Shadows and Shade Box Set

by Amanda Cashure

  There’s a glow beyond the boulders, the arrows still alight.

  “Won’t they catch fire to something?” I ask.

  “They’ll burn out soon; they’re coated in a fine oil that burns bright, hurts like you wouldn’t believe, but isn’t very hot.”

  The glow, even obstructed by boulders, does make not tripping over my feet – or the horses – a little easier.

  “You like that horse?” Roarke asks.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty, and he’s mine.”

  He lifts the pole that doubles as a section of fence and an entrance.

  “What did you name him? You’ve had him for four days now, and I’ve only ever heard you call him him or thing.”

  That makes me mentally pause. Not physically. Physically, I lead the horse to one side and loop his reins around the fence as I do the math. Bralls, has it really only been a few days since we were blown from the inn in Rengurra?

  “Um, no. No name yet,” I finally say.

  Roarke begins to unsaddle his horse, and I mirror his actions as best I can. My cloak is still here, which is a bonus given I just tossed it haphazardly over the saddle when I was searching for Killian’s blades. I’m not much of a fighter and the cloak definitely would have slowed me down.

  “Well, the horse is yours now. You really should name him.”

  “What’s yours called?” I ask, buying time because no names are coming to mind. “You guys don’t really call your horses by name when you’re getting your horses or grooming them or anything, one of you just does it.”

  “My boy’s name is Pyt,” he says, offering his horse a friendly pat. “Pax’s is Ghost. Seth picked one of those stupid stud names, Spawn of Mayhem. He won a bet with Killian and named Killian’s horse Jingle Bells.”

  I crack up, taking a second to catch my breath.

  “Jingle Bells? What was the bet?”

  “It had something to do with a two day endurance horse race,” he says, running a brush quickly over Pyt’s coat.

  “How did you pick Pyt for a name?”

  “It means ‘Pretty Young Thing’,” he says, which takes me by surprise because it’s said like Pete. “And a friend actually suggested it.”

  I manage to wrestle the saddle from my boy and wait patiently to use the brush. The arrows are starting to extinguish, the only light steadily dimming.

  “And what’s the deal with the mark on Pyt’s ass?”

  Roarke stops and looks over his horse’s chestnut coat like he’s never noticed a mark, then chuckles at me like I’m an idiot.

  “What?” I demand.

  “Brand. It’s the Elorsin brand. Or at least it has been since we were kids. Four arrows, one behind the other, for the four of us.”

  “Oh, and the thicker arrow signifies you?”

  He nods.

  “Hah! See, you guys do have an order. You’re number three and you always have been.”

  “The arrow order was chosen to match when we became a part of the family. The only official system between us is that physically, Pax goes first, and Seth stays behind Pax.”

  “And you’re number three.”

  “I’m not sure what Pax’s plan is, when or how he plans our return to the castle,” he says.

  Which is a very effective subject changer.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because we’ll brand your horse there, but what with?” he says, passing me the brush and moving on to lift each of his horse’s hooves for inspection.

  “Number five,” I say, because that’s obvious. “And all of you will need a fifth arrow.”

  He shakes his head hard and begins to inspect my horse’s hooves. Which means the brush is free, and I can care for my boy.

  “He’ll never put you at the back of the line, no matter what the original order was intended to reflect.”

  I smile a little too broadly at that.

  “Then put me at the front.”

  “The Alpha let someone else lead? That’s not going to happen.”

  I shrug, since this really is a problem for later. “We have to make it back to the castle first, so I’ve got plenty of time to decide where I want to be in your order.”

  He chuffs but doesn’t argue as he picks his saddle back up and begins to resaddle his horse.

  “Are we leaving again?”

  “Might be, just in case the horses need to be ready to run.”

  I make an ‘oh’ sound, and look dismally at my own saddle on the fence.

  “I’ll do it,” he says, and a few minutes later, he has the job underway, and then efficiently completed. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

  I sling the saddle bags over my arms and grab the packs, one in each hand, before stepping underneath the railing and leading Kitten back to the cottage. She tries to match my pace, still too much like a shadow, so I slow to let her catch up.

  Instead, she naturally adjusts to remain a servant’s distance behind me. So, I slow down some more.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  I stop and look over my left shoulder, where she’s neatly tucked into my life.

  “Waiting for you,” I tell her.

  “Oh,” she manages, with a little smile and a quick shuffle to step next to me.

  She still thinks she needs permission, and I don’t know how to fix that. Seth would.

  She rolls her right shoulder and stretches her neck.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Considering ripping this bandage off,” she says.

  “Wait for Killian,” I suggest, and she relaxes her shoulders with a sigh.

  “Okay, just so you know, being a mortal is really starting to feel like a handicap.”

  “That’s why you have us,” I say.

  “Us? There’s only one of you right now,” she says.

  “Are you trying to hurt my ego?”

  “No, just simple math. Four Elorsins; take away Darkness, Chaos, and Alpha, one Elorsin.”

  “Funny,” I admit.

