Shadows and Shade Box Set

by Amanda Cashure

  Truth is, I don’t have any answers, and a messenger could arrive tomorrow with new pieces to this puzzle. What we already have barely makes any sense.

  Wait until your grief has passed, then – Seek the remnant beyond the border.

  Speak to a man named Martin but believe the word of a bird.

  Let your reflection go hazy in clear waters and see instead through a gray lens.

  In Silvari glass is a blade that can pass, a soul that can kneel, and a world that can heal.

  This is not a battle that can be won. Before this time can pass, the mortal soul from its beginnings can not last. There is no way a soul can rule and live.

  Because I heard what the Origin Spring said to the tallest forest tree – the key will be in the last of me.”

  All I know is that my lines – Let your reflection go hazy in clear waters and see instead through a gray lens – are not a weapon, tool, or solution that is going to get us out of this mess.

  The room feels too still and vulnerable as I light the overhead lantern. Logic says we’re alone. Those Sabers had no way around my Allure, and I can feel the cottage is empty – everyone has desires if I search hard enough. Even the desire to breathe. But I’d still feel better with wards on the doors. The horses are by the stream, and if I can coax my boy closer, there’ll be no need to disturb Kitten. I pace across to the door and out onto the deck. My boy lifts his head in curiosity as I jog down the steps, making a clicking noise and holding my hand out. A thin tendril of power remains with Kitten. At least she is letting me do this, letting me move away from her.

  Being perfectly compliant.

  A sharp thud, followed by a groan. I spin around, my power snapping outwards and searching my surroundings again as I dash back inside.

  Kitten is on the floor.

  No one and nothing else is here with us.

  This is… unexpected.

  I order my magic to behave, drawing it inward, putting that one tendril back to work. It leaves a niggling pain in my chest, through my soul, but it obeys. Just. Then, once her chest has risen, then fallen, then risen again, and I can confirm she’s definitely still breathing, I take a few steps back. Watching through the bay window as her wall rolls her across the floor.

  Bloody Aeons.

  Seth’s skills are more spatial than mine, but I haven’t been watching her intently for weeks now without knowing the basic parameters of her bubble, and these aren’t it.

  She’s lost paces, from her original twenty-two down to what though?

  More importantly, why?

  The Release Seal on my hand itches, a nice distraction from the fact that my head is suddenly light with a rush of fear. The seal should look like an arrow for direction, flicks of symmetry for leave and return, overlapped by limitations on the number of days and permission to reach the limits of the kingdom. And the usual layer of protection that means none of us can touch a council member, dignitary, or the Crown. Lithael doesn’t want Sabers being released and going hunting for him.

  Which doesn’t matter anyway, because the seven dots on this seal are down to two, and the leave and return curls are three-quarters dissolved.

  Two days until our souls start a tug of war with the White Castle. Eventually, the castle will win.

  She stirs just a little, and with a snap, she cuts off my power. Resisting me.

  I rush to her side, picking her up and settling us both onto the couch. Settling her on my lap. My hand rests on her chest, my power opening up and my Seed overriding her resistance. Pressing into her. Pressing her into me. At once exactly where she should be and also far too dangerous.

  I. Can’t. Win.

  Eighteen Paces

  I shift my weight to the side and nuzzle my face into whatever is underneath my head. “So comfy,” I moan.

  My pillow vibrates with a stifled laugh.

  “Kitten,” Roarke says, his voice coming from directly behind me.

  Crap.

  I sit up and turn toward the guy whose leg was acting as my mallow on a long gray sofa.

  Inside. I’m inside.

  The view through the window is of a familiar stream running down the hill. Really big trees. A path made of pebbles, all muffled heavily in darkness. If it weren’t for the flickers of light from the stream and the flashes of lightning in the distance, it would all be too obscure to make out.

  I’m inside the dead woman’s house.

