Beyond the Shadowed Earth

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  She led Naia from the stable, out through a gate in the wall and into the desert. The dust had been washed clean from the air and she breathed in, deeply. But the tang of smoke made her jerk her head to the northeast, where her garrison had been. Dark plumes billowed high, and her stomach twisted. All those men, dead, because she’d trusted Ileem.

  Because she’d loved Ileem.

  Because she’d made him the gods-damned Emperor.

  Part of her still didn’t believe he’d betrayed her.

  Part of her still yearned for his touch, his kiss.

  Damn him, damn him, damn him.

  She saw again those glimpses of Tuer in the ballroom, his sword dripping blood. Heard Ileem’s voice. “Who do you think guides my hand?”

  She forced herself to swing up onto Naia, to ride away from her city and her palace and her home. She urged the mare into a gallop. The world blurred before her, the night wheeled above, and the wind rushed past and stole away her tears.

  Behind her, the garrison burned, and her courtiers lay slaughtered in the ballroom.

  Her father’s story burst in her mind, as if the gods themselves had reached into her memory and drew it out: The third way is to kill the god.

  She burned with rage and a sudden, furious purpose. Tuer had betrayed her twice over, and never honored the terms of their agreement. She would make him pay for that. She would free herself from her useless vow. Somehow, she was going to find Tuer.

  And when she did, she was going to kill him.

  But first, she would win back her Empire, and she would do it the same way she had the first time: by herself.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE MARE RAN, HOOVES EATING UP THE miles, sweat flying off of her like sea foam. Eda pointed her northwest, toward Evalla, the only place in all of Endahr she could go. It was hard to force her mind to plan as she rode. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way Ileem’s skin shone in the moonlight, up on the rooftop with a bottle of wine in his hand.

  She was a fool. She’d given her heart to the first man who’d smiled at her, the first man who kissed her and made her feel needed and told her lies about the gods she so desperately wanted to believe. She wished she could outrun the heat of her fury, the deep wells of her shame. But there wasn’t a horse in the world who could run that fast—not even Naia.

  And even Naia began to flag after a while; Eda pulled her to a walk. Moonlight bathed the desert in liquid silver, the scrubby undergrowth and spiny plants that grew between the cracks in the rock-hard earth casting long shadows across the dirt. To the north, the mountains marched stark against the brightness of the moon, and she felt utterly, awfully alone, like the thread of a song spun halfway out and then forgotten.

  Just after dawn, she stopped briefly at the herder’s village where Rescarin had held her stone hostage. A quick search garnered her a forgotten packet of dried meat and an empty water skin, which she filled in the central fountain before urging her reluctant mare on.

  Naia dragged her feet as the sun rose higher, and Eda’s entire body was coated with a thin sheen of sweat. Dust clung to her, irritating her eyes and making her breaths ragged and gritty. The cut in her neck had scabbed over, but it ached. She wanted so badly for this to be a nightmare, to wake in her bed with Ileem beside her.

  But that was the lie, not this. Each of his actions had been calculated, his betrayal built with the stone of promises and moonlight, and mortared with every kiss.

  She hated him.

  And yet she still wanted him.

  A few hours past sunset on the fourth day since she’d fled the palace, the ground began to rise, scrubby desert bushes turning greener and actual trees popping up here and there. The wind blew damp up from the sea. Eda breathed deep.

  She hadn’t been back to her childhood home since collecting Niren last year, and that had only been a brief visit. Part of her longed to pick up the threads of her old life: her mother’s gardens and her father’s workshop, the telescope on the balcony all three of them loved looking through. The sheep farm, just down the hill from the house, where Niren and her sisters ran barefoot through the mud and a warm plate of honeyed flatbread was always ready in the tiny kitchen.

  But that life had been lost to her long ago.

  Her chest tightened when the house came into view, high on the cliffside, Imperial banners snapping bright above its warm sandstone walls and arched towers. The sea crashed below.

  There was no sign of the army—not that there would have been; the barracks were situated down in Eron, Evalla’s capital city.

  Eda kicked Naia into a run. They clattered up the flagstone path, through the high carved gate and into the courtyard. She reviewed her plans: regather the remnants of Rescarin’s mercenaries and merge them with Evalla’s standing army, then march back to Eddenahr with them at her back and Baron Domin at her side. She would probably have to marry Domin. Her people would mistrust her after Ileem, and a consolidation of power would do much to help win them back.

  Eda gritted her teeth as she dismounted. Whatever happened, she was home now. Soon she would have Ileem at her mercy. She would make him kneel. She would make him beg.

  And then she would find Tuer, and make him answer for everything he’d done to her.

  A stableboy appeared from around the corner, and Eda handed over Naia’s reins, then strode up to the front doors alone. She ran one hand over the carved ebony. She’d loved the doors when she was little: there were stories cut into the wood, gods and monsters parading endlessly before her, doomed to repeat their tales until time wore them away. She had little love for the carvings now. She rapped loudly on the wood and waited for someone to come and let her in, doing her best to brush the dirt from her ruined gown. There was no time for a bath and a change of clothes, which was a pity. She hated having to look less than her best when she was about to intimidate someone.

