Dominic cl's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Dominic opened his eyes in the dark. He lay on cold dirt beside the training barracks. His chest no longer bled. The wound was gone. He pushed himself up against the timber wall and stared at his own hands. They looked solid, but they felt wrong, like they held more than skin could hold. Words printed themselves across his sight. They glowed pale in the black air. "System online. Host: god of light and darkness. Level 1." He blinked. The words stayed. "Task 1: basic training. Learn to hide your nature and build your physical body. Reward omnipresent sight A warning followed. "Your features hide in the light, no one will tell what you are. In dark you will be a non tiring predator Complete training before dawn." Dominic did not understand. He raised one hand toward a lantern hanging over the barracks door. Its light fell across his fingers. His skin lit up from inside, white and burning, too bright to be human. Shadows also spilled from him, black and thick, crawling up the wall. Any soldier who looked would scream. He yanked his hand back into the dark. There the glow died. His hand looked plain again. "You will draw eyes like that," a voice said. "Then men will point, and pointing brings pistols." Dominic spun. A figure stood in the shadow of the barracks, small and calm. Their hair was half black, half white. Their robe carried gold marks that seemed to shift. Their eyes shone like stars. This was the presence from the dark, the one that kept accounts and had bought his second life. It had a shape now. "You," Dominic said. "You sent me back to collect. Then why am I glowing like a bonfire?" "I gave you power," the figure said. "I did not give you control. That is your work." They stepped closer, unbothered by the cold. "I am Axis Moebius. I keep the ledger of stolen lives. Yours is still open. But a god who cannot pass as a man cannot walk into that yard and find his killers." "Then teach me," Dominic said. Axis pointed at the lantern. "Pull the dark over the light. Both live in you. Balance them. Try." Dominic stepped into the lantern's glow. His skin flared. Men could wake at any moment. He forced his mind toward the black he felt inside, the way he had once forced words to save his life from scared scouts. He imagined the shadow wrapping the light like a cloak. His skin dimmed. The glow sank down. The crawling shadows folded back into him. He stood in full lantern light, and he looked like an ordinary soldier. Axis nodded once. "Task 1 complete. You can hide now." Dominic looked at his steady hands. Yesterday a captain shot him in this yard and called him a deserter. Now he could stand in the light and no one would know what he was. He turned toward the general's quarters. The captain was still out there. So was the debt.