The Shadow

The rain outside had begun to ease, but the night still shook with thunder and screams. Shadows and Reapers clashed in the square, steel ringing against steel, blood mixing with the storm.

Inside the inn, the fight was smaller but no less vicious.

Sai, Corvin, and Eira circled the Reaper that had invaded their refuge. Its cloak, scorched and tattered from the earlier flames, clung to its body in wet folds. The mask—porcelain streaked with red lines—was cracked down one cheek, exposing glimpses of pale flesh beneath. It breathed in rattling wheezes, but its scythe still gleamed with killing hunger.

“Come on,” Sai hissed, raising the jagged stump of his shattered chair shield. “We can do this. Together.”

Corvin adjusted his grip on his broken table leg. “Yeah, sure. Easy for you to say—you’re not holding the stick of destiny.”

Eira didn’t laugh. Her knuckles whitened on the glass shard she had scavenged, her wide eyes fixed on the monster.

They rushed.

The Reaper’s laughter rang out, sharp and cruel. “Heh-heh-heh—Fools!”

The scythe swung in a wide horizontal arc, the blade singing as it sliced the air.

Corvin dove flat, the edge hissing just inches above his head. Sai raised his shield, but the blow split it clean in two, splinters exploding into the air. Eira skittered back just in time—the blade buried itself in the remains of Sai’s shield, wedged between her and Corvin.

“Now you’re mine.” The Reaper twisted, wrenching the scythe free, and brought it down in a savage overhead strike.

Corvin was still scrambling on the floor. The blade hissed toward his chest—he rolled aside, the weapon slamming into the floorboards with a splintering crack. Another strike, another roll. Again. And again. Each blow was heavier, wilder, the Reaper’s laugh spiraling into manic hysteria.

“Not so tough now, are you?! HA-HA-HA-HA!”

Corvin gasped with every desperate roll, sweat stinging his eyes. “Would somebody—help me—before this lunatic—”

—Splat.

The Reaper froze mid-swing.

A single arrow jutted through the back of its skull, the point jutting obscenely out the front of the cracked mask. Its laugh cut off in a wet gurgle. The scythe clattered from its hands as its knees buckled.

Then the body toppled forward—directly onto Corvin.

“Oh, great…”

Pinned beneath the corpse’s full weight, Corvin squirmed uselessly. “Get this piece of shit off me!”

Sai rushed forward, bracing his boot against the Reaper’s side and heaving it enough for Corvin to crawl free. His clothes were smeared with blood and ash as he staggered up, spitting. “Ugh! Smells like a week-old latrine!”

But before Sai could reply, new sounds echoed from the doorway.

Cling. Cling. Clang.

Metal. Weapons sliding across the floor.

An axe. A sword. A naginata. A bow, with a quiver of arrows.

The three froze, staring. The weapons lay scattered just inside the doorway—their weapons, unmistakably the same ones stripped from them when they were arrested.

Sai’s breath caught. “No way…”

Eira darted to Dex and Mira, still unconscious on the bed. Dex’s wound continued to ooze sluggishly around the arrows plugging his side. She pressed torn sheets tight around the shafts, hands trembling, whispering prayers he couldn’t hear.

Sai crouched to snatch the nagitana and bow with its quiver, sliding them across to Eira. She caught them with wide eyes, as if afraid they’d vanish again.

Corvin didn’t move. He stared at his axe lying there, just a few steps away, then narrowed his eyes toward the shadowed corridor beyond the door. His grip tightened on the table leg still in his hand.

“Who’s there?” Sai demanded, keeping low. His broken shield offered no comfort now.

Corvin raised his makeshift club, pointing it toward the darkness. “Yeah, come on out, bastard! Show yourself!”

Sai shot him a glare. “That’s not exactly the right way to thank whoever just saved your ass.”

A chuckle floated in from the corridor, low and amused.

“That, my friend,” a voice purred, “doesn’t sound like gratitude.”

The figure stepped into the room, boots silent even on broken glass.

Its cloak was drawn tight, rain dripping from its hem. A hood shadowed his face, but the glint of his eyes caught the lamp light—sharp, watchful, unblinking.

Corvin instinctively raised his stick higher. “And you are?”

The man’s smirk curled faintly. “Your salvation.”

The rain eased into a steady hiss, dripping from the rafters and pattering against the broken glass of the inn’s shattered window. The storm hadn’t ended, but the downpour had softened, leaving thunder as the dominant heartbeat of the night. Every crack of lightning lit the street outside like a battlefield revealed in brief flashes—shadows lunging, Reapers cutting them down, Gladius’s katana glinting like a star against a dark tide.

Inside, the group stood tense, weapons newly returned scattered on the floor. Corvin had one hand hovering over his axe. Sai kept his broken chair leg raised even though a real sword lay only steps away. Eira clutched the naginata as she had placed the bow on the bed.

