Queen of Stars and Shadows (Pathway of the Chosen)

by Cat Bruno

  “I need advice, I suppose,” she reluctantly admitted as she looked away.

  Syrsha had long begged him to leave the Grand Palace, just as her father once had, and each time that he refused, she became angrier and more distant. Which made her appearance now an odd one.

  “What of the others? Are they not still with you?” he quietly asked, despite knowing that she would have warded the room.

  Loudly sighing as if she was flesh and not shadow, Syrsha grumbled, “We are no longer in Cossima, Jarek. A few moons ago, I led them to Sythia, where I believed that I would train and amass a group of female warriors to join my cause.” With fallen eyes, she added, “Such did not come to be, although I do have one archer who follows me east.”

  He nearly asked what had occurred, but Syrsha looked too troubled, so he let her continue.

  “We travel to Tian, to the lands of silk and rice. Our journey has been without incident, although I no longer know if the archer who encouraged me to come this way is to be trusted. Hours ago, I learned of a readied army in the Southern Cove Islands that has been training for my fight since before my birth.”

  As if she realized his objections, Syrsha stated, “Each step I take east makes the Cove and Cordisia that much more distant.”

  He would not question her, not now. Instead, he asked, “Are they kin to Nahla?”

  “I do not think so. They are two sisters, one whom my mother saved from a near certain birthing death. She and her male babe both survived with the help of Sharron and my mother. And, after, blood-vowed themselves as kin. My cousin Blaidd is with them now.”

  Jarek knew little of the young Tribesman, although he had once known his father well. Caryss, he recalled, had sought to shape an army for her unborn daughter, and had, until her death. It was no surprise that one waited for Syrsha in the Cove.

  Finally, he understood her reluctance and said, “You are trying to decide if the time is nigh for you to return to Cordisia, with a stop in the Cove first.”

  With a nod that sent shards of nightfall across his face, she told him, “I have no great army, Jarek, although I best everyone I face.”

  He could not stop the smirk that came after her words, for Syrsha had long boasted that she was the better swordsman than he.

  “Rexterra is silent yet, Syrsha. You need not hurry back.”

  His answer was not one that she welcomed.

  “What of Eirrannia? We have had heard word of famine spreading fast among many.”

  “I have heard the same, although news from the North is rare in the King’s City. Most would pretend that Eirrannia does not exist at all.”

  Before she could speak further, a thought occurred to him.

  “There is something that I wanted to tell you. Do you have much time remaining?”

  “I dropped my wards before I traveled here, so I can stay a bit longer,” the girl explained.

  Knowing he needed to talk quickly, he told her, “Last moon, I visited my brother, who will soon be of an age to join the Rexterran Army. Delwin has ordered all boys over twelve moon years to report for mandatory service. He is no warrior, Syrsha, and I convinced my mother to allow me to take him to the Healer’s Academy, for healers and students need not answer the call. During my time at the Academy, I met with Kennet, an old friend of your mother’s and nephew to Aldric.”

  Her gaze, green and twinkling, told him that she knew of the man.

  Jarek continued, “The moon years have not been kind to him, and he lives in near isolation at the massive library. Yet he knows more than any of what will come when Rexterra decides to strike.” With a short pause, Jarek added, “He wants me to help him by convincing the healer Pietro to flee.”

  “What does he want with the healer?” she hissed.

  Realizing that she knew of Pietro’s betrayals, Jarek hastily stated, “Kennet is half-mad, Syrsha, but he believes that Delwin has discovered a poison that can kill any, including Tribe. Moon years ago, when he was still a student at the Academy, Pietro was known to dabble in such things, or so Kennet would have us believe.”

  “I will speak with Gregorr,” she replied after a moment in thought.

  Around Syrsha, dust gathered, as dying embers shifted to shadow. Before her voice dissolved, she told Jarek that she would send Blaidd to meet the healer in Vesta. Plans were settled with haste as her power waned.

