The gods Light and Shadow, created the world, and the millions of creatures that call it home. While they were equal in power, they were different in ability: Shadow was the creator of changelings, Light ruled over humankind. One day, the two gods fought. Their fighting caused destruction unlike anything the world had ever seen, especially because of the armies of magical super soldiers, called puppets, that each god created to fight for them. After horrific battling, Light defeated Shadow and banished Her.

Over a hundred years later, a young changeling named Isabella lives surrounded by reminders of the war’s devastation, but she has simply accepted it as a part of her life. She is easily distracted by things like everyday delights, like the strange circus that comes to town one day… and shatters everything. Isabella’s mother is murdered the night of the circus’s arrival, and she’s willing to do anything to find out who is responsible.

Ursa has known no other life but the circus. It’s a life of constant moving and chaos, carefully controlled by Ursa’s best friend, the hyperactive ringmaster. Ursa knows the circus isn’t perfect, but when a changeling named Isabella arrives and asks to be made a performer, it exposes a web of mysteries and lies bigger and deeper than anything Ursa ever could have imagined. Now she and Isabella must work together to uncover the secrets kept from them for years, but there are people willing to kill to keep them hidden.

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Please be aware: while the conflict between changelings and humans is inspired by, and very similar to, issues in real human society, it is drastically different in many ways due to the fantasy setting and is not meant to directly parallel real life conflicts.

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Also be aware that the following book contains: On-page emotional abuse, stabbing, knife violence, fire, gore, paranoia, panic and anxiety attacks, kidnapping, forced labor, alcohol consumption/drunkenness, fainting and death.

Referenced/implied/discussed: loss of a loved one, brief mentions of allegations regarding grooming, animal death, sex and war.

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Excerpt:

Prologue

This is the only way.

It was the only thought Spark allowed herself to have as she drove her blade into the Shadow puppet’s back. Black mist streamed out of the gaping wound as they screamed, their howl briefly becoming an agonized prayer before she struck again, in their neck, severing their words and their head.

She swallowed hard as she let the broken remains fall to the grassy ground. She had lost count of how many times she’d seen or done something like this, but it still made her soul shiver.

Fretting about morals won’t win the war, Spark. We need that map.

Licking her lips, she crouched, hearing footsteps approaching to her left. It was her fellow Light spy. He’d been on lookout, making sure no one saw her hunting for survivors playing dead in the battlefield and searching for information.

“Did you find it?” he hissed.

Spark slipped her nimble fingers into the fraying pockets. Nothing. Nothing. Please please please-

In the depths of the third pocket, her fingertips touched parchment. Relief bubbled up inside her and briefly morphed her scowl into a grin as she displayed her find to the other.

“Excellent.” he reached for it, but she defensively flinched and pulled it closer, making him scowl in confusion.

“I know how to decode this perfectly well, thank you very much. And we’re looking for a way back to my barracks first, remember?”

He slapped her across the face.

She sighed and dragged a hand across her stinging cheek. “Thank you.” Puppets were created to be devoutly loyal to their god-Light or Shadow- above anything else. But that didn’t mean a puppet couldn’t get emotionally involved in the other side. If a puppet showed signs of getting too attached, it was their fellow puppet’s duty to bring them back to their senses.

“How do they get their moving barracks to stay hidden, anyway?” He muttered, fiddling with the buttons on his collar.

“Are you trying to gauge how much of their closely guarded secrets I have decoded, or did you just forget yourself?”

“I have never had the greatest memory.” He admitted quietly, walking over to peer over her shoulder.

She snorted. “A forgetful spy? I pray you don’t end up as scrap parts.”

He visibly flinched, and her mirth vanished as she realized too late how deeply she had cut. It was every puppet's biggest fear, being scrapped. When a puppet was deemed incompetent or overly rebellious, other puppets were ordered to take them apart, and whatever life force their god had given them was used for another creation, typically another puppet. Hopefully one more suited for their job.

