by Morgan Rice
She saw everything so clearly now, even though the world seemed to be wrapped in a veil of shadows that Kate couldn’t lift. She saw all the secret desires in people’s hearts, from Sebastian’s murderous hatred of his family to the people of Stonehome’s need to control her and others. Compared to all of them, there was something almost pure about the Master of Crows. At least he didn’t pretend to be something other than he was.
Kate smiled at that as an idea came to her; the kind of idea that wouldn’t have occurred to her until she grasped the stone. She wouldn’t have had the clarity that she needed until that moment. Now, she saw all the connections, all the things she could do to make a world that matched the chaos that she felt inside right then. She saw all the deaths that there had to be.
Now, she had the strength to do it and more. Kate reached out for the shadows around her, feeling the ways that they connected to a deeper darkness, and from there to all the shadows of the world. She wrapped them around her like a cloak, and disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Rika wished that she had more magic as her fleet got closer and closer to the Isle of Spirits. If she’d had the magic to talk mind to mind, she could have called out to Lucas and spotted where he stood on the island. She might even have been able to call him to them, warning him of the things she’d seen in her vision and saving him without having to set foot there.
Then again, if she’d had that talent, maybe she wouldn’t have had the skill to see what she had.
“We need to make landfall,” Rika said. She pointed to a cove. “There!”
Her flagship, and it still seemed strange to have a flagship, turned towards the place she’d pointed, and the rest of her fleet swung in behind her.
They moved closer, and Rika wished that they could go faster, because she suspected that every second they delayed put Lucas in more danger. Around them, ghostly ships rose from the waves, in a variety of styles that spanned centuries and seemed to come from around the world. There were galleys and galleons, long ships and stranger things that looked as though they should never have been able to float. They flowed around the fleet, ghostly ballistae and cannon firing.
“They aren’t real,” Rika declared. “They’re trying to drive us off. Ignore them. Send word.”
Rika wasn’t sure whether the others there truly believed what she said, or whether they went along with it because she was their duchess. Whichever it was, the ships didn’t respond to the incoming fire, but kept going, heading for the beach. These were Ishjemme craft, and that meant that they got so close that Rika was able to leap off into the shallows, strong, tough warriors following her, all looking to her for direction.
“We need to search for Lucas,” Rika said. “But stay in contact. In a place like this, others must be able to see you at all times. If you see anything, blow a horn.”
They set off across the island, and Rika started to see the spirits there, moving between the trees, touching the strips of cloth that stood there, vanishing and reappearing. Rika saw them staring at her and her men, starting to gather round, some shifting and changing, looking more warlike by the moment.
“We’re not trying to invade,” Rika called out. “We’re looking for our friend.”
From one side, Rika heard a horn blowing, and she ran in the direction of the sound. She found one of the spirit warriors there, blowing a horn of curved horn, obviously trying to distract her.
Rika heard more horns sounding around her, one after another.
“Pull back together,” she commanded. “Don’t let them isolate you.”
She was about to order them to retreat from the island, unwilling to risk any of them until she could find some way to make peace with the spirits. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the figure seated there cross legged beneath one of the trees, shimmering slightly.
“Lucas!” Rika yelled running across in his direction.
Lucas looked… strange. There was something almost translucent about him there, as if he were slowly fading into the fabric of the island. Beside him, Rika could make out the outline of one of the ghosts, a woman. Lucas seemed to be holding a sword of some sort, along with the stone that he’d been sent to find.
He didn’t look at Rika as she approached, didn’t respond at all as she waved a hand in front of his face.
“Lucas? Lucas, can you hear me?”
“He’s not yours,” the spirit woman said. “He must stay here.”
“Who are you?” Rika demanded.
The spirit woman smiled. “I am Elanora, and Lucas loves me. He wants to stay. He has given me his reality.”
She turned from Rika, and Rika grabbed for her wrist. Her grab passed through, and Elanora danced back.
“There’s nothing you can do,” she said. “He will give me everything. He will stay here, and I will be free.”
“The moment you become real enough to kill, I’ll put a knife in you,” Rika promised.
Again, the spirit woman smiled. “Then we must do something about you. Help! They’re attacking! Invaders!”
The spirits came to them then, warriors and stranger things, beasts and monsters that could never have existed in the flesh. They charged at her soldiers, and although the spirits seemed insubstantial, some of the weapons struck home. Not all though, not even most. Most passed through.
Rika could see the difference. The men who found themselves struck by claws or blades or teeth were the ones who flinched, or tried to block, or even struck out in the expectation of hitting. A wolf-like thing pounced at her, jaws wide. Rika forced herself to stand, ignoring it. It wasn’t real. It was just a spirit thing.
Convincing herself of that while the wolf leapt was one of the hardest things she’d done. Her every instinct was to flinch, to react, to lend reality to this thing that sought to kill her. Instead, she stood there, and let its jaws pass through her flesh, feeling only the cold brush of spirit as it went.
“We are not invaders,” she said to it, as calmly as she could. “I only want Lucas back safely.”