  “Ask him of tallora,” Jarek pleaded. “And do not come west just yet. Let me learn what I can of this, and if it is true that Delwin used it to have my father killed.”

  He could not see her face now, but Jarek knew that she understood. It was not only his father who might fall victim to such poison. If what Kennet believed proved true, Syrsha would not survive a tallora-dipped blade either, even if the dagger was nothing more than bronze or iron.

  Moments later, she vanished, and Jarek found himself saddened to see her go. It was, he realized, a different girl who had come, one older, but one who blamed him a little less, he hoped. It was only then that he realized he was undressed, and, with blushing cheeks, he pulled at the bed sheet, covering up his naked chest.

  *****

  He had long known that he would never father children, yet Gregorr considered Syrsha kin, as near to his own daughter as any he had raised with the fennidi. Even so far from Eirrannia, the two spoke in the words of the Ancients, a language written by gods with forgotten names.

  When she crept into his small tent on silent toes, he rolled onto his side and waited for her to address him.

  “I have news from Cordisia,” she whispered, although none could understand but he.

  “You have visited the boy,” he hummed, sitting up so that he could see her face more clearly.

  Before she answered, Syrsha squeezed near to him, sitting crossed-leg at the end of his sleeping mat. Her eyes were a darkened shade of emerald, a shaded gemstone, he thought.

  “He is a man many moon years grown, Gregorr, and would take exception to you calling him boy,” she began.

  With his slender fingers waving off her words, Gregorr chided, “Jarek was a boy when I knew him and is a boy still to one as old as me.”

  “Yes, well, he has been to the Academy and visited with Aldric’s nephew, Kennet, once a close friend of my mother’s. The librarian has become a bit addled, but he sends warning of a new weapon that he fears Rexterra is developing. Jarek believes that the same was used to kill his father.”

  “Come out with it, faela,” he muttered.

  She was tired, he sensed, as she often was after visiting the King’s City. Entering the Grand Palace could not be accomplished with ease and even she suffered with weakness each time she returned. At the corners of her eyes, her skin puffed and reddened, and he knew that she must sleep soon.

  “Jarek told me to ask you of tallora and said that you would know of what I spoke.”

  Little could have surprised him as much as her words had, and Gregorr attempted to keep the worry from his face. The fennidi had long known of the tree sap, for it could only be found near their lands. For generations, none knew of the poison but his own people, and it troubled him greatly to learn that was no longer true.

  After pulling a tiny rune from beneath a tightly woven blanket, Gregorr cupped it between his forest-colored hands. With a silent plea, he opened his hands and showed her the three-sided square painted in ochre across the slate.

  “Do you know which it is that I hold?” he asked.

  From the way that Syrsha stared upon the stone, he knew that she worked to recall its name.

  “It acts much as a ward,” she finally explained. “And will keep what we speak from all other ears. We exist between the three lines, and what exists there is for us alone.”

  With a gentle smile, he nodded, “Near enough. You might not think we need such a rune so far from home, but with the story that Jarek brings, we must take great heed.”

  Continuing, he explained, “From the tallora tree comes a sap that can be boiled and thinned. Once don
e, it becomes harmless, and my people have used it as a salve to prevent infection. Yet, when it has not been boiled, it is deadly. The trees are rare, and I have not heard of any that bloom outside of the Faelan Mountains, which means that Prince Delwin’s men must have gone north to find any to harvest.”

  “Do you think that the fennidi are the ones who told him of its use?” she softly cried, reaching for his hand.

  It was just that question that caused him such worry, and Gregorr admitted as much.

  “Ohdra has kin-vowed the fennidi to my cause!” she countered heatedly.

  Raising a hand to silence her, Gregorr warned, “She is queen, but there are some who did not follow her. The fennidi are like most others in that not all my kin are of one-mind.”

  “I must visit Ohdra,” she sighed.

  “Perhaps when you recover,” he agreed.

  “Is Kennet right that this sap can kill even Tribe and god-born?”

  “It was our only protection against those who sought to steal our lands,” he said as way of explanation.

