Beyond the Shadowed Earth

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  All the courtiers were staring at her.

  Eda didn’t care. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Niren, off the faint shadowy marks that lingered on her friend’s forehead where the god had touched her.

  Dread pooled in Eda’s stomach, a terror awakening that had never been real to her until this moment. “How long since the stone ran out?” she asked quietly, to no one in particular.

  “Your Imperial Majesty?” said Domin, the youngest Baron, confused she would go back to harping on the temple at this moment.

  “How long?” she shrieked.

  “What’s wrong, Your Imperial Majesty?” asked Niren. Sweatwas beading on her brow, though she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Construction stopped yesterday,” offered the Baron of Tyst. “Does it matter?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Eda demanded, trying and failing to conceal her panic. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She couldn’t look away from the marks on Niren’s forehead, the spots of shadow, sinking into her.

  Gods gods gods. Eda hadn’t thought this would happen so soon—she hadn’t thought it would happen at all.

  She’d thought Tuer would give her more time.

  They discussed her fate like she was a hound or a chair—to be put aside and forgotten. They didn’t even wait until her parents’ burial.

  She stood outside her father’s office the night after they died, listening like the shadow they thought she was. Lamplight flickered orange in the hall, shadows dancing. Her nightgown hung off her thin form, overlarge since the illness that had taken her parents but not her. She trembled, even though the air was warm, and put her ear to the door.

  “She can’t inherit, that much is obvious.”

  “A regent, then. But who?”

  “I know you’re itching for the job, Rescarin.”

  “I’m a cousin, of a sort. It makes sense.”

  “We’ll take it to the Emperor.”

  “But you’ll support me?”

  “If you’ll keep the size of my army from him.”

  “You know that’s treasonous, Lohnin.”

  They both laughed, and she didn’t understand how anyone could laugh when her parents lay as cold as marble two rooms away.

  “But what to do with the girl?” asked Lohnin.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “We have to do something with her. We can’t just throw her out in the desert and forget about her entirely.”

  More laughter.

  “Take her back to Eddenahr with you,” said Rescarin. “Find her a nursemaid.”

  “Now you’re not coming back at all?”

  “Someone has to put Evalla’s affairs in order. If I’m to be regent—”

  “That isn’t decided yet.”

  “You know it is.”

  “Fine. I’ll take the girl with me. What are we to tell her?”

  That’s when Eda shoved the door open and marched into the room, so horribly, horribly angry that tears were pouring down her face.

  They didn’t interpret her tears correctly.

  Rescarin knelt down to make himself her height and took her small hand in both his large ones. “Poor child is distraught, Lohnin, you see?”

  “I’m not a child!” she shouted, or at least she meant to shout. The words came out all strangled and damp.

  Rescarin laughed a little and patted her head. “You have nothing to worry about, you know. It’s off to Eddenahr tomorrow. Won’t that be grand?”

  “I don’t want to go to Eddenahr. I want to stay here.”

  “You can’t,” said Lohnin, stacking papers neatly on her father’s desk then kneeling beside her and Rescarin. “Your parents are gone and there’s no one to look after you.”

  “I can look after myself. I’m to inherit Evalla—my father told me.”

  “You’re not inheriting anything. Best to get to bed, now. You’ve a long journey ahead of you in the morning.”

  “I want to stay here!” Eda kicked Rescarin in the shin, as hard as she could, and he howled and jumped backward, knocking his head against the desk. She saw the rage come into his face, but she wasn’t expecting the blow, a sharp, stinging slap across her cheek.

  She gaped at him, so angry she could barely breathe.

  “Get her out of here,” snapped Rescarin.

  Lohnin grabbed her arm and yanked her from her father’s office, dragging her all the way back to her bedroom.

  Eda didn’t sleep. She waited until Lohnin’s footsteps faded, and then crept down the hall to the room where her parents’ bodies lay. She sat between them all that night, praying to the gods that it was all a mistake, that both of them would stir, and open their eyes, and come back to her. Make everything right.

