Shadows and Shade Box Set

by Amanda Cashure

  “I could kiss her,” Seth says, his eyes lighting up as he stops what he’s doing to enjoy my rendition of his song.

  “One of us should kiss her. That would shut her up,” Roarke offers.

  My lips snap shut of their own accord.

  Pax growls, and Killian grunts, “Rules.”

  Roarke just shrugs, pouting like a puppy without his toy.

  Three whole shovels later and something else is on my mind.

  “I know my still being alive when you turned up at the estate is currently causing us all some –” I’m about to say pain, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one feeling any pain, so I switch to, “Difficulty. But I need some really plain, straight forward, no-nonsense answers.”

  They all straighten from their various shoveling stances and turn to face me, Seth letting his shovel take all his weight while Killian holds his like its use as a weapon is a real possibility.

  Suddenly, everyone is looking very serious.

  I turn my gaze to Pax. Commander Pax. Number One.

  His gold eyes settle on mine like he’s already calculating what I’m about to say into his ever lowering opinion of me.

  “Why the bralls did you drag me into your world?” I demand. “I know what happened, I don’t understand why,” I clarify.

  “Servants don’t need details,” he says, and now I want to slap him.

  “Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, you and I are on the same level right now. If anything, I outrank you – because I was a servant here a whole day before you. So really, I am your boss. And as your boss, I demand answers.”

  Pax’s jaw ticks, his eyes pinching at the corners and his teeth grinding – and I prepare myself to run.

  Oh, crap.

  Then Killian chuckles, and not just a little. He sounds seriously amused. Followed by a shovel full of manure smacking me in the back. I stagger forward, curses ringing through my mind, but my lips lock shut as I grip the nearest railing and steady myself.

  “Dig,” Killian says, and I can practically feel the pleasure in his tone.

  Pax leans over me, because of course I’ve ended up using his stall wall to balance against. Even at my full height, the guy is still bigger than me, and every bit of his tanned features, powerful muscle structure, and intensely intelligent eyes screams ‘I’m the boss’.

  “What is bralls?” Pax asks.

  “Don’t ask, brother. It’s a long story,” Seth says.

  Pax glances at him, then back to me. “Is that all?” he asks.

  “No, that’s not all,” I say, my voice lacking the determination I had when I was far enough away from him that he couldn’t kill me with his bare hands. I compensate by standing up tall – not tall enough to look him eye to eye, though – and shaking the horse shit from my hair. “You went to the Manor Lord for something, what was it?”

  The four of them shoot wary glances at each other, and I can see their decision formulating in their expressions – they’re never talking around me again. Even if they think I’m asleep.

  “New rule, never speak of this – got it?” Pax orders.

  “No, I don’t ‘got it’ –” I begin, but shut up real quick – Pax’s eyes are ablaze, the golden hues so intense that I can physically feel the sharp brush of static in the air.

  “Follow. My. Rules,” he orders.

  In my mind, something snaps into place. My knees buckle, dropping me onto the slate floor with aching force. I lower my gaze, feeling every hair on my body standing on end. I literally feel like I’m about to be eaten.

  No one talks, but the shoveling and tossing of dirty straw returns.

  I have to wait for permission to stand, but I’m not sure if I know that because of pure fear and a long life as a servant or because some kind of magic physically won’t let me move.

  Long moments pass, and I realize that while the others have gone back to work, Pax hasn’t moved.

  He crouches down inside the stall. The twisted branches that form its walls are imperfect, each wall unique. I look up to peer at him through a branch that spirals suddenly in the middle and forks off in three different directions. Only half his face is visible, and he’s deep in the shadow of the stall, making it even harder to decipher his expression.

  “Just wait,” he says, his tone low and neutral. “Just watch. If you have questions I can answer, then I will. But not that one. Okay?”

  I nod.

  He turns back to his digging. Still shaking, so do I.