She cleared her throat, turning back to the map. It was far too easy to decode beneath the stains and smeared ink. It was like Shadow was trying to invite Light soldiers to their moving camps. Shadow puppets lived and trained in wooden structures that could be moved with magic, they looked like barns with spindly water-strider legs. They would be laughably easy to spot, were they not so often well disguised with Shadow illusions. They were moved so often and disguised so well that even their own soldiers constantly needed maps like the one Spark had just to know where their barracks would be and where they would move to.

“Where are you headed?” He sounded bored.

“A little north of Deer Spine Pass.”

“Hmm. West of Poison Lake.”

“Poison Lake? Sounds fantastic.”

“Isn’t it always? Spy work is just great.” There was a hint of sarcasm to his voice.

She cast a sidelong glance at him.

Keep your mouth shut! Do you want someone to overhear and report and get us both scrapped for disloyalty?

“What work would you rather do instead?” She found herself saying quietly instead.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I know it is our duty to fight for Light and preserve Her power and glory and everything she has made and blessed in this world...but I feel like fighting isn’t the right way. There should be a safer way, one where no one has to die.”

“There is no better way to die than in service of the great god Light.” She responded.

It was a hollow response drilled into them from the moment of their creation and they both knew it.

“According to the map, they’re both in the same direction.” He beckoned her to follow as he walked. Spark’s cheek still stung. She hummed to herself softly, to try and distract the other spy, and herself. It was a marching song, common knowledge among most puppets of Light. She waited for him to strike up the first verse alongside her, but he decided to seclude himself in his mournful silence, staring at the ground.

“At least sing the first verse with me, it’s not the same without another voice.”

“My singing is terrible.”

She whimpered and pulled her face into an exaggerated mock-pout, but there was a genuine plea in her eyes. I’m covered in the mist of someone I just decapitated. In just a few moments we’ll be parting ways, possibly forever.

He groaned in defeat into his hands.

“Fine. Ahem.”

His singing voice was terrible, and he didn’t know most of the song, so he went quiet while she hummed or sang a few verses. It made for something soft and awkward and disjointed, but at the very end, they harmonized, voices perfectly intertwined.

“I’ll march with you, I’ll march with you...”

They trailed off, looking at the sky.

“Your singing is far from awful.” The lie came out harder than most, like her throat tightened to prevent the words from escaping, but once they did she felt lighter. It felt good to say a lie that wasn’t entangled with war. Would that get me slapped again?

“Your singing is lovely.” He sounded completely honest, but she had no reason to believe him.

“Thank you.” she stepped back, to walk away.

“My name is Bracken.” He blurted. “May very well have changed by the next time we meet, but...it was nice singing with you.”

“Call me Spark. It was nice singing with you too.”

With that, she turned and walked away.

The sun cast fiery light over the fields and passes, once the epitome of serene nature, now torn to burnt shreds by days of puppets fighting. It sent a pang through Spark. If the gods loved their creations so much, why do they allow their masterpieces of nature to be destroyed? Spark had trouble shaking off the blasphemous thought as she trudged through the woods hunting for the Shadow illusion that concealed the barracks. Whoever cast the illusion was deeply talented, as they had made it almost undetectable. She got on her hands and knees, climbed the trees, and even crawled under bushes to try and detect even the slightest hint of Shadow magic. She found it after darting behind a tree at the sight of a vague movement in the air, like the presence of a ghost. She was close, the air was alive with powerful magic. Taking a deep breath, she called up an illusion spell of her own and pressed her fingers against the illusion, sending a ripple through the air and briefly exposing the fragmented silhouette of a stocky building.

Stepping into the illusion felt like stepping through a curtain of weak lightning, but once she rubbed the tingling from her body, she let out a sigh of relief and contentment as she took in the familiar surroundings. She knew it would get her slapped or worse, but it was the truth. It felt more like home than anywhere else ever would.

“Star! Oh my goodness, I’m so glad you’re alright!” There was a rush of motion and a patter of footsteps as another Shadow soldier jumped off his bed and ran towards her. Spark let out a cry of joy as she realized it was Rock.