  But they didn’t. They just lay there, dead, dead, dead.

  In the morning, Lohnin put her in a carriage bound for Eddenahr.

  That was the day she decided she would become Empress. The last day someone other than herself would command her own fate.

  Chapter Two

  EDA CLIMBED THE HILL IN THE TORRENTIAL rain, the normally dusty road a swirl of sucking mud beneath her feet. Rain ran into her eyes and plastered her clothes to her body; she hadn’t brought a canopy or a cloak—she wanted to feel the full weight of the gods’ storm. Dread had seized hold of her in the council chamber and wouldn’t let go. How much time did she have before the gods took what she had promised them?

  A pair of guards trailed up the hill behind her. There were always guards. That was the price she paid for being Empress of half the known world: never any privacy, not even the illusion of it. She was grateful for the loyalty of the Imperial army, comforted by the fact that she had an entire garrison of soldiers at her command just outside the city. Still, the lack of privacy—even though it ensured her safety—grated on her.

  The Place of Kings loomed ahead, Eddenahr’s ancient royal burial ground built on top of an even more ancient temple. Millenia ago, it had been erected in honor of Tuer, Lord ofthe Mountain, first and most powerful of the nine gods. All that remained of the temple now were a few crumbling pillars circling the brow of the hill and, mostly obscured behind fallen gravestones, a low doorway spilling down into darkness. Eda had discovered it as a child when she’d first been brought to Eddenahr. Too fond of death, her nursemaids always said, a lover of shadows. But that wasn’t it at all. She’d come here because few others did—to think, to plan, to prepare for the day she’d be crowned Empress.

  Since then, she’d come to offer a daily oblation to the gods, as the ancient kings and queens of Enduena had done.

  Today, she was here to ask for more time.

  She couldn’t shake the image of Tuer in the council room, of his shadowy fingers brushing Niren’s brow. Eda had no illusions as to why he had come: to remind her of her oath price, of what it would cost her if she didn’t hold up her end of the bargain.

  Eda reached the top of the hill and ordered her guards to wait for her there. All Enduena knew about their Empress’s religious habits, but she had no wish for her petition to be observed. The guards were clearly unhappy with the command, which meant them standing for an unspecified amount of time in the driving rain. But she fixed them with the knife-sharp gaze that had won her an Empire, and they obeyed, leaving her to wend her way between the gravestones, memorials, and raised marble tombs on her own.

  She went straight to the old doorway, squeezing behind the slanted stone, out of the rain and down into darkness. She scrabbled in a niche in the stone for the matches and candle that she kept there. A tongue of orange flame flared bright, illuminating the interior. Dust lay thick on the floor, centuries upon centuries of dead flowers and ashes, disturbed only by the track of her own footprints. Other than that, the chamber was empty.

  Eda walked to the center of the room, dripping rainwater on the floor, and knelt down, her candle wavering. She dipped her finger in the jar of ashes and oil she’d brought, smearing it across her forehead and pouring the rest onto the floor, an
oblation to mix with the rest. Sometimes she brought bread or wine; sometimes gold. The evening before her coronation she’d sacrificed a goat, its blood hot and sticky on her hands. But more often than not she brought oil and ashes, which were ancient symbols of petition, of humility. They felt simultaneously slick and gritty against her skin.

  “I’ll get the stone,” she said, her voice strong in the echoing chamber, “I’ll finish the temple and serve you all my days, just as I promised. But you can’t take Niren. I haven’t failed you.”

  “It has been a year already,” came a voice behind her, soft as a whisper, light as spring rain. “Still there is no temple. Still the people do not turn back to the gods.”

  Eda swallowed a curse and shook where she knelt, her fear nearly smothering her. Despite Tuer’s appearance in the council chamber, the gods had not spoken to her since the day she made a deal with Tuer as a child. She stared at the floor, where dust consumed her offering, and the puddle of rainwater vanished like smoke. “What must I do?” she whispered.

