A Tempest of Shadows

by Washington, Jane

  A lowered dais marked the middle of the platform, large marble chairs dotting the outside. They were all turned toward the middle where an iron ring was bolted to the ground. There were no people in any of the chairs, but the Captain walked me to the ring in the middle of the dais and proceeded to secure my chains to it. His gloved hands skimmed over my manacles, checking that they were still secure.

  “The dead don’t tell lies,” he murmured, still bent over me. “If you are innocent, it will show.”

  I turned my head from him, looking out across the clear morning sky. It might have been an accident … but I had still killed two people and participated in an illegal trade. I was guilty of something, if not many things. He stepped away from me without another word, disappearing from the platform. I waited like that for several minutes until people began filtering into view, led by the Captain. He took one of the marble seats, his head turned toward the woman he was in conversation with. She wore a black robe with draped sleeves lined in gold. The neckline of the gown dipped so low that the pale, flat skin of her stomach was on show, the opening in her gown secured by only a delicate network of golden chains. Her hair was dark, her eyes a pale blue. I missed examining the others as the last person I had expected to see took the seat on the other side of the woman. The Weaver had his cowl thrown back, his moonlight hair loose about his shoulders. His eyes met mine, but there wasn’t even an ounce of recognition in them. He simply sat and stared. I swallowed, but I wasn’t scared of him anymore. I had already lost everything. What more could he do?

  Another three women entered—two of them with visible rashes spreading over their skin, one with strange bumps on her hands—and another two men, who both had strange, coloured markings on their faces, spreading into their hairlines. They all spoke softly to each other, mostly ignoring me, until footsteps behind me had everyone turning at once in varying degrees of surprise. Those who had taken a seat jumped back to their feet. All of them except the Weaver, who remained, a grim smile taking hold of his lips.

  “Vidrol.” His rough voice shivered over the platform. “Late, as usual.”

  Vidrol … as in King Vidrol? It was the name belonging to the royal family, but the King was the only remaining member of that family.

  I spun, dread in my throat. The man walking toward us was as massive as the Weaver, a light fur shawl covering his shoulders, his belt decorated with a golden eagle clasp. His clothing was a richly brocaded blue colour, his eyes reflecting the deepest, darkest parts of the forest. I could feel them slithering like things in the underbrush and whispering like leaves in the breeze in a single moment of them passing over me. “Vale,” he greeted, speaking to the Weaver. “Those who arrive early have nothing better to do.”

  The Captain ducked into a short bow before his eyes slammed into me. His gaze was unreadable, but even I could tell that he was surprised.

  “Your Highness,” he stated, switching his attention back to the King before glancing to the Weaver. “Who else has been called upon for this trial? I only summoned the Inquisitor and the small council.”

  It was the ebony-haired woman who answered, inclining her head toward the King. “I believe that will answer your question.”

  Three other men had taken the place of the King, who was moving to the seat beside the Weaver. I thought it curious that they called each other by their real names and that the Weaver hadn’t bowed to the King or even stood from his chair as courtesy would have demanded. My brows were knitting down further, confusion pushing away my fear. The three remaining men were of the same vast size and height as the Weaver, without a single visible magic mutation, each of them emitting a strong vibration of power hidden beneath the savage perfection of their features. I had never seen magic do the opposite of mutating before. I hadn’t believed it to be possible, but there was no denying that I was seeing the evidence of it now. In the Weaver, the King, and these three men. Their power was so great it had surpassed the stage of mutation and twisted them instead into different versions of frightful perfection.

  “Morning,” one of them boomed out, his translucent brown eyes seeking out each of us and then moving beyond us, examining the entire platform. He had wild dark hair, half pulled into a leather tie, his face and skin marked by battle, a huge broadsword hanging by his hip, another strapped over his wide back. He had a thick shadow of stubble covering his neck and chin, and he reminded me instantly of a bear or some other wild beast, stuffed into clothing and dragged into polite society, where he might tear us all limb from limb.

