Fools, she thought.
When she wasn’t evading capture, she spent her nights gathering what she could to eat. Hunting with a bow was easy enough, but she had no means of making or keeping a fire. So instead she foraged, gathering berries and roots and other bits the forest provided. She guiltily stole more nuts, but only from the fattest squirrels. She searched out sweet pines, suckle pines, and midnight berries. She dug for tubers with grimy, light-scarred fingers.
She folded darkness as well. She returned to Plain Dark, fortifying its weave until it was darker than it had ever been: a good starting place for Kyah and the spritelings if they needed a place to run. She journeyed deeper onto the plains to another island of trees, and formed a shelter there too, just in case.
But most of all, she worked on her bindings. Not to kill—Losna didn’t want that and neither did she—but to control. To move without conscience. To command and dominate.
For as long as she remembered, Ahraia was the strongest shade in her nit—likely in the whole darkening. She was stronger by far than her brothers, stronger even than Kren. Losna was her evidence—no one else’s shadow was half as powerful—not the imps or owls, bobcats or foxes. And no one else ran without fear, out beneath the moons and stars, as far as they wished. No one else was as adept with the forest: folding darkness with the grace and ease of a nitesse, forming springs and lifts that no one else would dare. But if she was going to get Losna back, she needed mastery of her enchantments.
Her blundering inability of late had been her ruin: the human she let slip away had cost Hayvon his life and her nit their orb, her weakness with the keress nearly ended with her trampled and Losna skewered. The alp at the Stone Tree, her father and Hayvon, Gavea . . . they had all overpowered her when it mattered most. She had let her perception of her bindings surpass the reality of her strength: sprites were stronger than her, and alps too. Her bow would help her pass her second task, but she needed to be able to save herself when an arrow wouldn’t.
And so, she formed bindings with everything she could: she bound the forest, moved by springs and shifts, faster and higher than she ever had before. Branches broke and trunks bent; she fell more times than she could fathom—and she had fallen fathoms as well—but with each night, she moved more easily. Holds came naturally, choosing branches instinctively. She bound everything: saplings for give, old trees for strength, hemlock and maple for soft landings, fir and cedar for height, long limbs for swings, short limbs for climbs, vines for hanging, trunks for casting, leaves for cover.
And she bound animals as well. She enchanted squirrels and raccoons, bullying them for their food—she considered sharing afterwards, but only if they could behave. She bound deer and otters, delighting in how she could make them prance and swim; she ensnared a pair of fiendish foxes, following them halfway down the Narrow Canyon before she sensed the Jontun that lived there and turned back. She even bound a forest bear, as large as the keress—it was lumbering and uncaring about the enchantment; she could have made it dance in a meadow around a human fire and it wouldn’t have noticed. She bound an imp, though she let it go because it was damned, through and through. She even tried to bind a mara, but instead, found only thin air and her mind filled with bitter and sour faults. She hardly slept that night, dreaming of enchantment killings and Losna dead at her feet, with her snout bloodied and a drain sticking from her neck. When Ahraia looked closer, it was her own drain. She tried to awake, sensing but unable to see the mara sitting on her chest. It took a full night and another day to shake the memory, and after that, she stuck to more corporeal bindings.
She bound wards. Warily at first, only to keep herself safe, but more daringly as the nights went on. She haunted one, walking just behind him from the North Vales all the way back to the Daemon’s Creek. She forced another to dip his veil in a stream before donning it. The icy water caused his mind to buck against her hold, but Ahraia held him until he calmed, and then forced him to wade into the middle of the creek. She let her binding go once he was waist deep, unable to contain her laughter at the wild and preposterous thoughts of the ward. He cursed in ways that made her blush, and she blundered away as carelessly as the bear, leaving the ward splashing frantically to get out.
Ahraia moved everything she could, right to the edge of night and to the precipice of her test. She was exhausted, but her mind felt pliable and strong, with bindings forming almost without thinking. She guessed she could even make a kill now, though she didn’t plan on it. The mere possibility brought a spate of imagined warnings and threats from Losna, each one more absurd than the next. Her heart ached with the thoughts.