  I eyeball the various intersections as we move through the stables, shoveling shit. I’ve no idea in which section of the stables the boy’s hidden quarters are, but a bed is all that I want.

  I don’t want the blisters on my hands as I keep shoveling, or the ache between my shoulders. Or the stabs of pain that emanate from the slice on my wrist and the glass cuts on my palm.

  But I keep shoveling.

  The boys talk, joke, compare their desires for dinner, and try to guess which horse would win a race. We cross paths with the other stable boys once or twice – but they make themselves very scarce.

  They act like this is all within their normal.

  Even when a group of three other Sabers wander in, another triune I guess. The Elorsin brothers pretend not to notice them.

  “Leave it to Logan, Peta,” one of them hisses.

  “He’s too busy calling servants into his bed,” I’m guessing Peta mutters.

  “Coffins,” another counters.

  “Tylyn’s right. Three of them last night.”

  Every single Elorsin stiffens and stops working, but they don’t move as the Sabers wander past.

  “The castle is so much more fun with him in it,” Tylyn says.

  “Everything’s changing, and the border’s losing its touch,” Peta says, flicking his long fringe back from his eyes. Eyes that are deliberately not looking down at us. “Did you hear about those Sabers turning up without their full triunes?”

  “That was months ago,” the third guy hisses.

  “Four of them. Bet they thought they were the next tetrad,” Peta jokes. “But the castle denied them entry, like it should all tetrads.”

  Seth chuckles and I look up in time to see all three of them slip on their asses before jumping up quickly and scampering out the door.

  “Did you do that?” I whisper.

  “Maybe,” he whispers back, leaning in close to me.

  Damn, his eyes are so blue, so pretty.

  Pretty like they belong in my dreams.

  He opens his mouth slowly, and I move back, cursing myself for having some stupid notion about Seth in my dreams.

  Seth in my nightmares – yep, that sounds more like it, I try to convince myself.

  Killian grumbles, and even though I’m already stepping back, Pax throws a lump of mud at Seth’s head, hitting him with a splat.

  “Gross, brother,” Seth groans.

  Nope, not mud. Horse shit.

  On the inside I’m laughing as I move on to the next stall. On the outside, I’m shaking because Seth is intense. They all are. They’re all deadly.

  And distance is my best friend.

  The boys don’t complain, barely break a sweat, or even stop for a break, until the midday bell sounds.

  Killian holds out his hand, accepting the brothers’ shovels one at a time.

  “Food?” Roarke asks.

  “You read my mind,” Seth counters, and they move off together.

  Pax turns and walks off in the opposite direction.

  “Where are you going?” Roarke calls after him.

  “To speak with Ravaryn.”

  That leaves me with Killian – who definitely doesn’t offer to take the shovel from my hands. I follow him back to where we’d started this morning, my shovel dragging because I just don’t have it in me to hold it up any longer, to a storeroom that I hadn’t bothered to notice, built into one corner of the t-section. There are four long corridors of stables going off in each direction. Horse after ho
rse. Stall after stall.

  I calculate the time it would take the five of us to clean them out, extending my math to include the sheer number of other corridors veering off at the ends of these ones. Clara had said there was a hundred and something Sabers at the castle – does that mean there are more than a hundred horses in here? Each hall looks the same, save the natural differences in the timber as it was growing – before it was cut down and brought in here to form the pillars, posts, beams, dividers, the railings along the length of the lofts, and the staircases leading up. All in branches that haven’t been milled into flat timbers.

  Killian disappears into the storeroom, then without turning around, he takes two big steps backward. The guy makes carrying four shovels look easy, even when he reaches out and snatches a fifth one from my fingers before marching forward again.

  “I don’t see why I had to shovel straw and shit all morning. I didn’t get sent out here,” I say into the quiet stables.

  “I don’t see why you’re in Silva at all,” A woman says, sauntering around the corner. “Or why everyone thinks you’re so interesting.”

