“What do you mean you can’t read,” I said shocked, “You knew all that stuff about those plants earlier and like the differences between toxic and stuff. Are you telling me you just knew those things?”

Rolling his eyes he responded, “No, I know those things because I learned them from the vendors at the market. I used to spend a lot of time at the docks and the vendors liked to chat while they waited for the ships to get into the harbor.”

What kind of parents would let their children play at the docks? I began to question him but then stopped myself realizing the ignorance in my train of thought. I remember the “punishments” that my father used to order. How he would order me out of the castle for the day. How that was supposed to be a bad thing to an aristocrat. I never really took the time back then to realize that he did it to try to treat me like one of the lower class. That maybe he thought if he treated me like one of the impoverished I’d get scared and fall in line with his princely ideals that he held for me.

“Did you learn a lot from the vendors?” I questioned instead.

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he reminisced, “I learned a lot from them, the things in the world you can eat, the things that under no circumstances should you eat,” he laughed at the thought, “Vincent, the herb peddler, he had to stop me once because I tried to eat a Silvex fungi. In my defense I was eight and it was really colorful like a piece of candy. Absolutely terrible for you though. ‘It will melt your insides, child!’ Vincent said to me. I’ve never dropped something so fast in my life.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Silvex before.”

Looking down at the table, Ilian blushed as he responded, “I doubt you would have. They only grow in decay. A lot of the houses in my village were falling apart. The rotting beams were the perfect place for the Silvex to flourish. I wouldn’t think the castle had anything like that.”

Panic welled in my throat, a part of me hoped that maybe Ilian didn’t know who I was, where I had come from. I gulped back the fear and moved to the chair adjacent to his.

“Based on the fact that you can smile when you think about home, I think I’ll take your village over the castle any day. Maybe… maybe you could tell me more about it later. I’d love to hear more of your stories. It’s the most enjoyable thing I've experienced since getting to this isle.”

Ilian looked back up at me and offered me a small smile, “I’d be okay with that… er… what’s your name? I don’t really want to call you Isturn. I hate that word.”

“Kiri.”

“Kiri, I like that name. Well Kiri, do you really not mind helping me with my reading?” Ilian asked.

“I don’t mind at all. You have more to get through than I do, and I don’t think the ramblings of a man losing his mind are really going to help me.”

Turning the book to me I traced the words on the page so that Ilian could follow along with me. Careful to go slow I made sure to pause every few pages so Ilian and I could discuss what he had just listened to me read.

“The first mention of a shadow mage dates back to the Mercruian century. Letters from a local enforcement to the king detail an altercation in a local asylum. Unnamed patient A, awoke from the influence of his administered drugs and started to cause a scene. When the nurses were unable to calm the patient down, they decided to alert the local enforcement for assistance. Upon arrival the local enforcement noticed that the patient was incoherent and rambling about the dark on the ceiling was calling to him. They tried several peaceful attempts to get the patient to calm down, to no avail. Finally, the local enforcement opted for a forceful approach and pinned the patient to the ground so that the proper drugs could be administered. The patient pleaded for the local enforcement to stop, becoming even more frantic than before. Bucking away from the officers, it is recalled that the patient twisted his limbs in an “unusual” fashion. The officers were then suddenly lifted from the ground and thrown across the room. Two of the responding officers were killed on impact, their necks snapping against the stone walls. The third officer was rendered unconscious, leaving the nursing staff alone to stand against the highly agitated patient and his shadow apparitions that he had conjured. The last notes on the letter were that fifteen were pronounced dead by the end of the hour, including that of the unnamed patient A.”

I could see the sadness well in Ilian’s eyes as he listened to me read. I paused, allowing him to gather his thoughts before we continued. As I waited I could see the sadness morph into that familiar depth of understanding.

“He must have been so scared to pull those shadows out,” he whispered.

“Why do you say that?” I questioned.

“It’s how I did it the first time. They are always just there and you just kind of know that they are watching you. Sometimes their presence feels safe and comforting. So you gravitate toward them when you feel scared.”

“The first noble to be confirmed as a shadow mage was sixteen year old Francis Zyse. Francis, from a young age was reported to see “unseen specters”. Her family, fearing backlash from their community, proclaimed to the masses that it was an overactive imagination fueled by an attention deficit. When her grandmother unexpectedly passed, Francis was said to have fallen into a grave depression. Her family went to check on her one morning, and found her deep in conversation with a shadow apparition. Knowing the consequences of going public with her affliction, Francis’s parents locked her away in a tower and claimed plague to the masses. Francis, however, went mad with the isolation. Just ten years later she threw herself from the window of the tower and plummeted to her untimely death.”

I winced at the cold words that were written on the page. Would every entry in this book be as bleak as these two had been. Looking over to Ilian I saw the sadness form again. Sure enough a few moments of silence more and that understanding filled his eyes again.

“I can hear them sometimes too. They don’t talk very often. The first time I heard one speak to me it sounded like my brother,” he whispered.

“Your brother?”

 “Yeah, he passed when I was ten. A year later I was awake late at night and I swear I heard his voice from the shadows,” Ilian said, tilting his head slightly as he recalled that moment.

“What did it say?” I asked.

“I miss you.”

“I’m sorry, Ilian. That must not have been easy to hear so close to his passing,” I said, reaching my hand out to rest in front of him on the table.