She turned to the rest of her men, some of them fighting frantically against creatures they couldn’t hope to match, some of them letting swords slide through them, and raised her voice.
“Focus on what’s real,” Rika yelled to them. “Focus on one another, on the people you fight with and care about. You are real, and the spirits are not!”
She walked across the battlefield, deliberately walking through the spirit things. She might not be Sophia, to summon magic against them, or Kate, to outfight them, but she could show her men that they weren’t real.
She walked through the middle of fights, ignoring the creatures that came at her, determined to show no fear. On impulse, Rika walked down to the beach, reaching into the boat that had brought her and pulling out a carefully wrapped package.
Rika took out a hand harp and started to play, walking as she did so. Her music spread out around her, in old, comforting songs. She played old airs of Ishjemme, and hearth songs of its families. She used the music like a thread to connect to the men around her, reminding them that this was real, and the rest of it was only a false imagining.
Her men gathered around her, and now Rika walked back towards Lucas, step by step, letting the music become a kind of shield for those with her. Perhaps it even persuaded some of the spirits there that she was not an invader, because what kind of invader did it with music?
“We are not your enemies,” Rika said between songs. “We will not harm you. We will not fight you.”
One by one, the spirits stopped attacking. The beasts turned their claws away from the men, the warriors held back their swords. Some disappeared deeper into the island, while others shifted, becoming more human, less threatening.
“What are you doing?” Elanora demanded. “You should kill them!”
“I don’t think they believe your lies,” Rika said.
She saw the spirit woman’s expression turn nasty. “It doesn’t matter,” Elanora sa
id. “I have the spirit stone. I have the reality he’s giving me. There’s nothing you can do to stop me, and I’ll be long gone before you can try to stick a knife in me, girl. The paths of the spirit can take me a long way from here.”
She turned back to Lucas, caressing him almost tenderly. Her lips touched his, and if it hadn’t been for the thread of energy passing from Lucas to her, it might have seemed almost loving.
“Lucas, come back,” Rika yelled. “Pull away from her. Focus on what’s real.”
“It won’t work,” Elanora said. “He got very good at going deeper, believing that this is real. You can’t touch him, let alone bring him back.”
“Watch me,” Rika said. She might not be able to touch anything in the spirit world directly, but there was one thing that she’d always known could touch someone’s soul, and it was the thing that she’d thought she was wasting her time doing back in Ishjemme. She’d been the sister who had wasted her time on music while her siblings devoted themselves to the serious business of war. Now though, it might be exactly what they needed.
She sat down in front of Lucas and started to play, picking a tune that spoke of need and return, home and safety. She poured herself into the playing, reaching down into her emotions, hoping that it would be enough. If it wasn’t… well, she could already see him starting to fade.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Cora felt like an animal hiding between hunters as she and Emeline made their way through the forest. She had known that it was dangerous to come with her friend to distract the New Army, but now the true scale of that danger was starting to hit home.
“Are you starting to wish that you hadn’t come with me?” Emeline asked.
“And make you do this alone?” Cora countered. She shook her head. She would be there with her friend for this, whatever it led to. She pointed to a space between the trees. “This way?”
“This way,” Emeline said, pointing to a different path. Cora trusted her. Emeline was the one who could see where the soldiers would be, after all.
“How many are there?” Cora asked.
The fact that Emeline hesitated before answering told her most of it. There were too many. They’d tried to draw the New Army down on themselves and they’d succeeded far too well.
“Just remember that every moment that we keep them hunting for us is a moment that they aren’t going after Sebastian and Violet,” Emeline said.
Cora nodded. That was what this was about: keeping the child safe. They set off deeper into the forest, trusting to its cover to hide them as much as possible. Cora could see Emeline sweating with the effort, and she didn’t think it was just about running.
“I’m still able to hide us from him,” Emeline said, “but I don’t know how much longer it will last, or how much good it’s doing. There are crows everywhere now, and men.”
That was the problem. The plan had been to slip between the hunting squads while they were still searching for Violet, yet now, Cora had the feeling that the New Army was searching for them.
“I guess the Master of Crows doesn’t like being tricked,” Cora said.
“Who would have thought it?” Emeline said. She frowned for a moment. “Damn it. Run!”
Cora didn’t hesitate as a group of crows landed in one of the trees nearby. Instead, she broke into a flat run, clinging to Emeline’s arm so that her friend wouldn’t be left behind, and wouldn’t try to do anything stupid like slowing the enemies down.
They zigged and zagged through the trees, trying to confuse any pursuit. Even so, a soldier in the uniform of the New Army broke from the trees in front of her. Cora drew her sword and hacked at him, keeping running as he fell back from her.
“Here!” he yelled as they passed. “They’re here!”
More of them came from the trees, and then more after that, so that it felt as though a whole pack of them was chasing now, leaving Cora and Emeline with no time to rest or to risk a false step. Another opponent moved in front of Cora, and she barged him out of the way, sheer momentum letting her barrel past.
