Shadows and Shade Box Set

by Amanda Cashure

  We emerge from the forest onto a road at a canter, and the first sign of Rengurra appears through the trees soon after. The town is somewhere beyond the tall wall, made from planks of wood fitted with spiky-studs bigger than my head. Clearly they want to keep the forest creatures out.

  The boys slow to a walk and ride calmly ahead. I try to mimic their composure. Massive gates sit open, hugely tall but only wide enough for two horses at a time. Killian drops back to ride behind me, Seth in front of me, and Roarke at the lead. Their new order is unsettling.

  It shouldn’t be; they can line up in any order they want. Just because when I first met them, they were in a line that went Pax, Seth, Roarke, then Killian doesn’t mean they have to stay that way.

  But they do stay that way, most of the time. Right now they’re not, and Pax isn’t here at all, and this place is huge and full of people. It feels wrong. Nerves bounce around inside me, making me long to hear Killian laugh again.

  Swallowing them down, I focus on the details. The peeling black paint on the wall. Short tufts of grass growing between the base of it and a very well-trodden track alongside it.

  A guy in leather armor steps out of a small shelter next to the gate. “Halt. All visitors from the forest must declare themselves,” he announces.

  “Why?” Killian grunts, stopping right beside me.

  But Roarke and Seth swing down off their horses and hold their arms out to display their weapons. They turn in a circle then hold out their hands to clearly show the Seals burned into their flesh.

  “Why did you travel through the forest and not around on the main roads?” the guard asks.

  “We had word that lizards were causing problems and wanted to see if we could deal with them on our way through,” Roarke says. He doesn’t hesitate at all, and the half-lie sounds genuine.

  “They don’t know who you are?” I whisper-ask Killian.

  “Why would they?” he grumbles back, too low for the nearby guard to hear while Roarke is continuing to explain that they did, indeed, deal with some lizards on the way through.

  “Our faces aren’t painted on walls. Do you think we ride around with announcements on our asses?”

  “There’s plenty of problems in those woods,” the guard says, turning to Killian and adding, “Well, you too.”

  Killian snaps his sleeve back and thrusts his hand out for inspection.

  “Any new problems on the road ahead?” Roarke asks.

  “Nothing new here, but plenty of stories further along the trade routes.”

  “There’s always trouble on the trade routes,” Seth says, climbing back onto his horse. “That’s what enforcement is for.”

  “And her, what’s her story? She aint’ no Saber.”

  “Neither are you,” Roarke says, mounting up. “But your memory can be patchy, can’t it, old man? How about you forget about her?”

  The man’s eyes glaze over, his face going slack, and he lifts an arm as though half-asleep to wave us through the gates.

  The street is churned up, but not currently muddy. It makes me think that when it does rain, it rains hard, and the ground stays wet for a long time. All of the buildings are made from timber with wide verandas and bridges from one to the next. They sit on short stumps to keep them just above the ground. The scattering of people moving about on the bridges and walkways in the late afternoon sun barely look up or notice us. All of the people are on the walkways. What is on the road is so much weirder than people.

  Centaurs, that’s what Cook’s stories used to call a being with the top half human and the bottom half horse. When I was a kid, I pictured a big plough-horse and a hairy old man. I never pictured silky fur, perfectly toned abs, and hair like it belongs on a goddess. There’s six of them on the street, all women, and too far away for me to properly admire, but we walk straight past two wearing loose satin shirts in bright blues and pinks, which barely reach to their belly buttons. Their horse lower-bodies are both white, one with braids through the tail and the other with sections painted in red.

  I admit, I’m staring.

  And right on cue, they look over at me. Their attention is quickly pulled past me and onto Roarke, like he’s a magnet, and they’re drawn to him. He doesn’t seem to notice, though.

  After they cover their mouths, whispering and batting their long lashes, their gazes move back to me. Their smiles pull tight in disgust.

  I lift my hand, in a way blocking my view, but pretending to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear and doing everything but whistling to act like I don’t care what they think.