Ilian offered me a soft smile and said, “It’s okay. It was nice to hear his voice again actually. Why don’t you continue with the next entry.”

I nodded to him and turned the page in the book. This entry was paired with a page long spread of drawings. Each depicting apparitions. Some held large twisting crowns of horns, others with large serrated teeth. Another showed a soft wisp cradling a child in its darkness.

“Twenty year old recruit, Nelote rank, Kai Fulden, sits with Elder Historian, Drogo Xsax, to describe the various shadow apparitions that he has come across.

• Wisps-The first shadows that peer through the veil.

• Wisps often take the form of soft floating balls. They spend their time fluttering through streams of light and hiding clustered in the darkest corners of the room.

• Sirens-Shadows that appear in times of a struggle.

• Sirens appear in times of need. When the mage is at their lowest point. Oftentimes they beckon you to follow them. To allow yourself to be swallowed by the dark. Sirens take many forms, but the key characteristic between them is the twisted and serrated smile that appears from an otherwise empty shroud of a head.

• Protectors- The gentlest form of shadow.

• Protectors appear only to offer comfort and protection to the mage. Oftentimes they can be heard whispering in the tongues of a loved one.

• Kings- The largest of shadow apparitions.

• King shadows are said to have large crowns of horns that decorate their heads. Their bodies are long and thin, each of its fingers coming to a sharp point. Other shadows cower from King shadows. Their presence is not a comforting one, like a Protector, instead their arrival is met with a trembling of fear that runs down your spine.

Kai goes on to talk about a shadow familiar that has followed him since his transition. A small fox shaped apparition.”

I breathed a sigh of relief that this entry at least, did not end in death. Ilian also appeared pleased by this fact, his eyes fixated on the floor by our feet.

“Do you see any of those things?” I asked him.

“I’ve seen a Protector a few times. Wisps I see all the time. If you see me staring at something it's probably one of those. I have yet to see a Siren or a King though, thankfully,” he paused to look back up at me, “I don’t think I want to see either of those two. They sound kind of intimidating.”

“Yeah they don’t seem like they would be a positive thing to see,” I said chuckling slightly, “What about the fox. Do you see anything like that?”

Ilian smiled and shook his head enthusiastically, “Do you want to see her? I can bring her out!”

Smiling back at Ilian’s excitement I shook my head yes. Without hesitation, Ilian twirled his fingers clockwise and then sharply down. With that quick flick of his hand a small wispy feline appeared on the table in front of us. My mouth dropped to the floor with shock at how quickly and easily Ilian had conjured the shadow.

“I named her Lenny,” he said.

“Holy cow! You made that look so easy too!” I proclaimed, “May I pet her?”

“Of course. She loves chin scratches and tummy rubs.”

Reaching out I let Lenny sniff my palm. Satisfied with how I smelled she rubbed her cheek into my palm. The shadow melted around my palm, like water passing through a rocky crevice. It gave off an odd warmth which I didn’t expect. The shadow earlier this morning had felt cold and silky. Lenny, however, felt warm and inviting.

“I didn’t think it would be… warm,” I stated.

“She wasn’t at first. But the more she hung around me the warmer she got,” Ilian explained.

“Huh, how weird. I wonder why that was,” I said, giving Lenny a good scratch between her ears.

“I don’t know exactly,” Ilian confessed, his breathing becoming slightly labored.

I gave him a concerned look, worried he was overly exerting himself, “Are you okay, Ilian?”

With the same flick of his fingers, Ilian recalled Lenny back into the shadows where I could no longer see her. Wiping perspiration from his brow he nodded slightly to me.

“I’m okay. Lenny takes a lot of energy out of me when I call her forward. I can interact with her normally with no issues but giving her a form for others to interact with is surprisingly tiring,” he said.

“Okay, you had me worried for a moment there,” I confessed.

“Don’t worry. It's normal for a mage to get exhausted by their powers this early on. We have to build up our stamina when it comes to casting our magic. Have you not experienced something like that yet?” Ilian explained as if it were common knowledge.

“Uh.. well no. Not exactly. I don’t know if I really have magic per say. I can’t wave my hand and move stones or bring forth a shadow. The only thing that has really happened since I transitioned is that my senses are on overdrive all the time,” I replied.

“What do you mean on overdrive?” Ilian asked, once again tilting his head to me in his quizzical and lighthearted manner.

“I can smell everything for starters. For instance, I can smell your blood just by sitting  close to you. I can feel the cuts on the bottom of your feet, the bruise on the small of your back. I can hear your heart beating, hell I can hear everyone in this room's heart beating. If I close my eyes, I can see the blood pumping in your veins. It’s constant and I can’t ever turn it off. If I haven’t eaten recently it's so overwhelming. You could be sitting next to me talking and I wouldn’t hear a word. All I would hear was your heart. When I finally eat my senses dull out but it never goes away. I don’t understand it. It never made me tired though. I’ve only ever gotten hungry,” I described to Ilian. 

Thankfully my explanation didn’t appear to scare him as I thought it would. It’s not every day that someone tells you that they can hear your heartbeat or smell your blood. For as much as it terrifies me I can only imagine what it must sound like to someone who hasn’t experienced it. It felt good to talk about out loud though. I hadn’t told anyone any of that before.

“Can I ask you a question and you promise not to get mad or weirded out about it?” He asked.