A Tempest of Shadows

by Washington, Jane

  “What do you mean?”

  “The girl in the tale has a silver dress, so I thought I heard the voice of the first Fjorn because she has silver hair. The river was the lake, and the beast was there too; his talons were the reeds. I stood at the bank of the river just like the girl in the tale stands at the bank of the lake.”

  He stared at me. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Beast of Lake Enke—” I frowned, seeing the lack of recognition in his features, his mouth tipping in a frown that tugged at one of his scars. “You know it, everyone does. You’ve just forgotten it.”

  “Tell me the tale,” he replied carefully.

  I bit my lip, wondering at the guarded look in his eye, but the words were ready and waiting on my lips, strangely eager to be spoken into the air.

  “There is a beast in the water,

  Talons of lead, death in his eyes.

  There is a monster in the mist,

  Waiting beneath a century of skies.

  There is a girl by the water,

  Dress of silver, stars in her eyes,

  Singing of a beast called Dragur,

  Wading in the shore of demise.

  There is death in the water,

  Hidden by a century of lies.

  There is a beast called Dragur,

  Waiting beneath a century of skies.

  There is a whisper in the water,

  Of one to fall, and one to rise.”

  He fell back, his arms hanging from his knees, his face slack with astonishment. “Ven,” he rasped, shaking his head. “That is not a Fyrian story.”

  “Of course it is,” I quickly argued, a little seed of doubt wiggling into the back of my mind. “It’s about Lake Enke.”

  “How do you know that? That tale didn’t mention Lake Enke once.”

  “Because…” I trailed off, suddenly rocked by confusion.

  He sucked in a breath, shaking his head. “How long have you been telling yourself this story?”

  “I … since…” I rubbed at my forehead, trying to recall the first time the words had been recited to me.

  I jumped to my feet, beginning to pace, a unique sort of trepidation rising inside me—the kind that comes from realising that your own mind has lied to you or hidden something very important.

  “The day it all changed,” I admitted, disbelief riding my tone. “The day the Weaver found me by the lake.”

  Calder’s eyes darkened with an alarming emotion, and I felt the brief crackle of his now-familiar rage before he quickly reined in his energy.

  “You had a premonition that morning.” He stood, catching my shoulders, his voice hard as stone. “You didn’t know how to make sense of it, so you convinced yourself it was an old tale. Do you know what this means?” Without waiting for an answer, he released me and stalked away, shaking his head, that searing anger sparking into his eyes again. “Your ring was tampered with. Some of your power had already broken free. Think, Ven … did you intend to destroy the ring at any point?”

  Dumbly, I shook my head. “It just happened, like with the collar.”

  “But not with the bell. That was hard for you even after you were spoon-fed the incantation.”

  “You think the collar and the ring were tampered with.” It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t know the answer.

  The Warmaster had told me as much the night before.

  We are leading you.

  You are starving by our design.

  “They lied.” My voice wobbled. My head was spinning, but most of all … I wanted to kick myself. “So they knew it was me all along. So they engineered all of this. So what.” I was trying to convince myself that nothing had changed, but with every utterance, my fury swelled, and as I spoke my last words, a dying hope falling from my voice, I could hear the distant drumming in the back of my head, threatening to drown it all out.

  I drew in a deep, shuddering breath, pushing the thoughts from my mind. It really didn’t matter. I had never believed myself to be more than a tool, a game, a means to an end for the great masters. I hadn’t realised the true extent to how I had been manipulated, but it only stoked my determination to grow stronger, to defy their expectations and snatch the one saving grace that I had bargained for.

  If I became a Legionnaire, all my past crimes would be forgiven.

  I would be released from my debts, beholden to no man.

  I would be free … and free to exact revenge on the men who had done this to me.

  “Let’s go,” I said, holding out my hand. “My free time is up. I need to be at the celebration feast this morning and then somehow slip out without anyone noticing to serve the Weaver for the day.”

