Someone in the crowd on the path screamed. The wolf shifted toward the sound. I clutched at Syrin, trying to keep him upright as he trembled against me. Mom stayed on his other side.
Shadow writhed along the creature, and it lunged at a tree that still glowed with Syrin’s magic. The branch dimmed like the wolf had bitten a chunk out of the light itself.
“Don’t touch it,” Syrin whispered. His breath hitched again. “They aren’t very smart without their handler, but if you touch it—” His voice broke. “—the handler can see through your eyes.”
Great. Perfect. Just what we needed.
The wolf’s head snapped toward the sound of another scream from the little gathered crowd, its form rippling like someone had thrown a stone into its shadow. Then it growled, low and furious, and the shadow along its spine lifted like hackles.
“Syrin,” Mom said sharply, “can you move?”
He sucked in a breath that shook through his whole frame. I felt him straighten, and then the light flared again under his skin, not brightly, almost contained, but Syrin doubled over like he’d been punched. He tried weakly to pull his arm away from me. I clamped down on it.
“It wants me,” Syrin forced out. “You need to run.”
“We’re not leaving you,” I said immediately.
“Trina—”
“No!” I snapped.
The wolf stalked forward, its feet leaving black smears on the ground that hissed and evaporated. Its eyes were empty, just pits of shadow, no light at all.
Mom stepped forward, and suddenly she had a dagger in her hand. What the heck? Had she snuck that in? “Stay back,” she ordered us.
The wolf lunged.
I barely had time to scream before Mom dodged. “Mom!”
“Get Syrin out,” she ordered.
I felt my whole body tremble. There was no way she could beat that thing without touching it. Syrin shook against me, but he raised one hand.
“Syrin, no fire—”
But it wasn’t fire that leapt from his hands, two balls of light flew and slammed into Mom. I flinched, but the light shifted, spiraling around Mom’s arms and legs until they were encased in a shield of golden light.
The wolf charged again. Mom pivoted, catching its momentum with the flat of her light-encased forearm and driving her knee into its shoulder. The creature staggered, shrieking in a way that made the trees tremble.
It spun on her instantly. “MOM!” I shouted.
She didn’t look back. “Out of here now, Trina!”
The wolf lunged again, faster this time, and Mom rolled sideways, slashing at its flank. The blade cut through air and shadow and hit something. The creature jerked back, part of its body flickering like a corrupted graphic.
Syrin’s breath caught again. “Won’t stop. Have to burn it,” he muttered.
I tugged him back towards the trees. Could I even get him out? “You don’t need to fight. You’re doing awesome, protecting Mom,” I said quickly, squeezing his arm. “Just breathe. Just stay with me.”
His glow rippled violently under his skin, flashing white, then copper, then gray. Unstable. I felt him tense, like he was holding on with everything he had to keep that light contained.
Meanwhile, the wolf re-coalesced from Mom’s slash, taller now, more defined. Its legs lengthened, and its claws looked sharper. It hissed and then sprang.
Mom barely dodged. Her dagger caught the wolf along its snout, slicing a line of bright white light through the darkness. The creature recoiled, but its shriek echoed through the bamboo like a flare.
A few more people screamed. Someone dropped their phone. Others, the smart ones, ran back down the path. The wolf turned back toward the crowd.
Oh no. No no no—
Mom lunged after the wolf, grabbed its hind leg, and yanked it sideways hard enough that it crashed into the picnic table. The table splintered, wood cracking, food scattering everywhere.
Syrin struggled to straighten, eyes locked on the wolf. I tried to pull him back toward the trees, but he refused to move.
“Syrin—”
“No. Have to protect them.” His voice cut off in a hissing breath as he shook against me.
The wolf rose again, snarling, shadow coiling. I froze as Syrin absolutely lit up, like he’d released some damper on whatever he was trying to keep back. His muscles uncoiled slightly.
“Syrin!” Was he losing control? But the light didn’t feel hot, just… bright.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Then the light slid across the ground like a wave, rushing across the dirt straight at the shadow wolf. The light hit. It didn’t attack the wolf, just… encased it. Like a bubble of brilliant copper. The wolf leaped at the wall and was blasted back as light flared.