Rock was exactly that, a rock. She could always hold onto him in the eternal tide of war, no matter how much it wore away at everything else. She couldn’t imagine her life without him.

The funny thing was, he was never supposed to be in her life at all. Other spies had heard whisperings that Shadow had created a merciless sword fighter, whose power was immense, even for a puppet. Spark had been disguised as Star, and sent to find the warrior and destroy him. She had prepared for weeks for this mission, and had come into the Shadow barracks expecting a grizzled, powerful warrior whose nonexistent heart had been frozen by the war, and was focused on nothing but his Shadow-given right as a soldier, and would not hesitate to kill her if he ever found out her true loyalties. Instead, she found a soft-spoken young puppet who would sometimes pause in the middle of a march to examine the delicate beauty of the flowers they sometimes passed, or tried to help an injured hummingbird.

But she’d quickly found that he had another side: He moved with the grace and agility of a dancer and was an unstoppable force once he had his sword in hand. Since then, she hadn’t gone a day without listening to him make quips as quick and sharp as his blades.

“When we lost track of you in that scuffle back there, I was terrified we lost you,” Rock’s relieved gushing jolted her back to the present. “I’m so, so glad you’re alive and in one piece.” He said again. Then, his warm smile cooled and his lips curled into one of his characteristic smirks. “After all, if we lost you, who would listen to all my amazing jokes?”

“Ha, ha.” Spark sighed and adjusted her weight on the barely used cot, feeling a lump underneath her. In the comfortable pause following this statement, she was able to quietly examine the dark flower of an idea that had begun to quietly bloom in her mind when she realized that her stolen uniform possessed pockets. Pockets perfect for hiding things in. She began to press her hands around the cot, feeling for the lump.

“Hey Rock, did you know there’s a town really close to these barracks? To the southwest of here, by the woods. It’s a little place, you might have missed it while we were coming here.”

“Oh, the little changeling town?” He blinked at her in surprise. “Yes, I know it. Why?” He noticed she was now overturning her worn pillows. “Why are you so curious?” he asked again. “Also, what in Shadow’s name are you doing?” 

Spark quietly tried to overturn the mattress and flung her searching fingers into the dusty cotton until she found what she was looking for.

“Ah ha!” She triumphantly presented him the tiny, well-loved bag hidden in the slit she’d cut in the mattress.

Rock eyed it warily, as if it would suddenly attack him. “Do you have coins in there?”

“No, it contains the severed heads of my enemies,” she playfully rolled her eyes. “Yes, I have coins in here.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Rock asked quietly and she almost laughed. Both of them were well aware that puppets were only given life to fight, and technically couldn’t have any money to their names. That didn’t stop many of them from stealing, or bartering with actual citizens. People tended to not ask questions when money was involved.

Rock may have been a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, but breaking the laws of the gods was one line he never dared to cross.

“The changeling town has a famous farmer’s market.” She explained, slipping the coin purse into one of the cloak pockets. “I’m going to go see it, and hopefully buy something.”

“‘Hopefully buy something?’” with stolen money?” He repeated, aghast.

“Use your energy for something other than worrying. I won’t be long. But if I do take too long, I want you to cover for me. Tell the others I got hungry and went hunting.”

“I-fine.” He said, and she could see in his eyes that his puppet programming was silently warring with his devotion to her. She felt a flash of guilt, almost agreeing to stay in the barracks, when he nodded. “Be back soon?”

“I will, I promise.”

He nodded solemnly again, and it was the last thing Spark saw before she pulled her cloak over her head and rushed out of the barracks, struggling to hide her wild grin of excitement.

The farmer’s market was only a long walk away from the Shadow barracks, but it might as well have been in another world. The air was warm and rich with the smells of the various dishes and foods being hawked by the vendors, and any yells that echoed through here were not of pain, battle or war, but of playing children and laughing adults.

With a feeling of deep content, Spark closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She had no heart, but she knew that if she did, she would tuck this memory inside it. She wanted this sense of warmth and peace and life to remain for eternity. Spark opened her eyes and walked deeper into the market, determined to see as much of it as possible.

