping me safe. He would be blamed if I was captured or killed. It had never happened before, but we both knew that it would, should the situation arise.

Two years ago, before Damian had come to Sekanonne, he had worked for Diadenn. Not because he wanted to, but because it was required of the young men born into Diadenn families. I never knew what it was like, and I never asked; it was a touchy subject for Damian, and he tried his hardest not to mention anything about it.

Somehow, he had managed to escape from Diadenn and find his way to Sekanonne, which reluctantly accepted him into its ranks. Ever since then, there was always someone near him, secretly monitoring his every action. No one trusted him to be honest in his words. No one trusted him to be alone with anyone. His fighting skills were superior to any agent of Sekanonne, causing more worry at a sneak attack than relief at having a skilled fighter on their side, one who knew how Diadenn worked and what methods they used.

I, myself, had been a little frightened of him at first. It had been amazing to watch him train, defeating everyone he fought against, but at the same time, it had been troubling. I, like the rest of Sekanonne, had believed that he was a spy. Despite his story about how he had changed sides and the fact that he had arrived half-dead on Sekanonne's doorstep, I had truly believed that he still worked for Diadenn. There were times when he was angered, and I'd lay in bed at night, waiting for him to slay the members of Sekanonne in our sleep.

Now, I sat close to him, as we'd been doing the past few nights to keep warm.

Time had passed in Sekanonne and Damian had made no threatening comments or performed any threatening actions. Soon, training was over and teams were assigned. I had ended up teamed with Damian, with his quiet attitude and superior skill.

There had been tension at first, as whatever I thought about Damian was reflected in him ten times worse. I realized that he was as frightened of us as we were of him; he was the outsider, coming into the organization that rivaled his old home. All of Sekanonne had been against him, and when we finally left for fieldwork, it was as if a terrible weight had been lifted from him. Outside of Sekanonne, it was only him and me, and we slowly began to trust each other to the point we were at that night in November.

Damian picked up a rock. He clawed his other hand and conjured a fire, which he lit the rock with. Finally, I could see the expression on his pale face: He was distracted by something, probably the Diadenn team. There was a distant look in his dark blue eyes as he stared at the flaming rock and bits of leaf in his thick, wavy, blue-streaked black hair.

His powers were one of the strangest things about him; the recondite mixture of his blood was impossible. His pyrokinesis could only have come from one of his parents. Tycaanotryst was a psychic ability, which is also an inherited trait. But it was one of the numerous psychic abilities that he possessed. Only full-blood psychics possessed these psychic abilities together, as only possessing one ability such as Tycaanotryst signified only a part-blood psychic. If Damian was pureblood psychic, then he couldn't possibly possess the ability to conjure fire; there is no way to be pureblooded if you have two different types of blood. I had never asked him how he could possibly have so many different types of blood, and I didn't plan to.

He placed the rock on the ground in such a way that it was between us but out of the way. Running his hand through his hair, he pulled out the leaves, tossing them onto the rock. He was only using his left hand, and even though he was naturally left-handed, it was strange that he'd be purposefully keeping his right arm still.

When he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, I glanced at his arm. Even in the scant light, I could see that he was injured. There was a slice in his sleeve, and a flickering shine on his arm told me that he was bleeding. The injury must have been from when he'd been hit in the woods.

"Damian," I said, looking up at his face, "you're hurt."

"I know," he replied, not moving.

"You're bleeding," I informed him.

"I know," he repeated. "Are you going to tell me that it hurts like hell too?"

I glanced at the gash again. "No, but will you let me treat it?"

Finally, Damian opened his eyes and turned to me. "No; I'm fine."

"I'm not going to let you run around while you're bleeding." I bent to examine the wound closer. Whatever he had been hit with had left sharp fragments of something embedded in the gash. The wound had to be treated, the shards removed, or it would get infected.

I could feel his sapphire eyes on my face as he said, "I'm fine, Aslyn."

"No, you're not," I chastised, meeting his searching gaze.

"Fine," he said after a moment. "You're not going to leave me alone until I say yes."

