Queen of Stars and Shadows (Pathway of the Chosen)

by Cat Bruno

  *****

  It had been days since the Queen told him of her plans, and Pietro continued his attempts to delay their departure. An uncertain madness had come upon Assana, and even the aged Becca feared confronting the woman. Pietro was still too much indentured to go against the Queen’s wishes, so he did what he could to prepare for the journey north.

  He had begged Assana to send word to King Delwin and request troops to accompany them, but she declined and had grown angry, reminding him again that he should guard his tongue. For now, he must, although he cared little what happened to both Assana and Tanic.

  The Lightkeeper had become smug and haughty with power as her closeness to the queen increased. Pietro did all that he could to stay away from her, including locking his door each night so that she could not enter. His passions for Tanic had faded, more so now that she was always near. For his part, Pietro vowed to keep his thoughts his own. Although he had not yet decided what he would do once gone from Ravenfold, he recalled his time spent moon years before on his Healer Journey fondly. He could travel alone again and welcomed the chance.

  As he lined parcels of dried herbs into a small trunk, a voice called out to him. Turning, Pietro found the young Prince Alistair watching him.

  “Are you ill, my lord?” he asked.

  With a shake of his dark curls, the boy answered, “Not me, healer, but one of Mistress Tanic’s message birds might be. I found him in the courtyard and have brought him here for you to fix.”

  Alistair lifted a small basket, offering it up to Pietro, who nearly declined, until he saw the small scroll hanging from the bird’s gray-feathered neck. After grabbing the basket, he set it upon a table. His fingers hurriedly tucked the rolled parchment into a pocket sewn into his robe.

  “Look here, Lord Alistair, the bird has ceased breathing,” Pietro told the boy as he examined the pigeon.

  “He was alive when I found him,” Alistair whimpered.

  Laying a cloth atop the basket, Pietro gently stated, “It was his time, despite your brave efforts. Mayhap one day you will learn more of the healing arts, for your heart is a kind one.”

  “I am to be king,” the boy reminded him.

  With a crooked smile, Pietro responded, “Even kings should know how to heal for they are father to many.”

  “Will you teach me?” Alistair softly asked, wiping at his nose.

  “As soon as I return to Ravenfold, I will do just so.”

  “Where is Mistress Tanic? I must tell her of her bird.”

  Without breath, Pietro interjected, “The news will sadden her, my lord. Let us keep the news of the bird’s death until a later day.”

  “Will you bury it, Master Pietro?”

  “If that is your desire, my lord.”

  When the boy nodded, Pietro sent him on his way, promising to tell him of the resting spot. Once Alistair was gone, he removed the cloth and peered at the pigeon. No blood stained its wings, and although it was not yet dead, it would soon be. With a twist of his hands, he snapped its neck, and then recovered the basket.

  With the same fingers, he pulled the strip of parchment from his pocket and unrolled it. Scrolling words lined the paper.

  I have her love and trust. We travel north within days. The babe’s death has been blamed on the dark ones.

  There was only one to whom Tanic would send word. Her brother, who desired little more than the elimination of the Tribe, controlled much, Pietro suddenly realized. He wondered then if Tanic had been ordered to seduce him as well, for he recalled her repeated interest in his time spent with Jarek and the Crow Tribesman.

  “I have been a fool,” he mumbled, clenching his hands into fists.

  As he had vowed, Pietro buried the pigeon, silently thanking it for showing him what he had missed. Tanic and Lerric were no friends of his, nor did they much care for the Queen or the throne. They served a higher goal, one that sought to cleanse Cordisia of the Dark God and his kin.

  Pietro had little doubt that it was the Lightkeepers who had introduced King Delwin to tallora. Jarek and Kennet, he knew, were just as unaware as he had been to the enemy they faced. Again, his plans must alter. He would stay close to Tanic and Assana, instead of fleeing at the first chance to do so, watching and learning what might come. He would act as ally. For now.