  The flicker of a single lit lantern brushes over a low coffee table, two single chairs, and a worn green rug. The room’s practically round, with a small kitchen and stairs behind us. All the furnishings are facing the huge bay window and the view – well, what would be a great view if it weren’t pitch black outside. The clouds are heavy, blocking out the stars everywhere but one crack in the sky where a slice of the moon is barely managing to peek through.

  Okay, it’s still night, the same night I assume, but how did I get inside? Memories come flooding back, and I turn an accusing gaze on Roarke.

  “You knocked me out!” I shout, stabbing a finger into his chest. I don’t care if he makes a really comfortable mallow. “We had a deal – castration was part of it,” I growl, eyeballing the short dagger still strapped to his belt.

  He jumps to his feet, arms out defensively. Slipping the dagger out of its sheath, he drops it to the floor behind the couch. It’s out of my reach, which means he believes my threat.

  Good.

  “Why was I laying on you?” I demand.

  His lips are thin, eyes struggling to hide a lingering pain, and his chest is rising and falling in heavy breaths. My anger drains away, like Eydis’ blood over the stone.

  I was laying on him because he was keeping me alive. Again.

  Everything in me deflates.

  “I…” Words fail to follow. Damnit. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  His brow draws down. “You? Why?”

  I press into the back of the couch, and he moves in closer, leaning over me, a hand on either side of my head. Strands of his long dark-and-silver hair fall forward to frame his face. He smells like ink and paper and the books he loves to read. His beard-mustache combo has grown a little shaggy on the road, now more of a scruffy chin and lip, which somehow makes him look hot-as-melted-chocolate.

  I run my tongue along the inside of my teeth, trying to find the right words.

  “Why are you sorry?” he asks.

  I finally settle on what to say. “I’m too much hard work.”

  One corner of his mouth draws up into a lopsided smile. “You have no idea,” he says.

  I frown at him. “You can’t say that. Agreeing with me is basically insulting me.”

  His eyes light up, and wow, his smile is intense.

  Which makes it hard for me to keep my fight, hard but not impossible.

  “I meant that I can’t fight, have no Seed, and have a mouth born with a mind of its own. I know that. But what did you mean?” I demand.

  “You also can’t follow orders. I told you to cover your ears.”

  I hold my only arm up. “One hand, two ears. It’s not my fault I heal like a mortal – you know that, right?”

  I’m grateful for the element of aggression in this conversation. Otherwise, I’m going to start thinking about how close he is, and his lips, and…

  Shut up, Shade.

  I don’t know where this is coming from. The guy’s not exactly naked, and I’m hungry and surprisingly still tired – not really the precursors to being lusty.

  Not lusty, exactly. Not like the way the servants flutter their lashes and grow pink in the cheeks. I don’t do things like that. Although, I did try to kiss Killian, which he promptly put an end to, and I did let Pax kiss me – a lot – and then there was whatever Seth was doing – which also involved kissing.

  I groan. Maybe I do do things like that.

  “I know you’re fragile,” he says, still smiling.

  I place my hand firmly on his chest and try to push him away from me.
<
br />   “You, back there,” I say, thanking the gods my mouth still has some wits.

  My body, however, is daring me to say come closer, to whisper the words into the almost silent cottage. Spiking my fuzzy head with the most sudden headache I’ve ever had.

  He leans in until his forehead is against mine.

  “You need to give me some space,” he says, his voice toe-curlingly silky.

  There’s no Allure in it. Just Roarke – saying stupid shit, considering he’s the one pushing closer to me. He hooks his finger under my chin and tilts my head back to run his thumb over my lips.

  “No,” I gasp. Bloody gasp. “No, you need to give me some space.”

  Or not, or you could kiss me?

  He leans right in, close enough for his breath to dance across my lips. I exhale, but all he does is chuckle, draw in a long, full breath, then push himself away from me with the kind of force that makes me think he’s desperate to escape.