He was right. It was my job to look after him, just as it was his job to protect me. In Sekanonne, I had been trained in medicine, since my power of prophetic dreams could not be trained and was useless in battle. Damian knew that I wouldn't let him go with an injury like that.

I reached under the back of my cloak for the pouch of supplies that both of us carried. Inside was a small bag of food to be used in emergencies, a small flask of pure water, and basic medical supplies. It was every field worker's last resort if they were separated from their partner or lost.

Meanwhile, Damian had undone his shirt and slid his arm out so I could treat it, pulling the side of his cloak over his chest for warmth. He sat with his knee pulled up, his head against the wall as he stared at the opposite side of the cave.

Once I had all my supplies, I returned my eyes to his arm. The blood on the wound had begun to clot, but there was still a stream of it down his arm. I moved his arm into an easier position to work with and carefully pulled the flaming rock closer for more light. In the light, his arm looked more toned than it actually was, and as I wiped the blood from it, my eyes caught sight of the bandage that covered his entire lower arm.

Ever since he had come to Sekanonne, he had worn that bandage. Never would he let someone remove it. He had said that he had sprained his wrist, and that it refused to heal, but I didn't believe him. A sprain wouldn't last for two years, and his improbable excuse only added to the mystery surrounding him.

"I'm going to have to remove these shards from here," I told Damian, causing him to look at me. "It's going to hurt, as some of them are in pretty deep."

"Just get them out and get it over with," Damian said. He turned away and fell into silence, staring out of the cave at the small patch of starry sky that could be seen through the treetops.

I moved in closer to the wound, dabbing away blood until I could see one of the shards. Being without anything to grasp it with, I had to use my fingers to pull it out.

Damian hissed as his head whipped around, his teeth clenched as the pain shot through his arm. "Damn it, Aslyn," he said through his teeth. "Warn me before you do that."

"Sorry," I apologized as I examined the shard by the fire. It was some type of dark grey metal, and it looked like it had been cut, not broken.

"Attack spikes," Damian clarified, noticing the confused look on my face. "They are designed to dig deep and sting until they come out. The rebel who knocked me over put them there. There should be a total of four, counting that one."

Rebel. Damian always called the members of Diadenn that. It was like his way of distinguishing them from the rest of Shadow without having to call them agents.

"Oh," I said, placing the spike on the ground. Its removal had reopened Damian's wound, and he was holding a rag to it. I took over for him and he returned his gaze to the sky.

A fighter like Damian wouldn't be expected to regard the sky with such longing in his eyes, but I had learned to get used to it. It was as if the sky was his escape from the world around him. An escape from the animosity that always seemed to surround him.

Damian was different from anyone that I'd ever known. He was quiet, but quick to defend himself physically. Rarely did he speak what was on his mind, as he most likely feared that he'd be put down because of his past. If someone was scorning him, he seemed to ignore it. He was afraid to stick up for himself, self-conscience of how others reacted to him.

Maybe it could be called strength, the way he gets up each morning. The ways that he deals with his anger and feelings. Sometimes, I'd find him in the training room at the Sekanonne base, fighting so fiercely against no one that it was difficult to track his movements. Those were the days when he was badly criticized and judged, when he had so much anger pent up inside of him that he had to release it somehow.

"There's going to be a fight tomorrow." Damian's voice drew me from my thoughts. He was still gazing up at the sky when I focused on him again.

"Oh?" I pressed. "Why do you think that?"

He shook his head. "We can't let them get any closer to the city," he explained. "The only reason that they didn't find it today was us: the fact that we got them to chase us. I have the feeling that they'll find the city tomorrow, and we can't let that happen."

The city he spoke of was Nera-Rhomme, the newest city in Shadow. It was located on the mountain we were protecting, and was the whole reason that Damian and I were there. Nera-Rhomme was still small at that time, but it was expected to grow into one of the most important Shadow cities on the East coast. Very near to one of its borders lay the Susquehanna River, and the city had the potential to become a thriving port, rich with resources and trade.

If Diadenn got to it, they would destroy it. The unsuspecting townspeople would be dead, and the city would be burned. The fire would alert the human firemen and media, and the first part of Shadow would be revealed. Investigations would be lead and soon Shadow would have no choice but to reveal itself.