  I realised who he was even as the others stirred into action.

  “Warmaster,” several of them stuttered in reply.

  “Vale.” He lifted thick, dark brows at the Weaver. A greeting of sorts, which slid to the King. “Vidrol.”

  The King nodded back. The Weaver didn’t utter a word. It seemed natural for him to simply sit and stare.

  If stories of the Warmaster of Fyrio were passed around the fires as commonly as wine from the skin, then I had drunk of him so often that seeing him now—though I had never laid eyes upon him before—was a familliar taste. Every month, I had hastened to the celestial feast atop Breakwater Canyon, each of us forgetting our bitterness and prejudice as we huddled by the travelling bards, begging for new tales of our favourite characters. The memories had my eyes pricking as he sauntered past me, my hero in the flesh, come to condemn me as a criminal.

  I stuffed a hand into my pocket, my fingers curling around the bell … but I didn’t need it to swallow my misery, because I wasn’t going to cry. Now was not the time for mourning. For three days in an empty room, the past had been my haunting companion, but now it was time for me to look to the future. I had to focus on surviving the result of this trial, even if it meant fleeing a death sentence.

  While I had been preoccupied with the Warmaster, the other two men had taken their seats … and neither of them needed an introduction. The Scholar was draped in dark robes, his thick belt weighed down by small vials, several scroll cases also dangling. His hair was like the Weaver’s, though there was a little more gold mixed with the moonlight. It was shaved on the sides, the top threaded back through the use of a thin black chain. His eyes were the palest violet, almost white, and his infamously short temper hovered by the hard edges of his mouth. He was of the Sinn cast, as powerful with his mind magic as the Weaver was with his fate magic, as the Warmaster was with his war magic, and the King was with his soul magic.

  I blanched, realising what was happening a little too late. The final person was, of course, the most powerful living Eloi, completing the fifth sector as yet unaccounted for. Those of the spirit magic.

  The Inquisitor.

  Each of the five men were considered the frontrunners in their magical arts, the singular master of their sector. It bothered me that none of them were women, but it bothered me even more that they were all so…

  I squinted, trying to put my finger on it. Similar? No, that wasn’t right. They were all completely different, and yet, they seemed to be in a category populated by only the five of them. They were bigger, smarter, stronger, and more perfect than even the other sectorians. It was eerie.

  “Inquisitor,” the Captain’s tone had gained a distinctly sharper edge. “Shall we begin?”

  The Inquisitor nodded, standing from his chair and walking toward me. I realised that all the seats had been claimed, and the platform beyond the dais had been slowly filling with people. Either word had spread as the King travelled to the Citadel, or the crowd surrounding us were simply accompanying the various important persons sitting on the dais. The small council comprised, I was guessing, of the four women and two men whose names or titles remained unknown to me. They would have each brought a handful of assistants and advisors. The King would have brought a regiment, the Inquisitor a personal guard, the Warmaster rarely travelled alone, and there would be those within the Skjebre and Sinn sectors who would have trailed after the Weaver and the Scholar simply to satisfy their pred
ictions, as the fate and mind magics often demanded.

  The Inquisitor stood before me in the way that a landslide stands before a crude hut. He had dark eyes, like mine, but different. Where mine glimmered, his swallowed. Mine were a shimmering surface; his, a deep, endless aperture. His cheekbones were high and sharp, the arch of his brows perfectly elegant. His hair was somewhere between short and long, the lazy waves pressed behind his ears; there were no rings or metal clasps in his hair, but several dark bronze dots pierced into the arch of his left brow. He looked more like a warrior than a political man, and the assessing nature of his eyes had a dangerous edge that chilled me.

  Instinctively, I tried to back away from him. My chains clanged too loudly, pulling taut against the iron ring. He ignored my attempts to gain space, taking another step forward until the subtle heat of his body brushed against my front.

  “I’ve been told that you cannot speak?” he asked, his voice a soft roll of power.

