A Tempest of Shadows

by Washington, Jane

  The King smiled graciously. “As you say, Captain. And because of that, you will be assigned to keep the girl alive as she carries out her sentence.”

  A new wave of whispering broke out behind the dais, people bending their heads together and muttering rapidly behind their hands. The Captain stared at the King in shock. For a moment, the dais was silent and still, a stupor settling over those who were still seated.

  “Your Highness…” The ebony-haired woman rose, her gown rippling like water. “If the girl is guilty, then surely it’s time for us to decide on her punishment. Why should she need protection?”

  “Because the King has decided to spare her, Mistress Emory.” This came from the Warmaster, who was leaning forward, his huge arms tipped onto his knees, his brown eyes fixed to the woman, a light within them making him appear alert despite his relaxed position. “Is that not obvious?”

  At this, the Captain found his voice. “My job is to oversee the Sentinels here in Fyrio. The Company is under my command. The safety of the people is more important than the safety of one girl.”

  “And yet you personally escorted her here,” the Weaver replied, his gravelly voice snapping my head in his direction. “Why is that?”

  The Captain glared at the Weaver before flicking his eyes over to the Warmaster. “A steward woman insisted that the girl was not a sectorian, that she had been living as a steward her whole life. She told me that the girl had no power, but instead, a death curse. A silly superstition. It was easy to see that the girl had been ostracised, and even easier to see that it had been for nothing. The Vold magic clung to her, even as depleted as she was when I found her.” He pulled his lips back from his teeth, sucking in a short breath and shaking his head. “It captured my attention. I’ve never known a person to hide their power before. It made no sense—still makes no sense.”

  “Then you’ll figure out the truth as you keep her alive.” The King was beginning to look bored by the conversation. Their resistance to his idea was wearing on him.

  “What in the name of Ledenaether does she need guarding from?” the Captain snapped before closing his eyes for a moment and then adding, “Your Highness.”

  “From this,” the King said serenely, walking towards me.

  I pulled back, still sitting on the floor, until my chains were taut again. The King knelt to my left, the whispering green of his eyes flitting over my face before coming to a rest below my left eye. His attention drifted from the Weaver’s mark to meet my stare. That whispering, slithering feeling grew stronger, pulling at strings beneath my skin. The chain made a small, shy sound against the floor. Had I moved closer? I could feel the brush of his magic, like silky leaves tickling my arms, sinking earth beneath my feet, or sunlight filtering in peeks and glimpses against my cheeks. He had a smell like a vast field recently dry from the rain.

  This man was dangerous.

  I frowned, realisation crashing through the haze that had drifted into my head. The King was a powerful Sjel, and the soul magic had a manipulative allure about it. The soul often concerned itself with desire. His eyes drifted to a spot just beneath my right eye, opposite to the Weaver’s mark.

  “There.” He spoke, his voice a little deeper, a little lower than before. His hand raised, his finger almost touching the spot. “Fjor, gift her the mor-svjake mark, so that all may know what she has done.”

  The man who rose to do his bidding was the Inquisitor, who knelt to my other side, his hand on my chin, lifting my horrified eyes to his.

  Mor-svjake.

  Killer of the weak.

  It was the worst dishonour a person could receive. The mark referred to those who preyed upon the most sacred and vulnerable members of our society: the children … and the kynmaidens. I tore my chin out of the Inquisitor’s hand, rearing away from him, shaking my head. Silent pleas tumbled from my lips, falling to the little brass bell in my pocket. Those with the mor mark were targeted enough, but if anyone drew close enough to see that the little shield comprising the mor mark had a tiny tear-drop within … if anyone recognised the mor-svjake on my face, I would face all kinds of depraved punishments. Those marked by the mor-svjake carried a sanction on their skin: a sanction for any person to commit any act of violence or horror upon them completely without repercussion.

  I would be a blind spot in the justice system. A blip in the map of humanity. A secret place where people could mete out their secret fury and frustration.