"Brace yourself," I warned as I prepared to pull another spike from his arm.

Damian looked at me just as I pulled the spike free. This one was deeper than the last one, and I could feel his body tighten and his breath catch.

"Sorry," I said, placing the spike with the first one and pressing the rag to his arm again. "Do you think that you and I are capable of fighting them?"

"No," he replied through clenched teeth, his eyes closed. "Those two probably aren't the only ones out there, and even if they are, they won't fight fair. They'll be heavily armed, both physically and blood-wise. Diadenn isn't stupid enough to send out one of their weaker teams for something like this.

"I don't know how they can call themselves Shadows," he continued after a moment, his teeth unclenched. "Why would they want to try and destroy the place that they live in? Their ancestors built this kingdom. Their families have lived here for generations, and they have been protected for centuries. Why would they want to throw all that away?"

"Maybe they think that it would be better," I suggested.

"How could revealing Shadow to the human world be better?" he shot back, fixing his eyes on me. "Humans can't take this knowledge sanely. Shadow is home to vampires, werewolves, and witches, among other things--all of which exist only in books, movies, legends." He looked away, leaning his head against the wall again. "If the human population found out about us, we would have hell to pay. There would be riots, protests, mobs. Humans just can't take this. Not yet, at least."

"Shadow wouldn't be able to protect itself anymore," I put in. "Our number is no match for the human number."

"We'd most likely be hunted down and killed without so much as a word. It's us against the world, and we are all that we have. It is the job of every Shadow to keep this place hidden, and those who refuse to do so should be executed." Damian was being more vocal than he'd ever been, and it was strange. He showed more respect for Shadow than I'd known he had. "They have no right to call themselves Shadows," he finished, shaking his head. "And they are stupid to say that bringing Shadow to the human world is a good idea."

"Don't you ever wonder if any of them feel the same way?" I asked as I searched for the third spike in his arm. "Or if any of them are in the same situation that you were?"

Damian faced me again. "There are probably a few," he said. "But they can't say that they agree with me unless they get themselves out of Diadenn and over to Sekanonne's side.

"In this world, there is black and white," he went on. "Diadenn is black. You are white. Sekanonne is white. But I am lost; I don't know which color I am."

"What do you mean?" I yanked the last spike out of his arm, forgetting to warn him.

Either the shock of the pain or the magnitude of the pain caused Damian to cry out softly. He hissed in his breath and held his head against the wall as he waited for the pain to subside.

"Damn it, Aslyn," he hissed.

"Oh, Damian, I'm so sorry," I said frantically as I tossed aside the spike and held the rag to the wound again. I rubbed his arm with my free hand, trying to show him that I truly was sorry.

He calmed down enough to glance at me, but it was more of a quick glare than anything. "I used to work for Diadenn," he said in response to my previous question. "But now I work for Sekanonne. I went from the side that has the potential to cause mass murder to the side that can prevent it."

"So wouldn't that make you white?" I asked, inwardly glad that he was still talking to me.

Damian shook his head and stared at the opposite wall of the cave, the distant expression back in his eyes. "I remember when I was in Diadenn, when I killed for sport and to be accepted. I remember how much I used to enjoy it: staring down into lifeless eyes and knowing that I was the one who had taken their life. I was the one who had controlled their future, stealing it from them. I never thought about who they were or what their families and friends were like. The only thing that I cared about was the control that I had."

I glanced up from his shoulder at the side of his face. His words had gone slow and quiet as he remembered. I wondered where his story was going, and tried to guess at his purpose in telling it.

"I remember the nights after I killed," he was saying. "The joy at my control had faded, and I realized how stupid I had been. Why had I taken a life? Why hadn't I thought about who they were or what their families were like? Was the joy in control enough to equal the pain when it wore off? Some nights, it got so bad that I'd end up crying myself to sleep. I couldn't believe that I'd let myself get to that point. I couldn't believe that I'd actually felt joy in what I had done."