The vendors were infected by her determination, as they did not see a puppet, but rather a curious customer with money jingling in her pockets. They were on her in seconds and there seemed to be a new surprise around every corner. A changeling with a heavy accent and wolf like appendages thrust something glittering in her face.

“Jewelry! Very finest jewelry from the North! You like?”

Next to him, A meager stall packed with exquisite flowers, ranging from petite daisies to massive, drooping roses caught Spark’s eye, and she leaned in to smell a particularly luscious orchid. The vendor, an impossibly pale young girl with eyes like burning coals, noticed Spark’s delight and grinned, exposing sharp needle-like teeth. Spark grinned back, resisting the urge to shove her whole face in a bouquet.

“You must not be from around here.” The vendor girl chirped with a smile. Spark blinked, taken aback. Please do not tell anyone I am a puppet. Your vendor friends won’t see a friendly new customer, they’ll see a face to blame the destruction caused by the war on. I promised Rock I would come back.

“Yes.”

“I thought so,” the girl continued, turning to tend to some snow-white blooms. “Locals are never this excited about my little stall. Or any of these stalls, really.” The last sentence was spoken softer, more to herself than to Spark, and she felt a strange stab of emotion. She realized she hadn’t seen a single human in the market since she’d arrived.

In the hierarchy of the world Light and Shadow created, all creatures were loved equally by the gods. But this was not the case in the eyes of mortals. Most saw changelings at the bottom, below even temporary creations like puppets. Even the word ‘changeling’ was a reference to how humans believed that changelings were monsters simply pretending to appear more human than they really were, with their animal limbs and glowing eyes giving away the truth. Spark knew that wasn’t true. An entire race of puppets had been created so no changelings had to sacrifice themselves for the war.

“Well, they should. This place is wonderful.” Spark said indignantly. “How much for those roses? I have a friend who would like them.”

The bouquet was heavy in her arms, but her heart was light with joy and curiosity as Spark stopped at one final stall. The vendor, an old man with claw like fingers and beady green eyes, watched her quietly from his seat behind his wares, which were the most beautiful glass creations she had ever seen. Giant glass orbs scattered multicolored light across the stall and across the other creations, which ranged from asymmetrical blobs to ornately blown spiders. It was too much. She must’ve stood there for a solid minute, simply drinking it all in, when she remembered her promise to Rock with a start. I mustn't be able to stare for much longer. If she wasn’t back in time for dinner, Rock would have to cover for her. She turned back to the glass figures and figurines, wanting all of it. Her eyes landed on an exquisite little light blue heart. It was the most perfect thing she’d ever seen.

“Excuse me? How much for this heart?”

Her walk back to the barracks was a bit more difficult than getting there, as she struggled to balance the bouquet of roses and hold the heart without breaking it. But she knew it was worth it. I can’t wait to show Rock all of this!

Chapter 1

Ursa

The high, shrill scream grated against Ursa’s ears and made them ring before it cut off as abruptly as it had started, and for a second Ursa almost slipped back into the darkness of sleep, believing it was just a part of her strange dream. But sitting awake in the darkness with that horrible sound looping in her head, the idea of returning to sleep seemed as impossible as interpreting the dream. Sitting up and sighing, she climbed out of her bed and tiptoed out of her room and into the arena it was directly connected to.

The whole space was pitch black, so Ursa followed the solitary star of light in the distance, a green lamp in the hallway. She wasn’t afraid of tripping, for the circus building was the first and only home she’d ever memorized.

For a long time, Ursa had believed that even though performing sometimes made her nervous, it was her life. The circus was her life. For about a year, she had on and off nightmares about the circus slowly dying: its wooden legs folding beneath it, its lights extinguishing one by one, the voices of the other performers fading away as it all rotted. The nightmare always ended with a painful sensation of something sudden and sharp in her chest, before the shadows swallowed her up with the circus and she woke up, her whole body tense and tingling and covered in sweat. She believed that if the circus died, she would die too. She realized this was because she’d known no other life. If she tried to remember anything that could’ve happened to her before, all that surfaced in her mind was a hazy, dreamlike fog. The First Days she was with the circus were full of a similar fog that coated everything she did, as the others taught her to do things again, reteaching her everything from walking to talking.

