Beyond the Shadowed Earth

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  That was enough to keep Eda climbing another hundred feet. Tainir pulled her onto a ledge in the rock, and Morin scrambled up after her.

  For a moment, all Eda could do was stare. The ledge was much wider than she’d initially realized, at least the size of the palace menagerie, and was scattered with what looked like a dozen enormous birds’ nests. A wooden hut was built against the mountain, brightly colored in whorls of cerulean and magenta and gold.

  “They must be out hunting,” said Morin, stretching his arms. “I’ll call them back.” He shrugged out of his harness and went inside the hut, emerging with a curved instrument made out of some huge animal horn. He blew three short notes that echoed off the cliffside with the harsh voice of some ancient beast.

  Tainir tugged Eda toward Morin. “Keep away from the edge.”

  Morin lowered the horn and peered out over the valley. Eda’s whole body tensed, uncertain what they were waiting for.

  But she didn’t have to wait long. Dark shapes appeared in the eastern sky, growing larger and larger against the rising sun as they came rapidly toward the cliff.

  Fear crashed through her, her head wheeling with images of the winged spirits in Tal-Arohnd, of bone swords and splattering blood. But then the shapes resolved into massive birds, golden wings catching the sunlight.

  Morin sagged with relief, his face splitting into a wide grin as he glanced over at Eda. “You asked me how I got to the monastery ahead of you.” He strode toward the cliff, kneeling down and bowing as the enormous birds landed all around him in a roar of wings and talons. “I flew,” he said above the noise.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “WHAT DOES HE MEAN, HE FLEW?” Eda hissed to Tainir.

  Morin was feeding the huge birds scraps of meat from his palm, which was terrifying—their hooked beaks were larger than his forearm.

  “They’re the ayrrah,” Tainir said, “the giant eagles, descended from the ones who used to serve the god Uerc. And Morin literally means he flew. The ayrrah have been our family’s secret for generations. My mother could speak to them, and Morin inherited her abilities.”

  Eda blinked and saw the maps plastering the walls of the cartographer’s shop—incredibly detailed maps, like the person who’d drawn them had had an actual bird’s eye view. “You can’t mean—you can’t mean he rides them.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. And you’d better hope the ayrrah like you, because we’re flying, too. It’s our best chance at making it all the way up Tuer’s Rise. It’s our only chance at finding Tuer’s Mountain, which was something even our mother couldn’t do.” Tainir’s voice caught.

  Morin stood next to an eagle with dark wings, pressing his hand against its enormous head, leaning close to the creature’s fierce eyes. All but three of the ayrrah gathered their wings and leapt off the cliff, and Morin turned to Eda and Tainir, his grin even wider than before.

  “They’ll take us,” he said, trotting past them and back into the hut. “Get Eda ready, won’t you, Tainir?”

  Tainir helped Eda out of her harness, then shoved it and the climbing spikes deep into the bottom of her pack.

  Eda dubiously accepted a hat, which was made of a bright blue knitted wool, with braided leather cords to tie under her chin.

  Tainir laughed at Eda’s obvious dislike. “Flying is cold. Trust me. You’ll want it.”

  And then Morin came back, lugging a trio of odd avian saddles, which the eagles allowed him to strap on to their backs. The birds waited patiently for him to finish, and when he did, he waved Tainir and Eda over.

  Eda went, reluctantly.

  Morin took her hand and brought her to one of the eagles, who peered at her with sharp eyes and pressed its beak into her palm. Eda suppressed the urge to screech and leap away. The ayrrah’s feathers were a rich chestnut brown, but their edges glimmered gold.

  “This is Filah,” Morin told her. “She was—she was my mother’s favorite.” The words choked him. “She’ll bear you well. You have nothing to fear.”

  And then before Eda was ready, Morin boosted her up onto Filah’s back. The saddle was small and light, made of supple, tooled leather, with a raised part in front for Eda to hold on to, and braided leather stirrups for her feet. Morin adjusted Eda’s pack, making sure it was secure on her shoulders, and then stepped away to climb onto his own eagle, who had darker, almost black wings. Tainir’s was gold and white and seemed to be younger than the other two; it stamped its taloned feet and bobbed its head about impatiently.