Damian's story held me transfixed. He was opening up about his life in Diadenn, and it was more awful than I could have imagined. I knew that Diadenn's members killed ruthlessly, but I had no idea of how it felt. Damian's description of his triumph made it all to real to me, and what he said about how he felt later broke my heart.

"But now I work for Sekanonne," he said, his eyes coming back to the present. "I work for the place that wants to annihilate Diadenn, the place that works for good. I feel good about what I am doing here, but I can't forget what I had felt in Diadenn. I have no idea what I am," he finished, finally looking back at me.

I was caught in his eyes, so confused and ashamed. He truly didn't know what to do. He was buried in the wreckage of his emotions with no way to sort them out.

"What if there is grey?" I offered. "What if it was possible that a person could be white with a little black in them?"

"There is no grey," Damian replied. "In every person's heart, there is only something black or something white."

"Damian, no." I wanted so much to make him understand. "You said that I was white, but I kill, too. Only when I have to, but I kill, too. My intentions are good, and I want to prevent more murders from happening, but to do that, I, myself, must steal others' lives."

"It's not the same." He looked away, shaking his head.

I began bandaging his arm, being careful not to hurt him any more. "People aren't purely good or evil, Damian," I said. "You have to believe that there can be grey."

"There is nothing that I can believe in anymore," he told me, his voice quiet.

"Why?" I asked, glancing up at him from my work. I was almost done with his arm.

"It's too much of a risk," he replied, the distant look back in his eyes. "I've been hurt too many times."

Securing the bandage around his arm, I said, "What do you mean?"

Damian carefully slid his arm back into his sleeve and re-buttoned his shirt, saying nothing for so long that I didn't think he would respond. "Everything I've ever believed in has either been taken away or proven wrong beyond doubt," he finally told me, staring at his boots. "I started doubting my belief in my father when he pushed my mother out, and I stopped believing in my mother when she never came back. When my father took me to Diadenn at age ten, I stopped believing in him. I couldn't believe in Shadow's gods by the time I was eleven because none of them seemed to help me in Diadenn."

Gently, being careful of his wound, I laid my head on his shoulder; it was cold enough out for us to allow ourselves the physical contact. "You have to learn that people make mistakes," I said after a moment. "You said that your father 'pushed' your mother out. It sounds to me as if it wasn't up to your mother whether she stayed or went. I'm sure that she felt the same way as you did when she left."

Beneath me, he slid an arm around my shoulders, providing even more warmth. He remained silent, however.

"What happened to you was not your fault, Damian," I continued. "You were just caught in the middle. Now, though, you are on your own; you can take care of yourself and do what you want to do."

"I know," he said before sighing. "I just...It's so hard to let myself believe; I don't want to get hurt again."

"You won't get hurt if you believe in the right things." I pulled my head off of his shoulder and looked at him.

"But what's right and what's wrong?" Damian asked as he took his arm from my shoulders. "There are too many things in this world to figure it out effectively."

"That's why you have to take chances," I said.

He fixed me with his eyes, and I was caught in his gaze, in which the fire flickered and centuries could be seen. He really was confused about what to believe in. It was as if he was in the dark, searching blindly for something, anything to hold on to.

Even though we had started out tense and afraid of each other, we had grown closer. Maybe this was something he needed, something he could finally believe in and never let go of. Very carefully, I placed my hand on his cheek.

"Do you believe in this?" I asked quietly.

Damian closed his eyes and leaned his head on my hand, covering it with his own. "I can feel it," he said, just as quietly as I had. "I know what it is, and I can trust it." He opened his eyes. "But I can't believe in it. I want to so badly, but I can't."

"Listen to me, Damian," I whispered. "You trust this. Just go a little further, until you can't deny it with anything that you say."

"Aslyn..." He let my name trail off. "Teach me to believe," he finished, removing his hand from mine and trailing the backs of his fingers along my jaw, concluding the motion with a brush of his thumb across my lips. As he stared into my eyes, I could see the fragile wall that separated his mind; he truly did want to believe in me. He repeated the phrase "teach me" a moment later against my lips, and I hadn't even noticed how close he'd physically gotten to me.