  Seth does start to whistle, sidling his horse next to mine. “Ignore them,” he says softly, then shrugs. “Or watch.”

  I catch a glimpse of the twinkle in his eye and glance over my shoulder, expecting to see one, or both, of the centaurs slip over. I guess they can’t technically fall on their asses, but any falling would be good.

  Nothing happens.

  I twist back to look at Seth.

  He winks. “I don’t normally get specific about my Chaos, but this feels like a slow revenge moment. Watch.”

  I obey, twisting further in the saddle as we move down the road at a normal walk and they continue to amble along like they’re too pretty to move any quicker.

  Their tails are already swishing, as horses’ tails do, so it takes me a minute to spot the strands stretching from one to the other. Reaching, entwining, and knotting. Within seconds, the two are so thoroughly threaded together that they’re going to need scissors to fix it.

  I look back at Seth to see the guy’s beaming.

  We keep walking and soon turn a corner. A high-pitched scream erupts from the street behind us.

  I don’t even bother containing my laugh.

  “That’s what I was waiting for,” Seth says, clicking loudly so his horse skips ahead.

  We ride through the rest of town, past the buildings built too close together, until the town begins to sprawl. Goat and pig pens fill the space between homes. A few more centaurs walk past – all women. They’re pretty gorgeous, and a part of me is keen to see if the male versions are muscular or hairy. I still expect them to be hairy, but that’s a pretty big gap in equality. If the women are divine and the men are not, I really pity the women.

  The road snakes around, a forest on our left and the last building on our right.

  A shepherd’s crook slung on a crooked angle hangs from the roof. No two guesses needed on the name of the place. ‘The Crooked Crook.’

  The forest has been cleared, lush grass growing in its place, with the squat two-story building in the middle. Outbuildings hug its walls and speckle the yard behind – a woodshed, cellar, outhouse, bathrooms. The guys ride straight for a timber-fenced yard where Pax’s dapple gray stallion is grazing lazily alongside a black gelding. No, he’s very, very brown. His mane and tail are a golden-yellow. Not the glowing metal type like in Seth’s hair or Pax’s eyes, but a gentle sandy color. I could stare at him all day. He’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

  Pax, his bags, and his saddle are nowhere to be seen.

  Roarke hops down and opens the gate, then pushes it shut behind us. I slip awkwardly to the ground, running my hand over the pony’s soft neck. My legs ache, my bum aches, and my arm aches. Man, does my arm ache. I hadn’t noticed the pain slowly seeping in, being strained by the cool evening air and general use, but it has. Hugging my arm close, I rest my forehead against the saddle, just grateful to have made a destination. Not our final destination, but a safe stopping point, anyway.

  After a breath, I collect myself and begin a one-handed struggle with the buckles on the saddle, using the guys around me as a model. Nearby, Seth lifts the side of the leather, reaches under, and in one smooth motion has the stomach-strap-thing undone.

  I try to do the same, wriggling and wrestling and making no progress.

  Roarke settles his saddle over the railing, hooking his horse’s reins over the post, and moves in my direction.

&nbs
p; “Here, let me,” he says, but my hand’s already in the air – held out to stop him.

  “Nope, I can do it.”

  “Or I can do it,” Seth says.

  “No, leave me to it. I’m not useless,” I tell them, then before Killian can grunt I add, “Not a word, Killian. I am not useless.”

  Killian lets himself out through the gate. He has saddlebags over one shoulder, cloak in one hand, saddle over his arm, two swords attached at his belt, bridle hanging from his neck and a bow and his arrows resting against his back. My jaw almost drops – the guy makes it look easy, ambling up and into the inn.

  Meanwhile, I manage to get my own saddle free and struggle to slip my left arm underneath it, hoist it from the horse’s back, and set it down on the fence.

  I’m pretty proud of that effort, smiling and all.

  “Good job,” Seth says, clapping.

  Okay, sure, a five-year-old could probably get a saddle off – but I have all of twenty-four hours experience with a saddle. Lets not talk about the one arm thing.