  “What of a remedy?” she asked.

  Sighing, he told her, “I know of none, but that does not mean that one does not exist or cannot be made.”

  “And how does this tallora work? Why would one die from a blade or arrow dipped in it?”

  “I have only known one man to have died from it. He thought that he was spinning and could not right himself. Over and over he cried that the ground would not stop circling, until he could do nothing but lie against a tree. Within moments, his life pulse slowed and his skin cooled. He was dead within the hour, Syrsha.”

  When Syrsha said nothing, Gregorr reminded her of the tales of Crispin’s death. “It was said that the King returned to the palace and was treated by the healers for the spear-prick, which needed nothing more than a few stitches. On the morrow, he did not wake. I thought it to be poison when I heard the tale from Aldric and think the same name. If not tallora, then something similar, for Crispin had blood of gods in him and should not have died so easily, poisoned tip or not.”

  “Do you know anything about Pietro, a healer my mother once knew? He was with Delwin the day that you were attacked.”

  Remembering that the healer had tried to help Caryss to safety, Gregorr solemnly sighed, “Aye, I saw him there that day. What do you want of him? Would not Sharron be able to tell you of him?”

  “I often forget that she was at the Academy with my mother,” Syrsha muttered. “But I will inquire in the morning about what she recalls. For the last fifteen moon years, Pietro has served as healer to Delwin and now serves his wife. But he is more prisoner than anything and has only been allowed some freedoms because he saved Assana’s life.”

  Rubbing her fingers along the rune that still lay in his hand, she added, “Kennet wants Jarek to free this healer. And to see that he gets to the Academy. Aldric’s nephew believes that Pietro might have knowledge of tallora, enough so that the two can find an antidote.”

  “Ah, I see,” he chimed. “Jarek must think long on this. He has spent these moon years keeping his distance from the healer. Now that is he so trusted by Delwin, he must not risk being caught trying to aid an uncertain ally.”

  With a curt laugh, she answered, “He knows that he has little choice. And perhaps he finally grows weary of playing as Tomasz.”

  Her words were sharper now, as they often became when she spoke on Jarek. But the boy had had little choice, and, now, as a man grown, still must wait, as Gregorr reminded Syrsha once again.

  “It will be welcome to see him finally act against Delwin,” she mumbled, half under her breath.

  Instead of chastising her further, Gregorr asked, “How will Pietro get to the Academy? Surely Jarek cannot escort him there. And none of you must trust the healer enough to let him make his way there alone.”

  After a pause, where it was clear that she was deep in thought, Syrsha said, “My cousin should be able to do this at least.”

  It was not such a poor idea to have Blaidd see that Pietro, once free from the King’s City gates, made it safely to Tretoria, which he told her in short.

  “And so I must visit him as well,” Syrsha told him, plaiting her hair with silver-pearl fingers. “I have never thought so much time in travel would be of such use.”

  He knew that she spoke on their trip to Tian and asked, “Is it still your plan to find a Tiannese combat master?”

  Nodding as she flipped the neatened braid across her bared shoulder, she said, “Jarek begged me to not yet come west,” she told him as she lay down next to him, despite there being little room in the single-sized tent.

  As a child, she would often creep into his bed, and it was he that she usually sought out, not Sharron or Otieno. Aldric offered her much, teaching her what the others could not of both Cordisian and dark magic, but it was to Gregorr that she came when she needed solace. Even now, nearing an age where she would soon outgrow her youth, Syrsha had need for parenting. With her mother long dead and her father in the Tribelands, Syrsha had become his.

  Thinking back on when he first met the girl, Gregorr let her crawl under his blanket. Soon, sounds of sleep purred from her lips and again he thought upon meeting Caryss. The girl’s mother had insisted that Conall bring her to the heart of fennidi lands. Once there, Ohdra and several selected kin came from hiding to greet the Wolf and the mortal that he had accompanied. Caryss appeared to be nothing more than a fire-haired Eirrannian, yet she promised to bring his kin their freedom. And to prove it, she called forth her daughter, who came to them as if from air. It had been his dagger that Caryss had used to make the blood-offer needed, and Gregorr knew then that Luna marked his path with ivory lune-stones.

