Shadowborn

by Katie MacAlister

  Such a nice priestess. I’m glad I found her for the lad. I hope she finds him soon, since it’s clear he needs her. Now to go find that old fool Exodius and convince him to relay her whereabouts to Hallow…

  I gasped at the voice that spoke directly in my head just as the bird was about to slip back through the entrance to the spirit world. “Thorn! I can hear you!”

  What? You can? Thorn flew around my head a few times, causing Mayam, who was glaring around us, to shriek and duck, covering her head with one arm, while using the other to flap wildly above her. How extraordinary. Especially since I’ll have no other way of communicating with the lad until he regains the staff. Do you need me to guide you to the nearest town? It’s to the north, along the coast.

  “No, we can find it.”

  “Find what? Lord Racin? He’s back in the spirit realm, as I have told you a number of times,” Mayam said, still batting at Thorn when he swooped over our heads.

  “Thank you for everything,” I told the bird, and held out my arm. He alighted on my wrist, his wooden talons gentle on my flesh. I gave him a little kiss on the head before drawing a blessing on him.

  The symbol flared with a brilliant golden light, one that had me seeing black spots for a few seconds. The intensity of the blessing took me a little aback.

  Now, now, don’t you go falling in love with me, Thorn said with a ribbon of amusement in his voice as he took to the wing, making a big circle around us. Hallow wouldn’t understand that at all, not to mention the fact that it wouldn’t be appropriate, not with you being a priestess of Kiriah, and me being me.

  I laughed aloud, watching fondly when he disappeared, slipping back into the spirit world.

  “You are a very strange woman,” Mayam snapped.

  “So it’s been said, but I have yet to let that bother me. We had best be off before these warriors of the All-Father find us. Thorn says there’s a town to the north. I’m going to head that way and see if there are any horses to hire. Are you coming with me, or going off on your own?” I didn’t particularly care what she did, not now that I had one of the moonstones and my weapons back. Uppermost in my mind was finding Hallow, and making sure he was unharmed.

  Mayam’s lip curled with scorn, but she evidently bit back the comment she wanted to make, and instead, with an abrupt gesture, marched past me northwards. “I have no other choice but to go with you. You’re my prisoner. I can’t just let you wander around free. But don’t expect me to be so accommodating once Lord Racin finds me.”

  “You just told me he was in the spirit realm,” I pointed out. I made my way through the circle of large black rocks that seemed to stretch upward toward Kiriah with inky, jagged fingers. I glanced back when I found a game trail going north, wondering at the oddness of the Altar of Day and Night. Why was it so horribly bleak, and yet at the same time so familiar to me? “And it’s not likely that he’s going to come out of there until the thane calls the All-Father forth. Speaking of which, why does he want the All-Father—”

  As we rounded a particularly large rock, I came face to face with a massive man whose skin was tinted red, his long black hair lifting gently in the breeze from the shore.

  “Well, shite,” I swore.

  Surprise flitted across Nezu’s black eyes for a moment, followed immediately by a calculating look that assessed and dismissed me.

  “Lord Racin!” Mayam pushed past me to bow low before him. “I knew you would find me. I told the priestess that you would, but she scoffed at me. At you. And yet, here you are, and here she is, and despite her having me removed from the spirit realm, she is still my captive.”

  Nezu glanced at Mayam, annoyance dripping from his voice as he said, “What are you doing here? Who brought you to the altar? I was told you ran off with the Fireborn priest.”

  I may have felt like my brain was wrapped in swaddling clothes for the last week, but at that moment, my mind was as sharp as the straight razor that Hallow used to scrape the whiskers from his face. I was a lightweaver, once again blessed in Kiriah’s sight, and I had in my possession one of the powerful moonstones that were the focus of so many people’s attention. I would be damned if I did not use those weapons to their fullest potential.

  “My lord, I did not run off; I was taken by this one—” Mayam started to say, but I pulled the moonstone from where it was tucked away in an inner pocket, and started a prayer to Kiriah. The second the words formed in my head, heat licked my flesh, the power of Kiriah flowing through me so strongly that for a moment I panicked, fearful it would simply consume me. Hastily, I directed the light, sending it to focus through the moonstone.