The actual moment when he touched his lips to mine seemed to take an eternity to come, but time passed even slower after it. I had never been kissed before, but as Damian placed his hands on the sides of my neck to pull me nearer, I was glad that he was my first.

After a minute, he broke the contact and put his forehead on my shoulder. I didn't move, except to close my eyes. Damian was shaking slightly as the wall in his mind crumbled.

This was his belief. Damian loved me.

"Damian," I whispered, wrapping my arms around his back and holding him close as he did the same to me.

Then, he brought his mouth back to mine. The way he kissed now suggested gratitude at what I had done--even though I hadn't really done anything at all--and longing to let me in.

We had definitely gotten closer in the past year, and that night was the result. When I awoke the next morning, I found Damian's arm around my waist, his body molded perfectly to mine as he lay behind me, and when I rolled over, I was met with his face, flawless and peaceful in sleep.

Never would I have thought that I could be so close to someone who used to be my mortal enemy. Never would I have thought that this day would come. As unpredictable as life seemed, waking up that morning was the biggest surprise to me.

I trailed my fingers down Damian's cheek, brushing away the dark hair that had fallen across his face. It wasn't the first time that I had seen him asleep, but I was amazed at how I never realized just how beautiful he looked in his slumber.

He stirred slightly and opened his eyes slowly. Even though the early morning's dim light was behind him, he squinted slightly.

"Good morning," I said to him quietly.

Damian sighed and closed his eyes again. He was normally one to get up as soon as he woke up so that we wouldn't be in the same place for longer than we had to, but he was different that morning. It was strange, but I sensed something wrong with him from that little change in his attitude.

"Are you all right?" I asked carefully, knitting my eyebrows together slightly.

Without answering my question, he moved in and kissed me again, deeply and slowly. There was no longer gratitude in his kiss, but there was still longing, though it was foreign to me. What could he possibly want that badly?

"Damian," I pressed when he pulled away slightly. I stroked his cheek lightly with my thumb, staring into his blue orbs. "What's wrong?"

Again, Damian didn't answer my question. He did, however, say, "Aslyn, I need to show you something."

"What do you mean?"

He still held his silence about what was on his mind. Instead, he pulled off the ring he wore on his little finger and slid it on to my right ring finger. Shadow society believes in wedding rings on the left ring finger, but any ring on the right ring finger symbolized mourning for a loved one.

The action frightened me. Damian knew the code; he knew what he was doing. I still couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, but now I knew that it had something to do with death. His death.

"I need to show you something," he repeated, still holding onto my hand.

"What is it?" My voice was a little higher in pitch than normal due to my fright.

"I want you to listen to me," Damian said, his voice low. "I want you to try to understand. I have known that this day was coming for most of my life, I just didn't expect you to be here, this close to my heart."

"Damian," I whispered. Desperately, I wished that he would just tell me, but told myself that I would listen to what he said; this was clearly hard enough for him as it was, and he didn't need any more stress.

"Nera-Rhomme," he went on. "Do you remember how much I wanted to be assigned to protect this city?"

I nodded, never breaking contact with his eyes.

"I had to protect this city. There was no way that I couldn't." He closed his eyes and said, "I don't know how to say this without sounding crazy."

"Just tell me, Damian," I pressed again.

Focusing on me, he held his right arm up. "It is my destiny to save this city," he said. He began unwrapping the bandage around him arm, explaining as he did so. "Ever since I was little, I have had my destiny branded onto my body. I couldn't leave the mark out in the open; some people would ask too many questions, others would know what it was and chastise me about my life, and still others would be after me, especially those from Diadenn."

He sat up as he finished removing the bandage, and I did the same. He showed me the inside of his lower arm, on which he traced dark, tattoo-like lines. It was writing, I could tell, but I couldn't read what it said; even from my little knowledge of language, I could tell that it was the Lontz-Coled--the language of Shadow's ancestors.

"Do you know what this says, Aslyn?" Damian asked quietly.

"No," I replied, staring at the markings. This was the explanation of his blood, the reason he left Diadenn, the reason he had tried so persistently to be assigned to this mountain.

