A Tempest of Shadows

by Washington, Jane

  My name was Lavenia Lihl, and I was one thing above all else.

  I was a goddamn liar.

  The metal around my finger splintered apart like a flimsy bit of bark peeled into strips, the pieces scattering to the path to be left behind. It had finally happened. The thing my mother feared the most in life. I had lost control. I had made the biggest mistake of all.

  And for that, I would be punished.

  2

  Fated

  The pathway was made of cobblestones packed tightly and unevenly together, but I navigated them easily, skipping over the wagon grooves, small potholes, and cracks as though I had carved them into the ground with my own hands. Magic flooded me, making it all seem easy, filling me with strength and confidence.

  I felt invincible.

  I followed the path through the winding hills and ridges until I reached the Steps of Atonement—a great big staircase of rough rainstone covering a distance of almost two miles. The stone was muddier in its unpolished form, the crystal blue colour barely whispering to the surface beneath a cloudy white film. The steps were walled in by white marble, with pillars every half a mile supporting great big statues. The statues at the very beginning were of a Vold man and woman in marble warrior garb, their swords crossed high over the entrance to the steps. Further up the steps were a Skjebre pair, and then a Sjel pair, an Eloi pair, and a Sinn pair.

  Everyone had to climb the Steps of Atonement to reach the crossroads, which led to both Hearthenge—the heart of our civilisation—and Breakwater Ridge, where the stewards made their home in the mountains. I had barely cleared ten of the steps before the surge of energy and magic began to trickle out of me. My breath started to labour, my legs to grow wobbly, slowing my pace. My vision blurred as I looked up, trying to see the top of the steps. A hot, sharp pain fissured through my chest, temporarily hobbling me. I stumbled to the side, but managed to catch myself before I fell.

  I paused only a moment to catch my breath and allow my equilibrium to return to normal before I forced myself back into a jog. This time, I moved without magic. My limbs became heavier, my movements suddenly clumsy and wooden. I had walked the Steps of Atonement every single day since I could remember, but I had never once attempted to run up them—there were simply too many. My legs began to burn, my lungs threatening to burst, but fear filled me as completely as the Vold magic had fled from me, and I knew I couldn’t stop. I was propelled by the feeling that no matter how hard and fast I ran, I would never be able to escape what had just transpired.

  The sun had fully breached the sky by the time I reached the top, the great big orb clawing over the mountains to my back and casting my shadow forward. I turned away from the road that would lead to the city of Hearthenge, a single-minded determination driving me through the forest that would take me home. Rough, pale stones took the beating of my footsteps as I ran, a low rock wall enclosing the pathway. The trees immediately blocked out the sunlight, the air turning cold. I watched as mist puffed out from my mouth, the temperature dropping further. Fear shot through me afresh, and I jerked to a stop, spinning around to confront the empty path behind me.

  “I know you’re there.” I spoke to the cold forest, wiping my trembling palms on my pants before balling them up into fists and spinning back to face the other direction.

  Suddenly, he was there. Swathed in darkness and frost, his cowl hiding everything but those dark, deep blue eyes. He didn’t look like he had been chasing me. He wasn’t out of breath. I stumbled back a step. His hand shot out, catching my wrist. He tugged gently, and I fell forward as though enchanted. His power had wrapped around me, drowning my fight in fear again.

  I was close enough to make out his features: a long, straight nose; firm, unyielding lips. His hair was dark silver—like frosted slate or liquid steel. It was an odd, metallic sort of colour, unlike white or grey. I found myself transfixed by the lure of it beneath his cowl. He wasn’t typically handsome, but there was something graceful about his face. There was an evenness to his generous features, a kind of symmetry that would have made him seem captivating if he hadn’t been so utterly terrifying. It was not at all the face I had expected. I had expected something brutish. A misshapen giant’s face. It was commonly known that the more magic a sectorian possessed, the more it deformed them. The Weaver didn’t have a single visible deformity.

