A Tempest of Shadows

by Washington, Jane

  I finished Calder’s other arm, my attention steadfast on the Warmaster’s voice. When I scooped more of the exfoliant into my hands and began to spread it over his collarbone and down the centre of his chest, I chanced a peek at his face. He had become stiff, in pain, his blue eye clouded. I tried to hurry my movements, quickly brushing over his chest, but I got snagged on every scar and nick, somehow not expecting them to be there, and my fingers began to shape over his skin, trying to see what my eyes refused to. His biggest scar was on his torso, cutting through two ridges of muscle. It was raised and smooth, a long line, wider as it drew lower.

  “It’s because the link is one of fate that it can turn sour,” the Warmaster said as I skipped my hands down over the narrowing of Calder’s hips, drawing an angry sound from his throat.

  He turned, giving me his back, his arms now crossed over his chest stiffly.

  “If the Fjorn or the Blodsjel were to go against their fate, it would loosen their connection,” the Warmaster rumbled. “If he were to fail in his duty to protect her, that would damage their link considerably, which would in turn, weaken the abilities their link provides them. That weakness, like a disease, could spread to each individual, poisoning the protective power of the Blodsjel or the strength of the Fjorn magic itself.”

  I scrubbed Calder’s back, my lip singed, my head clouded. I wasn’t sure how it had been activated, but there was no denying that my hands were searching for warmth and comfort in the big body before me, that I was inching closer to him, itching to press my lips to his skin, to see if he tasted like rage and sweat, like battles fought and won, like enemies felled and skies darkening in victory.

  I had almost forgotten the process of the bath when Calder switched our positions, pressing me into the side of the pool as though he needed to restrain me in some way. He shoved a bar of soap into my hands and barked out a word.

  “Quickly.”

  I washed him quickly, clarity flashing in and out of my mind, spurred by the look in his eyes and dissuaded by the imperfect skin beneath my hands, scars and scratches like a map to something immensely important, something that I needed. When he ducked beneath the water and resurfaced again, his hands passing over his face and hair, droplets sticking to his long eyelashes, I pressed myself to his front, my lip stinging, my heart aching. He was beautiful in a rough, savage sort of way. Perfect in his grim silence.

  I wanted to kiss him, but even on my toes, I couldn’t reach his face, and though his hands were at my waist, he wasn’t lifting me. He was pushing me away, his fingers digging inward with enough pressure to bely the blank look on his face. He swam to the edge of the pool, lifting himself to the sandstone edge, his back to both me and the Warmaster as he snatched a towel from one of the baskets, wrapping it around his waist.

  “But of course,” the Warmaster said, his eyes narrowed angrily on Calder. “There is more than one way to betray and defile the link.”

  I swam to the edge, regaining a little bit of control. My face was flaming when I pulled myself from the water, a frown creasing my brow, shame dripping through me, hot and trembling like the condensation on the walls. The longer I stayed away from Calder, the clearer my mind grew, until I was dragging my feet, my movement slowing almost completely. I looked from him to the Warmaster, who had stopped speaking, his eyes watchful, expectant, his last words teasing the air.

  There is more than one way to betray and defile the link.

  I stared at Calder, and I knew, suddenly, what this was all about. The Warmaster was testing our connection the same way the five masters tested me, by pushing it to the very limits. He had known that Calder would volunteer himself to save me from a repeat of the previous kiss with the Warmaster. He had known that my soul mark would begin to influence me.

  He was putting me in danger of defiling the bond, because Calder’s link to me was fated in a platonic way.

  He was supposed to be the brother of my soul.

  If I became intimate with him, not only would the soul mark begin to drain him, but our connection would also turn sour, weakening us both.

  My confidence suddenly returned, I walked to the bench, filling my arms with our clothing, and then I returned to Calder, offering him my hand as I fixed my eyes on the Warmaster.