  Calder had managed to calm himself down much faster than me and was already waiting with his usual hard stare, his expression unchanging as he wound my arm through his and twisted my ring.

  “Hearthenge,” he said.

  We landed in the main forecourt of the barracks, behind a stall of donkeys, which Calder must have intended. I slipped away from him, but he took the lead, probably aware that I had no idea where I was going. He led me into a building with a giant shield decorating the front, a golden eagle embossed on the surface, vines growing over the stone walls. Inside was a great hall, the main hearth taking up the entire back wall. Tables, benches, and little groupings of fur-tossed chairs scattered the sides of the room, a bustling kitchen close to the entryway.

  The recruits were all gathered inside, talking quietly, shuffling around as though restless to get outside, and as I stepped further into the room, I felt a presence behind me. A large, rough hand slapped onto my shoulder, a gravelled voice travelling all the way through me as the Warmaster dragged me back against his chest.

  “Did you enjoy yourself last night, Tempest?”

  Without warning, Calder was between us, his growl cutting through the hall like a terrifying roll of thunder, shaking the eaves. Heads turned, trying to find the source of the noise, and soon all attention was on the two men facing each other. With them standing head-to-head, I realised that Calder was the same size as the Warmaster—a fact that caused me no small amount of confusion.

  I compared them carefully, but the conclusion kept slipping from my mind like the sound of an Aethen word. The more I tried to assess the Warmaster, the harder it was to grasp his true height or size.

  He wasn’t normal.

  None of the great masters were normal.

  With a sound of frustration, I took a step forward, but Calder’s eyes cut to mine, and I stopped. He was battling for control. I couldn’t feel his power rolling through the room, but I could feel it pushing against some kind of boundary that he had thrown up, like the contained lines of fire from our morning’s training session. I stepped back.

  This was something he needed to do. He was sick of being toyed with, and that was something I could understand. I wasn’t sure how I could be so sure of what he was feeling, but I knew it on some kind of inherent level. I took another step back, and he returned his attention to the Warmaster, speaking quickly, the cadence of his voice low and rough, though I couldn’t make out his words.

  The Warmaster listened, his eyes trained on me, a curious look in them. They weren’t fighting, as I had expected. It looked like Calder was demanding something, and the Warmaster wasn’t entirely opposed to it. When the Warmaster replied, a faint smirk on his lips, I felt my stomach sink.

  I knew that look.

  He was making a deal.

  When their conversation finished, Calder turned and looked at me, something strange darkening in his blue eye. He touched his arm; a gesture that sparked familiarity in me. It was the same spot that I had seen him reflexively touching before; the spot where I had written on him.

  We are both Vold.

  At the time, it had been almost a plea. Let me be strong like you. He turned and left the hall, and I felt something between us wobble uncertainly. The Warmaster began to stride past me but paused at the last moment, his eyes
flickering down.

  “He’s not coming back.”

  He continued on as I stood there dumbly, the recruits all scampering out of his path. I finally turned as he approached Bern, who was waiting by the hearth at the far end of the room. They spoke to each other, and when they both glanced my way, I knew he was trying to manipulate whatever hell Bern had in store for us to be especially hellish for me. Once he was done, he left the hall, and Bern was calling for everyone’s attention.

  “There will be a feast,” he announced, “but it will be tonight, and it will be for one person only. And first, as with every feast, we must hunt.”

  “What was that all about?” a quiet voice to my left asked, and I jumped, not realising that Frey had snuck up on me. She was glancing toward the side door that the Warmaster had slipped out of.

  “They made a deal—” I slapped a hand over my mouth, shooting her a look.

  She didn’t seem in the least guilty. “What about?”

  Shaking my head, I kept my hand over my mouth.

  “The feast tonight will be in honour of either hunter or prey,” Bern continued as Bjern fell back from the rest of the recruits, approaching us with a nod.

  He stood at my other side, turning his attention back to his father without a word for us. He was simply aligning himself. He considered us allies of some kind.

  “One of you will be marked as prey,” Bern said, causing a thrill of terror to shiver down my spine.