  “You are so much hard work,” he says. “Follow me. Your bubble may not reach the kitchen, and I’m starving.”

  My racing heart fights for control, not just the blood pumping kind but the emotional kind too. Roarke – this close. Roarke – almost kissing me. Roarke – wanting me? Is that what just happened? Because chuck, do I want him. I want the way he looks at me and makes the whole world stop and pay attention. Just for another tiny little second.

  Which I am clearly not going to get right now.

  I struggle with the information, the questions, as I climb to my feet and follow him. It’s not a big room, the type of place that a single person or maybe a couple would feel cozy in.

  “Why won’t my bubble reach the kitchen?” I ask.

  He stops, scans over the room, then paces toward the door. He almost makes it outside before my wall presses on my back and jolts me forward.

  “Odd, I calculated one more,” he says.

  I point, disbelievingly, at the space. “How many was that?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Seventeen?” I gasp. “I had twenty-two. At the White Castle I had twenty-two! Why?”

  He shakes his head and returns to me, wrapping me in his arms. “Doesn’t matter why, because we’re going to fix it right now. Actually, after we have something to eat and tend the horses. Then we’re going to fix it. Come on.”

  He lets go of me and leads the way into the kitchen. I believe him, he sounds so sure, but that doesn’t untie the knot in my stomach. My hands are shaking because I’m an idiot. I chuckin’ knew it was shrinking. I thought maybe my stride was getting bigger when we were in the bandit cave. I thought maybe I was staggering too much when we were camped by the river – but no… my bubble has been shrinking.

  Though obviously, I’m not worried enough, because my gaze lowers and fixes on Roarke’s ass. He’s got a nice ass – but it’s never been the center of my attention before.

  Maybe it should have been?

  “All of the answers are upstairs,” he says, looking over his shoulder. He catches my gaze and arches his back a little so he can see the floor. “What are you looking at? Do you have more feathers?”

  “Oh, ah,” I stammer, swallow hard, then try again. “How do you know I’m looking at something?”

  “I don’t do the full range of emotions like Killian does – but I can feel desire easily enough. Was it my ass?”

  He starts searching the kitchen before I can answer, opening every cupboard and drawer until he finds the larder – a small pantry with a few sacks of flour, potatoes, onions, that kind of thing.

  “It’s just my Allure. You don’t actually have any say in what you lust for around me, and I don’t have the option of getting out of your range until the others catch up.”

  He pulls a loaf of round bread out of a hanging bread bag and taps it on the bench, listening to the soft thuds. Baked no more than a few days ago… by the woman out on the rocks. My heart aches a little, but he just digs out a pot of jam and a serrated knife, cutting chunks and lathering them up before handing one to me and preparing to demolish three himself.

  “Maybe I need to blindfold you,” he says, but his gaze traces my blanched face, down to my shaking fingers, and his expression softens.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, concern lacing his words.

  What isn’t wrong? Let’s start with my bubble shrinking and the dead woman outside – actually, let’s just start with the dead woman.

  “Was that?” I ask, waving vaguely toward the back of the house, toward the body on the rocks.

  He swallows first before answering. “Eydis.”

  “And they killed her?”

  He nods, putting his bread down.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Lithael’s killing them all.”

  “Why? Are they a threat?”

  “All of the ones he’s killing probably are – that would make sense.”

  I pass my bread back to him, suddenly not sure I can even hold it properly.

  “Are they coming back – the Sabers, I mean? They tore out her heart.”

  Roarke steps closer, wrapping his arms around me. Pulling me in tight. One hand rests on the back of my neck and the other between my shoulder blades. So much for giving each other space – but I’m not going to tell him that. I really need this hug right now.

  “No, they didn’t tear out her heart – we don’t know what happened there. But those Sabers aren’t coming back, and they won’t remember anything. We’re safe here for now.”

  “Who took her heart then?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  He steps back, gathers a water jug and a tray, then piles the bread and jam onto it before setting it all on the edge of the bench.

