Shift of Shadow and Soul (SoulShifter Book 1)

by Hilary Thompson

  “The Sulit witches can be dangerous, but perhaps not so much as our own people. We’ll leave from the northern beaches while the crowds are distracted with the banishment ceremony, and we’ll meet again one day, in Rurok. Syashin will know where the Sulit capital is, even if he’s never been there. He should be willing enough to take you there, after all the trouble his father has caused. Stupid men,” Maren practically spat, her eyes sparking.

  “But Maren, the Hungry River…” Coren trailed away, imagining the treacherous journey Maren was describing. One pull of the wrong current and the remainder of her family would be swallowed whole. Just like Jyesh had been, and all the dead they had sent to the mouth of that river.

  Maren made a dismissive noise. “I can navigate those waters. There is still magic in me yet, and the water sources were always mine to control. Perhaps they will listen better, the farther we get from the island. And Neshra drew me a map, once. We will aim our boat directly west, into the mouth of Shedreck River. It’s not nearly so hungry. From there we can travel north through the Listening Forest. Rurok is at the top of New Moon Falls.”

  Maren paused, seeming to realize then that Coren had been staring wide-eyed at her ranting. She put her hands on Coren’s shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “We will see each other again. Trust in yourself and your magic. Trust in the love of your family. That love is power, girl. Do not forget it.”

  Coren nodded, wishing so much to believe in Maren, just as she always had. Yet it was growing harder and harder with each passing second, like grains of sand slipping from beneath them. They were all tumbling from the edge of the cliff.

  The ripples of the ocean as they hit would surely reverberate across the whole world.

  Maren reached her arms across the twins to Coren, and the four of them clung together for a few brief seconds. Then the sound of a horn on the western beach broke them to pieces again.

  Coren swiped at the fresh tears on her cheek and joined hands with Penna and Kosh. “I know it will delay you, but please see me off,” she whispered. She knew she could be strong if they were watching.

  She must not break before the General and his cruel collection of followers.

  Together, the four of them walked slowly to the beach, where every person on the island had gathered. Banishment was a rare event, but still, everyone knew the ceremony. Tradition provided one hour to pack what could fit in one sack, one longboat, and one Last Meal. No sail, and no oar. The banished were truly set adrift for their actions.

  When they inevitably died on the MagiSea, their dangerous magic was dissolved back into its source, and swallowed by the Hungry River.

  Each Weshen household helped provide the Last Meal. Coren had always thought it a mockery of the sense of community Weshen boasted. What good is community when you are being banished?

  But the families stood before her now, each holding one piece of food. She was allowed one bite from each piece, symbolizing how the community was always willing to help the banished survive, but also how the banished knowingly refused their help by committing acts of treason in their use of magic.

  Jyesh had not eaten a single bite of the offered food, snubbing the false ceremony of help from the people who had deserted him. Jyesh had sailed into the MagiSea without a crumb in his belly, and the look on her twin’s face had filled Coren’s stomach with knots and her dreams with screaming for months afterward.

  She could only hope that the expression on her face would be as powerful a reminder for the Weshen people, but her experience had shown it was unlikely. They would forget her, as they had largely forgotten her brother, her mother, her father.

  And yet, Coren managed to shove her pride far away. This was not the time for a show of dignity. She meant to survive. And so she ate enormous bites of every piece of food offered, filling her cheeks and nearly gagging as the food filled her mouth.

  Glancing to her side, she noticed Syashin began copying her actions, and a strange sense of relief flooded her, pushing her spine even straighter. She was not alone, and at least he, too, seemed interested in living.

  She burned to ask him why he had thrown away his future by showing his magic, why he had cast his lot in with such a family as hers, but they would have the rest of their lives to discuss these things.

  Chapter 15

  The Last Meal was complete. Sy’s stomach ached from the amount of food he had consumed, and his very jaw was sore from chewing. But he had to admit it was better to begin their journey well-fed.

  The line of women and men parted before Corentine and him, and everyone pivoted to face the ocean, where a small boat was waiting, the name Alimente painted on its side, and Sy caught Resh’s eye. The brothers nodded at each other in a strained sort of understanding.

  Sy watched the twins press their bodies against Corentine. Their faces were streaked with dried tears, but they were each strong-faced and silent now. As Corentine straightened from the embraces, the twins moved back to stand with an older woman. She glared ferociously at the General, as if she might tear him apart with her bare fingers, and Syashin was surprised to see his father duck his head as though in shame. He blinked between the two adults until Tag gathered him in a bone-crushing hug.

  “I swear I’ll see you again,” he whispered to Sy before letting him go and shoving him a bit toward the boat. Sy climbed in, careful to stay straight and proud.

  Corentine stumbled, splashing water all over her dress. She had likely never been in a boat, Sy realized, and he held a hand out to help her. She took it without looking at him, then sat stiffly in the stern, arranging her damp dress over her legs and holding her chin high with pride.

  Tag leaned in, grasping the boat. Corentine slid her eyes to him, leaning away from his bulk. Just before heaving the boat from the sand, Tag fixed both of them in a heavy glare. “Survive,” he commanded. “Weshen may depend on it.”