  I took a shaky step backwards, and both Bjern and Frey glanced at me, confused.

  “To receive the feast tonight, you must be the one to capture the prey. Dead or alive.”

  I took another step backwards.

  “You may only use weapons fashioned from materials you find outside the city centre,” Bern continued, as I edged toward the back of the hall.

  Bjern moved after me, but Frey grabbed his arm, stopping him. Understanding flashed in her eyes, and she jerked her head. It seemed like she was urging me to run.

  “If the prey eludes capture,” Bern’s voice was drowning out behind the roaring in my ears, “the feast will be hers.”

  Hers.

  I turned, almost tripping over my own feet, and fled from the hall.

  “The hunt is on,” Bern’s voice boomed, chasing after me. “Capture the Tempest, and victory will be yours.”

  I dove behind a leatherworking stall, crashing through the doorway of a small building to the left of the stall. I didn’t even bother checking where I was. I pushed the ring around my finger and whispered, “Lake Enke.”

  17

  Hunt

  I tumbled onto the bank, catching myself on my hands and knees, my heartbeat pounding in my throat. I sat back, the pebbles dampening my riding pants as I glanced around. The vevebre lines had all been reeled in, the Skjebre nowhere to be seen. I found my feet, walking toward the sequoia trees to the east of the lake. Everyone knew that the Weaver resided in the forest, just as everyone knew that the Inquisitor’s mansion was atop Sectorian Hill and that the Warmaster called no place home. The sun was crawling well into the sky. I touched my ring, knowing I was already late.

  I thought of Calder’s name. I could track him down if I needed to … but he had made a deal with the Warmaster. I was sure of it. After seeing what the Spider had done to the medicine man, I figured it was best not to try and meddle in other people’s deals until I knew the terms for myself.

  “Vale,” I said, twisting the ring.

  I fell through the ground with a jolt, covering my face to prevent the pebbles and damp sand from getting into my mouth and eyes. I didn’t so much land as I did collide with a large, solid body, sending us both stumbling a step backwards. I caught myself against the back of a chair, my fist clutching the smooth driftwood as the Weaver stepped away, revealing the glass-domed room inside the Sky Keep of Edelsten.

  “You’re late,” he stated.

  “Is this your secret meeting room?” I shot back, realising that each of the five masters were gathered there again—including the Warmaster, who—despite having stepped from the barracks of Hearthenge only moments before—was now comfortably lounging in a driftwood chair.

  “Who would we need to keep it a secret from?” the King questioned, not bothering to look up from the pile of letters he was perusing. “And has it been mentioned that you’re late?”

  “Would being late change whatever you have planned for me today?” I directed the question at the Weaver, who had moved to stand before the glass. I couldn’t tell if his eyes were a gradient of blue or if they were reflecting the blur of the ocean merging into the horizon. “It can’t get worse—I almost die on a daily basis now, so if you really want to shake me up at this point, you’ll have to be nice to me.”

  “You’ve grown confident,” the Weaver said, his attention never wavering from the ocean. “That’s not a good thing for you.”

  “No.” I stared at his back, and then glanced to the others—to the Warmaster, regarding me between half-lowered lids; the King, frowning at a letter; the Scholar, standing by the mantle, his head cocked to the side, velvet eyes cold; and the Inquisitor, who leaned back against the door, one booted foot notched against the wood.

