Pursuit of Shadows (The Keeper Chronicles Book 2)

by JA Andrews

  Her eyes wrinkled in pleasure. “You remember.”

  “It was very story-like.” He stared at this tiny girl, trooping along next to him, just as she had for days. “You can hear the entire Sweep?”

  She shrugged. “The grass is one. But I can’t hear anything where it’s scorched. The roots never speak.”

  The night dragged on endlessly, each step charred and crunchy. The fire continued off to their right, but all around them, as far as they could make out, there was nothing but burnt grass and ashes.

  The thought of Ilsa haunted him. Would Killien punish her because Will had left? He almost turned back three times, but he couldn’t figure out what good it would do. Putting himself back at Killien’s mercy would change nothing. The book by Kachig the Bloodless sat in Will’s pack. It was a strong bargaining chip. Maybe he could find a way to trade it for Ilsa.

  It wasn’t quite midnight when they reached the end of the burned grass. They continued north through the Sweep until the ground rose into the first slopes of the Hoarfrost Range. The sun was just rising and the wind had died. Far behind them where the Sweep had burned, lines of smoke rose up like thin grey reeds out of a black swamp.

  “We need a place to hide before the sun rises.” Will headed uphill until the trees grew into a proper forest. The smell of evergreen filled the air, clean and fresh. It smelled like the woods at the Keeper’s Stronghold, and a sharp pang of homesickness hit him. Sunlight slanted through the trunks brightening patches of the trees and tufts of bright green grass. He breathed in the air, letting the height of the forest wrap around him. For the first time in a year he felt right. If it wasn’t for Ilsa, he would never step foot on the Sweep again.

  Ilsa. He glanced back toward the Sweep. Killien wouldn’t do anything to her, would he? Maybe Will should have done something besides run. But even as he thought it, he knew there was no way he could have even found Ilsa in the chaos, never mind convinced her to come with him.

  Rass walked along next to him, looking around at the thin sprinkling of grass with a slight pucker in her brow. The forest ended and the ground sloped up to their left across a bare patch of earth, toward a rock wall. Rass scuffed her way up the slope, her shoulders slumped, but he was struck again with how healthy she looked compared to when he’d first met her. It had been less than a fortnight.

  The reason was so obvious he laughed. “You’re getting stronger because it’s spring, aren’t you?”

  She nodded. “I always get thin in the winter.”

  “I thought it was my food.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I like the bread, and the avak. But the dry meat is too hard to chew.”

  “You never actually lived with the Roven, did you?”

  “I hadn’t been near them in ages. I only came the day I met you because I do love hearing the stories from the colored wagons.”

  It was astonishing how many wrong ideas he’d had about her. “If you live in the grass, what do you eat?”

  “Worms and grubs. But in the winter, those burrow lower than the roots of the grass, and I can’t find them. There are plenty around now, though, if you’re hungry.”

  Will tried not to let his revulsion show on his face and dampen her offer. “No thank you.”

  He was about to collapse with exhaustion when he saw a shadowed spot above two large boulders. He scrambled up and found a small cave. He spread out his bedroll and the two of them collapsed on the floor in a patch of warm sunlight. Using shirts for pillows, they both lay down. Will’s mind searched for ways to get back close to Ilsa, but he hadn’t though of any before he sank into sleep.

  He woke no less tired. He lifted his head to look outside, and the muscles in his neck cried out in protest. The woods were silent and empty in the afternoon light. He heaved himself up. The cave was high enough that he could see through the tops of the trees down to the grasslands. In the distance he could see a wide swath of blackened Sweep.

  Rass came to his elbow, looking out across the Sweep, her face untroubled by the destruction.

  A thought struck him. “Did you start the fire?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have started it where it would try to kill us.”

  “Good point.” Will thought for a moment. “Where did it start?”

  “West of the rift where the Morrow live. There were people near it when it first flared up.”

  Will’s gaze traveled over the endless black. “Who would start a fire like that?”