I blinked. Syrin shuddered against me. The wolf snapped again at the wall, but Syrin hissed out a breath, and the bubble held. In fact, the wolf seemed almost hurt where its muzzle had touched the light. The shadow there flickered.
Then Mom was there next to us. “How long can you hold it?”
Syrin shivered against me, his fingers digging in as his arm across my shoulders tensed. “Give me a minute. I think… I think I might be able to heat just the inside. Destroy it, but everyone’s watching.”
Mom glanced back at the crowd. Some had run, but a few still lingered. One with a phone. “Not much we can do now,” she said. “Just do what you can, Syrin. I’ll handle the crowd.”
With that Mom stalked towards them. A few flinched back. I would too if I saw Mom coming at me with that look on her face.
Syrin tensed again, his attention fully on the light-trapped shadow wolf. “Trina, just… don’t let me fall. This is going to take all my concentration.”
“I won’t,” I whispered, running a hand through his hair in comfort. “You can do this, Syrin.”
He took a deep breath, biting his lip, but his glow also bled more bronze, the color I associated with determination.
The circle of light contracted around the shadow wolf, and one of its legs touching the bubble shuddered before turning into something like smoke. The creature collapsed. Syrin sagged slightly against me. I stumbled back over to the bench of the half-destroyed picnic table, pulling him with me as the bubble contracted again, humming like a live wire, and the shadow wolf convulsed inside it.
Syrin’s legs almost gave out, and we fell hard against the table. Syrin let out a desperate cry, and the light collapsed into the shadow wolf until it was just light and shadow fighting one another. Coppery waves of light crashed against jagged spikes of shadow.
Then the entire surface convulsed, and Syrin went rigid. His eyes were shut tightly like it was taking all his concentration to do whatever he was doing.
The Light slammed against the shadow like it was trying to drown it, but the shadow folded inward, peeling itself open like a slit in the air. A shape stepped through. It was almost humanoid, but shadow clung to the figure like mist.
Was this the handler Syrin had mentioned? Why did they have to look so creepy?
Syrin’s fingers clenched around my arm so tightly it almost hurt, his breath catching. The handler’s head tilted, like he was listening to something only he could hear. His eyes, more like two pits of polished black, settled on Syrin.
Syrin’s light shied back from the figure, and from the spiral of shadow, the wolf creature burst free in a spray of darkness and hit the ground running.
Straight at us.
I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. I grabbed a long piece of shattered wood from a destroyed part of the picnic table with shaking hands and braced the wood like a pike, shoving Syrin behind me.
Idiot. I was a complete idiot. Syrin cried out as I shut my eyes, bracing for claws, for teeth, for pain—
It didn’t come. I opened my eyes to find myself enclosed in a white light, so bright that I couldn’t see anything else. It should have hurt my eyes, but it didn’t. Not only that, I should have been screaming. I wasn’t. I was… glowing?
Something dark slammed against the brightness, which faded to copper instead of pure white. For a moment, that was all I could see again, just the copper. The rough wood in my hands was the only thing that seemed real. Then someone stumbled into me, arms wrapping tightly around my waist. Syrin.
“Lights, Trina! Why would you—you can’t—“
The wolf slammed into the shield again, and Syrin cut off, breath hissing in my ear. A spike of copper light speared for the wolf. It thrashed as the light pierced it. The light flared white, and then the wolf completely disintegrated, exploding in a roar of shadow.
For a second, everything was silent. Then Syrin made a soft, broken sound, and the arms around me went limp. I whirled, trying to catch him, but it was too late. He’d already crumpled into the dirt, glow fading in sputtering flashes.
And a figure was standing over him, shadow curled around its forearms. It must have moved behind us while we were distracted with the wolf.
A sound ripped out of me as I lunged forward and shoved the figure with everything I had, but it felt like shoving a shadow. Like touching water that somehow wasn’t wet. My hands slid through cold shadow, catching briefly on something solid beneath, but the figure barely moved. Its head turned toward me, slow and deliberate.
A blur moved behind the shadow.