  “I’ve heard all I need to hear,” I told him. “And one day … you five are going to go too far. One day, you’re going to lose me completely. Either I will be dead or I will be powerful enough to kill each of you for all the ways you have tortured me.”

  He stood, and I didn’t look away from his nakedness this time. I stared at him, my eyes crawling over his body, searching for any sign of a magic mutation that simply didn’t exist. He stopped before me, a plan hatching in his eyes, a strength in his grip as he swept an arm around my waist and lifted me, the sodden, heavy leather of my bodysuit against his burning skin.

  “You wanted to know what the trick is?” he growled, as my arm twisted behind me, Calder refusing to release me. “Here it is.”

  He kissed me with a hunger that surprised me—because the look in his eyes had been cold and calculating. The emotion I felt in the slant and pressure of his lips was a manipulation, a stoking of the magic that stirred readily to meet him, heating my body and slackening my resistance until my fingers were clenching and unclenching in Calder’s grip.

  The Warmaster dropped me, his hand wiping over his mouth. He didn’t step back, but crowded his body against mine, his head lowering to fix me with burning, golden-brown eyes.

  “Go,” he whispered.

  16

  Yearn

  I stood there, stinging, burning, yearning, as Calder twisted the ring around my finger and pulled me back. I fell into the rubble of the Sky Keep, the ocean threatening to spill in after me, and then Calder was snatching me to his chest as we landed against the floor of his home inside the tower of Hearthenge.

  He stumbled back from me and, I turned, wiping a line of sweat from my brow as I tried to focus my hazy vision on him. He collapsed to his knees, dropping the pile of our personal effects that he must have somehow taken from me. I took a shaking step toward him, and then fell to the floor before him, my hands on the sides of his face, my actions driven by whatever beast had taken possession of me. The heat around us was sweltering, his skin scorching, his energy threatening to explode and incinerate us both.

  “It was a trap,” he grated out, lifting his head, his eyes miserable as I tumbled into him. “It’s always a trap with them.”

  His skin was rough, stubble abrading my fingertips. He began to shake his head, but I stopped the movement, drawing his face to mine. Despite the unspoken protest I could see forming on his lips, I still wasn’t sure who initiated the kiss. Even in this moment, he was protecting me from initiating our downfall by claiming that last inch himself. One moment I was drawing him to me, and the next, we were kissing.

  He murmured something that sounded like an objection, but his hand slipped along the curve of my spine, drawing me tightly against him as I climbed into his lap. My soul was ignited, my body melting into his grip as his hands fell to my hips, pressing me down and then just as quickly tilting them the other way, trying to push me off. It became a strange kind of battle, him relenting and then protesting, urging me forward and then pushing me away.

  Soon we were wrestling, my back slamming into the ground, his groan vibrating through me, despair on his tongue as it parted my lips, anger in his fingertips as they tore through my bodysuit. We fought for control over each other and over ourselves. My need burned hot, but the instability of his reaction burned hotter, spreading painfully across my skin, slipping inside me to pop and crackle through my blood, blistering the balm of his nearness—a balm that I was driven to reach for again and again. He spun me suddenly, my face pressed to the rug, his body landing heavily over mine, his desperate rasp sinking into the back of my neck.

  “Stop.”

  The loss of his lips and the sudden shock of his order pierced my conscious
ness, forcing me into stillness. He rested his forehead against the back of my head, and I could almost feel him praying that he had finally managed to knock me out of my trance.

  “Breathe.” His voice was strangled, his hands holding mine against the floor, one of his long legs between mine, the other planted outside my hip, lifting some of his weight off me.

  I tried to breathe, but instead, I began to cry. It began small, with a tear of frustration, but soon descended into a choking sob. He was off me in an instant, bundling me into his lap again, but this time was different. My face was in his neck, my arms clutched around his shoulders. He was shaping me into a little ball, my legs curled up to my chest, the sweltering energy in the room dropping away until only the cold of shock remained, and the natural warmth of his body seemed like the best place for me to rest.