  Sy nodded, noticing a sheen had covered Tag’s eyes. He didn’t share the man’s sentimentality, but there was no question that they would survive.

  The boat drifted without purpose for several yards before catching a small southern-bound current. There was no song of lamentation for the launching of their boat, only silence. Sy kicked his sack to the bottom of the boat. Corentine stared blankly at the sparkling water stretched before them, her face as smooth as the sea on a still morning.

  It reminded him a bit of how she always began the hunts - never worried about who was watching her, only what she had made up her mind to do. It wasn’t long until the faces on the shore were indistinguishable from one another. And not much longer until the shoreline had blended into a smudgy horizon.

  Sy settled into the bow of the boat and positioned himself to watch for the appearance of the Umbren shore. That would be his cue to start turning the boat northwest, away from the dark southern shores. Then he would need to navigate past the Hungry River, which joined the magical continents of Sulit and Umbren. But that would be many hours from now, perhaps even after the sun had set.

  “We have time to rest,” he said, and his voice sounded much too loud in the quiet of the open water. Corentine didn’t even look at him. Guessing now was not the best moment to form a plan of survival, he lay back against the bow of the longboat. “We can drift several hours before needing to direct the boat. I will keep us safe,” he added. Still, she stared into the distance, as blank and unmoving as an icy rock cliff, as though she didn’t even care that he was in the boat.

  Sy shoved his hand through his hair and sighed, filled with shame for how her family had been treated by his. How could they possibly learn to trust each other now, even in such a situation where that trust was needed to save their lives?

  Suddenly unbearably weary, he leaned against the smooth wood of the Alimente and closed his eyes against what his father had done, and his own part in pushing her to acknowledge her magic.

  They were adrift in the MagiSea with a boat, each other, and what they had packed in one hour. Coren had no i
dea how long their journey would be, but she knew they were meant to die on the water and be baked into white bone by the sun, then sunk into the MagiSea, which would absorb their forbidden magic.

  And the people of Weshen believed they would be safer for it.

  As the afternoon wore on, interminable, neither of them spoke a word. All her previous questions disappeared before the empty expanse of the water, and all her tears dried to salt in the breeze. Although Coren knew it had all been out of Sy’s hands, she had nothing left to say to the boy who, despite all his promises, had indeed hurt her in the worst way possible.

  Feeling as empty and flat as the horizon before them, she pulled a loosely-woven shawl across her face for shade and let the hot sun and her full belly finally lull her to a fitful, dozing sleep. Her body needed the rest, so she didn’t fight it. Long minutes or maybe hours passed as she began to relax into a deeper sleep, only to be ripped upright by a sudden, fierce shriek.

  A Vespa. She would never forget that sound.

  Panic shot through every limb, but before Coren could even move, Sy was on top of her. Gripping her waist, he yanked her into the bottom of the boat, her body pressed beneath his. His heart hammered against her chest so hard that her own seemed to match it through their clothing, two wild drum beats of fear. He pulled a coarse blanket over them just as a giant shadow seemed to block the very sun.

  And they waited, still as mice beneath a wheeling hawk.

  The creature circled once, twice. Surely it could see them, Coren thought, her throat constricting, or smell them, or whatever sense Vespas had in plenty. And then the boat was jarred nearly to the water as the monster landed on its edge, a thick golden claw plucking at the weave of the blanket. Sy’s hand moved, quicker than thought, covering her mouth and preventing the scream she barely knew was poised on her open lips.

  Coren had imagined dying on the MagiSea a thousand times, but never once at the mercy of a Vespa. She tried desperately to focus the same magic that had dissipated the previous creature, but it was like a candle sputtering in too much melted wax. She had nothing.

  The bird shifted on its perch and Sy ducked his head even closer, burying his face against the curve of her neck as the claw shifted downward, slowly ripping the blanket open an inch at a time. Corentine froze, her mind searching for a way to protect him. She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but the thought unfurled deep in her belly: she needed Sy to survive.

  If that claw scratched his skin, if he bled, the Vespa’s poison would kill him before the banishment could. Time seemed to stand still as they both struggled not to breathe, and Coren begged the Mirror Magi for a reprieve.

  And then the Vespa simply left, the boat rocking gently from its departure as its call faded in the breeze, seemingly pushed away by nothing but prayer. They were free to move, yet neither of them did.

  Coren only realized she was shaking when Sy finally took his palm from her mouth and circled her shoulder gently against his chest. His mouth closed against her neck in a not-quite kiss, and she tensed for new reasons, her stomach tightening against his movements.

  She may need him to survive, but she was determined never to need him like that.

  She was suddenly overly aware of the sweaty heat of their bodies pressed together: her shoulders tucked between his, her ribcage rattling against his pectoral muscles, her hip bones cutting into his abdominals.

  Sy pushed up onto his elbows, his eyes dark and liquid like the ocean just before a storm. The blanket still covered them, casting the minutia of their world into deep shadow. His eyelashes blinked down slowly, and his lips began to curve upward.

  “Get off of me,” Coren whispered.