While it was a welcoming place of joy and entertainment during the day, it shed all guise of warmth with the setting sun, becoming a maze during the night, as it was lit only by the glowing green lamps in the walls, and even those slowly went out after midnight. It was a little past midnight now, for the lamps were beginning to dim like dying fireflies.

Ursa yawned and shivered in her pale pink nightclothes, worn thin by years of wear. She cursed, knowing it would be even colder outside, but couldn’t bring herself to care enough to go back and grab her blankets. She just needed fresh air to clear her head.

High pitched, whispery wailing echoed faintly through the hallway, and Ursa flinched with a startled hiss.

Get a grip. It’s just feeling awfully talkative tonight. Like any old wooden structure, the circus was no stranger to creaking and groaning and echoing as it settled. It was a running joke among the performers that the circus had a mind of its own, and tried to communicate with them through creaks and groans.

While it was hard to imagine the circus building itself having its own personality, it was very easy for Ursa to imagine that each separate entertaining rooms for visitors, with their self-contained magical attractions and games, had very distinct identities, given that they all had their own aura and feeling. Even in the dead of night before any of the spells in the rooms had been fully cast or activated, she could sense the auras that she knew like the back of her hand.

Gemm’s game room, to her right, was usually bursting with excitement and chatter as patrons played with mechanical machines that couldn’t be found anywhere else, or competed against each other to win prizes. But now that the patrons had gone, the room was resting, and had a warm yet tired feeling, like a colorful quilt that had been cuddled so much it was fraying and dulling.

The hall of mirrors a few steps ahead was a gentle room, a welcome respite from the Shadow magic illusions that dominated the rest of the hall. Wandering around the mirrored hall and laughing at the warped reflection was a welcome way to find oneself after being mesmerized by the elaborate illusions of the next few rooms.

The illusion rooms sent a warm tingle over her skin as she walked past them, like a familiar hug. Claudia, the illusionist, was often nicknamed ‘Porcelain Doll’ by patrons who were unnerved by the combination of her pale skin, huge black eyes, guttural voice, and powerful Shadow magic, but little did they know that she was actually as snuggly and sweet as a stuffed toy.

The lights began to steadily grow dimmer, and Ursa picked up the pace, using the meager moonlight filtering through the closed door of the exit to guide her. Opening the door painstakingly slowly so as to not awaken or alarm anyone else, she slipped into the dew-covered field outside the circus.

The cool fresh air lifted a weight off her shoulders as she sighed, leaning against the circus, looking over the field and at the forest and town beyond it. In the morning it would all be alive with the chaotic symphony of the town and rehearsal, but for now the only music was the chirping of the crickets.

“Ursa? What’re you doing out here?”

The deep raspy, accented voice made her jump. Stifling a gasp, she turned to see Gemm.

The outside world knew Gemm for their powerful muscles, their effortless dancing full of leaps and twirls, and Shadow magic that would enchant any audience. Ursa knew them for their loyalty, endless supply of jokes, and the warm, loving laugh to match. She grinned at them. She couldn’t help it. She just wanted to see Gemm smile back, which they did gladly. Even in the pitch-black darkness, there was something warm and bright about their earnest smile.

“I’m just thinking.”

Gemm had known her long enough to know what those words usually meant. “About something going wrong in the upcoming performance?”

“Yeah.”

They walked out of the tent and squatted next to her on the grass, silent. When they spoke again, their voice was gentle. “Performing was awful for me at first. It was confusing and I just didn’t know how to do it, so I told myself I didn’t want to do it. If someone had told me back then that one day, performing would be one of the most fun things in the world for me, something that gave me purpose, I would’ve called them insane. But here I am.” Ursa let those words settle in the ensuing pause, as a train rumbled by. The train let out a noisy burst of steam and sparks. The glow briefly lit up the field, illuminating Gemm’s features. The tanned brown skin, the heavy dark brows above the coal-colored eyes. Gemm’s face was one of the few things Ursa could recall almost immediately from memory.

