The Land Of Shadows Read Online Free

his pain. In all honesty, Alchera’s pain is more than enough. I don’t need another’s added on my shoulders. But I know it is of Alchera he thinks, and no matter how he tries to banish her from his thoughts, she still manages to dominate his dreams. He might be able to help me save her and it’s for that reason alone I probe deeper into his shadowed mind.
    Flashes of a man gripping his sweat-soaked hair with trembling hands fill my mind. When I feel the shadows swamp his mind with their barren darkness, I grab my own hair to keep myself from joining in his screams.
    It’s as if the darkness, the very unknown mocks him. I can smell his blood and taste his fear. It might as well be my very own. I don’t see any wounds on the man’s powerfully built body. If only he will turn so I can see his face!
    He moves to stand by the window. A deep, wounded growl escapes his chest. He presses his face against the iron bars covering the window. It’s the first time I notice them. The room is decorated elegantly with fine linen and leather sofas. The bars are in stark contrast with the elegance of the room. It looks like a gilded cage, and by the way he grips the bars I think my guess is right. It looks like something is haunting him. I just wish I knew what it was.
    “I’m so sorry I failed you.” I zero in on his pitiful words and hold my breath as sobs shake his large frame.
    There is something so familiar about him … if only I could see more of him.
    His breaths grow faster until they are nothing but ragged gasps. “I tried so hard,” he cries, “but I fell even harder … and so very fast. The shadows … they are everywhere!” Then he turns away from the bars and I look into his eyes, wild with a mixture of fear and rage.
    When I recognize him, horror swamps me. I want to escape from these flashes before he sees me, but I’m held captive by his pain. I can only stand helplessly and watch. I’m sure my fear is about to make my heart leap from my chest. I can’t fight him like this!
    “It grabbed me from every side. But, I swear I tried!” He falls to his knees. My heart is beating uncontrollably, scared that he will sense me at any moment.
    “Awo … why?” His face distorts as if he is enduring physical pain. I want to leave this place - his mind, far behind.
    He claws at his shirt as if he’s trying to ease the pain in his chest. I can feel it, because that same pain is building in my chest, threatening to choke me.
    Is this how he tricks his prey? The thought hardly has time to take root when he cries out again. “I would have given my life for this world had you only asked it of me!”
    I’m left feeling confused at his words. He’s the last person who will do anything for Vaalbara, or so I thought.
    I watch as the all too familiar rage sweeps through him like a hot flash. I know anger. I know how he feels, but I caution myself not to trust his words.
    “But instead you sent me with only false illusions! You set me up to fail!” He flinches and for a moment I pity him. I actually pity the monster in front of me.
    “We deserved better!” I watch him scream his misery into the swirling darkness outside the window. He drops to his hands and knees, his spit and tears falling onto the cracked, cold cement. “How could you allow this to happen to us?”
    Lifting his head it feels as if he’s looking right at me, but it can’t be. He can’t know I’m here! Hatred starts a slow burn in his eyes that are filled with remorse and the guilt. The hideous evils he has seen and done must be weighing heavy on him. He glares back into the nothingness lying beyond this cage.
    “She was only eighteen!” Is he talking about Alchera? “How could it be allowed for her to suffer like that at my hands? I was an animal, a beast set loose on her fragile body!”
    He sounds haunted. Raw sorrow is thick in every word. Sobs wrack his body.
    “She will never forgive me.” His head drops forward, as if he has given up.