The hooded figure stepped into the lamplight at last. The hood slipped back, revealing the sharp, pale features of someone they had all seen before.

It was Shadow Five.

Corvin blinked, lowering his stick in disbelief. “Wait—you? You’re the one who—” He cut himself off, words strangled in his throat.

Shadow Five stood tall, her mask gone, her face bare for the first time since they’d seen her among Gladius’s elite. Her hair, damp from the storm, clung to her face, and her eyes burned—not with loyalty, not with fear, but with a cold determination.

“You…” Eira whispered. Her voice was small, thin in the heavy silence. “Gladius… threw you out. You were done.”

“Yes.” Shadow Five’s answer was clipped, her voice steady despite the chaos outside. “He expelled me. Stripped my mask. Cast me aside.” She looked down briefly, a flicker of shame crossing her face, before her expression hardened. “But tonight, when the Reapers came… he called everyone back. Even the discarded. And I answered.”

Corvin’s laugh was sharp, bitter. “So the dog comes crawling home when its master whistles?”

Shadow Five’s gaze snapped to him, sharp as a blade. “Call it what you like. I don’t care.” She stepped closer, planting the scythe-bloodied arrow she’d fired into the table between them. “You should be grateful. You’re alive because of me. And because you are on my list.”

Sai’s eyes narrowed. “Your… list?”

“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. “Gladius ordered us to protect key figures. Dex was on that list along with his company.” Her eyes flicked briefly toward the wounded man on the floor, his face pale with blood loss. “And now—” she swept her gaze over the three of them “—so are you. You should be thanking me, not questioning.”

Corvin stepped forward, axe in hand now. His voice was a low growl. “Thanking you? For what? For being dragged in front of a gallows?”

Cough cough

“Maybe we should thank you for making me watch my friend bleed into a river while your precious champion smiled?” Mira’s voice was weak as she barely sat up in her bed coughing from both pain and sickness.

“Corvin, Mira” Sai warned but the relief of Mira’s awakening was still clear., but Shadow Five raised a hand, silencing him.

Her tone was sharp but not cruel. “You think I wanted that? You think I chose how Gladius judged you? I am a shadow. I follow orders. That is what we were made to do. But now—” her eyes flicked to the window as another scream cut through the storm—“now the rules have changed. The Reapers aren’t testing us. They’re breaking us. I’ve seen shadows cut down like straw tonight. Even Gladius struggles against their champion.”

Thunder cracked. Outside, in the split-second light, they glimpsed Gladius locked in a clash with the golden-trimmed Reaper, katana against gilded scythe. Sparks showered, drowned in rain.

Shadow Five’s voice dropped lower. “The situation is worse than you think. Streets are already lost. Families cut down in their homes. And the Reapers aren’t here to conquer—they’re here to kill specific targets. Dex is one of them. And now, so are you.”

Eira’s breath was caught in her throate. She glanced at Mira, still still struggling on the bed, her face pale but peaceful now that Dex’s treatment had blunted the poison. “Why us? We’re no one. We’re just—”

“Outsiders, that some how befriended Dex.” Shadow Five cut in. Her tone was flat, final. “That’s enough. After what happened with the last reaper who walked these lands, Gladius will not allow history to repeat. To him, outsiders are a threat. To the Reapers, you are prey. Either way, your lives are pieces on their board.”

The words hit heavy, heavier than the storm.

Sai finally stepped forward, reclaiming his sword from the floor. He tested the weight, his face unreadable, then fixed Shadow Five with a cool stare. “So. You’re here to protect us. To protect Dex. But you’re not wearing the mask anymore. Are you still Gladius’s shadow? Or your own?”

A long pause. The rain filled the silence.

Shadow Five exhaled slowly. “Maybe both. Maybe neither. Right now, all you need to know is this: you will live through this night because I’ll cut down anything that comes through that door.”

Another thunderclap. Another scream outside, closer this time.

Corvin’s grip on his axe tightened, his anger not gone but dulled. He muttered, “Guess beggars can’t be choosers.”

Eira finally lowered her weapon a little, her voice trembling. “So what do we do?”

Shadow Five moved to the shattered window, peering out. Reapers swarmed through the streets—some bland, faceless in their black cloaks, their scythes plain and utilitarian. Others bore distinct marks: jagged bone masks, painted red hoods, scythes shaped like crescent moons or adorned with cruel hooks. And in the center of it all, the golden one fought Gladius, their duel towering above the chaos.

“What we do,” she said, “is survive.”

Sai stepped to her side, watching the golden Reaper’s scythe cleave through two shadows with terrifying ease. His voice was quiet but firm. “Then we better start.”

As if summoned by his words, the inn’s door rattled violently. Something slammed against it from outside. Wood cracked.

Shadow Five turned back to them, eyes sharp. “Positions. Now. If you want to live, fight like your lives matter.”

Another slam. The door splintered.

The Reapers had found them.

And the night was far from over.