Silver Shadow Book Two In The Lore Trilogy


 
 
 
 Copyright © 2023 by Jessica Harden
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 Print ISBN: 979-8-218-12328-4
 eBook ISBN: 979-8-218-12329-1
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 First Edition
 
 
 To Robin, 
 Whose insight and honesty is what brought this story to life. 
 Thank you. 
 
 
 PROLOGUE
 No one knew where the disease started. It would appear out of nowhere and spread like wildfire from town to town, affecting everyone. This disease wouldn’t have been a bad thing if we had known how to stop it. 
 It would start with a fever, but it was nothing like a normal fever. It overtook you, leaving your body burning one minute and ice cold the next. Then the final stages began. Your eyes turn completely black, with no color or white left. Then black-spidery veins appear at your temple and slowly spread throughout your entire body. The whole thing happens within hours. By the time it starts, it’s already too late. 
 No one knew how the disease spread, so as soon as you showed signs, society would shun you. You would be cursed to live out the rest of your short, miserable hours alone and in pain. 
 
 The baby had silver eyes. Not only was it an unusual eye color for someone to have, but her twin brother had dark eyes like his hair. When he came out first, the midwives assumed his twin would also share this quality. They were shocked to see her silver eyes catch in the light of the lanterns. Some thought dark magic was afoot and refused to be anywhere near her. 
 The twins were born on the eve of the Arak, short for Arachnid, outbreak. This is what the townsfolk had started nicknaming it, believing it had come from spider bites that left the inky black web-like trails down the infected body. Everyone was afraid and looking for something to blame for the disease outbreak. Most of the people in the town decided to blame the twins. 
 Their mother already had a few names picked out, depending on the gender of the babies. The boy’s name was Peter, a normal strong sounding name for the man he would someday surely become. The girl’s name was meant to be Piper since they were twins and twins typically had similar-sounding names. However, when her mother saw those silver eyes, she knew that the name she had picked out no longer worked for the daughter she held in her arms.
 “Hello, my little Silver,” she whispered and pressed her lips to her tiny head. 
 Names had power, which the twins’ mother was aware of. At the last moment, her mother made an impossibly important choice and changed something she had been planning for the nine months she had carried them. This was the most important gift her mother ever gave her, and her mother was very much aware of it. 
 
 The twins grew up as normally as they could. There were still people in their town that blamed them for the disease that had spread throughout the lands. The very disease that took their father from them right after they were born. Their mother was now a widow, which she wore with grace. 
 She insisted on having a funeral, even though most victims of Arak were burned in large piles with no ceremony. Everyone who attended the funeral agreed that the grace in which she held herself, made it painful just to look at her. While most of the widows who’ve been a victim of the disease had wept and raved at the injustice of it all, the twins’ mother stood stoic. A child in each arm, she never wept or wailed. The only sign that she was in any distress was the tears that silently streamed down her face. It was apparent to anyone that the twins parents had loved each other in a way that was somehow visible, a love that would stretch far beyond any disease or even the reaches of death. The twins were too young to have understood this, of course, but they would later hear the stories the townsfolk gossiped about while doing the weekly shopping. 
 The town the twins were born in was one right off the sea. From their cottage, they could see the white breaks of the waves from a room on the north side of the house. This just so happened to be the room that they were born in, which might have something to do with the twins’ love of the sea. It became apparent to their mother as soon as they were able to crawl, the twins somehow knew where the water was no matter where they were. 
 One day, when they were barely old enough to walk, their mother got quite a fright when after taking her eyes off of them for two seconds, they were no longer standing next to her. After an hour of searching, she found them, perfectly safe but playing in the shallows of the waves. She knew then that they must have saltwater in their blood and no amount of her trying to stop them would do any good. So after a great deal of supervision and safety training on how to swim and the dangers of riptides, the twins were free to go to the beach as often as they liked. 
 This was a