  Nezu’s eyes widened when a golden-white light formed a corona around me, his gaze settling on the moonstone I held in my hand. “That’s mine!” he bellowed and lunged toward me. In the distance, I could hear the deep, grating calls of the Harborym answering him, and beyond that, the sound of a battle horn, and knew I had very little time to do what was needful.

  “By the grace of Kiriah Sunbringer, I send you back to where you belong!” I shouted, holding the moonstone aloft as if it was a beacon. “Bound once to Eris you were; so you shall be bound again!”

  “You cannot—” Nezu stopped and tried to lunge at me, but hissed in anger, drawing back with a furious expression.

  Light filled my mind, the power of not just the sun, but of Kiriah herself. It burst forth from the moonstone with a whip crack of sound that echoed off the scorched stand of trees just beyond the altar. Next to me, Mayam screamed and fell to the ground, immediately curling into a protective ball.

  “I can do anything,” I told Nezu in a voice that was foreign to me, the syllables rolling off my lips with a slow, weighted cadence that was not my own, and yet as familiar as the breath in my lungs. Power flowed from and through and around me. I was light, I was creation, I could give life or take it away depending on my whim. I wasn’t just a priestess of Kiriah—I was Kiriah. I was a goddess, creator of the race of Fireborn, and there was nothing and no one who could stop me.

  My gaze moved from the moonstone, focusing on the man before me, and for a moment, his form shimmered, changing from the red monster to that of a being cloaked in shadows, his eyes glittering silver. “Nezu,” I said in that strange yet familiar voice, the word resonating through me.

  Anger chased the sorrow that followed the word, anger and an intention that filled my being.

  “No,” he snarled, snatching the front of my tunic and pulling me up to him, his eyes glittering when he gazed deep into mine, burning a cold path down to the very depths of my soul. “I will not allow this. Not again.”

  “Not again,” I repeated, agreeing, and before he could react, jerked myself out of his hold and allowed the light flowing through me to focus through the moonstone once more. This time the light didn’t just snap out at him, it slammed into his chest, sending him staggering backward a few feet.

  “This is not over,” he swore, his head lowered as if he was about to charge. Several Harborym had reached him by that time, Harborym that melted into red puddles on the ground when I flicked a glance at them. “You will not disrupt my plans. Not this time.”

  “I can do anything,” I repeated and started to gather up the power of sun; the sensation of it, like the heat of a thousand infernos,was as natural as the beat of my heart. I lifted the moonstone again, calling forth all the intention, sorrow, and pain that fed the magic inside me before sending it into the moonstone.

  It shattered in my hand, cracking into four pieces just as Nezu, with a snarl of profanity, stomped forward and ripped open the fabric of being that hid the entrance to the spirit world, disappearing into it without so much as a look back.

  I stared down at the broken bits of crystal lying across my palm, the power of Kiriah slowly fading from me, leaving me bereft and shivering without it.

  “What have you done?” Mayam asked, her v
oice penetrating my dark thoughts. I continued to stare at the moonstone, aware of her slow movements as she got to her feet. I did not care about the expression of horror and fear on her face.

  “It broke,” I said in disbelief, prodding the crystal with one finger, trying to push the pieces back into place. It lay heavy on my hand, nothing more than a broken bit of crystal, lifeless and without any resonance. “It was whole. It was completely fine. Then I used it as a focus, and…it broke.”

  Mayam took a step back, shaking her head. “What are you?”

  “Lightweaver. Former Bane of Eris. Priestess of Kiriah Sunbringer,” I said wearily, feeling drained by the withdrawal of Kiriah’s power.

  “But you—you glowed! And Lord Racin seemed…” She clearly struggled to find the word she wanted.

  “Insane?” I suggested.

  She slid me an unreadable glance. “Wary,” she finally answered. “Of you.”