  “Eat,” he says, shoving my piece of bread back at me. “Take it and eat it. We’re not going anywhere until you do.”

  “It’s not that I’m not hungry,” I say, accepting the bread.

  “I know,” he whispers, watching me take a bite before turning and leading the way back to the front door.

  “What are we doing?” I ask, giving chase.

  “The horses,” he says.

  The horses. Right. Because I’m the worst horse owner ever born.

  I follow him outside, closely – what choice do I have? When we reach the few steps off the veranda, I reach out and hook my arm through his to steady myself on the way down.

  “What? It’s cloudy and dark, and I’m not sure how well you can see, but I’m not keen on tripping down a flight of stairs,” I say, not that he said anything.

  “It’s almost midnight and a last quarter moon, but yes, even with the clouds I have eighty percent of my daytime vision. I’m guessing mortals don’t?”

  “Um, try five percent.”

  The noise he makes puts a smile on my lips, like surprise and intrigue mixed together. It’s a nice feeling, teaching the smartest Elorsin something new, even if it is at my own expense. Might also be at my own expense next time too, but something deep inside me decides that this moment is worth repeating. Worth hearing him make that little noise a million times more. He does make the cutest sounds.

  The horses are by the stream, mine with his nose in the water and Roarke’s pawing at small shoots of grass nearby. And the only reason I can see that from a distance is because of the way the water glistens and lights up when the fish ripple the surface.

  “Why does it do that?” I ask Roarke, letting go of his arm so I can finish off my bread.

  “Phosphorus in the water, I guess.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I murmur.

  Roarke casually slips his fingers into the strappy-thing over his horse’s nose. The animal barely moves. Mine looks like he’s ready to run off, be free, never to be ridden again.

  “Here, boy,” I coo, grabbing the reins quickly.

  I am not playing chase-the-horse. My body is in that kind of weak state that hangs around after having the flu. It’s bearable, manageable, but not ve
ry nice. And the fact that I have one arm strapped to my chest compounds the growing feeling of claustrophobia that I’m living with. Chasing horses is not on the agenda.

  With the reins slipped over my arm, I pat down the length of my horse’s silky neck, watching his unique color shimmer. He’s a dark brown, almost black on top, but there’s a cream color underneath.

  I think that’s what I spend ninety percent of my riding time doing, patting his neck.

  We turn to follow Roarke, but the man hasn’t moved. “Are you doing okay?”

  I nod, stretching my neck back toward the blackened sky where there’s a single lonely star slowly being smothered by the clouds. Damn, these clouds are moving fast, rolling over the sky like they’re angry about something.

  “Shade?” Roarke pushes. “Are you missing Pax?”

  “Yes,” I mumble. “And Seth, and Killian too, though I feel like I will regret that feeling.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, soft with regret.

  I pull my gaze down to him. “I’d miss you if you weren’t here.”

  “You have a true MateBond with Pax, it can’t be comfortable to be so far away from him.”

  “It’s not that,” I try, but the words dry up. Feelings are so hard to express, and I swallow before trying a different angle. “I’m worried about them. I’m worried about you too, but at least I can see you’re still alive.”

  Alive and close. These guys all have a different presence, a different beat they bring to a room, and somehow I’ve grown so used to the tune when they’re all with me that one note on its own doesn’t feel right. And, to be honest, if I had to pick a single Elorsin to suddenly appear with us it would be Seth – Roarke needs some Seth right now.

  “Alive? I don’t doubt they will return.”

  “They went to investigate a prison – prisons aren’t friendly places.”

  “They’ve seen worse, Kitten. They’ll be fine,” he says, moving ahead of me.

  My horse nudges me with his damp nose, and I click my tongue softly to catch up, and the two of us walk side by side around to the back of the cottage, where a roughly-made square pen has been left to rot. Clearly, Eydis had no use for a horse – or if she did, the horse had no use for this pen.