  Seth springs from the ground up onto the fence railing and proceeds to balance along it until he’s next to me, then he sits with his legs dangling and his dazzling blue eyes watching my every move.

  “Bridle now,” he says, waving at the horse’s head.

  I roll my eyes at him, setting about undoing the buckle under the horse’s chin. The animal moves away as soon as she’s free, tearing up chunks of grass and chewing them slowly. Roarke’s already left with all of his gear, and Seth’s stuff is sitting nearby. He pops to his feet, perches on the railing for a bare second, then springs into a backflip and lands lightly on the grass beside his bags.

  “Show-off,” I drone.

  “Want me to teach you?” He’s smiling so big that both his cheeks dimple.

  How can I say no to that?

  I slip through the fence, over one railing, and under the other. “Is it going to hurt?” I ask, lifting my broken, bandaged, and splinted arm to highlight my concerns.

  “Nah,” he says, offering me a relaxed shrug.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You never believe me.”

  “Not true. I usually believe you, and that’s what gets me into so much trouble.”

  He steps up close, which makes me lean back a little to keep eye contact. Roarke has silver strands among his dark hair. Seth has gold so vibrant that I’m willing to bet it’s actual metal. It always catches my eye, but this time I reach up and pluck one from his head. I roll it between my fingers. It’s thicker than a normal strand, smooth as silk, and so bright it shines in the dwindling copper sunset.

  The guy smiles down at me, a lopsided smile full of curiosity.

  “What?” he asks.

  “Could have sworn it was real gold. Why is it that no other Silvari I’ve seen have shiny hair like you and Roarke?”

  “Last of our kind.”

  He says it so dismissively that it takes me a beat to register the weight of his words and a second after that for the shock to settle into my features. Pax is the last AlphaSeed, Killian is the last DarknessSeed – I already knew that – but Seth is the last ChaosSeed, and Roarke is also the last AllureSeed.

  “What happened? Did your parents decide to have an exotic collection of kids?”

  He shrugs, dismissively. “I never asked.”

  Of course he didn’t. The carefree streak in his nature is much larger and more in control than the slim vein of common sense and the even slimmer trace of logic.

  “Our pentad is made up of four almost extinct Seeds and a mortal. Our mother sent us to find you for a reason. The same as she found the rest of us.”

  “Don’t say that.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. A lump of longing-to-belong-but-knowing-I-don’t.

  “What? That our mother sent us to find you?”

  “No, that you four risked your lives in a stupid tournament to have the powers-that-be remove my status as a soot-servant from the Desayer realm and consider me an Elite Saber and part of your team. I’m not part of your team, Seth.” A stab of pain hits me as each word forms and escapes my lips. “On the inside, I’m still a soot-servant.”

  The smile slips from his lips, and he caresses the backs of his fingers over my cheek as if wiping away tears that aren’t there.

  “No, you’re not. Part of you is Silvari. Part of you belongs here, and all of you belongs to us, Vexy.”

  “Not your toy,” I rebuke.

  “You like being my toy.”

  Before my mouth can spit out something stupid – like the fact that he’s right – I grab at a whole new conversation. “Teach me to flip.”

  I hold my broken arm in the air – hoping my gesture conveys the threat that if he hurts me, I will be hurting him back. Not physically, because that’s not even possible, but I’ll find something nasty to put in his boots or down his pants or in the hood of his cloak.

  “Can you jump?” he asks.

  “Of course I can jump!”

  “Show me.”

  I roll my eyes and jump.

  “Higher.”

  I try again, I need to get higher, but I still want to land gently.

  “Like this,” he says, and I swear he looks exactly the same as I do. “Arms must go up.”

  Throwing my arms around is a new concept. So is jumping up and down in public on the grass beside an inn, but I do it anyway.

  “You’re not going to make it around like that. You’ll land on your head. You have to jump like the landing isn’t going to hurt,” he says.

  “That makes so much sense.” My voice drips with sarcasm.