"Nera-Rhomme," he translated, indicating where the words were. He glanced up at me. "Aslyn, it is my job to protect this city sometime when it is around. These past few weeks, I've felt a change within me. Something is going to happen to Nera-Rhomme today, and I'm the only one who can stop it."

"Damian, stop it." This was unbelievable. How could Damian be a prophesized savior of the city?

"I'm not joking," he replied. "I don't know if Diadenn has their own version of me, born to destroy the city. I don't know if they have some type of secret weapon. I just know that I have to stop it, and to do that, I have to..." His words trailed off. "I don't want to, Aslyn," he said, all in a rush. "I don't want to die. I want to stay with you."

"You-you're not kidding," I stuttered in disbelief. He was truly going to die. I didn't want to believe it, but I would have to face it sometime. The night before, he had seemed so innocent, and when he'd kissed me, it had been like a weight lifted from him. Had he known then that he would die the next day?

Everything inside of me told me to be angry with him. He was my partner, wasn't he? Why hadn't he shown me the writing on his arm earlier? Why would he let me get so close to him if he knew that we wouldn't be together for long?

But I couldn't let myself be angry. I had the feeling that Damian was taking it hard enough himself. He had finally found someone that he could love, and now he was counting down the time until his death. The gaze he had on me was grieved and sad, and it tore me apart.

"Oh, Damian," I whispered, my voice shaking as I fought for control over my emotions.

"I'm so sorry, Aslyn." He averted his gaze, staring at the ceiling of the cave.

There was an awkward moment where I had no idea of what to do next. My eyes were watery as I stared at Damian's chest, wondering if there was any way that he could avoid the day.

Then, I felt his arms around me as he held me to him, running his fingers through my hair and trying to comfort me as I cried.

I had realized that I would have to return to Sekanonne alone, and try to explain to them where Damian was and why he had died. It would be partner-less, but that wasn't the worst of it. Damian would be gone, and I would never see his sapphire eyes or his beautiful face again. There would be a void in me when he didn't wake me at the crack of dawn to train or to leave, and I realized just how much I would miss his quietness and his help on the field.

"I love you, Aslyn," Damian whispered almost inaudibly into my ear. "Please don't hate me for this."

"Never," I said in response, sniffing before I went on. "I could never hate you."

As we sat there silently embracing each other, time passed slowly. This would probably be that last time that I would be able to hug Damian the way I was, the last time that his words would be about anything other than the job at hand. The last time that I would be able to touch him and hear his voice.

"I don't want you to go, Damian," I said, my voice high-pitched.

He shushed me and replied, "I know. I don't want to go, either."

Silence fell over us for what seemed like hours, but was most likely just a few minutes. Finally, Damian pulled back, and it nearly killed me to let him go. He began wrapping his arm again without saying a word, standing and preparing to leave when he was done.

"What do you want me to tell Sekanonne?" I asked him, staring up at him from the ground.

He glanced over at me before answering, "What do you think they'd believe?"

I shrugged as I stood. "I don't know. Do you think they'd believe me if I told them the truth?"

"There's a chance that they will, but there's also a chance that they won't." Damian stared out of the cave into the early morning. "Just tell them the truth. It's their own problem if they don't believe you.

"We should be going," he finished, changing the subject. "There's no telling how close they are to the city this early."

I didn't want to go. The closer they were to the city, the sooner we would have to stop them. The sooner we had to stop them, the sooner Damian would die.

"Damian," I said as I stepped closer to him. When he met my eyes, I pulled his mouth down to mine and kissed him deeply.

He responded by wrapping his arms around me tightly. The kiss that he gave back to me held sadness and sorrow, regret and remorse at having to leave me like he was. It was as if he were trying to say, "I'm sorry" with his mouth.

It would be the last kiss that I would share with him.

As Damian pulled away, I could tell that he was even more upset than he had been before. He avoided making eye contact with me as he said, "Come on," and led the way out of the cave.

The coldness of the morning wasn't as bad as it had been the night before, but it still reflected the onset of winter. The sun was just beginning to rise above the eastern horizon, but the day already looked like it would be marvelous. It was too bad that neither of us would be able to enjoy it.