  From then on, he had followed Caryss, just as he now followed her daughter, as both foster father and friend.

  Upon seeing her reflecting with silver and gold, the colors of Luna, Gregorr knew that the moon mother shone bright in the girl. Yet, around the glimmering rims were shadows, the curse of her father’s blood. That day, under the watch of a Northern forest, towering pines swaying around her, their scent sticking to her skin even now, Syrsha appeared. And Gregorr saw her true.

  She was of the stars, child of Luna, child of the light.

  And she was of the shadows, child of Nox, child of the dark.

  But, more he saw, more than the others. He saw who she would one day be. Not a child of Luna or a child of Nox.

  She would be queen. Night’s Queen. Of all that glimmered like moonlight and all that was kissed by nightfall.

  Syrsha would one day be Queen of both stars and shadows. But, for now, tonight, she was only his much-loved child.

  *****

  10

  Hours after Syrsha’s visit, Jarek tightened the ward around his room. Moon years before, she had shown him how to weave the pulsing magic and rebuild it as his own. Under orders from Delwin, the group of palace mages never paid him much heed, so Jarek assumed that they did not know what it was that he did. Tonight, he crafted a shield that would block any from seeing him as he walked to Pietro’s room. As a child, he had not needed to do so, yet Delwin had changed much around the Grand Palace, and, now, Lightkeepers were a common sight.

  Jarek worked in haste, and in secret, but slid into the healer’s room undetected. For a moment, he stared, having not been so close to the man who had once tried to save him in many moon years. Pietro, even with his royal blood, had aged since then, and his skin was pale and his hair long, the golden strands falling across what used to be his sun-kissed face as he slept.

  Again, Jarek hesitated, thinking back on what Kennet had said, yet suddenly uncertain if the librarian could be trusted with so much at stake. For over half his life, Jarek had acted and spoken as if he was no more than Tomasz and never once did he tell anyone aught else, not even his own father. He had been courted by women, by fellow soldiers, even by Delwin, who was one of only a few who knew of his Elemental skill. Even after Syrsha had given him back his memories, Jarek
did not stray from the tale of Tomasz. In truth, he had become Tomasz, a Rexterran soldier with guarded mage-skill.

  Now, he was about to become Jarek once more, on the suggestion from a man who talked to dusty, decaying bones.

  Shaking his head, Jarek neared Pietro’s bed, softly calling out the healer’s name. Again he called, as he stood looking down at him. Having time-walked more times than he even knew, Jarek understood that he could not touch Pietro, so again he called to him, his mouth so near to Pietro’s ear that the healer’s hair tickled at his lips.

  On the fourth attempt, the healer began to stir, rolling rapidly onto his back as the fraying blanket that covered him fell to the floor. Jarek jumped backward as the man’s nakedness greeted him.

  When Pietro did not look to him, Jarek cried, “I have come as a friend!”

  Only then did the healer appear alert as he scrambled about for the well-worn bed throw. Grabbing it, Pietro wrapped it about him as he stood to face Jarek.

  “Does the King have need of me?” Pietro whimpered, sleep still clouding his gaze.

  Hearing Delwin referred to as King was still odd, and Jarek slowly answered, “I am not here on Delwin’s bidding. Nor am I here at all, if truth be told between us.”

  It was clear by the startled look on his face that Pietro could not make sense of what Jarek implied, so he further explained who he was, hurriedly reminding the healer of their shared history.

  “You think I did not recognize you?” Pietro stuttered. “Since our return, I have watched with envy as you walked about with freedom. You seem to have become a favorite of the King’s.”

  “I am as much a prisoner as you, Pietro, although it might not seem to be so,” Jarek interjected. “But, with your help, I can return the gift you once sought to give to me.”