  “It’s because I channeled Kiriah herself. I did once before, when Deo and Hallow and I closed the master portal Nezu opened in Abet.” I glanced down at my arms, where the faintest scars still remained. “Although I’m very happy that this time, I didn’t hurt myself doing it.”

  “What you did—” She stopped when the horn I’d heard before sounded again, this time much closer.

  “Askia,” I said, stuffing the bits of moonstone into my inner pocket, and turning to see how close they were.

  My eyes widened as I took in the surroundings. What had been black, burned, and twisted trees, rocks, and plants now glistened with life. Little green tendrils peeked out between the black glass rocks and birds flitted from dead tree to dead tree, bringing the air alive with birdsong. Even the scrubby black grass that had dotted the area was now interspersed with minute thin green shoots. As I watched, a colorful snail crawled up the top of the huge altar stone. I plucked it off, examining it for a minute before dropping it onto the nearest rock, pulling up my swords as human-shaped shadows flickered amongst the twisted trees to the south. Battle cries lifted high into the air to join the gulls that wheeled overhead, adding their own haunted calls to the nightmare scene.

  “Goddesses!” Mayam said on a gasp, her eyes huge as she backed away. “We should…we should…”

  “Run,” I said, nodding, then spun around and ran after Mayam, who had bolted to the north. Strident voices followed us, indicating the Askia had caught sight of us running from the altar.

  I slid on a smear of red that dotted the path, leaping over rocks and fallen trees while I drew as many protective runes as I could, my mind filled with not only the All-Father’s guard, but the question of how I was going to tell Hallow I had broken one of the precious moonstones needed to help defeat Nezu.

  And just what had he meant by telling me he wouldn’t allow me to do something again? Do what? Had he felt the nearness of Kiriah, as I had when I channeled her power? I shook my head at my thoughts even as we raced through the slowly changing landscape, my ragged breath drowning out all but the highest cries of the Askia. “They’re getting closer,” I yelled to Mayam, a few yards ahead of me.

  “How far is it to the town?” Her words drifted back to me while I dodged a leafy tree branch that snapped back after her passing.

  “I don’t know. Thorn didn’t say.” I risked a glance back when the game path we’d followed curved inward, away from the shoreline. Behind us at a distance of a few hundred yards, I caught sight of two women clad in black leather armor, their long black hair streaming behind them as they raced after us. But it was what I saw in the distance that had my blood turning cold in my veins. “Blessed goddesses above, I hope not far, because they have horses, Mayam!”

  She screamed something unintelligible, disappearing into dense foliage when the path swung to the left.

  I dug deep, running after her while sending prayer after prayer to Kiriah Sunbringer.

  I had a horrible feeling that we were going to need every blessing she could spare us.

  Chapter 11

  “Master—”

  “I’m not absolutely certain you can call me that. No, to the right.” Hallow finished weaving a shadow spell over the trench that the good citizens of Nether Wallop had helped dig across one section of the Great East Road and stood back to squint critically at the results. There was a distinct suspicious darkness lying across the ground, but he hoped that the spell he’d just woven over the trench, along with the natural protection cast by the cedars lining the road, would help conceal it. “Thorn, is there anything you can do to conceal this trench?”

  The bird, which had taken to perching on Hallow’s shoulder since it seemed to be reluctant to return to the staff now held by Lyl, gave a harsh squawk.

  “Fine. This will just have to do. Would you mind checking the road again?”

  Thorn took off without so much as bobbing his head, and Hallow wondered for what seemed like the fiftieth time how, when Thorn had so often driven him nigh unto madness with his endless chattering, he could actually miss hearing the arcanist now that he was no longer Master of Kelos. “Bellias blast that Lyl.”

  “If only it was that easy,” Aarav murmured, passing with an armful of balls made up of arcany.

  Hallow turned to go see how the other defenses were holding up, and almost ran down Tygo.

  “My master always told me that Bellias blesses those who don’t call on her for every little want,” Tygo said in a self-righteous tone that he immediately countered by adding in his normal voice, “I always thought that was a lame excuse. If I have the chance to ask the goddess for help, why wouldn’t I? She’s a goddess! She has unlimited power, and I’m her devoted worshiper, so why shouldn’t she want to aid me?”