  His mouth straightened and set in a hard line and his brows lowered nearly to a glare, but he rose, shaking off the blanket. Coren sat and scooted swiftly back until her shoulders bumped the stern of the small boat. He knelt, surveying the bright, empty sky. There was no more sign of the Vespa except their lingering unease.

  “Why didn’t you fight? I thought you were a great warrior. A Paladin,” Coren said, her sneer doing a poor job of covering her discomfort.

  “There could have been more than the one, and my weapons are packed away. I wouldn’t risk your life.”

  The answer surprised her, but she only glared. “I’ve killed one before, remember?”

  “A happy accident. You’re untrained in your magic and your fighting.” His words were simple and flat, but they skinned her pride like a fillet knife. She hated the raw feeling of needing his help.

  The wind began to blow again, as if it too had paused to watch the Vespa. The breeze gently pushed her hair from her sticky neck. She gathered it to one side, weaving it into a thick braid of earthy browns.

  “Perhaps you should train me, then. Begin by showing me how to create a sail.” It was a taunt, something she knew was likely impossible, but Sy answered with a wry smile.

  “It’s not so easy as you think. But it can be done.”

  Coren shrugged, daring him with a raised eyebrow. His smile hardened and widened, and he held his hand toward her as though offering it. Before she could refuse it, though, she noticed a blue fabric begin to form in his palm, the threads weaving through his fingers.

  It was several long seconds before Coren realized he was stealing the thread of her dress, and she gasped in shock and anger as the cloth swiftly disappeared well above her knees, the threads dissolving from her browned legs and winding into his hand.

  “Stop!” she cried, embarrassed by the note of panic in her voice.

  He obeyed, but it was too late for her modesty. Coren saw his eyes fixed on her upper thigh, where the handle of her whip rested against her skin, beginning the flat, thin braid that spiraled down to her ankle.

  “Your mother’s whip.” He pointed, wrapping the last bit of blue thread around his palm like the women who wove clothing on the island. “What sort of creature made its talisman? What dark magic keeps it alive?” he insisted

  But Coren had no idea. And she wouldn’t have told him now if she did. Instead, she lunged forward, grasping at the strings he held, but he snatched them away, holding them to his chest.

  “This is fusion, the mirror magic to disintegration.” He looked down his hands, running the thread through his fingers as he wove the thread into fabric. “Many generations before the Restless King was even born, people called the Weshen creators, but no human can truly create. We’re shifters. We move sources from one place to another. A sail is made from cloth, and so these threads must come from somewhere.” Syashin locked his eyes on hers and grinned without real humor. “Your dress is more useful now.”

  Coren huffed, but she didn’t reach for the scraps again. She wanted to see him work. She knew she needed to learn from him if they were to survive.

  Sy finished the sail and began to form a tough rope from the leather of his belt, then shifted the top board of the boat up into a short, bare mast. Although they sat much shallower in the water this way, he was then able to string the slim blue sail. Coren felt the gentlest push of the wind as the sail filled.

  “Now we will move faster toward our end.” Bitterness and exhaustion laced his voice. He leaned back heavily, closing his eyes against the sun and throwing a muscular arm over his face. Coren wondered how much energy he had just used, and how long it would take him to recover.

  “I don’t know anything about the whip’s origins or its magic, other than what I’ve told you,” Coren said finally, her words meaningless except as an offer of peace. He slit open his eyes and watched her, waiting for more.

  Keeping secrets wouldn’t help them survive now. Hiding their abilities out of pride or fear was a senseless act.

  So she pressed the handle of the whip against her thigh, triggering it, and the flat braid stacked in loops around her ankle. She leaned over the water, waiting, conscious of Sy’s eyes on the curve of her back. Soon a bright yellow fish swam too near the surface and she lashed out, the braid cracking the water. The f
ish’s body bounced into the boat, its neatly-severed head still floating next to the boat.

  “But I do know how to use it for that,” Coren murmured, keeping her eyes on the fish.

  To her surprise, Sy grinned, laughter shaking his shoulders. “If Resh had managed to catch you, things would have turned out so very differently. You would have torn him to shreds, leaving me with the unsavory task of revenge. Maybe this end was inevitable.”

  Coren hesitated for only a second. “Reshra did catch me.”

  Sy sat up straight, his body an angry question. “What do you mean? When?”

  “Yesterday, just before you came. He was waiting on the plain before you got there. He claimed me with a kiss but said it was for you. It means nothing now,” she added. And she meant it.

  Although nothing against her will was small, their current situation was so largely wrong that those past insults had shrunk to insignificance.

  He leaned forward, searching her eyes. “Corentine, I’m truly sorry for the grief my family has brought yours,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I promised not to hurt you, and I’ve broken that more completely than I ever imagined possible.”

  She couldn’t even glance at him, fearing the past weeks would be too much to bear and she would collapse into sobs.

  “Surely the Mirror Magi have plans for us, and we will not die on this water,” she whispered instead, hearing the question in her voice and despising its weakness. Staring into the depths of the water, she trailed her fingers through its sparkling surface, wondering what magic still swirled below.

  As Corentine’s fingers twisted in the deep waters of the MagiSea, those reverberations rippled across the miles of ocean, like a displaced source seeking something new to bond with.