  Something thumped in the cave behind them and Will spun around.

  Two rabbits lay on the floor of the cave, and Sora climbed in after them.

  “The first person most people blamed,” she said, “was you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Will stood caught between fear and relief. The smallest smile curled up the edge of Sora’s mouth. “I think this is only the second time I’ve made you speechless. It’s nice.” She leaned to the side so she could see Rass. “Are you hungry?”

  Rass peeked out from behind Will. “Yes.”

  Sora slung off her pack and pulled out some dried meat.

  Rass wrinkled her nose. “I’m gonna find something for myself.” She scooted past Sora, giving her as wide a berth as she could.

  Sora sat down, stretching her legs out in front of her. “This is one of my favorite caves. I’m mildly impressed that you found it.”

  Will grabbed a piece of meat. “Are more rangers coming?”

  “Not any time soon. I told them you’d run back toward Queensland as fast as your lumbering legs could carry you. We’ll rest until dusk. We need to find somewhere safer to hide, but it’ll be better to move after dark.”

  Rass scrambled back in and scurried back over next to Will, offering him one of the four squirming grubs in her palm.

  Sora peered into Rass’s hand. “The darkish blue ones are the best.”

  Rass looked at her in surprise, then smiled. “They are.”

  Will held up a piece of meat. “I’ve got plenty.”

  Rass considered Sora for a moment before shyly offering her the grubs. At Sora’s refusal, Rass popped a thin, pink one into her mouth.

  Sora watched the girl closely. “I expected you to be alone, Will.”

  “Rass is the one who got me out of the rift,” Will said. “And saved me from the fire.”

  Rass swallowed the last grub. “All we needed was a rope. And a little grass ripped up so the fire would go around us.”

  Sora glanced between the two of them. “I saw the torn earth. I thought Will had done that.” She leaned closer the little girl, taking in her wide eyes and her angular face. “How did you—” Her eyes widened. “You’re a pratorii.”

  Rass elbowed Will. “She knows what pratorii are.”

  “Yes. She’s very wise.”

  Sora looked at her in wonder. “I’ve never met one before. I think I’ve caught glimpses of a couple, but was never sure. You look more human than I expected.” Her gaze flicked to Will. “Why are you spending time with him?”

  “Because I’m likable,” Will protested.

  Sora ignored him and turned back to Rass. “I’ve never heard of a pratorii spending time with people.”

  “Will isn’t a normal person.”

  “Agreed.” Sora picked up one of the rabbits and began to dress it. She glanced at Will. “Someone should take first watch.”

  Will nodded and started to rise, but Rass grabbed his hand. She cast a nervous glance at Sora. “I’ll do it.” Without waiting for an answer, she scooted out of the cave and settled into a little nook in the rocks.

  “It’s a good thing she’s a pratorii.” Sora pitched her voice low. “Because unless you have some capable wife stashed somewhere, I can’t see how you’re going to take care of a little girl.”

  “I would have done just fine. Besides, Keepers don’t marry.”

  Sora looked up at him. “Ever?”

  “Not often. We spend all our time studying and traveling. It doesn’t leave much time f
or a family. The last time one married was sixty years ago.”

  “Hm,” she said in a tone impossible to read. “Can you hand me some pine needles?”

  A thick layer of pine needles crowded along the edge of the cave floor. He ran his fingers along the floor and scooped up a jumble of needles, their dry tips jabbing into his fingers. “We don’t have wood for a fire.”

  She fixed him with an annoyed look. “Why would I make a fire on a clear day while the entire Morrow Clan is looking for us?” She set half of the pine needles in a pile on the floor and pulled a heatstone out of her bag. “I just need a small flame. Be useful. I know you can start this with your finger.”

  “Don’t you have anything to start a fire with?” Will asked. “If you’ve misplaced your tinder, you could just give it one of your flinty looks.”