  “You must honor your promises.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “The gods will have their payment.”

  “I’ll get the stone. I’ll finish the temple.”

  “But how? When? Will it be soon enough to save me?”

  Eda jerked her head up and gasped. Niren stood in the doorway, staring back at her.

  But she wasn’t Niren as Eda knew her. Her form was blurred about the edges, her skin gray, her eyes blank and haunted. She looked like a shadow of Niren, or the memory of her, beginning to fray.

  Eda’s heart stuttered. “What are you?”

  “A warning. The Circles are fracturing apart. Soon, the spirits trapped in the void will be free, and if you do not honor your vow, my death will be only the beginning.”

  “You’re not going to die!” said Eda fiercely.

  Niren’s shadow vanished.

  Eda jerked to her feet, cursing, and dropped her candle in the dust. The oil caught fire and flames leapt high. Smoke poured through the temple. Eda fled up the stairs and out into the rain, coughing and coughing. Her eyes and lungs burned.

  For a long moment she stood there, tilting her face to the sky, letting the rain wash the ashes from her forehead, trying to quell her terror.

  Behind her, the fire sputtered and died.

  “Eda?”

  She jerked up from her dressing table and wheeled toward the door, dropping the jar of perfume she was holding. It shattered on the marble tiles, filling the whole room with the overpowering scent of jasmine and lilies. “Niren?” Eda whispered.

  “Of course it’s me.”

  Outside, the rain went on and on, echoing off the domed roof. The late monsoon would temper the summer fury of the sun and make the air breathable again, but it would also flood the city streets if it went on too much longer. It was already midafternoon, and it had been raining for hours now. Eda’s attendants had persuaded her to close the heavy wooden shutters to prevent water flooding through her windows, so the cloying perfume had nowhere to escape. It clung to her, choking her breath away.

  Niren closed the distance between them, a wry smile on her lips, and grabbed a rag off the dressing table. She knelt down to wipe up the mess. “You are jumpy as a jaguar today. I came to see if you were all right after the council session this morning. You were acting … strangely, to put it mildly.”

  Eda crouched beside Niren, the heel of her sandal grinding the shards of the perfume jar into powder, and touched her friend’s arm. “Leave it. One of the attendants will sweep it up. And I wasn’t acting strangely.”

  Niren raised an eyebrow and shook Eda off. She finished wiping up the biggest pieces of glass and then straightened up and threw the perfume-soaked rag into the dustbin beside the empty fireplace. Remnants of the perfume jar were still scattered over the marble. Niren stepped carefully over them and pulled out the stool of Eda’s dressing table, waving her onto it.

  Eda sat, unnerved by the memory of Shadow Niren in the Place of Kings, so wholly different from her warm, vibrant friend. She caught Niren’s eyes in the mirror, trying and failing to tamp down her panic.

  Niren picked up the carved ivory comb from the dressing table and began working it slowly through Eda’s hair, which was wet from the bath she’d taken to wash away the smoke fromthe temple. “I don’t think you should press the Barons so hard about the temple. It isn’t the best way to win them to your side, especially when you start threatening them about the stone and then … act like you did.”

  Eda gritted her teeth. “The gods are relying on me to build the temple. How else am I supposed to reinstate a religious order in the Empire?”

  “Perhaps reinstating religion isn’t the best use of your time.”

  “You believe in the gods more intently than anyone else I’ve ever met. Why are you so resistant to the idea of organized worship?”

  It was a conversation they’d had almost daily since Eda had brought Niren to live in the palace. Neither of them ever seemed to tire of their arguments.

  Niren finished with the comb and began braiding Eda’s hair. “Belief is a personal, individual thing. Worship shouldn’t be forced on anyone.”

  “I’m not forcing it, I’m offering it.”

  “And you think an Empire-mandated temple will compel the people to serve the gods willingly?” Niren pinned the braid on top of Eda’s head, and swiftly started on another one.

