In Deception's Shadow Box Set: Book 1-3

by Lisa Blackwood

  “Can’t you milk them for more information?”

  “I’ll try.” Moments later, he snorted with agitation.

  “What did they say?”

  “My sire and dam just forcefully reminded me I’m to meet them in the valley skirting the lower slopes of the city. They are awaiting me there.” Shadowdancer’s tail snapped along his rump. “I’ve even been forbidden from seeking out Winter’s Frost and Summer Flame.”

  If the Elders forbade them from speaking with the other two santhyrians, then Sorsha could only assume the Council of Elders were hiding something from Shadowdancer. And if the Elders were hiding something, it likely concerned Lamarra and her Tomb Guard captors. Well, if the elders were going to prove tight-lipped, Sorsha would just find and rescue Lamarra on her own.

  Perhaps with this slower pace, by the time they reached the city, she and Shadowdancer would be recovered enough to face the Dead Rulers and demand they release Lamarra.

  “Do not fool yourself. My parents are correct. This fight is not for you,” Shadowdancer said, proving once again how easily he was able to read her thoughts. “The Queen and Council will deal with this. When they know something, they will let us know.”

  “Call me a fool, but any fight involving a Stonemantle is my fight as well. I won’t stand aside and do nothing.” The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She didn’t yet know if Shadowdancer would help or hinder her search for Lamarra.

  Ashayna had warned her many times of the value of keeping one’s own council and how when strong emotions were allowed to lead the way unchecked, they tended to undermine an otherwise sound plan of attack.

  “You have yet to learn either of those virtues.” The equine snort of amusement accompanying the words was enough to bring a heated blush to her cheeks. But Shadowdancer seemed not to notice her chagrin. “The more I think about what happened, the more I believe our initial assumption—that the Tomb Guards were sent to protect Lamarra in particular—is correct.”

  “But why?” Sorsha scrambled for a diplomatic tone, a rather foreign occurrence if she was honest with herself. “If they came to protect Lamarra, and she is now alive and well because of their actions, then I am glad. But that doesn’t change how I feel about it. The Tomb Guards are sinister and what you’ve said about the Dead Rulers doesn’t make me think they act without a compelling motive. What reason could they have for wanting Lamarra?”

  The stallion’s ears stiffened and then swung back toward her position. “I don’t know, but I don’t think we’ll like the answer. She is powerful. She may be destined to become a Tomb Guard. The Queen and Council can do many things, but denying the Dead Rulers is outside their power.”

  “No, Lamarra isn’t going to be a Tomb Guard. I don’t know what it entails, but what I saw and sensed set my teeth on edge. I won’t let it happen.” Her diplomatic tone slipped.

  “Regardless, it may be out of our hands.”

  Sorsha narrowed her eyes. As far as she was concerned, tact could go fall out a window. “You don’t seriously plan to sit back and do nothing, do you?”

  With a slight correction, Shadowdancer angled away from the looming city and allowed the gentler slopes of the valley to funnel them toward a distant santhyrian herd.

  Apparently, he did. Sorsha clenched her teeth and tried a different tactic. “What does Ashayna have to say about all this?” Sorsha waited a whole six heartbeats for him to answer. His hesitation told her more than his earlier words. “You know something. Tell me!”

  “No one can find Ashayna and Sorntar.”

  “What? How is that even possible? He’s their Crown Prince. His people must know his location.”

  “The Elders think Sorntar may have detected some danger and has gone to ground with his bondmate. They have all but ordered us to do the same by joining the herd. We obey their judgment.” His mind-voice was blunt, but not completely resolute, letting her know he would do as the Elders dictated; he just wasn’t in agreement with their decisions.

  Their logic didn’t suit her mood either, and she pursed her lips to stop a heated retort. She had enough common sense to realize starting a fight at the moment would be pure stupidity. None of this was Shadowdancer’s fault. He was as much a pawn as she.

  Shadowdancer slowed suddenly, his head rising and arching to the left as he shortened his stride.