  I shivered, delivering a swift nod, my eyes averted. The Eloi magic was the most mysterious of all the sectors. It was not solid, of the body, as the Vold magic was. It was not of the mind, as easily mapped and dissected as the Sinn magic. Though the fate magic of the Skjebre grappled with vast and frightening concepts, it was still tangible, easily understood. We all feared our dreams and our fates. The soul magic of the Sjel sector was a little less structured, though it still dealt with earthly concepts. Love, desire, manipulation. The Sjel magic could heal the body through a gentle coaxing of the soul. A Vold could never do the opposite, healing the soul through the body. These things were understood. The Eloi magic was simply … not understood. Matters of the spirit were not easily grasped.

  The Inquisitor surveyed me, perhaps wondering if I lied before he set a hand against my shoulder, his power whispering into me so softly that I would have completely missed it if I hadn’t been waiting for it. The spirit magic was mysterious because it was the power of magic itself. It was a skill of binding and unbinding, of seeing inside a person and tasting what lay there. It was the Eloi who had first bound magic to objects, and while the other sectors were now able to layer their magic onto existing objects, they were still unable to create original artefacts without the Eloi.

  “She is as you suspected, Captain.” His words whispered over the room as softly and as effectively as his magic whispered through me, coaxing at the little cupboards of my mind and burrowing into the secret places of my heart. He was hunting down my power. When he found it, tucked away deep inside my chest, his fingers tightened on my shoulder as his eyes slipped from my face to the front of my chest, as though he could see though cotton and skin alike to my bubbling center.

  “Yes,” he murmured. “Exactly as you said. She overdid herself, and her magic has retreated, but she indeed has the power of the Vold.” As he said the words, his eyes worked their way back up to my face, and there was the slightest crease to his lips. A … smile?

  It disappeared as he turned to address the others, his fingers slipping away from me. “Shall we see what the dead have to say about it?”

  Without awaiting an answer, he walked to the King and held out his hand. The King produced a small box, handing it over, his green eyes never shifting from me. The Inquisitor pulled my hands up, levering my clenched fingers open. He placed the box into my palm, and then stepped back to his seat.

  “Go ahead.” His eyes settled on my face. “Open it.”

  I stared at the little box, my stomach curdling.

  “It must be a familiar soul,” the Inquisitor insisted in his soft, low voice. “The soul no longer belongs in this world. It will only reappear at the insistence of a familiar presence. Is that not right, Vidrol?”

  “Correct,” the King grunted. “You must be the one to call it out, girl.”

  I looked between them, and then to the others. When I got to the Weaver, I found myself captured, the lake reflected in his irises, his head inclining ever so slightly, his influence pouring through me like water as the mark on my face burned hot. I winced, my free hand flying to my cheek. Several of the others glanced at the Weaver, and a wave of whispering rolled over the gathered people beyond the dais. The Captain was frowning deeply, a vein visible at his temple. The Warmaster, the Scholar, the King, and the Inquisitor all smiled.

  Open it, the Weaver mouthed, and my hands obeyed without my permission, releasing the little latch and opening the lid. It was worse than the influence of the Dealer’s collar. The mark on my face gave birth to an urge within me, a secret need to fulfil the requests of the man who dangled my fate before me.

  A ghostly apparition filled the air, escaping the box. It was me, standing in the doorway to our cottage.

  “You stupid, stupid girl.” My mother’s voice echoed everywhere, causing me to flinch back, my chains clanging again. Gooseflesh raced painfully across my skin.

  The apparition became muddled, focussing on my face, on the fear and still-reeling confusion filling my eyes.

  “It was a mistake…” My own ghostly voice followed my mother’s, and the image became muddled again, shifting to a view of Breakwater Canyon, and then to the image of a man’s back.

  “It can be difficult to reach further back than the last few moments before death,” the King explained as several people muttered in confusion. “All memories tainted by the passing of time have been removed, though the final moments remain untouched.”