  “A sentiment I heartily endorse,” cooed a female voice. Hallow turned and made a little bow to the buxom woman who stopped before him. She ran a quick assessing eye over first Tygo, then him. “Blessings of Bellias, Lord Hallow. I am Red Eva. I was told you were seeing to our defenses, and wanted to offer you not only my thanks, but the hospitality of my house. That’s it there, the one with the shifts hanging out the window.”

  “Er…” Hallow glanced at the woman’s black hair. “Red Eva?”

  “Aye.” She ran her gaze over him again, then smiled, invitation visible in her eyes. She leaned forward until her mouth was a scant inch from his ear and whispered, “It’s said that my love grotto can tighten so hard around a man that it makes him see red.”

  “Love grotto?” Hallow almost choked with a sudden urge to laugh, but he kept firm control of his lips, simply shifting a few steps away from the woman.

  “You know.” She gave him a look that wasn’t so much an invitation to come hither as a demand that he fling himself on her. “My birth cannon.”

  He stared at her, unable to speak lest he lose the scant control he had. Next to him, Tygo gave an abbreviated snort that was more than half laughter.

  “You can’t possibly be a man who does not enjoy women to the fullest, but perhaps they use another term where you are from?” She edged closer, stroking a hand down the front of his jerkin. “Mount Pleasant? Penis sharpener?”

  Hallow wondered idly what bad choices he’d made to land him there at that exact moment.

  “Fur-backed turtle,” Tygo said, his eyes narrowed in thought.

  “Crotch cobbler,” Red Eva all but purred. Her voice dropped an octave. “Mother of all souls.”

  “Much as I appreciate the offer to visit your…er…establishments—both personal and structural—I am not only busy at the moment making sure that a deranged arcanist doesn’t destroy this town as he did the last one that gave us shelter, but I am also married. Happily.Very happily. So thank you, but if you will pardon me…” Hallow stepped around both Tygo and Red Eva, and ran over a mental checklist of items.

  “Later, then, after you have seen to the attackers,” Red Eva called after him. “Your wife is wel
come to join you. I have three man minxes she can enjoy while you are sampling the wares my ladies offer, and I’m willing to give her a discount, too.”

  Hallow ignored the offer, focusing on the defensive line he and the townspeople had been working on since before Kiriah had risen that morning. The trench on the road was sure to catch at least a score of men, hopefully Lyl included. The townspeople had been busy making what they colloquially called fire mops, small twists of rag and rope soaked in fat, which could be lit and tossed onto invading parties. “Aarav, are the arcane traps set?”

  “Aye, although I don’t know what good they will do,” the older man said, his expression morose. “I made them weak, as you ordered. They won’t kill anyone, just knock them around a bit.”

  “I have no intention of killing Lyl’s army,” Hallow said evenly, turning to find Tygo once again standing right in front of him. “Not unless we have no other choice. They are not responsible for his decisions. What is it you want, Tygo, that you must constantly try to trip me?”

  Tygo straightened up, his earnest face slightly flushed with exertion. “Master Hallow—”

  “He’s no longer Master of Kelos,” Aarav interrupted. “You can’t call him that anymore.”

  “He should be Master,” Tygo argued, looking mildly annoyed. “He did nothing to warrant removal of the title!”

  “That is neither here nor there. My point is—” Aarav placed the balls of magic inside several of the paper lanterns that had been strung above the road in a zig-zagging pattern, so that they glowed with the gentle light of the starshine captured by arcany. “You cannot call him that anymore.”

  “What is it you wanted?” Hallow asked, taking pity on the young man, whose face turned an even darker red at Aarav’s chastisement. “Did you complete the protection wards on all the houses?”

  “Aye, master,” Tygo said, casting a defiant glance toward Aarav, whose shoulder twitched in response. “All the houses, and the hall, and the well, and the stable, and the—”