Free The Shadow Of What Was Lost by James Islington

be the last she would see
of him for a long time – probably ever. Getting out of bed felt like it would
just bring his leaving a little bit closer.
    Finally she gritted her teeth and
found the energy to throw back the blanket; she rose, shivering in the morning
chill, and quickly dressed. The first true rays of dawn were brightening the
horizon outside her window, and Asha grimaced at the sight. The Athian Elders
would have already departed their inn in Caladel. When they arrived, the Trials
would officially begin.
    Suddenly she paused, puzzled.
    She’d seen several Trials during
her time at the school; from her experience there should have been a cacophony
of sound from the courtyard outside – certainly something to indicate
students and Elders preparing for such a big event. The silence was decidedly
odd.
    The more she thought about it,
the more she realised that the entire feel of the morning was… off . From
the corner of her eye she could see that her roommate, Quira, was still fast
asleep in her bed. That wasn’t unusual, though; the younger girl tended to
sleep well past dawn. Asha turned and was about to slip outside when something
made her hesitate.
    The room was quiet. Moreso
than normal. Now that Asha thought about it, Quira hadn’t stirred once. The
girl was a restless sleeper at best, as well as a terrible snorer.
    Asha crept over to the bed,
frowning. Quira was lying on her side, facing the wall. Gently, Asha placed a
hand on her shoulder. The slight pressure caused Quira to roll onto her back.
    Asha’s breath caught in her
throat. She just stared for a moment, paralysed.
    There was blood everywhere. So much blood. It was pooled mainly around Quira’s head and chest, staining the
mattress a dark, violent red where it had poured from the gaping wound in her
neck. Dark smears streaked across her face; Asha realised numbly that it was
from where Quira’s attacker had covered her mouth to muffle any screams. The
young girl’s soft brown eyes, wide with shock and fear, stared into Asha's.
Pleading.
    Suddenly there was a voice,
screaming for help, desperate and afraid. It took a few moments for Asha to
register it was her own. She slumped to the ground beside the bunk, dazed,
waiting for someone – anyone – to come to her aid. She sat there for what
seemed like hours.
    Nobody came.
    Finally gathering her wits, Asha
forced her body to move, trying to shake off the shock that was rapidly setting
in. The female students’ quarters were adjacent to the courtyard; even at this
early hour, someone should have been awake to hear her cries.
    Outside in the hallway, the
school again seemed unnaturally quiet. Limbs heavy with dread, Asha moved to
the next room, where Taranne and Jadan slept. The door was ajar. Somehow, she
knew what she would find before she entered.
    There had been no attempt to hide
the slaughter in this room. The blood had spilt out onto the grey stone; the
girls’ heads were twisted at odd angles, with Jadan’s body hanging in grisly
fashion halfway out of her bed. Unlike Quira, their throats had not been
cleanly slit, but had rather been torn out so completely that the sharp white
of the spine was visible through the pulpy red tissue.
    Asha fled.
    She stumbled along the hallway,
too numb to cry, to scream, to do anything but keep moving, look for someone
else who had survived. She couldn’t be the only one. She couldn’t .
    Room after room of people she had
grown up with passed in a blur. Tessia, the sweet girl who had shown more
promise in her first two years than even Wirr. Danin and Shass, who had arrived
only a few months ago and couldn’t have been older than ten. She had comforted
them during their first night as they had wept, helped them accept the
difficult truth that their family had abandoned them. They had made her a daisy
necklace to thank her, which she still kept pressed in one of her books. Now
they just stared after her with horrified, vacant eyes. In each room there