Jacob Peppers [Peppers - The Truth of Shadows

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Truth of Shadows: Book Two of The Nightfall Wars

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Copyright 2019 Jacob Nathaniel Peppers . All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

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This is to you, Dear Reader,

The curtains are drawn,

The lights are dimmed,

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Chapter One

The shadows were everywhere, and there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. Yet, run Sevrin did, his breath rasping in his throat, his skin on fire from dozens of scrapes and cuts the undergrowth had given him as he forced his frantic way through the forest. There was a fresh bruise on his cheek from where hed run headlong into a tree limb he didnt see in the darkness, nearly knocking himself unconscious. Yet, all of these pains were small, insignificant next to the terror that gripped him, the terror that left him bathed in a cold sweat, that sent choked whimpers issuing from his throat out into the night.

Never go into the darkness without a light.

It was a warning hed heard since he was a child, sitting in his fathers study, one oft-repeated, the mans voice somehow contriving to always be disapproving, disappointed even while giving his child what most would have considered a protective warning. But Lord Aldrick was not a man known for his compassion or his mercy. He was instead a man renown for the significant wealth he had accumulated during his lifetime. Wealth sometimesmore often than not, if Sevrin was being honest with himselfgained at the expense of the many partners he had found and then discarded when it suited him.

Sevrin hated his father, hated, too, the mans need to constantly give unwanted orders poorly disguised as advice, but in that, at least, he had not been wrong. Never go in to the darkness without a light. Even a fool knew as much. Yet, here he was, the night gathering around him, suffocatingly close. He considerednot for the first time since his desperate flight had begunrunning back to the fires, where Eriondrian and his new companions waited, but he dismissed the thought.

Eriondrian would kill him or have the Ferinan savage do it for him. He had always hated Sevrin, and this would be the perfect opportunity for the snide bastard to get rid of Sevrin without any consequence. No, he would not, could not put himself into the lesser mans power. And that wasnt even the worst of it. What of the other, the one who had made fire itself obey his commands, whose face had twisted with rage even as he fought and killed creatures that many scholars believed unkillable? No. Better to run. He was close to the city, he knew. How much longer until he was safe? A mile? Two?

I can make it. And when I return, I will marshal the citys troops, will speak to Chosen Tesharna herself to let her know that her captain, this Palen Far, failed. The Chosen would be grateful, of course, and it wasnt beyond the realm of possibility to believe that she would reward Sevrins loyalty with a place in the citys rule. After all, someone would have to take over the Redeemers, and why not he? In doing so, Sevrin would become more powerful even than his father, and no longer would he have to suffer the mans disgust or listen to his constant lectures and recriminations.

The thought was so enticing, so all-consuming that for a moment Sevrin forgot where he was, forgot in his hopes, the danger he found himself in. At least, that was, until his foot caught on a tree root that was invisible in the darkness. He screamed as he lost his balance, and his panicked flight turned into a roll as he tumbled down the hillside.

He cried out as he rolled over rocks and fallen limbs, struggling and failing to halt his forward momentum until, finally, his desperate progress took him into the trunk of a tree, and his scream turned into a pained wheeze as the breath exploded from his lungs. He felt his rib crack, but even that excruciating pain felt distant. Hed hit his head at some point during his fall, and shadows crept along the corners of his vision, a fog settling over his thoughts.

He did not know how long he lay there, on the forest floor, was not even aware that he was lying there at all until something touched his forehead. Something wet and fleshy. Go away, he groaned, his eyes squeezed shut against the pain of his cracked rib.

The thingwhatever it waspulled away. But a moment later it was there again, cool wetness on his bruised flesh. Damnit, I said leave me alone, you damned mutt. One of his fathers dogs, had to be. The bastards were always roaming around, strutting in their arrogant way that said they knew, just as Sevrin did, that their master, Sevrins father, held more love for them than he ever would his son. Nothing but the finest for those mutts, and more than once as a child, Sevrin had woken from his bed to find one of the hounds sniffing him as if it was considering him for its next meal.

Once, when he had been no more than eight or nine years grown, he had woken on such an occasion to find one of themhis fathers favorite at the timetugging at his blankets, meaning to take them for himself. As if possessing a greater portion of his fathers love than Sevrin had ever had was not enough, as if it was not enough that the old man paid to have them groomed and trained and fed only the finest foods. In its greediness, it wanted to take what little Sevrin had, his blanket, and even at such a young age, Sevrin had seen the truth of the thing, the audacity of it.

So, barely awake, he smacked the beast on the snout, maybe a little harder than normal, but in that strike was not just his anger at the current injustice, but at a lifetime led under the tyrannical rule of his fathers whims, his fathers looks of shame and disappointment. The beast answered by locking its sharp teeth along the boys thigh, and Sevrin screamed then. Oh, how he screamed. But the beast only sat there, its dumb eyes studying him as blood leaked out between its fangsit did not move, did not savage the flesh in its mouth. Instead, it only watched him with something like malicious glee in its eyes while the boy screamed and pleaded, begged and hated.