  The door creaked open to reveal a young serving girl. She stared at Eda, belatedly dropping into an awkward curtsy. “Your–Your Imperial Majesty?”

  “I need to speak with Baron Domin, at once.”

  The girl nodded. “He’s in the drawing room. This way.”

  Eda didn’t need to be shown through her own house, but she followed the serving girl anyway, eyes wandering to the mosaics in the floor, the domed ceiling set with colored glass, the tapestries on the walls. One of the tapestries—which depicted the wind gods Ahdairon and Mahl riding winged steeds—covered a significant crack in the plaster, where Eda had crashed headlong into it at the age of seven. She and Niren had been chasing a lamb they’d foolishly let loose in the house, and Eda wasn’t looking where she was going. She still had the scar where the stitches had been, just behind her hairline.

  The drawing room was not far down the main corridor, but it seemed to take an age to get there.

  The serving girl opened the door and stepped in front of Eda. “Her Imperial Majesty is here to see you, Your Grace.”

  And then Eda came into the room and saw Domin lounging on a low-backed couch in front of the fire flickering unnecessarily on the hearth. His thin hand was curled around a wine glass, and rings weighed heavy on each of his brown fingers. He seemed somehow older than the last time she’d seen him, and something that she didn’t like lurked in his eyes.

  He didn’t get up from the couch, just took a long draft of wine and watched as she crossed the room to him.

  “Domin,” she said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. Her head was beginning to spin with exhaustion and thirst, and she wanted to harangue him for not tripping over himself to accommodate her, as he usually would. She forced her voice to remain steady. “Ileem has flooded Eddenahr with Denlahn soldiers. He betrayed me.”

  Domin’s eyes flicked up to Eda’s, then down to his wine glass. He traced the rim with one finger, and suddenly she saw the tension in his shoulders.

  She decided to ignore it. “What happened to Evalla’s army and Rescarin’s mercenaries?”

  “Merc
enaries take time to get rid of, Your Imperial Majesty. Some have gone, some are still camped outside of Eron.” He waved his hand in the vague direction of the city.

  “Good. We’ll need them to retake Eddenahr.”

  Domin laid the wine glass on an end table. He lounged back against the arm of the couch, folding his hands behind his head. “They’re my army now, Your Majesty. You made me Baron of Evalla, if you recall.”

  “So I did.” She smiled at him, tried to be warm. Flirtatious. “And I mean to make you something more than that, once my current husband is drawn and quartered.”

  Sweat beaded on Domin’s upper lip, but he smiled back. “He married you and then took the city? Bastard.” This last bit was said with some degree of admiration.

  Eda wasn’t about to admit to Domin that she’d crowned Ileem Emperor, too. “How soon can we have the army mobilized? I’d like to start back to Eddenahr tomorrow, or the day after at the latest. Ileem can’t have too much time to fortify the city. Domin, are you listening?”

  He’d shut his eyes, and stretched the whole length of his lanky body out onto the couch, sandaled feet dangling over the end of it. He was dressed in silk, she noticed. Diamonds gleamed from his ears and his skin was dusted with gold-flecked oil.

  Since when had Domin cared about finery?

  “Domin. We have to act now.”

  He sighed, and jerked suddenly to his feet, pacing around her to the elaborately carved sideboard on one wall and taking out a bottle of her father’s wine. Jealousy sparked through her—no one should touch her father’s wine but her. He poured a glass, handed it to her.

  She accepted it but didn’t drink, watching Domin over the deep red liquid.

  “Don’t you trust me, Your Imperial Majesty? Or are you afraid it might be poisoned?”

  Eda’s heart jerked. She frantically reviewed everything she’d ever made Domin do, right up to stealing the papers from Rescarin—the papers that, if they were found to be forgeries, incriminated her.

  “Eda—I can call you Eda, can’t I?” He snatched the glass back from her, and took a healthy swig before dashing it against the wall. It shattered in a rain of red and crystal.

  She stood very still, a dawning horror taking root.

  “I know everything about you, everything you yourself choose to forget—or refuse to believe. You murdered our Emperor, poisoning him slowly so it seemed he was succumbing to illness. You banished the rightful heir to the throne and made yourself Empress in her stead, claiming the Emperor’s paternity. But I know that is a lot of nonsense. You aren’t royalty, Eda. You aren’t even of noble blood.”

  He circled her, dragging one finger along her cheek.

  She reached for the dagger that wasn’t there and he laughed and grabbed her wrist, hauling her back over to the couch. He shoved her down onto it and stood over her, anger hardening every plane of his face.

  She’d never known Domin could be angry. Gods help her, she’d never known Domin even had a spine.

  “Do you know who you are, Eda? You’re nobody. You’re not the daughter of an Emperor. You’re not the daughter of a Baron. You’re the daughter of a gods-damned sheep farmer, your mother’s childhood sweetheart. She married the Count of Evalla to cover it up, to give you some chance at respectability.”

  Eda’s head was spinning. She couldn’t breathe. She bunched the material of her filthy skirt tight in one hand. “What are you saying? What sheep farmer?”