  *****

  The knock upon the door was hesitant, as if the visitor had not wanted to come. With a flutter of his fingers, the door opened, although the High Lord did not rise. He waited as Jarek and Blaidd entered, realizing that the knocking had been a formality only, for both had access to the room.

  “Uncle,” Blaidd called in greeting, offering a small bow as he neared.

  He had long thought the boy to be useless, but of late he smelled of power, uncontrolled and unpredictable, but there all the same. Unlike Jarek, who, even as a child, tasted so strongly of the magic of the Ancients that Conri had to remind himself that the Elementals had been gone from Cordisia for hundreds of moon years.

  Within steps of him, the mage stated, “I was able to speak with Syrsha.”

  Upon the man in a flash of light, Conri demanded, “Say your words anew.”

  The sky mage, blue-eyed and sun-darkened, did not back away as he answered, “With Blaidd’s help, I was able to find Syrsha. The dreamspell worked, and she returns to the Tribelands.”

  “What else did she say?” he cried.

  After a moment, Jarek admitted, “She fears that you will not be happy when she returns.”

  Stepping away from him, Conri said, “What would make her think such?”

  Again, Jarek delayed answering.

  “There is more,” the High Lord muttered.

  Jarek’s hair had grown long, edging his shoulders, and his hands combed through it as he answered, “She grows strong, Lord Conri, and smoldered with ash and flame and smelled of smoke.”

  “What of the others?”

  “She was alone and made no mention of them,” Jarek admitted.

  “Was there aught else?”

  “When she returns, it will be with a weapon that Cordisia has never seen,” Jarek hurriedly replied.

  “She thinks she is queen without ever having seen the throne,” Conri sighed, thinking of the daughter he hardly knew.

  The High Lord had not expected a response, but Blaidd offered one anyway as he said, “Even before she was born, the throne was hers. And now, look how many protect it for her. Syrsha has an army that she has never led, a land that awaits her return, and men who commit treason and worse in her name. Uncle, she is a god to some, a legend to others. Hells, her name is uttered to scare misbehaving children in the North. You have heard the tales, Lord Conri, just as we all have.”

  The boy was not wrong. Eirrannia spoke of her still, despite her absence. Her story lived on, as her mother would have wanted.

  “Roim a faidh, an taoh se eirgh,” Conri proclaimed.

  In time, the North would rise.

  “I wish that her mother could see what she has become,” the High Lord sighed, forgetting for a moment that he was not alone.

  As he looked up, the mage turned his gaze to the slate floor, as if he disagreed.

  *****

  “You have been gone for hours, faela.”

  “I had a visit from Jarek,” she told Otieno, in truth.

  The diauxie had aged, subtly, but Syrsha noticed graying veins layered throughout his lengthy, clay-colored hair. In the last moon, he had trained little, and the sparse Tiannese diet had caused him to thin. In Tian, Otieno was larger than most, however she looked upon him again with concern.

  “Are you unwell, Akkachi?”

  None else was near to hear him as he admitted, “I will be glad to be gone from Tian. Their peace is not my own.”

  Had he met Lao-Mu, he might have understood Tian more, she knew. In the Cove, dark magic was understood to be a gift from the Great Mother, and diauxies were both accepted and respected. Here, such was hidden, but necessary all the same. Syrsha wou
ld not tell her teacher of Lao-Mu, though, for she was still under command to not practice magic.

  Clearing her face of the thoughts, she stated, “Within days, we will be gone from here. I worry for you, Akkachi. Your shoulders are not what they once were.”

  Wryly smiling, he grumbled, “Once free of the temple, we shall spar once again, and I will show you that I am still Prince of Swords.”

  Again, she placed a mask of calm across her ivory face.

  “You will always be so!”

  More quietly, her words wispy and wistful, she asked, “Do you remember when my mother first found you in the Cove?”