  “You cannot run from me,” he warned in the same rough voice. “You cannot run from your fate.” His hand tightened on my wrist, his head lowering until I could feel the weight of his stare bearing me down into the pathway. “And most importantly of all: you cannot run from the debt you now owe.”

  His free hand moved to cup my face, a strangely tender gesture, though the speed of it had me wincing away from him. His mouth twisted in a slight smile, dark with intention and amusement at my expense. The skin high on my left cheek, just to the outside of my eye, began to sting. I flinched away again, but he held tight, and the sting turned to a burn.

  He was gifting me the Weaver’s mark. A silver circle, inked magically upon the skin. A permanent fixture. An unending, unbreakable curse. Soon, everyone would see it upon my face and know of the deal thrust upon me. A mortal debt for a whisper of what might be. They would know that I had traded anything and everything of value in my pathetic life for a taste of the unknown … except that my life wasn’t invaluable or pathetic. I had a slumbering power. A terrible secret that would kill me to reveal, and it was the only thing I had to offer the Weaver, the only thing of value that he could demand of me.

  “Your fate has been heard by the water,” the Weaver muttered, his velvet eyes crawling from his mark to meet my horrified gaze. “It will be there in the tears you cry, in the rain that falls, in the cup at your table. Every time you breathe, you breathe it into being. When you wish to hear it in full, you need only ask.”

  “And in return?” I ground out. There was no escaping this deal. He had already marked me. He had already chosen my fate and damned me to it. All that was left was to know exactly how I would be forced to repay the debt … and how I might be able to escape it.

  As for my chosen fate: I didn’t want a word of it. A life lived in fear of a prophesied death was no life at all. I still remembered the girl with the silver circle below her eye. She had worn a white dress that contrasted shockingly with her raven hair. She had been stunningly beautiful, even with the mottled, dark rash covering her skin. Her magic mutation. That was all we knew about her. That, and the fact that she had jumped right off the edge of Breakwater Canyon. She smashed her head on the rocks, and it had been too dangerous to climb down and retrieve her body. We were forced to stare out our windows and watch the crows feasting on her corpse until she was gone.

  The questions were hushed, at first. People were terrified to inquire about the business of the Weaver … and then the questions stopped altogether. Silenced like a flame deprived of oxygen, withering away into nothing. I had gathered the courage to ask my mother what had caused the girl to fling her life away, but I had received nothing more than a blank stare in return. Out of necessity, people had forgotten all about her.

  “What have you to offer?” The Weaver smiled as he asked the words, those stern lips stretching over straight white teeth. It was the kind of smile that belonged to a beast in the wild. A question asked only for the sake of cruelty. “Your wealth?” He released my face, plucking at the neckline of my top. “Your body?” He ducked his head lower still, but there was no spark of interest in his eyes. Only a cruel wisdom. “Your power?” he taunted.

  I yanked my wrist free, ducking beneath his arm, panic souring through me. He turned to watch me run, making no move to stop me.

  “When it’s time, your service will begin,” he warned.

  I didn’t acknowledge his words as I fled through the forest. I didn’t need to. It wasn’t a request. He would call on me, and I would answer the call because there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. The sectorians held all the power in our society, all t
he magic. There were people of the Vold sector who could hunt me down. There were people of the Sjel sector who would sing out to my soul, drawing me back to the Weaver as easily as Lake Enke had sung me to its shore that very morning.

  I needed a better plan.

  I began to cry frustrated tears as I cleared the forest, passing several stewards on their way to Hearthenge. One of them rode a horse pulling a narrow, covered cart; two others led donkeys bearing baskets and sacks full of wares for the markets; and another cradled a satchel of scrolls for his trade. I kept my head down, ignoring the early morning trickle of activity as I passed by the ever-open gates to the canyon city. Breakwater Canyon consisted of two sheer mountain cliffs facing each other, with the whip of the waves far below churning at their base. Short, sturdy bridges criss-crossed the gap between the mountains, leading to the maze of tunnels and houses built into the rock. My feet moved by habit, my mind a million miles away, until I was outside my home, the wooden door staring me down.