  “I like to save those for you. And I have several ways to start a fire. One of them is your magic finger. And since you don’t have much else to contribute…”

  “Fine.” Will set his finger against the needles. He hesitated just a moment, at the fear that he wouldn’t be able to move the vitalle again. But Killien wasn’t here, and neither was whatever he’d done. The energy flowed easily out of Will’s finger and the needles lit.

  It burned for only a handful of breaths, but the heat stone began to glow with a rich, yellow light. Heat poured out of it and Will backed up.

  “Why didn’t you tell Killien about my magic finger the night you met me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She rigged the rabbit up to hang over the heatstone and offered no further answer.

  There was something different about her. She didn’t smile, but her face was…content, her movements relaxed. She was comfortable here, in a way she’d never been on the Sweep.

  He leaned against the wall, his body heavy with exhaustion. Sora’s eyes were shadowed, and for the first time it occurred to him that she had been up all night as well, and probably hadn’t had the luxury of sleeping all morning.

  “Any chance you have anything useful in your bag?” she asked.

  He dragged his pack over. “I think it’s useful, but you’re going to be disappointed. I have some clothes, some avak pits I’m taking back to Queensland, and I have books.”

  “Books. How shocking.” She picked up the second rabbit, pulled out her knife and sliced into its skin.

  “That is both disgusting and fascinating.”

  She answered him by yanking off the rabbit fur in one, quick wrench.

  Outside the cave, Rass laid her head against a wide boulder next to her and hummed a catchy little tune.

  “Your hawk brought me a clump grass,” Sora said.

  “Of course he did. Because what people need on the Sweep is more grass. Although grass is better than dead mice.”

  “You didn’t send him to me?”

  “No. Why wou—” He sat up straight. “When did he come to you?”

  “Just before I saw you in the rift.”

  Will’s mind spun. He pointed at Rass. “Talen found her while I was there, too.”

  “Maybe he’s in the market for a better owner.”

  “Or maybe,” he said, too excited to bother to answer her, “he listened to me.

  “The first day I told him it’d be useful if he could bring me something with energy, like a tree.” Will leaned forward. “And he did. It was barely a shoot, but the roots still had dirt in them. I’d thought it was for his nest—but he didn’t take it to his nest, he brought it to me.”

  “I’m not sure a shoot counts as a tree.”

  “A very small tree for a very small hawk. But then I asked him for what I really needed—you.”

  She drew back slightly.

  He gave her a wide smile. “Although it turns out all I needed was Rass.”

  The hint of a smile appeared on her face. “I hadn’t decided yet whether you were worth rescuing.”

  Will sank back against the wall. The sky was a bright, clear blue, without a single speck of hawk to be seen. “I can’t believe Talen did what I asked.”

  “How’d you get him to?”

  “Emotions resonate.” Was it really that simple? “I think I…shared my emotions with him. My need to find you.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “I think I am,” he said slowly, sitting back and unwrapping his bundle of books. Had Talen really found Sora? And the tree? And Rass?

  “What is that?” Sora pointed at the blue book.

  “Killien’s book. It’s about fairly horrific magic by Kachig the Bloodless. And Killien is probably very angry that I have it.” He opened one of his own books, starting his usual check for dampness and mites.

  Sora watched him. “What could you possibly have to write down that takes up that many pages?”

  “Mostly stories I’ve learned on the Sweep. This one’s from the Temur Clan about an old woman who lives in a cave, chases the ripples of grass across the hills. And sends bats to terrorize the clan.”

  “What is the point of recording something like that?”

  Her tone was so sharp that Will glanced up at her.

  “Why write down useless, harsh things about a woman who has probably suffered her whole life as an outcast? Do you know what story might actually be worth writing down?” She leaned toward him, pointing her knife at the book. “That woman’s story. She was someone’s daughter. What happened to her that she ended up banished and shunned? That”—she sliced the knife viciously into the rabbit—“would be a story worth writing down.”

  Her face was furious and she sliced strips of rabbit meat off the creature with a frightening efficiency.