We set off back down the hill we had come up the night before, heading back to where we had seen the Diadenn team. If they were as smart as their reputation claimed, then they would know that they were close to Nera-Rhomme. There wouldn't be very much doubt between them about the whereabouts of the city. Damian and I would have to move fast to reach them in time.

Over fallen trees and large rocks we went, complete silence surrounding us, and even though we'd been like this to each other before, there was tenseness in the air that was never there before. As with the night before, there were no animals around, and their absence left the forest even more utterly silent.

Damian climbed to the top of a small ridge, keeping his body close to the ground as he looked over the edge and down the hill. Stationed silently beside him, I saw what he did.

At the base of the ridge was the Diadenn team, accompanied by three other teams. All of them wore dark green clothing so that they would be able to blend in with the forest around them. Their faces were all hidden as they spoke in hushed tones to each other.

There they were. The people that were trying to kill both Damian and I, and Nera-Rhomme's chance for survival. Thinking about them being that close to us frightened me slightly, even though I had Damian beside me and had learned to control my fear back in Sekanonne.

I felt a light tap on my shoulder and barely managed to check a jump before I realized that it had been Damian. I glanced over at him, questioning him with my eyes; he should know better than to do something like that when we were so close to the enemy.

"They're getting ready," he mouthed silently, enunciating each word with his lips. Then, he glanced away for a second before mouthing a single word: "Soon."

Soon. Soon, we would have to stop them. Soon, we would have to fight them.

Soon, Damian would have to sacrifice himself in order to save Nera-Rhomme.

But I found that I couldn't bring myself to sadness. I couldn't feel bad for myself when there was a whole city--and perhaps all of Shadow--to keep safe. Damian had to do what he had to do, and if it required giving his life, then he would do it.

I nodded in response and mouthed, "How long?"

He shook his head, repeating the word, "Soon."

Below us, the Diadenn teams dispatched from their little huddle and began to pack what little there was to their camp. As they began to move toward Nera-Rhomme, Damian pulled me to him.

"Any second now," he said to me, his voice almost nothing. He glanced at the Diadenn teams. "I can feel myself changing, and they're heading toward the city." He stared into my eyes for a moment before saying, "I want you to stay here, Aslyn. I don't want you seeing what happens."

"Damian--"

He kissed me lightly on the forehead before standing slowly and quietly. "Aslyn, I--I'm glad to have worked with you."

I stood after him and took in his words slowly. "The same to you, Damian."

"Go, now," he told me. "Go back to Sekanonne, tell them what happened. And that Nera-Rhomme is safe." He turned to the ridge and glanced over his shoulder at me. "Good-bye, Aslyn."

"Good-bye, Damian," I whispered as he turned back to the ridge. I could feel the heat in my face as I fought back my tears.

Damian took a few running strides before jumping off the side of the ridge, and I could swear, from his shadow in the sunlight before him, that I saw wings mounted on his back. It was the last time that I would ever see him alive.

As I stood there waiting for him to call my name, I wished that I could scream out to the sky. I wished that I could stay there forever and never move again. But Damian had told me to go back to Sekanonne. He wouldn't have wanted me to wallow in grief right where I stood.

Slowly, I turned away from the ridge, my cheeks wet as I fought for control. Sekanonne was two states south of me, but I would manage to find the closest station around Pennsylvania. There, I would tell my story about Damian's sacrifice, and they would no loner view him as the spy from Diadenn. No, he would be known as a savior of Shadow, a hero in the eyes of the citizens of Nera-Rhomme and in the hearts of all of Shadow.

I still miss him every day: I miss his voice, the clear sapphire blue of his eyes, the way he kissed, and the way he smelled. Countless things about him will never be forgotten, but there was a physical piece of him that I would never lose; there was something he had given me, something we had created that night in the cave.

Damian's son would know his father's legacy. I would teach him myself. I would raise him in Sekanonne, learning everything he can about how to be a great fighter like his father, as well as someone who would save countless lives.

Damian's life and Damian's soul would live on in the child, but there would always be the absence in both of our hearts where Damian should have been.