  The Inquisitor recaptured my face, his fingers biting in, his dark eyes fixing to the spot that would doom me to a short life as a receptacle for the hate of strangers. My skin began to tingle as my eyes burned, but still, I refused to cry. I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood, and the Inquisitor’s focus wavered, carrying down to my lip. His thumb swiped up from my chin to my mouth, pulling it free of my teeth.

  “It’s better than death, girl.”

  No, it wasn’t.

  He stood, his dark robes brushing my knees as he walked to the side of the dais, pausing there and glancing back. “I claim her sentence.”

  “What sentence?” the Captain asked. He seemed to be better under control now, though there was a flash of frustration in his face, shivering at the edges of his mouth, pulling at the scar hooking into his lip. “Is the mark not her punishment?”

  “I’ve pardoned her from death, certainly.” This came from the King, still kneeling beside me, his eyes on my new mark. He stood, facing the Inquisitor. “A lifetime of service is better than death.” He paused, looking to the Inquisitor. “And it’s a sentence I will claim.”

  The Warmaster stood, his large arms folding over his chest, his eyes becoming even more translucent, that fire within them sparking to an alarming burn. “She is of my sector. She must be with people of her magic. She will serve her sentence with me.”

  My mouth dropped open. Shocked voices clashed in conversation beyond the dais. The Warmaster had just directly opposed the King.

  The Scholar sighed, rising from his chair. He glanced down to me, disgust soft in his features, as though even ugly emotions could only enhance his striking features. “She knows nothing of her magic. She must serve her sentence at the Obelisk, as my servant. She will be schooled in a calm, tempered environment, where she is no danger to herself or others.”

  “I will make her an apprentice,” the Warmaster replied, the muscles of his arms jumping as he tensed up. “She will learn as her magic requires her to learn. Through the difficult trials of war.”

  “Really, this is quite unprecedented,” another man sitting at the dais muttered, looking uncomfortable and confused. The woman beside him nodded an agreement, though her face was white, her eyes flittering between the four men standing. Whatever the reason, these men had a history. They ignored each other’s titles and chose to forgo the motions of respect owed to the King. They were toying with my life quite possibly for the sake of a competition amongst themselves. And yet … I had a plummeting feeling that there was something I had missed, some crucial piece to the puzzle that had passed beneath me unnoticed.

  I looked past them all, to the Captain. He had that furrow back in his brow, that suspicion in his eyes. I felt the burn of his golden eye before the blue eye had fixed on me, and something seemed to pass between us. A silent acknowledgment of larger things at work, of secrets passing above our heads, of the fools that we looked—him swathed in a Sentinels cloak and me kneeling in chains, both of us lost in the dark of other people’s machinations.

  His interest had been piqued again and I watched him decide, in that very moment, that he would accept his role as my protector. Wherever I went, he would follow, until the truth was torn from the very unfortunate fabric of my being and his curiosity had been satiated.

  5

  Innocence

  “And you, Vale?” The King turned to the Weaver, who had been sitting in silence, watching the exchange with a small, hard smile upon his lips. “What claim do you have upon the girl?”

  “Ther
e must be one,” the Scholar added as the Weaver stood from his seat. “You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  Had they all sought to claim my life before they had even arrived?

  “My mark is upon her,” the Weaver answered. “Her life belongs to me.”

  “She’s a prisoner and I’m the monarch of this realm…” The King paused, the shadows in his eyes flickering to the surface, something passing between him and the Weaver. “Her life is mine.”

  Never before had I wished so badly for the gentle warmth of the worn rug by the hearth back at home. I could remember my mother’s dissatisfaction burning into the back of my head as easily as my fingers remembered the grooves between the wooden floorboards. I could feel her relief as she escaped the cottage with the first rays of light in the morning, and scent the strange smells that clung to her as she returned with the dark.

  I had grown up mostly alone, venturing out to run with the dawn mist or carrying out small errands on the days my mother didn’t work. I had not been completely isolated … but my life had not prepared me for this.

