Shadow Slave

For a moment, Sunny was afraid that they had been walking in circles all this time and now returned exactly to where they had started. But then, he calmed himself down and noted that this river, while as eerie as the one they had crossed on a wooden boat, was rather different.

He couldn't exactly explain it, but it didn't feel the same. Plus, there was no pier with two boats tied to stone pillars anywhere in sight… or rather, sense.

Instead, there was a bridge.

Sunny could feel its shadow falling on the cold water, solid and firm as the stone it was built from. The bridge arched over the river, leading far into the distance.

Not wishing to spend another minute in the terrible maze that no living thing could see if it hoped to remain alive, Sunny led the cohort toward the bridge.

If Cassie was correct, they would be safe after crossing the second river. Sunny surely hoped that it was true, because the long journey where he had to play the role of a guide for five blind people had been nothing short of exhausting.

After spending seven… or was it eight by now?... months on the Forgotten Shore, Sunny had thought that he possessed a high tolerance for terror. But this last ordeal tested the limits of his mental endurance.

Walking through that dark place with his sight taken away…

It was a miracle that Cassie had somehow managed to remain sane at all.

He tensed up when they entered the bridge, expecting for something dreadful to happen at the last moment. But the silence was not broken by anything except for the sound of rushing water, their steps, and laborious breathing.

The cohort walked on the bridge, leaving the dark maze behind. Soon, they could feel the mist surrounding them grow thinner.

some point,

without any trouble and returned to solid

allowed himself to tremble. Then, he

"Are we through?"

not said anything about the need to remain quiet, each of them subconsciously avoided speaking ever since entering the mist. Because of that, the

moments later, Cassie answered in a hesitant

"I… I think so?"

and removed the

standing on a stone shore inside a vast cave, through which the underground river was flowing unobstructed. Some distance away from them, the wall of the cave came down, with a mouth of a wide

the cohort were removing the strips of cloth. Sunny could hear

drawn to Nephis, who had already opened her calm grey eyes and was looking at something

around, Sunny followed her gaze…

shore of the dark river, he saw a human skeleton. It was sitting on the cold stones, its

City, this one was tranquil and untouched by the corruption

where the First Lord of the Bright

***

few meters away from the bridge that he had used to escape the terrible place which, according to Cassie, no living being should

closed at all times. But in the end, the wounds he had received there — or somewhere up ahead,

safe place for the humans sent to the Forgotten Shore to

friends and companions had died, leaving him alone in