For those who have read my Shadow trilogy, you know that it’s rife with magic and magical occurrences. One of the most integral magics of the series is the ability of the main character, Caim, to control shadows. This power begins humbly, with Caim barely able to manipulate the darkness around him, but grows throughout the series.
When I began writing the first book, Shadow’s Son, I didn’t know much about Caim’s magic, but it developed over the course of several writing drafts. The idea that his magic came from another plane of existence was something that just occurred to me during the revision. Because I was creating a low-magic world where magic and magic-wielders were relatively rare, it made sense that the power had seeped into Caim’s world from somewhere else. This place was the Other Side, where extrahuman races such as the Fae and the Shadowfolk originated. Of course, I had Caim’s Fae companion, Kit, to guide my storytelling choices. The key was that Caim possessed these powers because of his unusual parentage. His father was human, but his mother had come from the Shadow Realm.
Shadow’s Son also features an insane sorcerer villain, Levictus. Although fully human, he possesses magic similar to Caim due to his apprenticeship to a mysterious sorceress in the north, but it’s not until the second book, Shadow’s Lure, that Caim encounters this sorceress and realizes the threat she poses. And Lure also expands on Caim’s powers, exposing him to more shadow magic. Yet, as his powers grow, his control over them wanes, so this second book is concerned with the delicate balance of power versus control.
In the third and final book of the series, Shadow’s Master, Caim comes to the fruition of his power, and this brings new challenges as he faces off against the ultimate power behind the Shadow. Caim has come a long way since his days as a freelance assassin, both in maturity and the scope of his magic. The shadows are a part of him, allowing him to perform such magical feats as transport himself from place to place (shadow-hopping) and wrap himself in shadows to form a protective second skin. Yet, Caim also realizes that he is in danger of losing his humanity. By the end, he has some big decisions to make, and those choices will have resounding effects on his world.