  Morin hung a smaller version of the horn he’d used to summon the ayrrah around his neck on a blue cord. He lifted it to his lips and blew one piercing note. Beneath Eda, Filah gathered her wide wings and launched into the air so suddenly that for a moment, Eda left her stomach on the cliff ledge.

  Wind rushed past her body, stinging her hands and her cheeks. At first, she could hardly open her eyes; when she did, it was to a dizzying blur of rock and trees and empty air. She thought she’d be terrified, like she had been climbing the cliff, but somehow, she wasn’t. Filah flapped her wings once, twice, then soared for a while on a current of air.

  Eda slowly made sense of what she was seeing: the mountains, marching beneath them, a river so far below it was a mere glint of silver. Clouds close enough to touch, treetops small as spiders. The thrilling sensation of freedom, untethered to the earth.

  They flew almost due west, Morin’s ayrrah taking the lead with Eda in the middle and Tainir just behind. It was freezing, which made Eda grateful for the awful hat. The wind numbed her hands, and she slipped them beneath the feathers on Filah’s neck. Warmth crept tingling back into her fingers.

  Morin looked back at her, an expression of pure joy on his face. “All right?” he called.

  Eda couldn’t stop the grin tugging at her own lips. “All right! “

  They flew on, and every once in a while she caught Morin looking behind them, tension coming into his frame again. She got into the habit of glancing back, too. Sometimes, she swore she could see that wavering darkness on the horizon, but mostly there was nothing.

  They’d been flying several hours when, to Eda’s surprise, all three of the giant eagles spiraled closer to the peaks again and landed on a jut of rock in a rush of wings. Morin and Tainir clambered off, and Eda followed suit, confused when the ayrrah launched themselves back into the air.

  “They may be descendants of Uerc’s eagles, but they’re still mortal, and we’re heavy,” Morin explained. “They’ve gone to hunt—they’ll be back before long.” He flopped down onto the rock, feet dangling out over empty air, and took flatbread and nuts out of his pack. He handed some around to Eda and Tainir. Eda didn’t miss the worry in his eyes as he glanced frequently back the way they had come.

  The three of them ate in silence, Eda still trying to catch her breath. She had no idea where they were, or how far they’d flown, but Morin found their jut of rock on the map, and circled it with a charcoal pencil. Eda studied the map. “It’s not as simple as riding the ayrrah for a day up the mountain, is it?”

  Morin shook his head. “It’s faster than climbing, of course, but we’ll have to take frequent breaks during the day for them to rest and hunt, and they don’t see well enough in the dark to fly at night. And we’ll have to do some climbing eventually—the ayrrah never want to go past the Singing Mountain.”

  “What’s the Singing Mountain?”

  Now Tainir was looking anxiously into the empty air behind them. “The stories say Tuer made it for Raiva, in the days before the Stars were plucked down from heaven. They say it really sings.”

  “Have you heard it?”

  “We’ve never been that far.” Morin let the map roll back up again and stuffed it into its protective cylinder. “But our mother said it was the strangest and most beautiful thing she ever encountered.”

  Both his and Tainir’s faces closed at the mention of their mother, the grief still so raw.

  “It was Filah who found her body,” said Morin
. “Carried her back to me. I don’t know how far my mother made it or where she died. But she was long gone by the time Filah laid her at my feet.” He shut his eyes and rubbed his hand against his temple.

  Tainir wrapped her arms around him, her eyes swimming with tears. For a moment, brother and sister clung to each other like they were the only two souls left in the world.

  Eda shifted with discomfort, not wanting to fall back into her own grief. “What do you both keep looking for?” she asked, after a while, desperate to break the silence.

  Tainir lifted her head, her cheeks damp. She glanced at her brother.

  His jaw tightened. “The spirits that attacked Tal-Arohnd. I think they’re following us.”

  When the ayrrah returned a few minutes later and Eda and the others resumed their flight, she couldn’t recapture the joy she’d felt before. Fear gnawed at her, and she looked back more often than she looked ahead.