“Yes. I’m scared I’ll let everyone down and all my hard work will have been for nothing. No matter how much I practice, it never feels like enough. And I feel like something will go wrong, and-” she sighed. “Does this feeling ever go away?”

Gemm reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Ursa. I’m going to tell you a secret about performing. You will not always be good.”

“Pfft, that’s not a secret.”

“You didn’t let me finish.” Gemm’s voice took on a slightly stern air, and Ursa felt her back tense and straighten. “You love singing, yes?”

“More than anything.”

“Ursa, I remember when your mind was just on the cusp of maturity. You sang and played instruments then, but it was not for crowds. You sang because it felt like a fire was burning within you and you would be cooked alive if it didn’t come out. You told me that yourself. You were an avid reader by then.”

“This fire is still there, it is just- in a more controlled environment. Where the fire burned freely in your youth, it is now restrained, like it is in a stove.” Gemm drew a square in the air with their hands for emphasis. “Crowds, expectations... this can stifle the fire, make you feel like you’re choking on smoke.”

Ursa’s jaw throbbed, she thought she might cry. She’d hardly been able to look at her sheet music for a much later performance that evening, desperately trying to relax and convince herself that hitting a high note while also singing a language she barely spoke wasn’t going to be that hard.

“But the fire is still there. In fact, you’ll feel like you’re choking on smoke because the fire is still there. If you just didn’t care anymore, the fire would burn out. But you still love it, and so there will be times when you are choking or burning or simply trying to keep some dying embers alive.” Gemm rubbed her shoulder. “You will struggle, but everything will be all right.”

Ursa swallowed hard, trying to hold back tears. “Thank you.”

“Believe me, I know. Adjusting to performing after the life I had wasn’t easy.” Gemm was looking away now, at the moon, it’s faint light reflecting a wistful look in their eyes.

Ursa nodded. She knew little of Gemm’s past: all they’d given her was scraps of stories about fighting jungle beasts and seemingly rare moments of happiness and peace, such as eating fruit or finding hospitality in a stranger. Ursa had used these scraps to piece together a tattered tapestry of a past, faded and missing chunks. But this rarely bothered her, if anything it made her feel less alone. She was never alone here.

The thought made her sigh softly, and a warm peace settling over her warded off the cold of the night and made her eyelids droop.

“I feel much better now. Good night, Gemm. Love you.” She hugged them, listening to the soft rasp of their breath, thinking she could fall asleep right then and there, cuddled together like the First Days. But she forced herself to stand and walk away, tiptoe back to her room.

“Good night Ursa. I love you too.” Gemm murmured to the moon.

Ursa flopped onto her side with a sigh, turning her eyes beseechingly to the small painting on the far side of the wall. An orb in the center, painted in a rainbow of colors that had melted together into an unsightly bog brown, was surrounded by a blob of darkness on one side and a messy scrawl of bluish-white on the other. In the bottom right corner, Ursa had scrawled her name in a color that had once been purple but had been mixed with so many other paints it was really more of a purplish-brown.

It was beautiful.

Peter the Ringmaster had presented her with the canvas and miniature paints when she was just coming out of the First Days, just beginning to sing and play instruments. Ursa was still very immature, her imagination running wild with the recklessness and passion of a child. And like many children, her imagination was captured by a fascinating story almost too fantastical for her to believe it was real.

Years and years ago, the loving gods Light and Shadow had ruled together over the world. Their powers had been vastly different: Shadow was the creator and god of all changelings, and her quiet, steady, introverted power held great strength in the seas and dark places. Shadow had been the master of death, the creator of Death Spirits who collected the souls of the departed. Light was the creator of humankind, and She was extroverted and upfront, content to let Shadow handle the hidden and in-between of the world. People of all kinds could freely communicate with and worship both, and practice both kinds of magic with great strength. Anyone could use Shadow magic to create illusions or hide, and anyone could use Light magic to see in the dark or create heat. The world was balanced.