  The two sat just outside the temple entrance; she in her leather armor and he in his Covian tunic and loose-fitting pants. Neither pretended anymore, and the acolyte robes had been discarded. They had no weapon, for they were guests at Sholin still. Only Sharron now donned the temple robes, for Gregorr and Aldric had similarly changed. The healer proved to be the most comfortable here, and was rarely seen, for the healing arts in Tian were ancient and vast. Sharron had much to learn and had not complained once since their arrival. Yet Syrsha knew that the woman would return to Eirannia all the same, for, unlike the others, she understood the vow Caryss had once pledged.

  “When I first saw Caryss, I thought the Great Mother called me home,” he murmured.

  As Syrsha would have pressed for more, he continued, “She flamed with halo, white-hot and burning, like the cleansing fire the Great Mother promises as absolution. But your mother was no god, Syrsha. She was woman only, mortal and on borrowed time.”

  “The High Lord is capable of much, but even he could not strip her of that.”

  Syrsha listened, in silence, mist edging her eyes. It was not often that the diauxie spoke of her mother.

  “I tried to send her on her way. Aldric had come, too, and I recognized him to be kindred to myself, even with his pale skin and river-dipped eyes. Your mother would not leave, no matter that I warned her off. And when she drew the dagger tip across her hand, I found myself without sight or hearing. Only when you emerged did my senses return.”

  She knew what had happened next, but needed to hear the tale once more.

  “When you asked for Enyo by name, I realized that my time in the Cove had come to an end. As you danced, I swore to myself that I would travel at your side until the Great Mother called me home. But when I saw your eyes, without a hint of shadow and wet with unspent tears, I understood that Caryss would not live to see you as I did.”

  His voice low and cracked, Otieno breathed, “Oh how I wish that I had not been in Francolla that morn. I often think of what might have happened had I refused.”

  “She would have died still,” Syrsha faintly whispered.

  “Perhaps. We are taught that the past cannot be changed. But what if it is not so, faela? We are mortal, but we are not without choice. We are not animal or tree, river or mountain. We are blood and bone, thought and desire. Your mother’s hands were unstained, the hands of a healer. My own shine dark with the choices of my past. But I still draw breath.”

  “You would have given your life for hers.”

  Nodding, he answered, “Aye. Any of us would have, I dare say.”

  “Tian has changed you, Akkachi,” she told him, knowing it for truth. “You have disdain for their peace, yet your hands have never been so clean.”

  After a moment, Otieno confessed, “Mayhap that is why I long to leave. I do not want peace. I do not deserve such peace.”

  “Since my birth, you have killed none,” Syrsha reminded him.

  “Atonement must never be easy,” he sighed, as if the words were ones he long remembered.

  “What of me? What of the war that I must ride to? I will kill, and I will maim and injure. I have killed, Akkachi. Must I seek redemption?”

  Around them, the dying light of the Eastern sun faded, deepening into dusty twilight. A haze neither black nor blue surrounded them, wrapping their conversation in shrouds of fog.

  “Some deaths are justified, faela. To kill to save others is honorable. In defense of oneself is lawful.”

  “Without purpose is forgivable as well, Otieno.”

  He did not look up as he said, “It was not by accident that I killed the child, Syrsha.”

  Pulling the air closer, she asked, “Would you give her life back if you could?”

  Her question threatened to fracture the ward, but she could not draw the words back.

  Finally, he answered, “Had I not killed the girl, I would not have followed your mother to Cordisia.”

  “You would not have met me,” she interrupted.

  “Each choice we make ripples toward the next,” the diauxie explained.

  Syrsha said nothing, for he was not wrong. She could only hope that he would one day understand her own choices.

  “The Great Mother gave me you as gift, Otieno. For that, I will forever be in her debt.”

  When he looked at her, his brown eyes soft and round, she feared that she had said too much. Again she pulled at the ward, spinning it tight to her chest.

  “Careful,” he warned in jest. “You speak as a woman and not as Wolf.”

  “Was I not told to allow myself to be both?”

  The Islander did not argue, as she knew that he could not.

  “Come,” she told him. “Let us find the others.”

  As they walked through the hallways of the temple, Otieno asked of Jarek.