Muskets sounded, and Cora saw tree bark splinter around her as lead shot struck it. She hadn’t thought that there was room for more fear inside her during this chase, but somehow, she found it.
“Which way?” Cora called out to Emeline.
For almost the first time since she’d known her, Emeline looked panicked.
“I… I don’t know,” Emeline called back.
Cora picked a direction at random and kept them running. She’d only gone a few strides when Emeline tried to pull her back.
“Not that way. That way is-”
Crows surged from the forest, and the Master of Crows stepped after them. Cora turned to run, and now there were soldiers in the way. It didn’t stop her from plunging into them, driving her sword home beneath the ribs of one of her opponents. The soldier twisted as he died though, tearing the weapon from her hand.
Cora felt Emeline ripped from her grip almost as quickly, the soldiers pulling her away. Cora kicked one of them back, but there were more there then, one diving low to slam into her legs. More of them grabbed hold of her, pinning her in place and dragging her arms behind her back while she fought them. They tied her there and then dragged her upright next to Emeline, who was staring at the Master of Crows with obvious hatred.
He sat on a tree stump as calmly as if he’d been holding an audience in a royal chamber. He had a long, slender knife in his hand, while around him, crows hopped and gathered, turning the forest floor into a blanket of blackness.
“Bring the cart, I think,” he said, looking past Cora.
She didn’t understand until she felt another length of rope tied to the one she was bound with, then thrown up to wrench her arms high behind her. A soldier dragged her onto a wooden cart, then kicked the back of her knees, forcing her to kneel, and the pain was excruciating. Emeline cried out as they did the same with her.
“I will not insult your intelligence by promising you your lives if you tell me what I want to know,” the Master of Crows said. “You both know that you are going to die for your role in this trickery.”
“But we did trick you,” Emeline said. “You’ll never find Violet now.”
Cora saw the Master of Crows smile, and that smile was as terrifying and dangerous as the rest of him.
“Ah, you’re trying to make me angry so that I kill you both quickly and don’t learn anything. It takes a special kind of opponent to try to make even her death into a weapon. It will not work, though.”
“We won’t tell you where Violet is,” Cora snapped at him.
“They won’t.” Cora recognized Endi as he stepped from the trees. “These are some of Sophia’s most loyal friends. They’ll keep her secrets to the death.”
“You,” Cora spat. “You betrayed all of us.”
Endi shrugged. “I betrayed a usurper. You should talk. I’ve seen what our general can do.”
“You disgust me,” Cora said, looking away from him and trying to ignore the pain in her arms.
“Enough,” the Master of Crows said, holding up the hand with the knife. “You’ll tell me what I want to know soon enough, and the one who tells me will be rewarded.”
“You’ve already told us we’re going to die,” Emeline pointed out beside Cora, speaking through gritted teeth. “I’m not sure rewards count for much.”
“Death can be a reward,” the Master of Crows said. He turned the knife so that the light caught the edge of its blade. “Eventually, one of you will see it that way, when the torture gets to be too much. The one who talks will be killed quickly. The other will have days in which to regret not talking sooner.”
Cora swallowed, knowing that the thing in front of her was all too serious. She tried to imagine the horror of what was about to happen, and just the thought of it was too much to bear.
“Tell him, Cora,” Emeline said. “We’ve done enough now. I don’t want to watch you suffer.”
Cora shook her head.
“You tell him.”
“Perhaps you could both tell him,” Endi suggested. “Save yourselves some-”
He was still talking when a shadow coalesced behind a tree, slowly acquiring human shape. Cora saw a figure step out from the shadow of the tree, move forward, and thrust a sword through Endi’s chest.
“I never liked him,” Kate said as her cousin crumpled to the ground. Cora started to breathe a sigh of relief, but then she saw the way Kate looked at her: without concern, without even interest.
“You!” the Master of Crows said, standing. “If you’ve come here to fight, you’d best prepare yourself to die slowly. I’m going to break you. You’ll tell me where your niece is, even if the others don’t.”
Kate smiled, and Cora could see the shadows writhing over her, flowing in waves over her skin. To Cora’s horror, she shrugged.
“I guess she’ll be at Monthys,” Kate said. “That’s where the battle is. That’s where Sophia will be. That’s where she saw this ending.”
“And you came to kill me before all of that?”
“Not before,” Kate said. “There are too many other people who need to die, and you can help me with that, dead thing. You need to pay, but there are too many other people who need to pay first for the things they’ve done. The shadows have shown me that.”
She stepped back, heading back towards the shadows again.
“Kate, please!” Cora called out.
Kate looked back at her, seeming to listen to something. “If you and Emeline hadn’t been there, Sophia wouldn’t have lived to hurt me. Will wouldn’t have died.” Cora could see tears in her eyes, and those tears seemed to be shadows. “Maybe I’ll give you a chance though. The shadows want the chaos. I’ll see you in Monthys, Master of Crows.”
She stepped back into the shadows and vanished, leaving Cora and Emeline kneeling where they were. She saw the Master of Crows smile that horrific smile again.