  Briefly, I wondered why these people weren’t familiar with the process already. From the way they all watched, it looked like it was extremely rare for the Inquisitor to pull the memories of a dead soul from their body—despite how casually the Captain had spoken about it.

  We all turned back to the apparition as it followed the man into the cottage. In the apparition, I was now sitting by the hearth, a pan and brush clattering from my hands. The ghost of me jumped up and wiped her hands on her skirt.

  “This is her?”

  At the sound of the Dealer’s voice, I began to tug on my chain in earnest, straining further and further from the apparition until I had collapsed on the ground, and even then, I was still trying to crawl away.

  “She has a birthmark,” my mother’s ghostly voice chased me, breaking through the haze of panic that had gripped me so thoroughly.

  I turned as the ghost of me was stripped of clothing, my gaze passing right through the translucent form of my naked body to a set of icy blue eyes. The Weaver was staring at me. As the Dealer pulled his knife and began to cut away my birthmark, I caught several people flinching from my peripheral vision, and I tore my eyes from the Weaver to the Warmaster, who was also ignoring the apparition, his gaze settled firmly on me. The real me. I blinked, somehow able to block out the spectral scene as I glanced to the Scholar. Pale violet eyes locked onto mine, his power tangible, invasive and vast, though I didn’t think he was even using it.

  What in Ledenaether?

  A quick assessment told me that the five great masters were, once again, acting in odd unison. Each of them ignoring the scene that played out before them, each of them fixed to me with an unnerving, unwavering focus. Had they already watched the memory? Did they not care to discover my guilt? Had they already decided on my sentence?

  “This is not enough payment.” The Dealer’s words shattered the careful barrier that I had built between me and the apparition, dragging my unwilling attention back as he ordered me to the floor. Across the dais, the Captain shot to his feet. His fist was clenched, his left hand hovering over a small, half-hidden hilt strapped to his side. He looked like he was about to object, but equally confused as to why he would. He shook his head, his frown growing dark.

  The Dealer began to moan as his arm pumped. He was bent over me, whispering things to me. My mother’s eyes—and therefore the vision itself—lost focus on everything except my face. We all watched as the tears dried on my cheeks, as my eyes drifted up, over the man’s shoulder, to the watcher of the scene. As the Dealer thrust forward, I choked on a breath as the appa
rition of me changed, my ember eyes darkening to deep, unfathomable onyx, my chest glowing softly before exploding into darkness and light. The light seemed to split my skin open, prying apart my chest for the darkness to creep out. It captured the Dealer first, filling his nose and mouth, and then it curled towards my mother. When she looked down, clutching at her skin, the darkness was there, pushing through her chest like smoke disappearing through a sieve. The door blew inwards, cracking against the copper sink. The windowpanes shattered, blowing outward, and darkness descended on a choked gasp, a stillness settling over the scene, carrying from the past to the present and spreading over the platform.

  The Captain was still standing, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I had no friends here. I pulled my knees to my chest, still sitting on the ground as far away from the little box as my chain would allow. The King rose, picking up the box in careful fingers as the remnants of ghostly smoke fell back into its hiding spot. He slipped the box into his pocket and then returned to his seat.

  “I think we can all agree…” He stretched his legs out, crossing his boots at the ankle, drawing out his words until everyone was hanging off his breath, waiting for the verdict. He smiled. “The girl is obviously guilty.” The silence deepened as his smile widened, his eyes flashing a lighter, more poisonous green. “However, she executed an assassination with what I’m sure you’ll all agree was a flawless display of the ancient Vold magic. Without a single incantation. A power such as this cannot rot away in a cell, nor can it be snuffed out in an execution.”

  “She almost killed herself.” The Captain spoke up, his eyes flicking between the others, his narrow expression shuttered of emotion. “The Dealer wasn’t expecting her to attack. He was unprepared to respond. If he had been given a chance to fight back or if he had thrown up a barrier to her magic, the effort to overcome it would have certainly killed her. She had no control over what she did. I wouldn’t call that flawless.”