  “In the distance... I hear another santhyrian approaching.” Shadowdancer put on a burst of speed just as the other crested a rise. “It’s Winter’s Frost.” Relief sounded in his mental tone. “And she’s carrying Ashayna.”

  At Shadowdancer’s thoughts, Sorsha looked in the direction he turned. In the distance, she could just make out a pale santhyrian and rider galloping toward them. So focused on her own anger, Sorsha had missed the newcomers’ approach.

  Sorsha strained her eyes. Yes, that was Winter’s Frost carrying a rider. She had to trust it was Ash riding the mare; the distance was too great for her to make out the details for herself. The mare maintained a hazardous pace, galloping over or through whatever lay in her path.

  An ominous rumbling sounded all around them. Trying to pinpoint the source of the sound, Sorsha looked away from the distant mare and scrutinized the immediate area. The ground trembled, a violent shiver that Sorsha could feel traveling up through Shadowdancer’s frame.

  Sorsha glanced back in Winter’s Frost’s direction in time to see both santhyrian and rider disappear in a cloud of dust as something made its way up from the ground.

  “By the Light! What’s happening?” Sorsha’s question went unanswered. Shadowdancer skidded to a halt. Ears flat, head snaking back and forth, he scanned the ground in front of them, and then shied, half-rearing when the ground quaked again.

  The earth heaved directly under Shadowdancer’s hooves. She yelped once in surprise as the stallion lurched sideways, his solid presence abruptly jerked out from underneath her.

  She slammed into the ground. Her head cracked against something marginally softer than bedrock, though not by much. Vision swirling with white spots, she gasped for breath that wouldn’t come. The ground heaved and shook again, rolling and bucking. Something heavy rolled atop her, pinning her right leg. Dirt and rocks pelted her as whatever had caused Shadowdancer to go down erupted up into the air.

  The sharp, coppery flavor of blood filled her mouth. Propping herself up on one elbow, she wheezed, coughed, choked, and spat. With breath finally restored, albeit painfully and somewhat reluctantly, she realized she’d bitten her lip in the fall. She probed her lip with a dust-smudged finger. Thankfully it was just a deep cut, not bitten straight through. Still unable to see anything through the billowing dust and her own snowy vision, she tried to assess damages by touch. Movement caused the bones in her right knee to grate in protest. Blinking rapidly helped to clear her vision, but it did nothing for the throbbing in her skull.

  Her questing fingers explored down her leg until they collided with silky hide. Panic swept over her in a hot wave when she realized what caused the bruising pressure on her leg. “Shadowdancer!”

  He didn’t answer her.

  She brushed the fear aside and focused on the problem. With her one leg trapped firmly under his hip, she couldn’t get to his head, but blessedly she could feel the rise and fall of his barrel. If he was still breathing, he still lived, and there was hope.

  She strained to pull herself free, calling his name repeatedly, both aloud and in mind-speech. A shiver coursed along the length of his body.

  “Shadowdancer, can you hear me?”

  She received an angry snort in reply. She could just make out the dark shape of his head when he raised it with another snort and a shake. Sorsha gasped in pain. Her knee twisted tortuously when his weight shifted. But then he struggled to his feet, and the painful weight was off her leg.

  Spitting more blood and dirt from her mouth, she tested each limb. Her knee screamed red agony. The muscles in that leg were weak and painfully strained, but it bent
when she asked it to—thank the Light. Nothing was broken or crushed, though by the feel she would bear some spectacular bruises in the following days. She stood shakily on one leg.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked as she hobbled closer and started running her hands up and down his legs, checking for broken bones, lesions, or swelling.

  Shadowdancer reached down and nosed her in the chest, nearly hard enough to knock her off her feet.

  “Easy,” Sorsha whispered and patted his side while she tried to figure out which way led to safety. “We’re still alive.”

  “For now.” Shadowdancer’s mind-voice lacked humor and his eyes showed white-edged panic as he circled away from the thing that had caused their fall. “Hurry, get on. The City’s defenses have been triggered. We have no time. We must get out before the second circle forms.”

  His panicked tones still echoed in her head as his strong teeth sank into her sleeve and he hauled her back to his side. She didn’t hesitate, mounting in one painful, clumsy motion.