  I enjoy the way she makes my chest feel lighter and my breathing easier.

  “I’ll get the door,” she says, bouncing up the stairs.

  But as she reaches for the handle, her hand is stopped by a potion-made barrier.

  “Seventeen steps,” I tell her.

  With my next step forward the barrier moves, and she has the freedom to open the door.

  The bounce is gone from her step.

  “You first,” I say, motioning with my head for her to go inside and acting as the escort behind her.

  I set the bags inside the door, making a list. Secure the building. Feed Kitten. Research. Solve bubble. Maybe even before the others return.

  Before I have to tell Pax that her bubble is shrinking. That’s not going to be a pleasant conversation.

  “Wait there,” I tell Kitten, digging through my bag for a small vial of Ward Potion.

  “What’s that?” she asks.

  “Ward for the door. It’ll give us another layer of protection, considering the domain’s securities have a loophole that’s already been exploited.”

  “How long will it last?”

  Good question. I look in the direction of the nearby border as I line up the equations. It should last weeks, but the border inhales magic. Though the Spring is its primary food source, and this little ward should be on the bottom of its list, I’m three Elorsins down creating it, using only one fourth of the power we usually do.

  If the border is under threat, and that’s exactly what the reports are saying, chances are it will tap every non-living power source, then move on to us faster than usual, with or without the domain. Which is not something I can help, so it’s not something I want to think about.

  “We’ll have until morning, at least,” I hedge, but I’m not willing to gamble our lives on anything beyond that.

  “And then?”

  “By then the others should be back and we can work on something stronger.” Together, a ward should last days –
factoring in the border.

  She watches me break the vial on the door, glass slicing into my palm and blood forming the final ingredient. Now I’m the only one who can cross any threshold in or out.

  Next job – sustenance. Increased use of power requires an increase in food. I’m starving, and she should at least be hungry.

  Seventeen Paces

  Roarke grabs his tray of bread and drink then heads for the stairs. I follow – what else can I do?

  The staircase is weird, with wide but shallow steps, plus a spiral. Which means we curve around to level out on the second floor with no direct view of the first floor. Also means all of the roofs are at odd angles. Her home is more weird and interesting than any other I’ve ever seen. The second story is a large open-plan bedroom. Big bed, huge double windows, and everything timber. Timber floor. Timber roof with big exposed beams. Timber walls. It’s a big space, for so little furniture, and my bubble should extend across most of it.

  There are no paintings or pictures, only a blue rug that fills most of the floor for decoration. It matches the variety of blue pillows and blankets on her bed and more blankets than the average person needs. Clothes hang from a railing off the wall, and the bathroom in the corner doesn’t have a door or even a curtain. Eydis wasn’t ever expecting guests.

  Roarke gives the room a quick glance then says, “Nope, next floor.”

  “You’ve never been here before?” I ask.

  “Not until yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “It should be past midnight by now,” he clarifies.

  “But you knew how to get here? The path through the forest just stopped out in the middle of nowhere, and this cottage was basically invisible.”

  “It’s a knowledge gate. The protections she has on this place only let wisdom find it and get through it. Usually limits entry to those at Master level, and not even all of them, plus a very select few Sabers – that’s the loophole.”

  “Then why did it let me in?” Though it wasn’t pain free.

  He looks over his shoulder at me and smiles. “Because you were in my company, and because we’re pack. It’ll let the other three in for the same reason – I’m in here, and we belong together.”

  Pax has to use it, it has a literal meaning to him, but Roarke – Roarke just chose to use it and to include me in his world. My breath gets stuck on his words, and the emotions that have lumped up inside me. I try to look at the facts so my brain can move on and I can finish inhaling.

  Only really smart people can get through the invisible magical gate in an equally invisible and magical barrier around this place. Which also explains why Roarke was the only solo Elorsin who could have made this trip. The brains win.

  I picture the domain as being like a dome over the land, essentially another bubble. Silva seems to have a thing with big trees, castles named after colors, Sabers who are assholes, and bubbles. It’d be easy to assume that the only good thing about this kingdom is the Elorsins – but the thousands of Silvari just going about their lives would probably disagree.

  “What about the wards on the door, will that let the others in?”

  “No, my blood alone.”

  “What about me?”

  “You can’t get in or out unless I’m escorting you – walking with you. The rules aren’t that complicated.”

  “Wait, you’re telling me I’m trapped in here?”

  “If the door is closed and I don’t want you to leave, yes.”

  My insides twist, which is stupid because I’m trapped in a damn bubble to begin with and can’t go anywhere without him, ward or no ward.

  “Wait, I walked right through your wards at the White Castle,” I point out.

  “Faulty potion. Seth mixed that batch. I brewed new ones the next day.”

  “When?”

  “While you were sleeping.”

  Of course he did. I could write a book with the things that happen while I’m sleeping.

  “And what about those women, the ones who killed Eydis?” I ask.

  “Wisdom alone isn’t the opposite of evil. Like I said, very few Sabers have a high enough knowledge capacity, but obviously Lithael found the perfect triune to perform the attack,” he says as we pad around the next spiral in the stairs.

