It was a picture. She could see clearly enough from her new vantage point, and though she couldn’t be certain, she thought from the maps she had seen that it was meant to represent the whole of Erath. Mountains, forests, rivers, and valleys were laid out at her feet, centering on the pedestal on which she stood.
The castle. The pedestal was meant to be the castle. Whatever had been given the place of honor at the top of the pedestal had probably been something her treasure-loving father would have sold his soul to possess. For that matter, Zara could feel her own heart constrict at the knowledge that she was standing in the place of an object that had clearly been deeply meaningful to the people who had once lived there. Sacred, even.
It had never been the treasure that drove her, though she enjoyed being paid as much as the next person. It was the knowledge. The thrill of uncovering secrets that had been lost for hundreds of years. Of holding a piece of the past, a piece of someone else’s life in her hands. Of wondering where it had been and what it had seen.
This entire edifice, if tales were any judge, had seen something so horrible that it had destroyed an entire people. But there were no stains to bear witness, no destruction to tell what might have become of the people of Erath. From the outside, several of the towers had appeared blackened and pitted, but she had not had time to investigate before she’d been trapped within. The inside of the towers seemed unscathed.
It was as though the people had simply faded away and disappeared.
They hadn’t, she knew. No one knew much, but it was generally understood that invaders had conquered the country and carried its peaceful populace away in chains. But why? And how had a country that had existed in splendid and impenetrable isolation for hundreds of years been so suddenly overrun?
It was a mystery, and Zara could feel it wrap itself around her heart and beg for an answer. All of her instincts were shouting that this room she was in held a clue, but unless she could magically learn to read the writing, it would likely remain beyond her ability to decipher.
Zara was about to jump down from the pedestal when something darted through the open door.
She tripped. Terror spiked up her legs, into her stomach and she fell hard, onto her shoulder. At the resulting shock of pain, she dropped the torch and it rolled away towards the wall, its light barely flickering.
Jerking upright, Zara scrabbled backwards, putting her back to the pedestal, her single breath a harsh gasp in the deathly silence. She patted her vest until she found one of her tools, a miniature pry bar, and held it in one shaking hand.
There was still no sound. Whatever had come in, it was waiting. Zara shut her eyes tightly and tried not to think about what it might be. She tried not to breathe. Tried to stop her heart from leaping out of her mouth. But all of her attempted control was for naught when something landed on her stomach.
She screamed. Experienced treasure hunter, mature adult that she was, she screamed and tried to scramble away but the pedestal was behind her and her eyes flew open in spite of her best intentions.
The gray cat sat on her stomach and regarded her with an expression of… amusement? Yes. There was no mistake. The cat was laughing at her. Except that cats didn’t laugh.
“You.” Zara breathed out the word with all the malice she could muster. “You smug little bastard!” The cat tilted its head to one side, eyes wide and unblinking. “I hate you. You almost killed me.” Still, the cat seemed unrepentant. “You should know that humans are fragile and easily frightened. Some of us. I’m usually not. But you need to learn to make a noise so that my heart doesn’t stop next time you come in a room.”
The cat patted her chest with one velvety paw, lay down, curled up in a ball and began to purr.
Zara stared.
Something was not quite right. Either she was going crazy—always a possibility—or…
“Are you even a real cat?”
The thing on her chest lifted its head and looked her in the eye. Then it sat up and began washing its paws.
Zara shook her head in disgust. “Off.” She pushed it to the ground. “You might act innocent, but I don’t believe you. I don’t want to not believe you, but you haven’t left me much choice, not when you act like you understand what I say. And I don’t know how long I can stand being here, in this weird room, under this creepy castle, with something that may or may not be a cat. Because if you aren’t a cat…”
She let that thought echo off the walls.
The cat turned and walked away.
Zara rose to her feet, each motion firm and deliberate. For a moment she felt lightheaded with the echoes of her terror, but it passed and she walked across the room to retrieve her torch. When she held it up and looked around, the cat was standing by the door, watching her.