  “I do.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  Eda shrugged, always uncomfortable when the conversation reached this point. “If they don’t, the temple will be there for them anyway.”

  “And how do you intend to feed your priests and priestesses? Out of the royal treasury?”

  Niren knew full well that the treasury was depleted, and Eda scowled at her in the mirror before glancing around theroom. Lamps burned bright from their gold-plated wall sconces, designed to look like stars caught in the bare branches of trees. The flickering flames danced out of time with the rhythm of the rain, glinting off the mosaics that covered the walls from floor to ceiling. The tiny pieces of colored glass formed scenes from mythology, crafted by some long-ago artisan. They needed to be restored, but Eda had allocated the funds she could have spent beautifying the royal suite on the temple. The rest of the treasury funds had gone to paying her guard and all her various supporters who had helped pave her way to the throne. There wasn’t any left.

  Eda’s eyes snagged on the archway that led into her bedchamber, where the old Emperor had died. She still had a hard time thinking of him as her father, even though that was the claim she had made when she seized the Empire: an illegitimate daughter, the Emperor’s only heir. It was strange, occupying the rooms where so many royals had drawn their first—and last—breaths. According to the histories, a young king had even been stabbed in his sleep by his own sister here. There was no reason given, but if the king had been anything like Eda’s Barons, she could think of several without trying too hard.

  “Niren, what do you know about the spirits?” said Eda, watching her friend’s nimble fingers continue to braid and pin her hair.

  “The One made the spirits at the beginning of the world, to help the gods in their tasks. No stories tell how many there were—some say as many as the stars, some say more than the grains of all the sand on Endahr.”

  Eda was not surprised that Niren knew about the spirits—she was probably more well informed than the head palace librarian,since all she ever seemed to do was read. “What happened to them?”

  Niren pinned another braid. “They were powerful and clever, and many began to imagine themselves as equal to the gods, even higher than them. There was one spirit who seduced the god of the sea and took his power for her own. There were some who taught the sacred Words of the gods to mankind. There were some who spun evil diseases into the world in order to erradicate mankind, whom they deemed unworthy. And there were some who sought to swallow the sun, the last unclaimed Star,
and become gods in their own right. But when the spirits banded together to slay Raiva, goddess of the wood, the gods at last took notice. The gods bound the spirits with the Words of power and sent them into the void for eternity, all but a few who had proved themselves faithful. Some stories say one of a handful of remaining spirits is the servant of Tuer. Why do you ask?”

  Eda played with the ring resting in a little ivory-latticed jar on the dressing table: a heavy gold band shaped like a tiger chasing its tail, with rubies for eyes. Just like these rooms, it had belonged to the Emperor. She should know—she’d taken it off his finger. “Something made me think of it this morning, but it doesn’t matter.” Eda chewed on her lip. “Are you angry that I brought you here?”

  Niren shrugged. “You took me away from my mother and sisters last year without warning. I haven’t even seen the city you made me Marquess of.” Niren’s tone softened her words.

  “You’re my only friend, Niren. The only person I can trust.” For an instant, she blinked and saw Shadow Niren in the mirror, dead eyes watching her, dead hands binding up her hair.

  But the next instant it was living Niren, pinning the lastbraid into place. “And who’s fault is that, Eda?” Niren stepped back to examine her handiwork. “How do you even know you can trust me? We were friends when we were young, when you were a child on your parents’ estate and didn’t understand the differences in our stations. I felt it even then.”

  Eda tried to shake the image away. “But we are friends?”

  Niren shook her head in obvious exasperation. “Of course we are.”

  Eda made no apology; Niren didn’t expect one.

  Niren glanced toward the door and then back at Eda. “Now I’m afraid I have to tell you something you will not like.”

  Eda fidgeted with the clasp on her jewel case, flicking it open and shut, open and shut, watching the play of the light on the metal. “The Barons have sent you with unpleasant news,” she guessed. It wouldn’t be the first time.