  I hesitated.

  Home.

  My fear didn’t diminish in the slightest.

  It doubled. Tripled. Crippled me.

  I pushed it down, though my shoulders hunched inward. Three knocks and I entered. She was sitting at the table: my mother. She was dressed for her honoured position at the Kynhouse of Hearthenge, her silks looped gracefully over her shoulders, thin golden chains holding the dress together in all the most flattering places. She was a precious carving swathed in liquid colour, her lips painted burgundy, her eyes bright and warm and knowing. She glowed, radiating beauty. It was all natural. She had no power—a true steward—but she had something better. Something that the people of Fyrio valued more than power. She was fertile. A rightful kynmaiden; a breeder, by royal decree. The sectorians and stewards alike vied for a chance to breed with her, though the stewards could rarely afford her. She had mothered seven children and was still young and beautiful.

  Her hands curled around a delicate teacup, one of the many gifts given to her by one of her patrons. She stared at me as she blew on the steam. It smelled of spring. A special brew of raspberry, nettle, and red clover. She had traded one of her more expensive gifts for the tea and now drank it no fewer than five times a day in an attempt to boost her fertility. I watched as those warm and shimmering eyes of hers shuttered, the lovely mask falling away. Her slender brows turned down, her lips pressed together, her eyes narrowing as she took me in from head to toe. When she saw the mark upon my face, her eyes widened.

  “You stupid, stupid girl,” she hissed out in disbelief, rising so quickly that her wooden stool clattered to the floorboards behind her. Our house was not big, but there was room enough for the both of us. I kept it clean, and she kept it beautiful. We were better off than most stewards. My mother’s status as a kynmaiden afforded us a home high in the canyon, where we could see the birds and catch the warmth of the sun. The less fortunate were down by the waves, with the icy spray upon their windowsills and the damp dripping down their stone walls.

  I tried to tell myself as often as possible that I was lucky.

  I tried just as often to believe it.

  “It was a mistake.” My voice was pleading. “I tripped over a vevebre line. I didn’t mean to.”

  She gripped my wrist—I didn’t even think she was listening to me—and pulled my hand up before her face, her eyes struck with horror. There was a thin, white line on my finger where the ring had been.

  Her eyes crept back to mine slowly, her grip tightening. “Three stillbirths,” she whispered, and my stomach clenched in a horrible, sickening way. “Three deaths. Three souls. That is what I traded for your ring.”

  She didn’t need to remind me. I was the one who had scrubbed the blood from the sheets and buried the tiny, mangled bodies in the earth. I was the one who had nursed her back to health, again and again.

  For years, I had dreamt of their faces. I had dreamt of the women they would have become. I had dreamt of their robbed experiences, traded for my own robbed experiences.

  “I’m sorry,” I pleaded, but it was no use.

  Her expression had turned cold, her eyes shuttering. She was no longer angry, and that was worse. She gathered her shawl, pulling away from me and walking to the door. “If you are old enough to make deals with the Weaver, you are old enough to trade for a new ring. Better you than me, little monster.”

  She locked the door behind her, and I sank to the ground, rubbing my bare finger.

  Better them than me, little monster.

  That’s what she had said as I bundled up the first babe, begging her to take back the deal. If she could have turned me from the house that day, she would have, but childrearing was a sacred thing amongst the people of Fyrio. The safety of a child was paramount, as they were so rare and precious. Even the steward children. A stillbirth was a commonality. Three stillbirths barely a surprise.

  Turning a healthy young girl from her home?

  That was unspeakable.

  She had never wanted a child for herself. Her life was full already. She was treated as a princess, swathed in silks and prayers; worshipped during the day and left to peace during the night. My father had been a sectorian, but the Eloi man who had been called to my mother’s birthing bed had declared that I had not taken after my father. No power was detected within me. No allegiance to any of the sectors. Instead, he had denounced me. His edict had been immortalised in the wooden headboard of my mother’s bed, carved there by her nail file on the night she brought me home.

