I am Maribel Holloway, age 16, and I am an adventurer, Envy's partner, on my way to the capital of Hyperion with my very close friend Shadow.

Lyra had been shaken when she discovered what Shadow truly was. Her first reaction was shock and fear, but I managed to calm her down. Perhaps the trust she'd built during her time with Shadow made the truth easier to bear. After all, she had no reason to fear the one who had saved her life twice now, no matter how shocking his true nature might be.

Shadow, on the other hand, seemed far more unsettled. Someone who didn't know him as well as I do might not have noticed, but I could. The way he grew silent, kept his distance, and covered himself. I could feel the fear and self-loathing beneath it. It's strange to think that Shadow, who throws himself into danger without hesitation, could fear anything. He's made of mithril after all. Yet I know the one thing he fears most: being seen as a monster. Perhaps he even believes he is one, and dreads the moment others realize it too.

He's wrong, though. My Shadow is no monster. He's kind, gentle, selfless, and brave—nothing like the monsters who only take and destroy. Shadow gives everything and asks for nothing. Lyra must see that too. She promised to keep his secret and even apologized for how she reacted.

That was last night. This morning, Shadow was quiet while the rest of us ate breakfast and packed up to leave. He still seems tense, though he hides it behind that usual calm. Now, as we roll into Astradel, I watch him and wonder what I could possibly say to make him feel better.

The wagon rattles down the cobblestone road, jolting about as its wheels clatter over broken stone slabs. A particularly violent jolt throws me forward, slamming my face into Shadow's arm.

"Ouch!" I yelp, hand flying to my nose as my eyes water and a sharp sting flares where it lost its battle with Shadow's solid frame.

"Sorry," Shadow says, tightening his grip on the reins to guide Huckleberry and Buttercup around the loose stones.

"It's not your fault—it's these damn roads," I mutter in annoyance, rubbing my nose as I lean down to snatch Envy from the wagon's floorboard, catching her just before she can slide off the edge.

"Nice catch," Envy says telepathically as I brush the dust from her with my sleeve.

"Why don't they fix them?" I muse as we pass one of the road's recent victims—three men hammering a new pin into a wagon wheel, the cart laden with hay and drawn by an aged mule. The shattered remnants of its ill-fated predecessor lie cracked nearby.

"A decade and a half of war leaves comfort a forgotten luxury," Shadow responds sagely.

I smile in spite of the bleak atmosphere—the thin people shuffling by in tattered clothes, their shoes worn through and their gazes downturned. Even so, hearing Shadow speak again lifts a quiet weight from my chest. He has a way of saying more with a few words than most do with a hundred.

Now that he's said it, Astradel really does seem like a forgotten city. Her buildings are cracked, her roads crumbling, and there seem far too few people out and about for a city of her size. I wonder how many the war, the famine, and the Withering have claimed. Based on the vacant buildings and the sprawling market street with so few vendors, it feels like this city was born in a time when its population was much greater.

Shadow brings the wagon to a stop in front of a two-story building, a bit more embellished than its neighbors at the west end of the market. Its lower floor is lined with long, dusty windows, some cracked in places. At the center stands a pair of tall double oak doors with brass fittings, flanked by stone columns. Above them, a weathered sign reads: Adventurer's Guild.

"I guess we're here…" I mutter, my gaze lingering on those words. Looking around, I hear the faint clamor of the market—the hammering on the wagon wheel down the road—but no rowdy laughter or boasts of returning adventurers. A few stray dogs wander up the street, and a young boy tosses pebbles into the road, but there are no warriors hauling in spoils for the guild.

Shadow steps down from the wagon and secures the reins to a rickety post along the road. As he tightens the strap, the post shifts in the loose soil. He pauses, regarding the questionable hitching post, then looks up into Huckleberry's eyes.

"Don't even try it," he mutters, glancing sidelong at Huckleberry as I hop down beside him with Envy in hand. The mare answers with a distinctly stubborn whinny.

"Relax, Huckleberry's a good girl," I chuckle, patting her flank. Shadow turns his head toward me skeptically just as Buttercup snorts.

"Good girls don't run off," Shadow says flatly, turning to pull open the entry doors for me to enter.

"Don't forget—they saved Diana," Envy chimes in.

"Yeah, I can't believe you're still mad about that," I say, stepping through the door.

"Don't gang up on me. You didn't have to drag that wagon back to town," Shadow retorts, following close behind.