  The staircase ends in an attic-type room. It pulls up into a peak on one side, but has a slope on the other. I doubt Seth or Killian would fit under it in the furthest corner. Work benches line the walls. Shelves and glass-doored cabinets are above them. Jars and vials of dried things, dead things, and still living things that flutter and fight, collected and stored, sit on almost every surface. All the labels are lined up, each one obviously in a designated spot, but I have no idea what her system might have been. There’s a big square table at standing height in the center of it all, making what should be quite a large space feel very small. It wasn’t designed for more than one person to work in here.

  I recognize the boxes of empty vials in one corner: potion bottles. Open books, stacks of paper, and instruments fill every flat surface, but it’s all neat and organized. Diagrams have been painted directly onto every blank wall space in black and white ink. There’s so much to take in that all I can do is stand in the middle of the room, turning in a circle.

  Roarke sets the tray down, picking up another piece of bread before heading straight for a shelf and sliding a very specific book down. He clearly knows what he’s doing, even though he’s never been here.

  “This would have been so much easier if we could simply have asked her,” he says, almost absently. “Or if we had a sample of the actual potion that was accidently made.”

  “Or if Seth hadn’t handed me a Rearrange Potion in the first place,” I mutter.

  Because my first day in the White Castle wasn’t scary and crazy enough, Seth had to lead me into even more danger. Straight into the Potion Master’s classroom to make a mess of Logan’s potion test. Only it turned out Logan wasn’t working on his potion test; he was working on something much more sinister – something that would have locked the Elorsins out of each other’s powers and possibly out of each other’s reach too.

  Roarke stops and tries to meet my gaze. Tries to, but fails, because I look away.

  “Wouldn’t change a thing,” I rush to cover my poor choice of words.

  “I would,” he says softly.

  “You can’t. If the Crown’s Brahman-bralls of a nephew had managed to finish making his potion, all four of you would be inside bubbles.”

  “For a short time. Apparently it would have worn off.”

  “Just because we accidentally flipped one part of the potion doesn’t mean we flipped it all. What if each of you were in your own mini shrinking bubbles right now? Unable to reach each other, unable to defend each other, and slowly losing paces too,” I demand, my stomach turning at the idea.

  “Bloody Seth.” He sighs heavily, running a hand over his hair before turning his attention back to the shelves and workbenches.

  “I’d rather blame Logan.”

  “No, Seth. His power messes things up. Problem is, the way it messes with things usually saves our skin.”

  “So – Seth breaks things, and it makes everything better?”

  “Exactly. Chaos has an incredibly high level of self-preservation; it’s damn near psychic.”

  He flicks open his book, and with it in one hand, his other hand starts clearing space on the bench. And he’s already looking distracted.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I ask, hoping to push this conversation along.

  “We’re going to research. Pax, Seth, and Killian will meet us here soon, followed by Jada and Rose, and a few others, in a day or so. We’re cutting this far too close already.”

  “What? No one told me Jada’s coming here,” I exclaim. I have no idea who Rose is, but if she’s a friend of Jada’s, I’m pretty sure I don’t want her in my life.

  Or want her near my guys.

  Mine.

  Roa
rke just nods.

  With my teeth grinding, I push for more details. “Why are they coming here?”

  “We’ve been slowly watching Lithael fall into a pattern, watching his guard lower as he settles into controlling the kingdom. Pax has tactics written all over his mind, and he’s got plans. We need our allies here, away from the servants and spies that might overhear, so all of these little plans can be set into motion.”

  “And Jada is part of your plans?”

  “Jada is a Sealer – we need her if we’re to get any kind of freedom for our allies. Assignments come through her and the other Sealers. She’s our way of moving pieces around the board.”

  “But she needs a letter-thingy for an assignment. She can’t just write you a seal whenever she wants.”

  “Well, technically she could. Sigils and seals are like a language, patterns layered over each other to create effects and parameters.”

  “Why don’t you use a seal to unseal yourselves from the castle?!” I exclaim.

  He smiles at me, which is frustrating because clearly he can see a problem where I can’t, which makes me feel dim.

  “Sometimes your desired effect has no associated symbol, or there’s no way of putting the parameters in place required to keep it safe. And sometimes the magic is tattooed in and can’t be removed, overridden, or counteracted,” he says, rubbing the small of his back – where the Return Seal is firmly embedded in his skin. “If I’m being honest with you, Kitten, Silvari magic is nothing but fluid. The barriers and limitations I know of are only barriers and limitations until someone works out a way to get around them.”

  I groan. “So you’re saying yes she could unseal you, but you don’t have the right Unseal Seal to do it?” He nods, so I continue, “Why don’t you just make one?”

  “Why don’t you just make one?”

  “Because I have no idea how!” Now I’m shouting.

  But he’s still chuckin’ smiling at me. It’s infuriating.

  “Exactly. Seal Masters might have known enough, but there’s none left, and even if there was Jada isn’t that advanced yet.”