  “He wanted to make certain that Gregorr had remembered the dreamspell. Jarek and Blaidd are in the Tribelands with my father. Our allies are joining them within days, and the High Lord requested my return.”

  “So he had nothing new to report?”

  Shaking her head, she answered, “He looked well and of a size to you. Perhaps the sky mage seeks to be like you, Akkachi, for his hair grows longer and his skin has been painted gold by the sun.”

  Their earlier talk had been a somber one, full of regret and contemplation. Now, they both spoke with ease.

  “I look forward to having my students united,” he admitted.

  “Jarek was student for half a moon year. I have been your pupil since birth.”

  “But he argued far less, and perhaps not at all now that I think on it.”

  The diauxie was smiling, which happened rarely.

  His joy did not last as he asked, “You will fight with weapon, Syrsha.”

  She did not need to question of what he spoke.

  “With luck, I will not need it.”

  It was as much lie as she could tell, for the last hour had been trying.

  “Aldric has arranged passage and reserved extra ships in case any from Tian join us. We sail south through the Cang-La Sea before heading west toward the Tarseus Sea.”

  “I trust that he has thought of everything,” Syrsha told him.

  “You have two mornings to ready for the great cat, Syrsha. I would train with you both so that you might be better prepared.”

  She agreed, telling him to meet her outside the temple before the seventh bell. Near the sleeping quarters, they found Aldric and Gregorr, who looked up with surprise as Syrsha entered. For the rest of the evening, the group talked of plans and preparations. With barely contained excitement, they spoke of Cordisia and the Tribelands. Gregorr considered openly what it would be like to see the fennidi among the Tribesmen.

  No one noticed that Syrsha said little.

  *****

  22

  Only twice was Otieno able to strike Syrsha hard enough to send her rolling onto the ashen pathway. Neither had sword, although he had demanded that she keep a newly sharpened dagger tucked into a pouch sewn into her boot. For now, she did not argue, enjoying the time spent with her Akkachi. In Cossima, such had been her life, morning hours spent sparring and training with the swordmaster.

  Above them both, angled high above the intricately pruned trees, the orange orb of the Eastern sun watched. The Islander, moon years ago, had been nearly twice her weight. But,
even now, it took effort to deflect his open hands and strong kicks. Syrsha was far swifter, able to evade and pivot from his reach. Each time she successfully wheeled away from him, she did not charge or attack, for the lesson was one of defensive readiness.

  As with the great cat, she must dodge and side step, avoiding claw and jaw. And only attack when the movement would be a fatal one.

  “Get your hands up!” Otieno ordered.

  He crouched low, his legs strong as always. “Guard your neck!”

  When he lunged, Syrsha expected it and easily deflected his fist before it neared her throat. But he did not slow and dove toward her, as if to tackle her. Before his hands could find a hold, Syrsha flipped atop him, soaring across his body, as if she was no more than water.

  “Nicely done, faela,” he uttered, his breathing staggered. “Do not forget that you must always be ready to run and hide. This fight is like none other.”

  “It will not be unlike the kyzkua,” she told him.

  “The great cat will be nothing like the Sythians, who had bow and arrow and shot from a distance,” he disagreed. “On the morrow, we will work on your offense and must choose the death blow.”

  Syrsha nodded. “The midday meal will be prepared.”

  On their return to the temple, Otieno asked, “Are your leathers loosening?”

  “Aye, but a clothier in the city has designed what I will wear.”

  His brow creased and his lips thinned, but Otieno only said, “I care little for what you wear, as long as you arm yourself with dagger.” For a moment, he paused, another question or statement on his lips, but he did not speak it.

  After she had eaten, Syrsha made her way to Lao-Mu’s house. This time, she did not enter, but the mage assured her that his prisoner still lived. She reminded him that the battle would occur in the evening of the morrow, and once more told Lao-Mu what was needed. He would not enter the arena, but he would be near enough for her to draw from his power. With the Emperor in attendance, including his guards and attendants, Syrsha could not risk any finding out her plan.