  As Shadowdancer raced away, the dust cleared enough so that she beheld what had knocked him off his feet. Two lines of pillars were growing out of the earth where before there had been nothing but flat grassland, their substance a strange mixture of stone and crystal. She didn’t know where the strange pillars had come from, but she and Shadowdancer now found themselves stranded between the two lines. The nearest pillars reared high above her head, and they were glowing. Somehow, Sorsha doubted the pillars were conducive to a long life.

  Filaments of energy, then thicker ropes of power reached across the distance from one pillar toward the next in line. Magic cascaded between each pillar, faster than Shadowdancer could get ahead of it, until a sizzling sheet of power was born, blocking their escape to either side. From what Sorsha could make out through the dust and the distance, the double row of pillars likely circled the entire city, mountain and all.

  Effectively trapped between the two rows of pillars, Shadowdancer could only gallop at breakneck speed as if all the Wardlen packs in the land were at his heels. The last two pillars to arise were nearly to their full height and beginning to glow with power. If he was trying to get there before...

  “We will not make it.” Even as the stallion confirmed her fears, the last two pillars merged power, finishing the circle. With both inner and outer circles now complete, the two domes of power began to move toward each other; the inner one expanding as the outer one contracted, unhurried and unstoppable.

  “What happens when they touch?” She asked the question, unable to help herself, even knowing the outcome probably wouldn’t be to her liking.

  “If we are still here, we die. I don’t plan to stay that long.” He slowed as he spoke until he ran at a more maintainable pace. “Do you trust me?”

  “What a time to ask me that! Yes, I trust you. What do you have planned?”

  “Lower your shields. We must merge our Larnkins’ power. If our power is compatible, I may be able to use it to open a way to the Wild Path. If I am wrong… we are dead already.”

  “My Larnkin is still too weak from fighting the acolytes. I don’t know what to do.” Even as she spoke, a small hope grew.

  “Together we might have enough power for my plan. Normally a Herd Mistress can open a gate to the Wild Path from anywhere. She does not need an archway to do it. Lower your shields now. There is no time for caution. Even if we succeed, it still may burn our Larnkins’ power away.”

  “But we might live? I’ll chance that.” She said and dropped her shields.

  Without hesitation, Shadowdancer’s power—his Larnkin’s foreign thoughts—invaded her, but it was nothing like speaking mind-to-mind. His thoughts and emotions, his very essence, enfolded hers. Then another wave of power embraced her, akin to having another capture her mind in a strong fist and squeeze. His Larnkin spoke to hers in a wordless manner. Another power commanded her arms to rise to the level of her heart. A silvery blue fire danced along her arms and ringed her fingers in shimmering light. The magic built inside, increasing in pressure as it merged with Shadowdancer’s immense power.

  She thought she would split asunder. Instead, she could only watch in stunned disbelief as her hand began to move. Of its own accord, it formed twisting, graceful patterns of radiance in the air—their strange, complex beauty making them all the more frightening. When her Larnkin had finished the symbol to her satisfaction, she moved on to the next. Sorsha’s world narrowed to those glowing runes of power and the outside world fell away. With the last symbol complete, a pale, silvery archway created a road to the Wild Path.

  An errant breeze from that other world blew cool across her hot cheeks, bringing her back to herself.

  Shadowdancer plunged ahead onto the path, mere strides ahead of the two walls of the city’s defensive magic. With a sound like an ocean wave crashing against a cliff, the walls of energy collided and crushed the fragile archway between them. Sorsha had an instant to worry before the backwash of power reached her. Pain burned along both body and mind for several agonizing heartbeats, and then blessed darkness came to claim her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cold mist crept into her mouth and nose, seeking her lungs and the heat of life beating within. Choking back a scream, Sorsha struggled to sit up and found her limbs numbed by the thick mists. The grey world sprawled outward from where she sat, unchanging for an unmarked distance. None of the bone-white arches were visible from her position. A little shakily, she heaved herself to her hands and knees and took inventory. By the grace of some benevolent god, not only was she alive, but intact.