  “She must be shared, then,” the Scholar said, beginning to walk from the dais, his words floating out behind him. “Let us retire somewhere to discuss it. Calder…” He stopped, turning and seeking out the Captain, as though he had not paid attention to where the man was sitting. “I trust you have no further argument?” At the short, stiff shake of the Captain’s head, the Scholar turned away and began moving again. “Very well. You may release the girl. Her sentence will begin in the morning.”

  He disappeared through a press of gathered people—the size of the crowd had swelled considerably—and everyone, it seemed, turned back to the King.

  “Let us,” the King agreed, though the Scholar was no longer in sight.

  He strode after him, and one by one, the Warmaster, the Inquisitor, and the Weaver followed. As soon as they had disappeared, something within the atmosphere seemed to visibly pop. Breaths were released, the volume of chattering increased, and several of the men and women seated at the dais released their rigid postures, some of them uttering words for the first time since they had appeared.

  “The King has never messed in the affairs of the small council before,” a woman said, her tone afraid. “Why start now? This should have been our decision.”

  They all talked to each other, though I was not ignored. They watched me out of the corners of their eyes until the Captain walked over to me, unlocked my chains, and then simply turned and walked away. I rose, ignoring the wobble of aftershock in my knees, and hurried after him. The crowd scampered away from me, and I could feel the mor-svjake as though it burned afresh into my skin. I hung my head, allowing my hair to curtain my face as I focussed on the Captain’s shoes.

  He walked briskly, with a purpose, and we spilled into one of the tower rooms on a lower level of the Citadel seemingly just as the King, the Warmaster, the Scholar, the Inquisitor, and the Weaver were taking their seats around a long, carved stone table overlooking the drop of the waterfall.

  “Highness.” The Captain gave a short bow to the King. “My apologies, but … if it’s the girl’s service you all require, would it not be better if she could speak?”

  “Speaking might become annoying,” the Weaver observed.

  “It would hinder her study,” the Scholar argued, his violet eyes flashing with vexation, as though he already regretted the extra attention he would need to pay me.

  “I agree with Vale,” the Warmaster groused, amber eyes disregarding me almost as soon as they had noticed me. “Speaking would be annoying. I keep forgetting she’s there, which is, in fact, quite pleasing.”

  “Then I suspect you have changed your mind about claiming her sentence?” This was shot out by the Inquisitor, the darkness of his gaze swelling as he regarded the other, who grunted. When the Warmaster only settled back more comfortably into his chair—which creaked ominously beneath his considerable size—the Inquisitor’s mouth tightened, and he rounded the table to stand before me.

  “There’s a spell blocking your voice?” he asked.

  I shoved my hand into my pocket without hesitation, quickly holding out the bell. He took it with a glance at the Captain, and then he was turning it around before his eyes. With a nod, he slipped it into the folds of his robe, returning to his seat.

  “This is the Dealer’s magic. It will likely outlast her, but … I am not her. Give me some time, and she will speak again.”

  With that, he seemed to dismiss us. The Captain motioned impatiently for me to precede him out of the room. He took over once we reached the curved stone walkway winding around the outside of the great rock, brushing past me, his steps twice as long as mine. I hurried to keep up with him as I focussed internally, quieting my mind.

  I had been tried and found guilty. I had been spared from death, my sentence split five ways between the legends of my childhood. One of them had been my downfall; another, my hero; and yet another, the singular leader of our society. I absorbed these facts in my own quiet way, turning them around in my mind and trying to fit them into various theories. Perhaps they thought I was different, like them. A sectorian without a magic mutation. After all, to steal a magic mutation was to steal that person’s power, and they had seen the Dealer steal my only marking and had witnessed my power explode after the fact. But of course, that didn’t matter. They had travelled to the Citadel with the intention of claiming my sentence, it seemed. What they saw in the apparition meant nothing to them.

  Which could only mean one thing.