We step into a large room filled with tables and chairs. Much like the guilds in Arcadia, it's built in the style of a tavern—meant to serve the needs of adventurers—but with one glaring difference.

"Where is everyone?" I ask, scanning the empty seats. There doesn't seem to be another soul in the place—until a low rumble drifts from the service counter at the far end of the room. Perhaps there's someone, or something, here after all.

I place Envy over my face, and she melds seamlessly to my skin, held in place by her enchantments—comfortable and nearly weightless. Looking through her eyes, I spot the red, person-shaped outline of someone behind the counter, head resting on folded arms, chest rising and falling with each rumbling snore.

Shadow and I approach the counter, peering down at a tuft of hair poking out from beneath a blanket draped over the man. We exchange a glance and a shrug.

"Ehm." I clear my throat loudly, but instead of my usual voice, a deeper tone—one very much not my own—rumbles out through Envy.

The man under the blanket jerks upright, the fabric slipping from his shoulders to reveal a sallow face framed by a mane of unkempt brown hair. His half-lidded eyes drift toward Shadow's torso, then widen as they travel slowly upward to meet his mask. He seems to shrink into his seat, fear flickering across his expression.

"Good morning." The guild attendant flinches at my voice. Far from being as reassuring as I'd intended, my deeper tone through the mask only seems to make things worse.

"W-who are y-you?" the man stammers.

With a sigh, I remove Envy from my face. "We're adventurers," I say, then gesture around the room. "This is the Adventurer's Guild, isn't it?"

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"From the looks of him—and this place—it doesn't seem like he sees many of those," Envy muses inside Shadow's and my thoughts.

The guild attendant, having not heard Envy, seems to realize the folly of his question under my exasperated stare. Recovering from his initial shock, he stands and straightens his forest-green uniform, clearing his throat.

"Right. How may I help you, then?"

Shadow and I both pull out our guild cards and hold them up for him to see. He watches as they glow faintly green in our hands, illuminating our personal information and confirming us as the rightful owners.

"We're looking for any C-rank requests you might have," Shadow says.

"It's the final requirement for our C-rank promotions," I add as we return our guild cards to our pockets.

Shadow and I have completed more E- and D-rank missions than most adventurers, but promotion to C-rank requires completing five C-rank or higher quests. Unfortunately, with the sheer number of adventurers in Arcadia, competition is fierce, and requests of that level are rare to begin with. Counting the goblins, saving Diana, the mithril fur bears, and the Nightshade, I've completed four. Shadow's fourth was dealing with a rogue treant, leaving us both just one C-rank mission away from promotion.

That's what brings us here today. I'm hoping that, with Hyperion's shortage of mages, there'll be less competition in this region.

The guild attendant gestures to his left, and our eyes follow toward a stretch of wall absolutely covered, top to bottom, in overlapping sheets of parchment.

"By all means, help yourself," he says with a note of irony. "We have more requests than you could ever want."

Shadow heads straight for what I assume is the standard quest board buried beneath layers of yellowed requests, without saying a word. The attendant's eyes follow him, flinching slightly at the sound of Shadow's heavy footsteps.

"So," I say casually, "how many adventurers do you have here?" His gaze flicks back to me.

"Not many active ones," he answers with a shrug.

"With so many requests, why are there so few adventurers?" I ask, watching Shadow scan the wall of parchment.

"Pay's not worth the risk. Young, healthy folks are needed more on the farms these days," he replies.

Shadow yanks one of the parchments from the wall and keeps flipping through the others.

I guess that makes sense. Doesn't matter how much coin a quest offers if there's no food to buy with the money you earn.

Shadow pulls down two more requests and regards them side by side for a moment before striding back to join me at the counter. He places all three on the surface.

"We'll take these," Shadow says.

Before the man behind the counter picks them up, I notice the requests all seem written in a similar hand.

"Removing a curse, hunting a fugitive, and killing a Fenrir?" he reads with a raised brow. "Three C-rank quests… are you sure you can handle that?" he adds, his tone skeptical.

Shadow doesn't answer. His mask stares back unflinchingly, its dark hollows giving nothing away. The attendant gulps, his confidence wilting.

"R-right. Of course, sir," he murmurs.

"May I?" I ask, holding out my hand to take a look.

"They were all issued by the lord based out of the city of Fel," Shadow explains as the attendant passes the papers to me.

As Shadow said, they're all issued by a Chief Wahn Ying—sounds like a foxkin name. Scanning through the details, I see mention of a vague curse spreading through farmland, routine monster attacks, and a bandit preying on travelers who enter the forest. Each request is based in or around the village of Fel.