“Oh no. I am not following something cat-shaped anywhere. You tell me what you are and I’ll think about it.” Dimly, Zara listened to herself and wondered whether the shock had actually unhinged her. How could something be cat-shaped? How did she expect a cat to tell her anything? Really, the cat had just followed her. She had overreacted to the cat’s friendly overtures. And it most definitely had not been laughing.
When the cat merely continued to look at her, Zara snorted and walked over to the door. She was leaving. Someday, maybe she would find the nerve to come back down here, but it wouldn’t be soon. Setting her shoulder to the door, she expected it to swing as it had before. It held fast. She shoved, harder, but the door didn’t even shudder.
Suppressing a swell of panic, Zara whirled to look at the cat, but it was ignoring her now, washing its paws again.
“Do you know, I’m thinking right now about how much I regret feeding you,” Zara announced, proud that her voice shook only a little. “To think, when I was a child, I always wanted a cat, but my father would never let me have one because we had nowhere to keep it.”
The cat paused, then continued washing.
“I would threaten you, but I would feel silly threatening a cat, even if I’m convinced you’re not a cat and there’s no one else here to see me act like a fool. Are you planning to keep me here till I die?”
The cat startled visibly and its tail began to twitch.
“Oh no, of course you’re not. If you made a habit of trapping people down here there would be bones, scraps of clothing, desperate messages scratched into the walls.”
The tail twitched harder.
Zara sighed and leaned back against the unmoving door. “What do you want from me?”
The cat appeared satisfied. It stood, whereupon the door swung open and Zara fell directly onto her butt.
She did not immediately get up again. She stared at the cat, and the cat returned her gaze solemnly.
“What are you?” Zara whispered, her eyes wide, her fear beginning to tighten her chest and clench at her stomach.
The cat approached, and pressed one paw gently against the back of her hand where it rested on the floor.
Zara gave up. There was really no sense in remaining sane, when succumbing to the pressure of her fear and uncertainty would permit her to place her trust in a cat that could lock and unlock doors. Such a creature seemed like a worthwhile ally for an erstwhile treasure hunter.
“Well then. I’m Zara. And I’m going to call you Shadow, because I’ll be able to not care so much how creepy you are if you have a normal name.” She could have sworn the cat scowled. “And if you don’t like the name, you’re going to have to tell me something else to call you, and since you apparently can’t talk…”
Her mind was officially gone. She was congratulating herself for a victory over a not-cat because it couldn’t talk. Shoving all remaining thoughts to the back of her head where they grumbled and whined at her for ignoring them, Zara followed the cat down the passage and smiled into the shadows. Exploring an abandoned castle with an enchanted cat might be her last adventure, but it might also be her greatest. And if she ever saw her father again, she was going to have a thing or two to say to him
about believing in magic.
Chapter 3
Alexei paused inside the doorway of the ramshackle tavern and wondered how he’d allowed himself to be talked into this. Yes, he wanted news and gossip. Yes, this was the only public establishment in the run-down little place that called itself a town. In reality, it was no more than a makeshift camp for the miserable and the displaced. Plus there was the dirt… and the smell! He was convinced someone had died weeks ago and simply been shoved under one of the tables.
It caused an almost physical pain to see his kingdom like this. Ever since they’d crossed into Erath, the tale had been the same. Homes abandoned. Fences fallen into disrepair. Towns overrun by the lawless who cared nothing for one another or for the land off which they lived.
This tavern’s clientele was uniformly unshaven and unwashed, except for the lone woman, who was guilty of only one out of two but looked as capable of violence as the rest of them. The tavern keeper, or at least the fellow serving drinks, was a tiny, rotund man with a drooping mustache, surprised eyebrows, and the saddest expression Alexei had ever seen. He poured and passed and wiped without once meeting the eyes of his customers, though Alexei couldn’t blame him once he’d had a look around. Attracting notice in that crowd might be a swift way to die.