  I certainly wasn’t talking to a tall, built like a bull mated with a… what are those birds that twist themselves around to impersonate a sapling, then eat the cute little sparrows when they fly past? I don’t remember, now is not the time to try and work it out either. She’s the tallest, prettiest, meanest looking SaberSeed woman I’ve seen yet.

  She’s in a deep blue sleeveless tunic, the shoulders hemmed perfectly to follow the cut of her toned body. Her breeches are the same color, except for the leather up to the knees. She’s either been riding, or she’s about to go.

  I bow, not trusting myself to say the right thing.

  “I suppose your presence will be short lived, no matter what I do, but before someone else has the pleasure…” she trails off.

  “Asanta,” Killian says, stepping out of the store room with his arms folded over his chest.

  Asanta, why is that name so familiar?

  “Killian,” she chimes, a mixture of reverence and desire in her tone.

  Her fingers caress the hilt of the small blade at her side. I get the impression that the desire she has is of the drawing blood kind.

  He huffs, something about this amusing to him.

  “It’s such a pity they stopped you from training with us.”

  “Mmm,” he says, and I have no idea whether he’s agreeing with her or not.

  “Since you two obviously know each other, and obviously want to accept the challenges being thrown around, I might just leave you to it,” I say, taking what I hope will be a step behind Killian, but what turns out to be a step into him.

  I try again, but he moves in unison with me and blocks my backward escape.

  Like he wants me to deal with Asanta.

  She takes a sauntering step toward me, her back foot returning to a ready-to-pounce position beside her right.

  Tangee. That’s what those birds are. Tangee.

  “You’re too new here to understand how someone like Killian works,” she says, trailing a finger across the neck of my shirt.

  I eye the clear path to my left. If I can push past her, I can run… but if Killian doesn’t move, I’ll be running straight into a wall.

  “He feeds on you. That’s his Seed. He feels happy when people like you and I feel pain. That’s how someone with the Darkness works. It’s no different to the DeathSeeds. Seeing you and me fight would be better than sex for him.”

  Killian’s whole body vibrates with a growl spiraling up from deep inside his chest. His sex life is obviously not up for discussion. But instead of taking that as a cue to end this nonsense and walk our separate ways, Asanta springs into action like a dog on the dinner bell.

  She grabs me by the hair and pulls my face toward her knee with frightening speed. It’s a miracle I get my hands up to shield my nose in time. My forearms sting from the hit. With a shove, she sends me sprawling away from Killian.

  I give the man a terrified look, and he nods at me.

  Nods.

  What the fuck!

  I scramble to my feet. Running is not an option because Killian’s gone statue still.

  Can’t run, can’t fight. This is not going to end well for me.

  Asanta prowls forward.

  “You’ve got their scent all over you. Like dirt under each of their boots,” she says, her voice too sweet to be called a growl, and yet the effect it has on my nerves is too intense to be anything but a threat.

  How does someone like me even fight someone like that? Roarke wasn’t immune to a kick in the balls, but girls don’t have the same weakness.

  “What do you care?” I demand, stalling, still searching for an exit.

  “I’m always going to care what you’re doing,” she mutters. Killian is close, but I’m not sure if he can hear her, or if his attention is focused on the fight and not the talking. “Like a hunter cares to watch his prized catch bleed out. Do they mount the heads of deers and dragons on the walls of soot homes? Because my home will look so much nicer with a soot mounted over the fireplace.”

  Her ice cold words clench tight inside my chest, but before I can react, she lunges for me and with every ounce of what little energy I have left, and the added pulse of adrenaline in my veins, I launch myself at the nearest stall wall.

  The stall dividers and support beams that stretch up to the loft have whole branches stretching out from the main timbers. I’m off the ground and scrambling straight up into the loft with the kind of speed that takes even me by surprise.

  Climbing Lord Martin’s pole. Hiding on the Manor roof. Escaping through the den’s top story window – all of that practice was stupidly useful.