  I was roused what seemed like only a few hours later in exactly the same position, though Calder had managed to wrap a blanket around us.

  “It’s time to train,” he said, voice husky. “Your pack is on the chair by the bed.”

  Awkwardly, I clambered from his lap, dragging the blanket with me as I stumbled sleepily across the room. I averted my eyes as I heard him stand and stretch, a pained groan accompanying the movement. He shuffled around, dressing himself as I dug through my pack, pulling out one of the outfits I had worn already. A soft brown corset and riding pants. I dressed beneath the blanket and then pulled my boots back on and rubbed my hands over my face, trying to push away the heavy-limbed exhaustion.

  Calder led me from the tower without a word and I found myself staring at him. It was almost impossible to think that those hard lips had taken mine, that those calloused hands had shaped to my waist, those rough fingers skittering across my bare ribcage. I was still reeling, still in shock, but I wasn’t … disgusted. Not like I should have been. I didn’t feel like our link had been defiled or lessened. If anything, I felt an urge to step closer to him, to ease some part of me that was reaching for him. He wasn’t displaying any adverse effects from the soul mark, but I didn’t expect him to show them to me even if he was.

  I shoved my feelings away, adopting a grim expression to match his as we broke into the pre-dawn darkness. He began to run, tossing two words over his shoulder.

  “Keep up.”

  At first, it was easy. I loved to run, and my body welcomed the familiar feeling, my aching muscles settling into the sensation. We neared the gates, and a Sentinel atop the wall spotted Calder, shouting out for the gate to be opened. We didn’t need to break pace as we passed through, but as soon as the city centre was to our backs, Calder suddenly picked up the pace, and what had begun as something pleasant soon turned horribly punishing. He was so fast that even as I dropped behind, my lungs were still heaving to their fullest capacity, my muscles straining to the point of tearing. The pace made it impossible to step carefully, and I stepped on several rocks at the wrong angle, twisting my ankle. I fell twice, but Calder only stopped to haul me up, his expression blank, his eyes hard, and then he was running again. After half an hour, I doubled over, losing the contents of my stomach onto the forest floor. It was the hardest, the fastest, I had ever run.

  Calder stopped, waiting for me to finish. He didn’t even look out of breath.

  “You need to use your Vold energy,” he told me, his arms crossing over his chest, his eyes scanning the trees behind me.

  “Can’t,” I groaned. “Empty.”

  “Empty?” His eyes snapped back to me.

  I pulled back to my feet, wiping my mouth. “The Warmaster’s ‘test’ yesterday. It drained my energy.”

  “You should have built that energy back up by now. You haven’t even tried using it. I haven’t sensed it once.”

  I rubbed a knuckle over my chest, thinking of my secret weakness. I had developed a fear of my power. A fear of accidentally releasing a shadow or of feeling that sickening flop of my failing heart.

  “You’re right,” I admitted.

  “One of the first Vold incantations we learn is lotte. As with all Aethen words, it can have many meanings, but we generally teach our litens to understand it as the folding of the landscape. It helps us to move faster, to buy more time.”

  “What is the proper translation of the word?” I asked, knowing that there would be one. While Aethen words had multiple—sometimes unending—meanings, they always had a direct translation, though only the Sinn could figure out what those translations were.

  “Fold,” Calder answered. “It means fold. Now, follow me.”

  We walked a short distance through the forest until he found a clearing by the banks of the river. He crouched in the sand of the bank, whispering a word as his hand brushed the ground. Flame sprouted from his fingertips, halting my breath in my throat. He swept his hand out, spreading the flame, and then he snapped his fist closed and stepped away. He stopped every second step, repeating the process, his lines of flame pushing at the edges of the invisible boundaries he had traced, eager to spread to the forest around us. When he was finished, he positioned me at the end, his hands on my shoulders, his command stirring the top of my head.

  “Fold.”

  And with that, he pushed me.