"How far away is that?" I ask, looking up.

"A day's travel southwest by wagon—two if you're on foot," he answers, already scribbling into his ledger behind the counter. "Your names were…?"

"Shadow and Maribel," I reply.

"Right. The quests are yours," he says with a final scratch of his quill. "Good luck."

"Thank you!" Shadow and I say in unison as we head back toward the exit, quests in hand.

"If it's a day's travel, we should head out right away," I say thoughtfully, still scanning the parchment.

Shadow steps through the doors and holds one open for me. I'm greeted by the barking of dogs and the sting of daylight after the dim interior of the guild hall. My vision adjusts just in time to see a pack of strays nipping at the aged mule's ankles. It kicks—then bolts.

The scene before me erupts into chaos as the mule gallops away from its owners. Shadow vanishes from my side as Buttercup, perhaps startled by the commotion, lurches forward. Their reins wrench the hitching post loose, and though I take a step and reach for them, they're already out of my grasp.

Only as my gaze follows our wagon pulling away do I see where Shadow has gone. The runaway mule barrels down the road—straight toward the boy who'd been playing there. Shadow saw what I hadn't and is already sprinting after him. Buttercup, apparently chasing her master, tears after the runaway mule, dragging Huckleberry along.

Adrenaline floods my veins, and time seems to crawl. I watch Shadow charge into the path of the spooked animal pulling its heavy load. My hand rises instinctively—I need to do something, cast something—but what? I can't open a portal large enough to redirect the wagon, and my view of the boy is blocked.

It's too late.

The mule veers sharply at the last second, its eyes rolling white with terror. The wagon, with its heavy load, can't follow the turn—its weight carries it forward in a violent arc.

The side of the cart slams into Shadow with a deafening crack. The force splinters the frame to pieces, wood exploding into the air as Shadow shields the boy with his body. Hay bursts like smoke around him, filling the street in a choking golden cloud.

The mule tears free, screaming as it bolts down the road, dragging half a broken harness. The shattered wagon groans and collapses in a heap, wheels still spinning uselessly.

As the dust settles I see him kneeling face to face with the boy, his hood and clothes shredded by wooden shrapnel and his mask knocked askew. The boy crawls backward, eyes wide with terror as he looks up at Shadow. Shadow reaches out a hand, but the boy scrambles away.

"M-monster!" he screams, fleeing down the street as Buttercup and Huckleberry pull up beside Shadow, by some miracle of the gods blocking him from view, at least for a moment.

I'm right on their heels, pulling my cloak from my shoulders and throwing it over my mithril friend. Even without expression, I can feel his horror at those words, at that reaction—the thing he fears most. My heart tightens, but this is no time to hesitate.

"Get in the wagon now," I command, adjusting his mask and pulling the hood of my cloak over his head. "We need to go, Shadow," I add pleadingly, trying to drag him toward the wagon, to no avail.

Heeding my words, Shadow turns slowly and pulls himself onto the driver's bench. I take the reins and hop up beside him. Without waiting for my cue, the horses lurch forward, hooves clattering down the road.

As we race through the streets, I glance over at Shadow, worry twisting in my chest. He doesn't move—still as a statue, head bowed over his hands.

"Shadow…" Envy says cautiously inside our minds. "He's just a kid, he doesn't—"

"I'm a monster."

Shadow cuts her off. Or rather, the voice that comes from him is one I've never heard before. It falters between high and low, like the voice of a child breaking through. Every syllable carries a tortured kind of agony, a depth of emotion I didn't think he could express.

"I'm a monster!" he says again, voice breaking and popping as if his enchantments are failing.

"No, you're not!" I say earnestly, grasping his hand.

"Don't lose yourself!" Envy's voice echoes in our minds. "We need you."

I pull Shadow toward me, and he yields to my touch as I draw his head down to my shoulder. I hold him close as he leans into me, one arm braced against the back of the seat. My heart races. Everything happened so fast, and my mind is still catching up—but I can feel how badly he needs me now.

I pat his back like a mother would a frightened child, unsure if the gesture even reaches him, but desperate to do something—anything—to ease the pain in his voice.

"I know what real monsters are like, Shadow," I whisper, emotion catching in my throat. "You're the most human, kind, and selfless person I've ever met."

Then, remembering the words he'd said to me just last night, I add softly, "You're beautiful, too. Inside and out."

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