  Clouds knotted across the sun as the day spun on, and an icy rain began to fall. Morin blew several notes from the horn he wore around his neck, and the giant birds turned slightly to the north and landed high on the side of a mountain. Eda, Morin, and Tainir huddled under an outcropping of rock, as much out of the rain as possible.

  Trees grew in a tangle from the mountain’s edge, on far too much of a slant to provide any realistic shelter, but Morin was able to gather enough wood to make a fire. The ayrrah nested deep within the branches, tucking their wings over their heads and seeming to fall instantly asleep.

  Tainir drew jars of goat cheese and hummus out of her pack. “We have to travel light,” she told Eda by way of apology for the sparse fare. “But Morin did bring a kettle—we’re not monsters.”

  Eda smiled, the knot inside her easing a little. “It looks a feast to me.”

  “Tomorrow, we’ll have to hunt when the birds do,” said Tainir, with distaste.

  “Food might be a little scarce from here on,” Morin agreed, eyes flicking in Eda’s direction.

  She shook her head. “I lost my appetite for an Empress’s table a long time ago. You needn’t be sorry on my account.”

  When they’d eaten, Morin made tea, and the three of them sat drinking it around the fire. The rain dwindled down to nothing.

  “What will we do if the spirits catch us?” said Eda.

  Morin put another log on the fire. “Tuer is calling you to the Mountain—we have to trust he’ll protect us long enough to get you there.”

  The flames cracked and popped, glowing hot embers sparking red into the night, smoke swirling up to join the emerging stars.

  “How can you trust Tuer after what happened to your parents?”

  “Their deaths were not his doing.”

  Something twisted inside her. “How can you know that?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I don’t. But it’s not something he would do—Tuer has always watched over us.”

  “You still think that after everything he did to me?”

  Morin and Tainir exchanged glances.

  “I don’t think Tuer is quite who you think he is,” said Morin.

  “Then who is he?”

  Tainir rubbed her thumb along the rim of her tea mug. “Who he is not is more to the point. What do you know about the spirits?”

  “There were countless of them, formed by the One at the beginning to help the gods shape Endahr.”

  “So there were,” Tainir agreed. “Some helped Raiva guard the trees and make them grow. Some helped Mahl and Ahdairon, the wind gods, harness the lightning and wield the rain. Some helped Uerc tame the beasts and teach them to speak. And there was one spirit who became the servant of Tuer, helped him raise mountains from the earth, and cast them down again.”

  Eda saw a flash of the murals in the monastery temple: a shining spirit, always at Tuer’s side.

  “This spirit was almost as powerful as Tuer himself,” Tainir went on. “While most of the spirits were not faithful to just one god, but passed freely between tasks until they grew bored and roamed about Endahr on their own, this spirit stayed beside Tuer always, and so he was called, in the old days, Tuer’s Shadow.”

  Eda drew a sharp breath, unease twisting through her. “I thought—I thought Tuer’s Shadow was a piece of Tuer.”

  “No god can divide themselves,” said Morin quietly. His eyes snagged on Eda’s, but she only held them for a moment before looking away.

  Tainir’s story continued to spin out into the night. “When the spirits rose against the gods and were sealed into the void, Tuer’s Shadow remained. He went with Tuer into exile in the Circle of Sorrow, and it’s thought that Tuer sends him out to do his bidding in the world. Some stories do not think Tuer’s Shadow is benevolent. They say he’s an evil spirit who manipulates Tuer, using the god’s likeness to fool mankind into making hapless deals. In those stories, Tuer’s Shadow goes by another name.”

  Eda forced herself to breathe as a horrible understanding unraveled her, thread by thread. “What name?”

  Tainir’s voice was small in the vastness of the dark: “Rudion.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  EDA LAY AWAKE LONG AFTER THE THREE of them had crawled into their bedrolls and Morin and Tainir had drifted to sleep. Uneasiness bit at her.

  How long had Tuer been trapped in the Circle of Sorrow? How long had he sent his Shadow—sent Rudion—to do his bidding?