  “Oh, he’s dead too,” Domin spat. “Died years ago. But you would have known him when you were a child. He was the father of your friend, that wretched sickly thing you made into a Marquess.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “DOMIN.” SHE FORCED HERSELF TO BREATHE, FORCED herself to focus on his face amidst the black spots crawling at the edges of her vision. “Domin, how do you know that?”

  “From Rescarin. He got it out of your friend’s mother last year after the Emperor’s death.”

  There was a roaring in her ears, every part of her screaming. Because if what Domin said was true, it meant Niren was her sister. Her sister.

  And Eda had killed her.

  She leapt off the couch, grabbed Domin by the collar, and pinned him up against the wall. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not.” He shoved her off him, no knife at his throat this time to keep him from overpowering her. “You’re finished, Eda. The Empire is done with you, and so am I.”

  “Domin, wait. We can retake the city, you and I. Together. I’ll make you Emperor. You’ll rule beside me. We’ll—”

  His face hardened with rage. “When have you ever done anything for me, Your Majesty? Ever since you were crowned you’ve manipulated me and controlled me. Bent me to your whims and your wishes, thinking I wouldn’t notice you using my feelings for you to get you what you wanted.”

  “Domin—”

  “That’s all over, now.” He turned his face to the door. “Guards!”

  Four Enduenan soldiers stepped into the room, helms gleaming in the firelight. “My lord?” inquired one of them, a young man with a scar on his cheek.

  “Arrest this woman,” said Domin. “She’s a traitor and a murderer.”

  “Domin—”

  Domin slapped her, hard, across the face.

  Her skin was still smarting as two of the guards grabbed her shoulders and hauled her from the drawing room while the other two followed, the points of their sabers biting into her back.

  They locked her in a holding cell next to the stables.

  It was dingy and dark, hardly ever used, and it stank of horse and moldy straw.

  She crouched on the dirt floor and rocked back and forth on her heels. She was empty. She was blank.

  She was nothing, nothing, nothing.

  There were no tears, there was no anger.

  She didn’t know how to feel anything in the face of Domin’s revelations.

  Gradually, as the night deepened and cold air seeped into the cell, her utter shock dimmed, and Eda came back to herself.

  She paced the confines of the tiny chamber, barely six feet square, and tried to make sense of her current situation, tried to see a way out of it.

  All those years ago, Eda had bargained away her own blood. The life of her sister. And she’d never known.

  But hadn’t she, really? She’d felt that connection, since they were children. She felt it now. It ate at her, gnawed her down to muscle, to bone, to the delicate organs beneath that measured out the beats of her life.

  Her only friend in all the world. Her sister.

  Dead. Gone.

  Because she’d bargained Niren’s life away to Tuer.

  And he’d betrayed her.

  She couldn’t stop seeing Tuer’s Shadow in the ballroom, blood dripping from his blade. She couldn’t stop hearing Ileem’s words, racing endlessly through her mind: Who do you think guides my hand? Who do you think? Who do you think?

  Tuer had promised to give her everything she had ever wanted.

  And then, just like in the story her father who wasn’t her father had told her as a child, Tuer had destroyed her.

  Sometime during the night, hooves crunched over gravel outside her cell, leather creaking as a rider swung down. Eda jolted from her reverie, every nerve on fire with the need to run.

  “The other Barons escaped the slaughter, my lord,” came a male voice. “They’re mobilizing their armies and preparing to march on the city in a fortnight.”

  “How old is your news?” Domin’s voice, a hard edge to it.

  “Four days. I rode day and night to get here.”

  “Then we have a week, no more. Thank gods the army is ready. We depart at sunrise.”

  “Did the girl come here?”

  Eda bit back a snarl at hearing herself referred to that way.

  Domin laughed. “She’s here.”

  “What do you mean to do with her?” The messenger’s words were hesitant.

  “Drag her along, of course. We’ll make a spec
tacle of her execution, once we retake the city. Right after I’m crowned.”

  Eda smacked the wall of the holding cell, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood. How dare he. How dare he plot to take her crown, which she’d fought and lied and killed for? Which she’d sacrificed her soul for?

  Niren, dead on pale sheets.

  Tuer’s Shadow in the ballroom, his sword dripping blood.

  Ileem’s knife at her throat.

  She should have recognized the anger in Domin, the yearning for power. No one had seen it in her. Why hadn’t she seen it in him?

  “And if we fail to retake the city?”

  “We won’t fail,” said Domin. “But if we do, I’ll slit her throat myself and leave her carcass to rot in the desert.” He laughed again, and footsteps drifted away from the stable, leaving Eda once more alone in the dark.

  She fell asleep without meaning to, and dreamed of a garden, flowers nodding in slanting sunbeams, bees dancing under a bright sky. In the center of the garden was a stone temple, half tumbled down and overgrown with moss and ivy. She stepped under a low doorway and found herself in a small square room, lit with a white light that seemed to come from both nowhere and everywhere. The room was empty save for a young man who sat at a table, writing in a book.

  For a while Eda watched the movement of his pen, traveling rhythmically across the page. It never seemed to run out of ink.

  And then he looked up at her. His arms and face were scored with scars. His eyes were dark; they burned with wisdom and age.