  At least in body.

  On another level, a cold, blank void greeted her. A piece of her was missing, sheered clean away. The magic which had always slumbered in her blood was gone, and its lack was a stark contrast to what she was used to.

  Burned away her magic might be, but the will to survive had not been. She staggered to her feet and stumbled a half-dozen paces when a splitting headache slammed her with about as much delicacy as an avalanche. Her legs folded under her and her knees slammed into surprisingly hard ground. Her vision sparked white at the edges, shot through with a grey blurriness in the middle. A low moaning invaded the quiet of the place and the mist seemed to recoil from the noise before idly swirling into random patterns again. It took her longer than she would have liked to realize the source of the strange moaning was her own voice.

  Sorsha sat down again, telling herself she would only rest a short time, just enough to muster her strength so she could learn what fate had befallen Shadowdancer.

  The cold mist swirled around her an arm’s length away. She focused on it as the stuff crept closer to her again, as if testing her defenses. When it touched her, she felt... something. It was coldly familiar. She froze in place, hardly daring to breathe. Another bit of mist swirled up and touched the bare skin on the back of her hand. It sunk below the skin and there was an echo of sympathetic magic within her.

  She grinned as hope rekindled, matching the as-of-yet feeble pulse of magic within her. “You’ll have to try harder than that if you wish to kill me!” she shouted to the fates. Then with a pained grunt, she surged to her feet and made herself walk.

  * * * *

  She had been walking for candlemarks or perhaps a whole day. Time was not easily judged in the figureless landscape of the Wild Path. No sun or moon or shadows. No sounds carried on the cold breeze and even the soft thump of her footfalls was absent. And landmarks, those were things from a different life altogether.

  In the beginning she had wandered aimlessly, hoping to run across one of the bone-white arches. When that failed, she had begun to study the haze for long moments, thinking there might be some logical direction to the swirling mists, like water flowing down hill, or smaller streams flowing into greater rivers. In the end she settled for travelling in the direction of the darkest tones, hoping the thicker swirls of mist might resolve themselves into an archway.

  So far her plan had only revealed mis
t, more mist, and yet more mist.

  At least she was regaining a bit of her magic. And she wasn’t wandering in complete darkness. The fog-like magic gave off a pale light, enough to see by—not that there was much to see.

  Despair had set in some candlemarks ago, and so had hunger and thirst. While she still had her bow and meager supply of arrows, there was no source of food. Worse, there was no water, either. The likelihood of her continued survival was growing slimmer by the candlemark. Slow death by dehydration.

  As she mulled over her unpleasant thoughts, a sound—the first in many candlemarks—invaded the silence. A cold certainty told her that undulating cry could only belong to one creature. And had she been further along the path to starvation, it might even have been welcoming. She froze in place, her stomach plummeting, as another of the Wardlen’s eerie cries skittered down her body and raised gooseflesh in its path.

  Her reasoning mind said there was no hope of outrunning them, but instinct spurred her heart into a rapid beat and fear raced through her blood. Screaming in anger and a helpless rage at the circumstances which had brought her to this point, Sorsha burst into a run. Her legs pumped and lungs labored with the will to live. She ran through the mists, uncaring if the pursuing Wardlen heard her. They undoubtedly already had her scent if their excited cries were any indication.

  The Wardlen ran some unknown distance behind, but with each howl they grew closer. Soon she could envision them mere strides behind, saliva dripping from their fangs and their serpentine, armored bodies sliding effortlessly through the silver mists.

  Her lungs burned and she wondered if her heart would burst before the predators had a chance to sink teeth into her flesh. Another sound joined the loud cries of the Wardlen. At first she didn’t understand what she was hearing. A deep, pounding beat, more felt than heard, echoed against her breast bone. A neigh of challenge shattered the silence of the Wild Path. Sorsha whipped her head around in time to see a darker shadow vault over a bank of swirling, grey mist to her right. He stormed straight for her, barely turning aside in time. Sorsha felt the brush of his mane and the slap of his tail as he galloped past her position.