  The Weaver had seen something in my fate, and for some unknown reason, he had told the four most powerful people in the realm beside himself—like some great general putting together an elite company to deal with an issue of great import.

  Except that I wasn’t an issue of great import. Upon my birth, an Eloi looked into my heart and made a mistake. Almost eighteen years later, I tripped over a fishing wire and made a mistake of my own. Five days ago, the Dealer underestimated me and made the final mistake in the collection of errors that would constitute my importance. Now these five powerful men were huddled in a room together, arguing over who had a better claim over me. Me. A girl comprised of nothing more than a short collection of mistakes.

  When the Captain reached the bottom of the Citadel, he paused in the small forecourt, grabbing a passing boy and ordering him to bring two horses from the stable. When the boy returned, I climbed into the saddle of the gelding handed to me, catching the reins in my hands as the captain took his saddlebags from the boy and began fixing them to the horse. I found myself staring at the open gates, the reins suddenly burning into the skin of my palms, my thighs tightening around the horse to test its responsiveness. I didn’t think through the decision to flee. One minute I was waiting, and the next, I was tearing through the forecourt as the Captain cursed loudly behind me. I bent low over the horse, the wind tearing through my dress, whipping the worn hem against my bare legs. My hair lashed at my eyes, the wind icy and unkind as it battered against the bridge. It became bearable once I climbed into the woods, but I could also hear the Captain behind me. He was almost upon me, and I knew that there was nowhere I could go. He was faster—a trained Sentinel. We had reached the Capitol in under a day simply because the world moved slower for him. The very fabric of the earth rearranged itself beneath his feet to make his journey easier.

  My face pinched into a grimace of frustration, and I pressed my heels harder into the sides of the gelding. I was a Vold.

  Maybe I had a chance…

  Even as the thought flittered into my head, the Captain appeared by my side, his left hand grabbing for my reins. I swung wildly to the side, off the path and into the trees of the bordering forest. I tried reaching for my Vold magic, but it didn’t come as readily as when I had fled the Weaver. I dug into my chest, where I knew it hid, grappling for a magic that only swirled around my fingers like smoke and shadow. A soundless groan of frustration vibrated from my throat, fleeing the f
orest and escaping back to the Citadel in search of the bell, as my horse launched into the air in a panic, trying to avoid a fallen tree. Something caught the skirt of my dress, ripping me off the back of the horse and sending me crashing to the ground.

  The Captain sat on his horse above me, a torn slip of fabric in his hand. He was breathing heavily, his golden eye burning in fury. He jumped down as I scrambled away, looking around for a weapon. There was nothing. Only twigs and leaves and fragile little ferns. Once he was almost upon me, I launched up from the ground, colliding with him and sending us both crashing backwards. I had my hands wrapped around the hilt of his sword, but he was faster. In barely more than a second, he had rolled me to my back, crushing my hand between us as he freed his dagger, flipping it up to my throat.

  “I am not the Dealer,” he promised, his voice quietly seething. “He thought himself immortal, and that’s the only reason you were able to kill him. If you use your magic on me, I will defend myself.”

  The message was left hanging between us, passing from his eyes to mine, from the steel of his dagger to the skin of my neck, from the vibration of his power to the slumbering core of mine. I couldn’t mistake it even if I wanted to.

  If I fight, I die.

  I nodded, waiting for him to ease off me. He was up in an instant, oxygen rushing back into my body as he brushed leaves from his cloak. He reached out his gloved hand—the dagger had made a disappearing act—and I knocked it away, standing on my own. My dress was sagging again; the buttons that I had managed to secure during my time in the Citadel had been ripped free. Now that I was unshackled, I could reach behind me and find two halves of the ripped material, roughly tying them together. The dress was completely ruined.

  “We should go back to Breakwater Canyon,” the Captain muttered, pushing a few stray locks of tarnished golden hair from his scarred forehead. “You’ll need to pack your things. Clothes. Valuables. You can’t stay there now.”