  Stupidly, because as soon as I’m in the loft I realize I’ve got nothing but hay to use as a weapon, or a barrier, and in the next heartbeat Asanta is up here with me.

  “Thom, Hennah,” she hollers down and another two Sabers come around the corner.

  Hennah, with long blonde hair in a tight braid that almost reaches her waist and a riding crop that she’s smacking loudly into the palm of her hand, takes the lead. Thom ambles more lazily behind, his dark hair is long and perfectly straight, mimicking the style that seems to come naturally to the Masters.

  They don’t look at Killian, perhaps can’t even see the guy from the direction they’re coming from, but they spot me instantly. Me, in the loft with one hand on the railing that I just clambered up, and Asanta prowling toward me.

  “Hi,” I call down with a wave, bringing smart-ass into the battle. “Lovely to meet you.”

  They advance while Asanta growls.

  “They’re not here to meet you. They’re here to watch me destroy you.”

  “Why?” I ask, but even as the word leaves my mouth I’m pretty sure the answer is simple.

  Some people like to hurt, Martin was one of them. Asanta clearly is too.

  She leans closer so she can hiss, “I know Pax brought you in here. I know Seth stood between you and Logan. I know you mean something to them, but how much?”

  I shrug and point at my own chest. “I’m a servant. I serve.”

  “Asanta, stop playing with her,” Hennah calls up – and the name suddenly clicks into place.

  Asanta. She was in the potions lab. She acquired the potion for Logan, the one that got us all into this mess. Which makes her Logan’s right-hand-woman and makes me in deeper shit than I realized.

  “We’ve never met,” I begin, trying to feel out what she knows.

  Does she know I was in the lab? What about my bubble?

  “No, unfortunately Seth removed you from the stocks before I made it there or we would have met much sooner.”

  She snatches a hand toward me and I jump back. Apparently talky time is over, and I still have no weapon or escape. So I grab the railing, ready to throw my legs over and climb down. But Asanta draws the dagger at her belt and I’m too slow, my grip on the railing too loose, and with a bla
de cutting through the air on its way to me, I throw myself completely off the damned loft.

  I’m too far from Killian and smack hard into the invisible wall, then get bounced back. The air completely knocked from my lungs. I slam into the nearest pillar, one leg tangling through a fork in the branch and the rest of me hanging limply. My fingers brush across the floor and a rough brown tail whacks me across the face. A horse’s tail, which is logically situated rather close to the creature’s powerful hind legs. I struggle to pull myself upright, to take the weight off my leg and free myself.

  With Thom and Hennah approaching and Asanta gracefully launching herself from upstairs all of the way to the ground – the horse is the least of my worries.

  Asanta saunters toward me, each step poising her to attack.

  “I don’t want to be a sparrow,” I say, in my panic the words come out and they sound just as stupid in reality as they did in my head.

  Killian finally moves, throwing his arm out to slam against Thom’s face with bone crunching force. Human bone crunching. He took Thom by surprise, the guy mustn’t have been able to see the bigger Saber in the doorway to the tack room until it was too late, and he did send Thom flying backward. But he didn’t even draw blood.

  If I’d been hit, my nose would have been pushed through to the back of my skull.

  Thom shrugs it off, but Hennah looks between the two men with healthy hesitation as Killian walks calmly toward them – away from me.

  I stretch to reach the fork in the wood, but my fingers slip. I try again and again, but the surface has been sanded smooth and coated in polish. It doesn’t surprise me at all when the invisible wall brushes against my back.

  I push against it to leverage myself up higher as Asanta’s laughter fills the stables. She steps lithely onto the next stall wall. Graceful, perfectly balanced, deadly. Looking at me eye to eye with the distance of one stall between us. What’s that to her? One step? An easy jump?

  It doesn’t matter. I’m pinned tight, wedged between the column that I had almost managed to get myself free of, and a wall that Killian has completely forgotten about.

  Or he just doesn’t care about it.

  “So you’re Logan’s puppy?” I gasp.