  “I just know the truth,” I told them, disdain dripping from my voice. “I know that I was set up. I know that the crime binding me to each of you was a crime of your design. One of you constructed the whole thing from start to finish, weighing up the possibilities of each outcome until you arrived at the perfect scenario.” I stared at the Scholar, who met my gaze without a single hint of guilt, that violent tinge to his features peeking out at me, almost in challenge. “One of you tampered with the ring and the collar,” I continued, moving on to the Inquisitor, who rubbed a scarred finger across his lip, his eyes darker than usual, frighteningly blank. “One of you called on the Dealer to be in the right place at the right time, knowing the proclivities that rested inside his heart.” The King had dropped his letter, and when our eyes locked, he had the audacity to bare his teeth, showing me something between a snarl and a smile. “Someone made sure that Calder was the first Sentinel on the scene, knowing that he would scent the power of death that still clung to me, knowing that he was powerful enough to see what had happened and stern enough to drag me straight to the Citadel, to face trail without a voice to defend myself.” The Warmaster didn’t even open his eyes all the way when I looked at him, but continued to regard me in the same sleepy way, his fingers steepled together over his stomach. “And of course,” I turned to the Weaver, “Someone had to trigger my downfall. Someone had to draw out my panic … and what better way to do that than to show me my fate, a fate you knew would be tied to death and darkness, because you’ve known who I was all along.”

  The Scholar walked toward me, clapping his hands together sardonically, his mouth twisted down, his eyes dropping over me. “Such a brave speech. So many accusations. Shall we address them individually or as a group?” He was making fun of me.

  I narrowed my eyes on him, even when his boots touched mine and I had to tip my head all the way back. His hand flashed up, and I twitched back, but it only landed softly against my collarbone, his fingers spreading up over the sides of my neck. I swallowed, and his eyes flicked down to the movement, as though he could see through the skin of my neck to the inner workings of my throat. The Scholar seemed, not for the first time, to be a little unhinged. The violet of his eyes was ringed in darkness, the permanent creases at the corners of his mouth furrowed in displeasure.

  “What would you like, Tempest? An apology?” he pressed.

  “I don’t need anything from you.” I sucked in a deep, fortifying breath. “I’m going to win that battle. I’m going to become a Legionnaire; I’m going to free myself of you all. And then…” I wrapped my hand around his wrist, drawing his fingers down, away from my neck. I had meant to shove his grip away, but he suddenly pushed forward, the heel of his palm against the frightened stutter of my heart, his arm suddenly filled with iron,
utterly immoveable.

  “And then?” he pressed further, arching an eyebrow, the side of his mouth twitching. A small, angry dimple flashed low on his right cheek.

  “And then I’ll take everything you wanted to use me for. I’ll not stop until I’m twice as powerful, and then I’ll use that power to make each of you feel as tiny as you have made me feel every day since I first laid eyes on you.”

  His expression changed, curiosity sparking to life, his grip softening and slipping up to cup the lower half of my face. His thumb brushed over my lower lip, pressing it into my teeth before releasing it again, his eyes on the soul mark.

  “I have decided I like your…” He paused, his finger tapping against my lip. “…resilience. You’ll make a good wife.”

  I tore my head out of his grip, shaking it in disbelief. “You’re insane if you still think I’m going to marry one of you after I win this battle.”

  “So you haven’t chosen yet?” the King asked, his tone bored.

  “Why does V-V-Vale not pull my choice from the water?” I stuttered back, my anger mounting at their complete lack of a response to my outburst.

  “Oh she’s using our names now,” the Inquisitor said drolly. “How adorable.”

  “Well, almost,” the Scholar replied. “It only has one V, darling.”

  “Darling?” my voice became shrill. “This is a fucking nightmare.”

  “Language,” the King warned in a bored tone. “There are children present.”

  “Where?” I demanded.

  He looked at me pointedly. The Scholar grinned, and the Inquisitor’s chuckle sounded from behind me.

  I spun around, striding for the door, wishing that Calder were there, my emotions swelling to bursting point. The Inquisitor blocked my path, so I changed direction, escaping to the balcony, where the cold whip of the sea breeze cooled my heated cheeks, quieting the drumming that had swelled into the back of my head, heating my blood.

  They were goading me, playing with me. Trying to prove that me fighting tooth and nail to stay alive every day was all just a game to them. They were trying to shake my confidence. I schooled my expression, glancing over my shoulder to the glass wall. The Weaver still stood there, but his gaze had drifted from the horizon. It was now fixed on me. I walked to the wall, standing on the other side, looking up at him.