  Will flipped to the next page. “It’s right here.”

  Sora’s knife stopped and she lifted her glare from the rabbit to Will’s face.

  “It took me three days to find her.” The stench had been awful. The wind had blown past, hollow and uncaring.

  Sora sat utterly still, leaning as though she might explode off the ground toward him at any moment.

  “She was dead.” The woman’s body had been curled up in the corner of the cave. Grey hair wild and matted, gaunt cheeks, bone-thin wrists.

  Sora leaned closer and Will shifted it so she could see his sketch. The cave had been scattered with clay tools and dishes. There had been goat droppings everywhere and a rickety cage along the back wall with a chicken, also dead.

  “She’d had a goat, and a chicken, a small bucket, a cup, and an assortment of things made out of woven grass.”

  “Any bats?”

  “No sign of them. The cave was covered in filth.” He stared at the page unseeing. “Except for the basket her body was curled around.” Her arms had held it so tightly, he’d had trouble removing it. “The rim of it was woven with withered flowers, and inside lay a set of neatly folded clothes, small enough for a young child.”

  Sora ran her hand over the drawing, looking at Will’s notes, silent for a long time.

  “But why write it down?” She spoke so quietly Will had to lean closer to hear her. “There’s nothing left to do.”

  “I buried her.” She’d been so light Will could have carried her all the way back to the Temur village. “And then I made a copy of what I’d found, describing as much of her life as I could figure out, and delivered it to the biggest gossip in the Temur clan.”

  Sora looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  “The entire clan must have known about it in a matter of days.” He paused and flipped back to the story the clan had told him about the woman, with all its meanness and fear. “I also copied this, word for word as I’d heard it, on the same sheet of paper.”

  A small smile curled up the edge of Sora’s mouth. She nodded in approval before busying herself with the rabbit again.

  “But in some ways,” she said, “your story is just as bad as theirs. You wanted them to feel something about the woman. So you made your story to fit it.” She looked up at him. “How you tell a story changes ever
ything about it.”

  Will nodded. “There are all sorts of stories in the world. Theirs was full of fear and contempt. My story was a reminder of her humanity. Of her weakness and struggles and isolation. And ultimately of her death, neglected and shunned by them.” Will stopped and flipped through the book again, phrases of fear or hope or pain jumping out from each page. “We tell stories about everything. We can’t escape them. It’s how we interact with each other, it’s how we keep the things we value close. It’s the fearful stories, the ones that strip the humanity from everyone but ourselves that cost us nothing to spread. It takes a lot of searching to find the true stories, the ones that reveal people’s humanity instead of crushing them beneath the weight of hatred.”

  Sora was silent for a long time. “Stories are too powerful. The ones people told about that woman defined her life.”

  “Which is why they’re important.” He flipped back to the page with the sketch of the cave. “Her name was Zarvart.”

  “Zarvart,” Sora said quietly.

  Will nodded. “Names are important too.”

  She considered the picture for a long moment, then piled strips of rabbit onto a piece of leather. Pulling another small heatstone out of her bag, she set it next to the rest of the pine needles. She wiggled her finger in the air and looked expectantly at Will.

  Leaning forward, he lit the needles. The heatstone glowed and Sora used her knife to roll it up on top of the rabbit meat. The meat sizzled as she wrapped up the leather, trapping the meat against the hot stone. She bound it with some twine, soaked the entire bundle with water, and tied it to the top of her pack.

  The other rabbit cooked over the first heatstone, little drops of fat sizzling onto the stone and the hot floor of the cave next to it. Sora lay down and Will traded places with Rass at the entrance to the cave who then curled up in a corner and went straight to sleep. The next several hours passed in boredom watching nothing at all happen in the forest below.

  It was late afternoon when Sora came and sat next to him. “Let me see your hands.”

  His bandages were grimy and shifted out of place, showing the angry red edges of his palms. Sora pulled out a small bottle from her pack and a ball of bandages.