  I do not sense her heart. Where it should be, there is only a storm. This child is doomed to death, and to share death with those closest to her.

  After that, nobody would buy me. My sectorian father did not want a steward child at all, let alone a cursed one. News spread of the Eloi man’s edict, and even the poorest stewards who could never have hoped to afford a child turned their heads away from me. My mother was forced to keep me, forced—by sacred law—to protect me. To feed me and clothe me and send me off to be educated with the other steward children. It was during one of those warm school days that my slumbering power finally surfaced, my allegiance to the Vold sector singing through my blood. Some of the other children had cornered me beneath the great oak tree in the farthest reaches of the schoolyard. Their mothers had told them about my curse. They threw rocks at me and told me to run away. They told me that I didn’t belong with the rest of them.

  I didn’t remember hurting them.

  I didn’t remember anything but the roiling need for vengeance that surged through me. It took only a matter of minutes for me to break most of their bones. The schoolmarm had called upon the Sentinels to take me home, where my mother was ordered to keep me.

  I told her that I was a Vold. That I felt it in my blood. Every time I muttered the word, I seemed to ratchet up her terror, until she finally swept from the house, locking me inside without a word. When she returned, her eyes were red and the ring was clutched in her hand.

  “It’s the curse you feel,” she told me, forcing the ring onto my finger. “It’s not a gift. It’s a curse, and it will bring death to us both. From now on, you are nothing. You are a steward. You live to serve the great sectorians. You were born without magic. You are unworthy.” She roughly wiped away my tears, her lips pressed firmly together as she shook me. “What are you, Lavenia?”

  “Nothing,” I repeated, the whisper of war draining out of me, the steel against my finger weighing against my soul. “I am nothing.”

  I waited on my knees for the rest of the day, my eyes trained on the door, those horrible memories of the past my only companion, my only distraction. As darkness began to fall, I finally stood, my legs stiff and sore. I prepared a broth with carrots and onions and baked a loaf of soft brown bread. I laid it all out on the table and waited. When she didn’t return that night or the next morning, it dawned on me that while she wasn’t permitted to turn me out of the house for another month, she could still leave. She could leave her whole life behi
nd and start again somewhere else with nothing … just to get away from me. She could go to Edelsten and join the King’s paramour, where beautiful women remade themselves. Everyone knew that once you entered into service at Edelsten, you never returned. Scullery maid, knight, page, or squire. The giant castle by the sea was a hungry beast, and it swallowed them all whole.

  She was beautiful and fertile and a kynmaiden. Surely, they wouldn’t turn her away or ask questions. Surely, she would disappear between the folds of a velvet curtain, never to be seen or heard from again. Perhaps years from now I would hear a song carried down from the Edelsten court of a shapely beauty with hair like fire and eyes like embers and I would move to a looking glass and remember her in the red of my hair and the slow simmering of my eyes. But then it would slip away … because I was not a shapely beauty and she didn’t want to be my mother. I was only a cursed waif, a lone candle in a wind-whipped window, spluttering for air while my mother burned bright in the distance, always too far away for me to feel her warmth.

  The key in the lock jarred me into shock, the brush and pan clattering from my fingers as I knelt before the small hearth. I scrambled to my feet, my head lowered, my hands wiping on my skirts. I watched the silks of my mother’s dress sweep into the room, and then behind her, two long legs. Brown leather boots. Expensive linen, a finely woven vest, a leather carry-bag. An even finer cloak. He shrugged it off into my mother’s hands. She hung it by the door, her eyes avoiding me as she unwound her shawl.

  “This is her?” The man’s frown was intent on me. He had a short beard, shrewd eyes, a pointed nose. Very polished and proper, though his hands were big and rough-looking, the fingernails jagged from biting. If his clothing hadn’t given him away as a sectorian, the two short, curved horns cutting into his forehead certainly did.