But it meant that Alexei had to push his way through that same crowd to catch the tavern keeper’s attention. He jostled and shoved and tried not to do so more enthusiastically than necessary, but no one so much as blinked, at his rudeness or his scars. He caught one or two sideways glances, but whether it was because of his face or because he was relatively clean, Alexei chose not to speculate.
“What’ll you have then?” The tavern keeper, despite his already diminutive size, ducked his head nervously and waited for an order without looking up at Alexei. He spoke Andari, like the rest of the crowd, but his accent…
“I don’t suppose you have any cithren?” Alexei asked quietly.
“I have ale and soup. Out of bread. You want anything else, you make it.” The man paused. Looked up, blinking. “Did you say cithren?”
Considering there had been no one to make any in nearly thirty years, Alexei doubted this pathetic excuse for a tavern would stock Erathi liquor. But it was as good a way as any to ask the question.
“I did. I would also be interested in news, if you have any.”
“For you?” The tavern keeper darted a glance to each side. “Come.” He turned and threaded his way through the crowd like a man of half his bulk. “Dru?” A man with a thatch of curly hair popped up from behind the bar like a child’s toy. “You’re serving. And don’t drop any more soup, or it’ll be you scrubbing the blood out of the floors this time.”
Alexei followed his host through a crooked doorway and up a set of stairs that he wasn’t sure would hold his weight, ending in a tiny apartment that was miraculously and scrupulously clean, unlike the floor below.
“I can’t keep it up,” his host said in quiet Erathi, “not with that lot, and not a one of them cares. They’d eat and drink just the same if I fed them swill served in a chamber pot.” The keeper seemed ashamed, but pointed Alexei toward the room’s single chair. “Sit, and I’ll get you a drink.”
“I don’t need a drink,” Alexei reassured him. “I took you for a man of Erath, but I needed to know if I could trust you.”
“You can’t trust anyone,” the man answered, pulling a dusty bottle from the back of a shelf. “Not even those who share your language.”
“It’s gotten so bad, then?”
“Gotten?” the man echoed. His eyebrows gained an extra degree or two of surprise. “Where have you been for the last twenty-six years? Can’t have been here.”
“Traveling,” Alexei responded shortly. It sounded better than hiding.
His companion leveled him with a look that suggested he knew rather more than Alexei was telling. “Well, for those of us who never left, it’s been as many years of sliding deeper into poverty and hopelessness and disgrace. But we stay, because… well, where would we go?” He shrugged as he pulled at the cork. “No one else would have us, not willingly, and even if they would, who would give up half of their soul to leave?”
Alexei winced. “What is your name?”
The man appeared not to hear. He produced a pair of mismatched glasses from somewhere and poured a tiny amount of the dusty bottle’s contents into each glass. As the golden liquid fell sparkling into the bottom of each glass, tiny sparks of light rose into the air and burst.
“You mean… you actually have it?”
Cithren wasn’t just liquor. It was distilled using sunlight and magic and aged in the heart of an oak. No one but a single Erathi family knew how to make it, and Alexei had assumed those with the skill had perished. Considering the look of the bottle, perhaps they had.
“Last bottle,” Alexei’s companion said wistfully, patting his stomach and shaking his head. He handed one glass to Alexei. “Can’t imagine drinking it with anyone who didn’t know what it is. Don’t know if there will ever be more.”
The two men lifted their drinks.
“To Nar,” Alexei muttered, out of habit, and then he drank. The bright, clean sensation of cithren against his tongue made Alexei’s eyes burn with more than just magic. A brief, golden light shone from each man’s face as they finished drinking and set down the glasses.
“What can you tell me of the state of things?” Alexei asked quietly. “As you guessed, I have been away since…” He shrugged.