  I jumped over the first line of flame, panic seizing in my chest. He walked beside me, speaking an Aethen word that jumbled in my ears, too difficult for me to understand. The line of fire behind me roared and crackled, escaping its confines and surging forward. Panicked, I jumped over the next line, and then turned to escape toward the bank. Before I could take a single step, the second line expanded, joining with the first and rushing up the sides of the fire trail, trapping me in between the lines. I jumped again and felt the chasing fire nipping at my boots, licking around my calves.

  Suddenly, I was running for my life, my lungs straining all over again, my hands sweating and trembling, my breath a loud rasp in my ears.

  “Lotte!” I cried, panic shaking my voice.

  I knew better than to say the word reflexively, not when I wasn’t intending it to do anything. I leapt the next line of fire and reached out, my hands clawing at the air as though I could tear the fabric of the environment in front of me.

  Lotte, I thought, too out of breath to shout the word again, diving from the heat at my heels and into a cold, dim space.

  Heaving in a breath of relief, I stared around at the river, the forest, the bank. The fire had disappeared, but so had Calder. I blinked at the water, watching it flow into … nothing. With a start, I realised that I couldn’t see beyond the clearing. The river dropped into nothing, the trees falling off into cold darkness. I walked along the bank, watching as it seemed to construct itself before my eyes, particle by particle. Droplets of water converged to join the stream, sand pooling into place, plants sprouting from the mud. When the scene was complete, I stared up at the sky, waiting for the flutter of wings or the sound of the birds calling for morning.

  It was quiet. Eerily so.

  I walked into the stream, bending to examine the water. The fish were gone. No darting tadpoles or buzzing insects. I had travelled into my imagination again, where the people and the houses and the living things disappeared. I began to close my eyes, to say the word again and fold myself back into reality, when something caused me to pause. It was a flash of silver in the sky overhanging the river, a dash of something on the horizon that should not have been there.

  I blinked at the moon, suspended on the wrong side of the sky, the sun hanging in the opposite direction. They each seemed frozen, neither rising nor falling, stuck in a battle as old as time, casting the world into grey postponement. I walked toward it without thinking, water splashing around my feet, my knees, my waist.

  Look to the deep waters, a voice called inside my mind, familiar and foreign. Your fate has been heard.

  The water lapped at my chest, a scent cloying from the surface, digging into the back of my throat and choking me with the memory of summer storms and thick, rapid veins of lightning.

  Th
e great war has begun, the voice told me, and this time I was sure that I knew it. It was a woman’s voice, made frail by the passage of time, made sad and grey by the suspended world.

  “Ein.” I whispered the name instinctively, a face flashing into my mind, like a memory of my earliest childhood.

  I saw eyes of the palest blue, softened in joy and downcast in despair; hair of spun silver, kissed by strands of sun and clotted with dried blood. I heard her sweet voice, caught in song and torn by fear.

  The first Fjorn.

  With a jolt, I tasted salt and moss, and realised that the river licked at my chin, my feet sinking into the sand below. I twisted for the shore, but my feet were trapped, something grasping at my ankles. It might have been the brush of reeds, but my mind rang with a familiar tale, that of the Beast of Lake Enke, and I panicked, imagining great big talons tearing into my legs and drawing me down into an eternal darkness.

  “Lotte!” I gasped.

  Water rushed in over my head, and I kicked to the surface, suddenly untethered, gasping for air as I swam back to the shore.

  A strong grip hauled me up and out of the water, dragging me to the grass of the clearing.

  “Where did you go?” Calder’s face appeared over mine, his eyes searching me for injury, his hands passing over my clothing. He glanced between my eyes. “Lavenia?”

  I liked it better when he used my nickname.

  “My head,” I croaked. “I think.”

  “You can’t put your body inside your head.” His tone was surprisingly even. “You disappeared completely.”

  “It was like I went into an old tale.” I pulled myself to a sitting position and glanced back to the river.