  She couldn’t shake away Torane’s words to her back in Tal-Arohnd: He claimed he served Tuer, but there was such darkness in him I cannot believe it. I think he must have pledged himself to an evil spirit instead.

  Deep in the night, Eda left her bedroll and paced to the edge of the cliff. She stared out into the vast reaches of Tuer’s Rise, a speck of dust amongst the stars. The wind curled round her, icily cruel. And then a shadow separated itself from the mountain, and she was no longer alone.

  His wings stirred beside her. She could feel the heat of his fiery crown.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “What I have always wanted,” he answered. “What my lord Tuer bid me.”

  Anger hardened her. “And what has the god bid you?”

  “To draw you to his Mountain.”

  The wind tore past her, sending a cascade of pebbles skittering down the cliff. “He orchestrated all of this, didn’t he. The deal I made. Niren’s death. Ileem—Ileem’s betrayal.”

  She felt, rather than saw, Rudion’s smile. “Do you want to know what became of your prince?”

  She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood and didn’t answer.

  “He’s dead. Does that please you?”

  Her traitorous heart wrenched and she wheeled on the spirit. “Why are you here? I’m doing what you want. I’m going to the Mountain. Leave me—I have no use for shadows.”

  Rudion lifted his hand and traced her cheek with one taloned finger. It bit into her skin. “I can take you to the god. I can bear you to the Mountain. Tonight. You need wait no longer to avenge yourself on him.” His wings rustled in the wind. His sword gleamed white.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she spat.

  He hissed, showing his teeth, jagged and broken. “You will be sorry. You are the only one Tuer needs. I will not ask so politely again.”

  She took a breath and he was gone, nothing but the wind and the stars and her two sleeping companions with her on the mountain.

  She woke to blinding sunlight pouring over the peaks, uncertain if her encounter with Rudion had been a dream. Morin and Tainir were already up, busy breaking camp, and Eda crawled hurriedly from her bedroll. Despite the sun, it was freezing.

  On the edge of the cliff, where she had stood last night, rested a single black feather. She shuddered. “We should go,” she told Morin. “As quick as we can.”

  He caught her apprehension and nodded, calling the ayrrah down from their trees. He showed Eda how to saddle Filah, which was not very different from saddling a horse, and she was surprised when he told her he’d made the saddle himself.

/>   “Is there anything you don’t know how to do?”

  “Rule an Empire—but I suppose that makes two of us.”

  She scowled and punched his arm, belatedly realizing he was teasing her. Her cheeks warmed.

  He rubbed his arm and laughed. “I suppose I had that coming.”

  Minutes later, the other ayrrah saddled, they all launched into the air.

  They flew into the wind that tasted like lightning, like freedom, but fear bit at Eda in a way it hadn’t yesterday. She couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder.

  Behind them, the horizon glinted dark, and sometimes Eda thought she saw black wings and a fiery crown. But it must have been a trick of the light—every time she blinked, it was gone.

  Tainir sang as they flew, her fingers busy hand-knitting something from a skein of bright blue yarn. Morin pulled parchment and charcoal from his pack, and somehow had the coordination to sketch the landscape below, unconcerned with the plummeting drop.

  The ayrrah set them down in a high meadow a little before noon and flew off to hunt. Tainir left to do some hunting of her own, which surprised Eda, considering the face she’d made last night at the mention of it.

  But Morin just smiled, shaking his head. “She’s prouder of her hunting ability than you would think.”

  The two of them built a fire, or rather Morin did after Eda awkwardly told him she didn’t know how. He didn’t tease her about this, just explained everything as he was doing it, and assured her she’d be an expert in no time.

  With the fire lit, there was nothing else to do besides wait for Tainir. Morin sprawled on his back in the grass and stared up at the sky. Eda watched him, unsure why she felt so uncomfortable being alone with him. Her glance flitted often to the patch of darkness on the horizon, her skin crawling at the memory of Rudion’s words.

  “What is it like, to talk with the ayrrah?”

  “It’s like talking to the wind and having it listen.”

  “What do they say to you?”

  Morin rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow so he could look at her. “Nothing in words. It’s more like … images. Emotions. Sometimes flashes of color.”