There had been hints, of course. People in convents fell ill, went into trances, bled from their noses with no cause. Faint rumblings and pulsing in the ground. Magic felt too tight, or too bright, or somehow fraying, no matter how simple the spell. Then the air became too hard to breathe, a thousand humans collapsed dead simultaneously during prayer, a man made of earth rose from the ground, and Light and Shadow declared war. No one living was sure why they fought. During the war, neither side had wanted humans or changelings to be hurt, so they created puppets-powerful soldiers made from the earth- to fight for them on Earth. After years of bloody fighting, Light and her puppets emerged victorious.

Shadow had been beaten into submission, but not killed. It was impossible for a god to die. So, Light had used her power to put Shadow to sleep. Somewhere, in a place far below the earth, Shadow slumbered. This was why so many people were stunned at the feats of Shadow magic performed by the circus, because many thought that Shadow magic could no longer be used with such power so effortlessly. Shadow magic no longer held the strength and prestige it once had, and why Death Spirits no longer took a corporeal form. Many thought that these feats of magic would be impossible, until Shadow awoke. Ursa had heard the stories: magic of both Light and Shadow would go through great shifts, there would be earthquakes and storms, and Death Spirits and other spirits of Shadow would rise again for their master.

Ursa had thought to herself: What if Light and Shadow still loved each other and the earth? And so the painting was born. She still remembered signing it like Claudia had told her all great artists did, and standing back with utter pride. She also remembered the look on Peter’s face when she turned to him and said: It would be wonderful if they still loved each other, wouldn’t it? Then we’d all always be happy.

Really now? He’d said.

Yes. You know what? In my home, Light and Shadow magic are going to be used together forever. That way I will be the best. Don’t look at me like that, you know it’s possible! And it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing, I promise.

Why did I feel like I needed to prove to him it wasn’t a bad thing? She’d thought both then and now. She turned the thought over in her head until it turned blurry.

“Girl, come here girl...”

Ursa knew the soft whisper was her mind begging her to sleep, the people from her dreams asking for her. She supposed there was no use fighting it.

“Ursa, wake up! We need you out here!”

Peter’s voice, clear and bell-bright, forced her eyes open for good. She had been awake, only managing a few hours of unmemorable sleep before incoherent dreams and the sounds of the others waking pushed her out of her peace around sunrise. She’d lain in bed for about half an hour since. She didn’t know why.

Sighing, she rolled out of her cot and walked out of her room, rubbed sleep out of her eyes for good, and cursed when she came into the light.

The circus had been on the move since she’d slept, Peter and Claudia using Shadow magic to move the spindly wooden legs that carried it. She found them like this, standing on the wooden platform above the legs, and above a massive stretch of forest crackling with magic.

“Ursa!” Claudia shouted “Come here!”

Ursa joined the others standing at the front, Claudia hunched and hands aglow with light from the spells, Peter mirroring her position, covered in sweat, Gemm standing back, brows furrowed.

Ursa flinched when she got a closer look at the scenery before them.

After banishing Shadow, Light had wept. Her sobs and wails echoed over the earth, causing lightning storms and tremors. As she grieved, Her tears plummeted from the heavens, all over the planet. In some places, teardrops had landed as fiery orbs that formed glowing stone figures that resembled people and creatures twisted in agony. In others, like the forest before them, glowing waterfalls of tears had streamed, warping entire landscapes into near-oblivion with their power.

The gigantic trees were twisted, contorted things, growing upside down in some places and seemingly sideways in others. Scraggly berry bushes fighting for space for their roots were all the wrong shapes and colors. Massive gouges in the earth, like a giant monster had raked its claws through the earth, were filled with churning water. A formless shape surfaced in the river, staring them down with a bulging hungry eye.