  It makes him chuckle. “If you jump like it’s going to hurt, then you’ll make it hurt. Focus, tell your body exactly what to do, and then wait and see. Doing things any other way is like willing them to go wrong.”

  That sounded smart – but I’m not about to tell him that.

  Instead, I listen. Pushing the awkward feeling out of my mind as I jump up and down, again and again, and swing my arms to reach for the sky over and over. An ache slips through my damaged bone, but I’m too busy thinking about the fact that every minute of this could just be Seth playing a joke on me.

  “Okay, stop,” he says, stepping in behind me and resting his hands on my hips. “I’m going to stand here, and you’re just going to jump up and look at the sky – then go back down again.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he says, smiling stupidly big.

  He is definitely jesting with me. All right. I wonder how long he can keep this up if I just play along? At what point is he going to get bored and suddenly start laughing?

  Does playing into his joke when I know it’s a joke actually make me the one pulling the prank?

  I jump, lean my head back and glimpse the darkening sky, then he takes my weight and lowers me back to the ground.

  “When you come up this time, I want you to lift your knees to your chest – but don’t try to roll backward. Just jump, pull your hands up to your face, look at the sky, and lift your knees. Then I’ll lower you back to the ground.”

  As instructed I jump, look up, lift my knees, then find myself lowered back to the ground.

  He spins me around to face him so quickly that I almost fall over. His hands on my hips are the only thing that keeps me steady. I’m just waiting for the punch-line.

  “No matter what, you have to follow through. If you bail out halfway, jerk, hesitate, or second guess yourself for just a moment, you’re probably going to break your neck.”

  “Yep, all right, in that case, let’s go get dinner,” I say, pulling away and taking a fake let’s-give-up-now step backward toward the inn.

  He tilts his head a little to the side, his blue eyes searching mine. Then he just nods, stepping as if agreeing with me. Agreeing that I’m incapable of doing this, too weak or stupid to learn to do a backflip.

  “Fine,” I declare, pushing firmly on his chest. He stops in his tracks. “What’s the next s
tep?” Your stupid prank better get to the point soon, or I really am out of here.

  He spins me around before I can change my mind. His hands remain on my waist as he positions himself a little behind me and a little to the side.

  “This time, commit. Follow through. All the way around. Don’t stop until you’ve landed on your feet or your ass. Probably your ass. I always landed on my ass. Ready?”

  What person learns to backflip by jumping and looking at the sky? Or jumping and leaning back against someone else?

  “Seth, if you hurt me –” I begin.

  “You’ll put a taco in my boot?”

  “No, I’ll get Killian to kick your ass.”

  He chuckles. “Pretty sure I can outrun him.”

  “Pretty sure you can’t run forever.”

  “How sure? I’ve got a good thousand years in me yet, Vexy.”

  I growl. “Fine.”

  “Then jump.”

  I jump. Look up at the sky and lift my legs – fully committing and at the same time completely disbelieving of everything he’s said. My body follows through, rolling back over his shoulder. I feel a push against my hips, then he steps forward – I continue backward and for a blissful split second I’m mid-air and spinning. The world rushing by.

  Then the ground rushes up, and I land smack on my ass. The pain should affect me, but it doesn’t – because I just did it. I flipped.

  Not too weak. Not too stupid.

  I pop to my feet and let out a cheer. Jumping around like an idiot.

  “Again?” he asks, arms out ready.

  “Yes!”

  Again, and again, and again. Until it’s too dark to see the ground and people begin to wander out from the town to the inn. Probably something to do with the delicious smells wafting out of the place.

  “Hardly a palace,” Roarke mutters, running a finger along the dusty mantle.

  “That’s because it’s not a palace – it’s an inn,” Pax snaps.

  Roarke drops his bag in the corner and lays his sword on the dust. The room is simple. Big bed. Big window. Big hearth and a small fire. There are tattered canvas curtains over the window. I don’t even need to pull them aside to watch the two out in the yard. Seth, smiling like a kid with a toy, and Shade jumping around like a toy with a kid.