Where the Shadow Went

Sella’s shadow reached the bend before she did.

It stretched along the passage floor, narrow at the waist where the stone pinched, then slid around the corner. The pull at her heel increased. She set one hand against the wall and leaned back until the tug stopped her from moving.

The shadow kept going.

Sella planted her boots. Her body held its place, but the dark shape lengthened across the stone, drawn around the bend as steadily as a rope hauled by someone out of sight. Its connection ran back beneath the arch to the threshold she had left in the square. She could not see the door from here. She could feel the line tighten through her shadow.

“All right,” she said. “You’ve made your point.”

The pull eased. The shadow stopped advancing.

Sella took her hand off the wall. A scrape sounded behind her, faint and far away. She pictured the threshold shifting in its square, its lower edge tracking the groove. The passage was narrow enough to keep it from following her. That had been the limit. Now the shadow was being drawn past the limit anyway.

She turned and walked back three steps. The shadow shortened. The pressure at her heel faded with it. Nothing else moved.

Sella faced the bend again and took two steps forward. The shadow slid around the corner, and the tug returned. She held her ground. It kept stretching until the skin at her heel pulled tight.

The passage had found a way to pull on her without moving her. If she followed, she would take the door’s connection with her. If she turned back, the passage might keep drawing until something gave.

She crouched and set Tassa’s dagger on the floor, blade aimed toward the bend. Its shadow pointed the same way as hers. Sella shifted the dagger sideways. The little shadow shifted too, then stretched forward again, drawn by the passage.

She picked up the dagger. The pull did not change.

The passage was using the shadow as a route. Sella had no reason to trust it. She had less reason to let it drag the threshold behind her by degrees.

At the bend, the passage ended at a wall.

Sella stopped short. The stone rose from the floor in one unbroken face, pale and rough. Her shadow crossed it and continued upward, though the light behind her should have cast it the other way. At the top, it flattened against the ceiling and reached toward a dark seam between two blocks.

The pull shifted from her heel to the soles of her boots. Her weight pressed forward, toward the wall.

Sella backed away. The pressure eased. She edged closer again, watching the shadow’s feet climb the stone. When she reached the bend, her own shadow had passed halfway up the wall. Its hand stretched for the seam overhead.