“Doubt there’s much I can tell you beyond the general rumors.” The bald man settled his hands over his belly and sighed. “There’s no law, as such, and folks do pretty much as they please. After the conquerors left, those of us who remained—and that wasn’t many, mind you—came out of hiding and found that we’d been left with nothing. Crops burned. Houses destroyed. We tried to rebuild, but we hadn’t enough people to build again and defend ourselves from the vultures. Every time we tried, it was taken from us. And many had lost hope. Why rebuild when everyone you knew was gone? When half your family was taken or dead?”
Alexei felt as though the shorter man had stabbed him. For years he had wondered how many of his people could possibly have remained in Erath. The news—that the few who stayed had not only survived but continued to suffer—settled into his bones, and he shut his eyes as the last flare of warmth from the cithren was swallowed up by the depth of his guilt. He should have come sooner.
“You’ll find small pockets of us here and there, but we don’t advertise what we are. Rumors say we were a race of evil sorcerers who got what we deserved. Not every man who’s entered our borders is a bastard, but most are, and we’ve no desire to end up burnt or hanged for our imagined crimes.”
“I’ve heard tales of treasure hunters.”
“Aye.” The man frowned and stroked his mustache. “The ones that aren’t mercenaries or brigands looking to escape the law come here looking to loot what remains, little as it is. They expected evil sorcerers would leave their ill-gotten gains behind, I’ll wager. ’Tis no more than they deserve to wind up poorer than when they came.”
“What of Athven Nar?” Alexei tried not to let the man hear how much it mattered to him, but he needn’t have bothered.
“Oh, and I heard your blessing. What do you know of Nar, then?” The man’s eyes were keen when he fixed them on Alexei’s face. “All of that line are dead, so much as we know. There’s a seer, a few towns over, who mumbles now and again about a return, but we try to keep him quiet.”
“I’m not a return of anything.” Alexei couldn’t stand the thought of anyone counting on him for something he couldn’t control, couldn’t possibly deliver. He was not a king. He would never be a king, no matter what Beatra wanted. “But I intend to help what’s left of our people, if there is any way to do so.” He did not think it was safe to say any more. Why give the man hope that would only fall to ashes in the end?
“Then I wish you well, for what it’s worth.” The
tavern keeper pushed to his feet, as if signaling that the interview was over. “I’ve heard little of Athven Nar. Most stories say she still stands, and the doors are sealed, but there was a pair of men came through here… oh, a month or more ago.” He shrugged. “They claimed to have been inside, but were driven off by a horde of undead warriors.”
Alexei snorted. “Athven was strong enough, but undead warriors were never one of her preferences.”
“And you’d know, would you? How old were you when the shield fell?”
Alexei had the uneasy feeling that he’d said more than he should. “Old enough,” was all he answered.
“Well, then, if you know that much, you know Athven has her own ways. Can’t say I ever knew her myself, but my grandfer did some of the gardening there. Said she took her strength from those who cared for her, and that she cared for them, in whatever ways she could.”
“But she’s been alone too long. There is no way she could have survived it.” Alexei stared down at his folded hands.
“Well, as to that, I’ve heard from others that there are lights and noises from inside. That perhaps she’s haunted. Some say by a ghost, some say by the queen.”
“Do you believe them?”
The little man smiled for the first time. “I believe that Athven will stand until another is found to stand with her. Whether a ghost or something more substantial. Beatra Nar would not have left us undefended forever.”
Alexei winced. His cousin had been formidable, but no one could reach beyond the grave. He stood and bowed to his host. “I thank you, for the drink and for the news. Health to you, and to your family.”
They descended the stairs again, and stepped quite suddenly into the middle of a spectacular brawl. Chairs, ale, and soup were flying, along with blades, accompanied by growls, grunts and screams.
Alexei’s companion wilted beside him. “This always happens. Dru spills the soup, they fight. And I can’t patch them up afterwards because they’d probably try to kill me even as they bled to death on my floor.”
Shadow and Thorn Page 5