Ursa licked her lips. The air itself felt alive with grotesque Light magic, making all the hair on her body stand on end.

“The damage is so extensive, there’s no real way around it.” Peter rasped. “The only way to get to Ralvar is through.” He pointed at a small beaten path below them, carved by decades of desperate travelers.

Gemm swore. Peter shot them a dark look.

“We’ve done this plenty of times, there’s no reason this time will be any harder than the others. It will be easier, in fact, since we have Ursa with us.”

“Huh?” Was the intense Light magic messing with her, or had Peter just suggested that she could somehow get them through this?

Peter’s smile was calm, but his eyes were bursting with ideas. “Your Light magic.”

The plan was simple. Since the place had been suffocated by Light magic cast in grief, the wounds of the war were still fresh and bloody, people sauntering through radiating Shadow magic would be like waving raw meat in front of a rabid dog. But, Ursa was a performer. Pretending to be rabid as well would allow them safe-well, safer- travel through the wood.

Peter had opened the entrance of the circus to allow Ursa to stand like the figurehead at the helm of a ship, where she would act as the guardian to those standing behind her.

The Light magic of the forest was dizzying, Ursa’s magic was fluttering within her like a drugged bat, making the back of her head pound. She took a deep breath. Focus.  

She extended her hands in front of her, palms out, and let the aura of Light magic radiate out of her, hot and alive and fierce as everything around them. A grin began to spread over her face.

“Now.” She heard Gemm hiss to the others, and there was a barely noticeable tingle in the air as they worked the Shadow magic to make the legs move. Ursa didn’t feel it.

Holy Light. This is my magic. My power. Nothing in the world or beyond could ever take this away from me.

“Steady, steady...”

The trees were alive with the movement and calls of wild birds. Giant eyes followed them silently from a massive pine tree. Something that looked and barked like a coyote but was obviously not quite one darted through the brush beneath them.

“Keep going Ursa, we’re so close.” Gemm shouted over the growing cacophony.

Ursa didn’t want to stop. She was flying with the birds: unafraid and unrestrained.

There was a wild howl from nearby. Claudia began to grunt and cough.

“Don’t you dare go into one of your trances right now! Do not even think about it!” Peter yelled. Ursa came crashing back down to Earth.

“She can’t control them!” Gemm shot back. “I can take over-”

“No! You’re the brawn of this group, not the brains! You couldn’t possibly operate this!”

Claudia made a sick groaning sound. “It’s not that hard,” she gasped. “All you need to do is activate the long term, often dormant spell we have on the legs, and then just operate it like pulling a marionette’s strings. It takes practice, but anyone could do it.”

“There’s no time to practice! We are on a bumpy mountain path surrounded by Light freaks that would tear us limb from limb if we showed weakness. Claudia, you are getting us to Ralvar or I am throwing you out and leaving you for whatever finds you appetizing.”

“What is wrong with you?” Gemm snarled.

“I’m trying to get us to Ralvar in one piece!”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?” Peter’s voice went calm. Calm in the way the surface of a lake was calm as it concealed hungry predators beneath.

“They think we killed someone, you madman! People are probably waiting there with torches and pitchforks!”

“So you’d rather face Light monsters instead of a crowd?”

“The heart.” Claudia groaned. “The heartbeat in the walls, the heartbeat in the walls.” Her words were slurring, her eyes rolling to the heavens.

There was a growl from the trees.

“We can’t do this right now!” Ursa yelled. “There’s a really hungry part of the forest coming up ahead and we need everyone’s focus!” Especially mine.

The silence that followed was tense, but at least it was silence. Ursa sighed and felt her magic ripple around her. Something nudged against it. Ursa saw a small nature spirit-running alongside the circus.

“Hello?” It called.

Hello. She called back with a smile.

Apparently satisfied with its inspection, the spirit let out a delighted chirp and darted back into the undergrowth.

The forest was quieting down, the once overpowering Light magic tinged with hints of soothing familiar Shadow, in the distance, voices could be heard.

Ralvar.