Mom. She plunged her dagger into the handler’s shoulder, the blow so fast I didn’t even register the motion until the man staggered. He let out a sound like cracking stone, not even close to human, and flickered violently. His form warped, shadows peeling away to reveal…something else beneath. Not human. Too many angles.
The remnants of the wolf, still evaporating from the dirt around us, snapped toward him, like iron filings to a magnet. They coiled around his limbs, his torso, crawling up his body like living tar. His shape stuttered, features rearranging in jerky, unnatural spasms.
He shoved Mom away, and she stumbled back, frantically swatting at a bit of shadow that had attached to her.
The handler reached for Syrin.
I threw myself between them, but shadow surged outward like a net. Cold wrapped around my chest, yanking breath from my lungs. No air. No light. No sound. Only darkness swallowing me whole.
I tried to scream. Nothing came out.
Then—
Light detonated.
It tore the shadow off me in a single, violent snap. I stumbled backward, gasping, blinking spots of white-gold from my vision. The handler was crouched by Syrin, that sound like grating rocks growing louder as it tried to force its way past the light to grab him.
Syrin was still unconscious, but his glow wasn’t faint anymore. It pulsed, wild and furious, like the Light itself refused to lose another Keeper. The air shimmered. The faint glow brightened, threads of gold leaking from the torn skin at his temple like glowing veins.
“Trina, move!” Mom shouted.
I stumbled back just as the temperature spiked. Grass patches around Syrin pressed flat, as if bowing away from the heat. His whole body seemed to radiate light—gold, then white, then something so bright it seared the back of my eyes.
The air ignited.
Mom dragged me behind a tree as the blast hit.
A sheet of molten radiance burst outward from Syrin, brilliant and blinding, not quite fire but close enough that the world warped with the heat. The handler recoiled as if struck, shadow ripping off him in long, shrieking tendrils. The remnants of shadow clinging to the plants and table dissolved instantly, devoured in a hiss of light.
I could feel the heat, like standing too close to a bonfire, except the flames weren’t flames. That didn’t mean they couldn’t burn. My exposed forearm lit up with a searing sting, as if something had slapped my skin with a hot skillet. I gritted my teeth trying not to cry out as blisters rose. Mom hissed beside me and jerked back, clutching her shoulder where her shirt had singed through.
The handler staggered backward, shadow peeling off in chunks as the Light shredded through it. He let out a sound like an avalanche, and I clamped my hands over my ears. Then the shadows coiled around him, and he vanished in a smear of darkness.
The blast of light sputtered, flickered, and froze in the air. For a moment, it was as if a mist of gold draped the entire little clearing. Then the light reversed course, collapsing back into Syrin like the videos I’d seen of what a supernova might look like. I flinched back, but the glow didn’t explode out again. It just drained completely, all at once, like someone had pulled the plug.
And Syrin was utterly still.
I also write a sci-fi/fantasy serial with similar vibes:
? found family
? chaotic disaster boys
? slow-burn tension
? character-focused plot and worldbuilding
? banter (mostly in the actual comments between characters)
? plus layered plots, morally gray characters, and slow-reveal mysteries
Just a heads up: The opening arc is meatier on worldbuilding than DOTW, but chapter 2 introduces Teorin—the soft, intense, overprepared heart of the series. If you love Syrin, you’ll love him. (And tough guy Marcus is far softer than he’d ever admit.)
? Reader Guide (so you can pick your vibe):
-
If you like Trina’s narration style (voicey, funny, emotional-with-humor):
?? Start with — he has a similar chaotic, banter-first voice.
-
If you vibe more with Syrin (soft, intense, emotionally layered, mystery first):
?? Start with the instead — it opens on the quiet political/mystery thread before any chaos kicks in.
Ask. The archive might answer back.
What to Expect:
- Sci-fi mystery
- Character-driven plot
- Slow-burn investigation
- Brothers on opposite sides
- Cool powers!
- Optional meta layers
- Multi-POV cast
- Emotional gut punches & sarcasm
Hear from Lev below. These artifacts are your first clue!
[Lev’s Note]: So Trina and Syrin get to move in between worlds? Meanwhile, I'm over here, trapped on the same planet for centuries by some mysterious force. Totally fair, right?
Not on the tabloid. Who even put that link there!?!