They called it a "special evaluation." Which was Empire-speak for: we think you're interesting, and interesting is dangerous.
I was marched down a sterile hall into a chamber stripped bare, white walls, no windows, a single table and two chairs. The kind of room where they didn't ask questions so much as peel you open to see what spilled out.
I sat. Waited. Smiled at the security camera in the corner until the red light blinked off.
Then the door opened.
The man who stepped in wasn't like the other officers. No polished medals, no self-important strut. He moved quiet, smooth, like he belonged in shadows instead of floodlights. His eyes caught me first—not Imperial brown, not the violet of a Pureblood, but a stormy gray-blue that hummed of something familiar.
"Cadet 53721," he said, sitting across from me. His voice was calm, low, with an edge that made me sit straighter without meaning to. "I've heard a lot about your… luck."
I smirked. "Luck's a crime now?"
"Luck doesn't parry faster than a drone can fire," he said. "Luck doesn't move like it's been trained for years."
That shut me up for half a second.
He leaned forward, hands folded. "Tell me, Kaelen..do the shadows ever move for you when you're not looking?"
My throat went tight. I forced the grin back into place. "That's a weird question, sir."
"I don't ask questions I don't already know the answer to."
The way he said it made the hair on my neck rise.
"Who are you?" I asked.
His smile didn't reach his eyes. "My name is Veyr. And I'm the closest thing to family you've got left."
---
The Offer
He didn't say it outright, not with the walls listening, but the meaning was clear enough. Half-blood or not, he knew what I was. Knew what my eyes under these glasses meant.
"Why are you here?" I asked, voice low.
"Because the Empire sees a cadet with unusual instincts," he said. "But I see a Shadowborn who doesn't know what he's carrying. If you don't learn control, they'll find out. And then they won't train you. They'll break you."
The word hung heavy.
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because," he said, and his gaze sharpened like a blade, "I know what it means to carry shadows without being able to command them. And I'd give anything to keep you from that."
For the first time, the smile slipped off my face.
Veyr leaned back, his tone softer. "If you want to survive, you'll need more than jokes and reflexes. You'll need training. I can give you that."
I didn't answer right away. I just stared at him, shadows twitching at the edges of my vision, curling like smoke only I could see.
Greg always said my clown act kept people off-balance. But this man wasn't laughing. He saw through every mask I had, straight into the part I never showed anyone.
And for the first time in years, I felt something I hadn't let myself feel since I was a kid.
Hope.
Veyr didn't waste time. That night, when the dorm was dark and Greg was snoring two bunks over, I felt a tug on my sleeve. A shadow against the wall that wasn't shaped like any cadet.
I followed.
He led me through back corridors I hadn't even known existed, service tunnels, old maintenance shafts, spaces the Empire had forgotten or pretended didn't exist. Finally, we ended in a chamber barely larger than a supply closet. The only light was a single flickering panel overhead.
"Why here?" I asked.
"Because shadows live best where no one looks for them," Veyr said. Then he turned, sharp and deliberate. "Show me."
I blinked. "Show you what?"
"The thing you keep buried. The thing you cover with glasses and jokes."
My chest tightened. "If I could just turn it off, don't you think I would've already?"
"You don't turn it off," he said, voice calm. "You let it breathe. The longer you fight it, the louder it gets. Now.... breathe."
I didn't want to. But the words sank into me like hooks.
So I closed my eyes. And I breathed.
At first it was nothing, just the hum of the light above, the faint sound of my own pulse. Then the edges of the room thickened, darker than they should've been. The shadows moved, not like smoke, but like they were alive, stretching toward me, curling around my arms.
I flinched back. "No!"
Veyr caught my shoulder, steadying me. His grip was iron. "Don't run from it. Control it."
"I can't."
"You can. You're Kaelith blood. The shadows are yours by right."
The name cut me. Kaelith. I hadn't heard it in years. It felt foreign and familiar all at once.
The shadows pulsed at the word, like they recognized it too.
My breath hitched. I forced my hand out, and the darkness followed—curling from the corners of the room to my palm, a writhing black coil. It quivered there, alive, waiting.
"Good," Veyr whispered. For the first time, there was something like pride in his voice. "Now..command it."
But I couldn't. The second I tried, the coil snapped loose, lashing out like a whip. The light shattered overhead. The room plunged into blackness.
When I opened my eyes again, the shadows were gone. My chest heaved, sweat chilling my skin.
Veyr didn't move, didn't speak right away. Then he crouched in front of me, his storm-gray eyes serious.
"You're stronger than any Shadowborn I've ever seen," he said. "But you're raw. Wild. If you don't learn control, you won't just destroy yourself. You'll destroy everyone around you."
My voice cracked before I could stop it. "Then why train me?"
"Because," he said softly, "the Empire already knows what you are. They're waiting for you to slip. And when you do, they'll kill you. I won't let them."
For once, I didn't have a joke. I just sat there, hands shaking, the memory of the shadows crawling over my skin.
And for the first time, I wondered if maybe I was the thing the Empire said I was.
A monster.