Shadow Slave

Tatal’s wedding was a grand affair...

By the standards of the nascent civilization of the Age of Gods, naturally.

The whole village participated in the preparations. The best seamstress of the tribe prepared her wedding dress; the hunters ventured deep into the forest to procure meat for the feast. A few of the daring youths robbed the nest of an Awakened queen bee and made it away with several jars of mystical honey.

The shadow had to scare the enraged creature into abandoning its plans of revenge.

The old women created an elaborate headdress, using ember, carnelian, and rubies to decorate it. An elderly craftsman carved the auspicious charm — the figurine of a ferocious wolf — from a piece of precious jade.

Special dyes were created. The shaman of a tribe spent many days preparing to officiate the ritual. The children prowled the forest, searching for sweet berries on the ground and glistening gemstones in the streams.

Usually, the tribesmen would build a home for the newlywed couple. But ever since Tatal’s grandfather passed away several years ago, she had lived alone in his house — one of the largest in the village, decorated with bestial skulls and fearsome antlers.

The shadow was surprised by how much work went into ensuring that Tatal’s wedding was as grand and festive as possible. Granted, she was not just any young girl — despite her youth, Tatal was special to the tribe. She was the last descendant of its most fearsome hunter, after all, and a powerful Awakened in her own right.

She had been very young when she Awakened, too — unusually so — and powerful as well. So, the elders treasured Tatal, hoping that she would grow more powerful in the future... perhaps even more powerful than her grandfather had been, and would therefore ensure the safety and prosperity of the tribe once they were gone.

And, naturally, there was the fact that she had been offered as a sacrifice to the terrifying creature that dwelled in the darkness, and was returned to the tribe alive.

So, perhaps it was no surprise that the tribe treated her wedding with such zeal. In fact, it had taken a lot to arrange the marriage itself.

By then, it was customary for the young people of neighboring tribes to marry each other. The chieftain of the tribe — its best hunter — was usually a man, while the shaman was usually a woman. The former dealt with outside threats, while the latter took care of the people, so women held more authority in the inner workings of a tribe. Therefore, the groom usually moved to live with the bride’s family.

However, Tatal was not just anyone — sadly, there were no suitable young men in the neighboring tribes to become her husband. So, the elders put a lot of effort into reaching out to the far reaches of the realm, eventually finding her an outstanding groom among the youths of the Grey Wolf Tribe — a tribe of fearsome hunters that had yet to abandon its nomadic ways, wandering the vast expanse of the realm despite its many dangers.

While learning about the Grey Wolf Tribe, the shadow was also surprised to learn how Tatal’s own tribe was called...

It was the Shadow Tribe.

And the reason her people were called that was none other than the shadow himself, even if he had known nothing about it.

It seemed that all tribes of humans came from a small number of great tribes who had formed a long time ago, when their ancestors left the blissful cradle of the Heart Forest.

As they spread over the mortal realms and their numbers increased, the tribes splintered — when the number of people outgrew the ability of the land to support them, someone had to leave in search of a different route in untamed wilderness. That was how humans swiftly settled most of the mortal realms, and when there was nowhere else to go, they had no choice but to settle and invent agriculture to sustain their growing population. And that, in turn, was how the shadow had ended up with his noisy, frustrating neighbors.

The ancient, great tribes were each called by the name of the guardian Spirit they worshipped. The tribe guarded by the fearsome Sacred beast, the Wolf, was called the Wolf Tribe, for example — its smaller offshoots would add an epithet to their name, one for each degree of separation from their guardian Spirit. Some of the youngest tribes would not have any name at all, having lost the connection to their deity.

That meant that the Grey Wolf tribe was old and powerful, having proven its ability to survive across dozens of generations. The Shadow Tribe, however, only had one word in its name, since there was no other group of humans protected by the shadow — it was the first of its kind.

That made its status ambiguous, so the elders had outdone themselves to secure Tatal a promising youth of the Grey Wolves. The shadow really couldn’t complain.

He still wanted to, though.

‘What is she thinking about? Marriage? Too young! She’s too young!’

He found himself experiencing a lot of emotions he could not quite explain. The shadow rarely felt anything that could be rightfully described as emotion, really, so it was no surprise that he could not discern his own feeling, let alone where they came from.

The greater surprise was that he felt anything at all.

Tatal... seemed happy, though, so he couldn’t say anything. He wasn’t entirely unhappy about whom the elders had chosen for her, either.

The Wolf. That name resonated with him, because he had been the Wolf once.

Which meant that he had killed it once, as well.

The descendants of the people who had forged a bond with the Spirit Wolf could not be terrible people. They had to be strong, at least — far stronger than Tatal’s own people were.

Besides that, wolves were pack animals. They knew the value of family. So, the shadow believed that Tatal’s future husband would treat her well.

And if not...

Well then, the shadow had killed the guardian Spirit of those people. Dealing with a mortal pup would be as easy as looking his way.

‘At least they had the sense to arrange a marriage with a Wolf Tribe.’

If it had been a tribe worshipping an unworthy beast, the shadow would not have stayed quiet. In fact, he would have had to put his foot down...

The shadow did not really have a foot, but the point still stood.