On the eve of her test, she slipped across the plains into Plain Dark just before the lightrise. She had already carefully hidden her bow and arrows well away from the darkening, and she had left the few tokens she had taken from the humans along with them, the mirror and the comb for Losna, as well as enough of her foraged food to last the journey to Angolor.
She slept briefly but awoke around midday. Just as she hoped, birds sang beyond the underdae, filling the warm, windless air with their strange daytime songs. She listened for a time, marveling at their shrill voices. Eventually, she bound the one with the clearest voice and coaxed it into the underdae. It was a tiny thing, a sparrow, but it was boisterous and proud.
I need your help, she conveyed, letting it sense her raw emotions.
It bobbed its head, hopping closer.
I need you to pass a message for me. Can you do that?
It chirped and zipped closer, landing on her hand.
She spent the rest of the day awakening it to the most basic conveyances. It was so used to singing that conveyance wasn’t difficult, just different, like a song it hadn’t yet sung. Ahraia gave it the message piece by piece, ingraining each part deeper into the sparrow with each repetition. When she finished, the Dae-Mon was getting low in the west.
Okay. Let’s go over it one more time.
She held the sparrow on her hand.
When you see Kyah . . . Ahraia forced herself to imagine her sister’s face in every detail: from the way she let her hair fall across a small light-scar on her cheek to the way her left ear curled back slightly more than the other.
You let her hold you, like this. You let her bind you, like I am now. She let the sparrow feel itself on Kyah’s palm, seeing itself waiting calmly.
Once she binds you, you tell her that if she hears that I didn’t pass my test, she has to take the spritelings and run. This part was more difficult, as Kyah would have to draw out most of the meaning from the little bird’s limited, albeit proud, conveyance. Ahraia imagined a runner from Angolor meeting the Astra. She felt her heart beating faster, imagining Losna dead and herself walking the bridging tree across the river to the Shadow Woods. It was all too easy to imagine.
They have to leave the darkening and never return. They have to find safety far away from here. Ahraia imagined the spritelings, imagined Kyah taking them and fleeing to Plain Dark. Fleeing while being chased. If she doesn’t, the Astra will kill her and the others. Tears welled at the corner of Ahraia’s eyes as she pictured the Astra coming into the nit. She imagined Kyah’s shadow dead, then the bodies of the spritelings. A bitter, fearful part of Ahraia worried that it would come to pass no matter what. She wondered if the mara was still following her.
Night had settled about them when she finished. It was a complex bit of enchantment, full of nuanced memories and projective thoughts. It could go wrong in so many ways, but she had no other way of warning Kyah. She hoped desperately that her sister would understand.
Do you have it?
The sparrow chirped and bobbed in her hand. Ahraia nodded then tucked it carefully into her cloak and headed for the darkening, the tightness in her chest growing with every step, wondering about Losna and her second task.
When she reached Daispar, the wall seemed loath to let her in. Ahraia could feel its hesitancy. A closure did form, but it had been overlaid with thick
branches and new vines, which were slower to respond.
I’m going back in—in! Where I’m supposed to be.
Hesitantly, the closure enlarged. A few branches reached out to forcefully pull her back, as though it was their choice and not hers.
Thank you, Ahraia said in irritation. They let her go and closed tightly behind her.
She hurried towards her nit on silent feet and slipped in unnoticed. She was just heading to Kyah’s shade tree to hide the sparrow when she froze. Someone was lurking in the dark. A sprite, sitting just beyond her shade tree, toying idly with its drain. The Astra.
“What are you doing here?” Ahraia asked, startled by her ghostly presence.
The Astra stood up, her eyes gleaming malevolently as the blade disappeared into the folds of her cloak.
“Where have you been?” she asked, sweeping across the nit. “You knew you weren’t supposed to leave the darkening.”
“I wasn’t?” Ahraia said, carefully forcing silence over the sparrow. It stilled next to her heart, puffing out its chest nervously.
The Astra’s ears flickered, twitching downward with the sound of Ahraia’s voice, more in annoyance than in admonishment. But Ahraia could tell her calm was forced. Her anger lurked just beneath the untouched surface of her face like a snap perch lying in wait beneath a tranquil river pool. Ahraia’s heart was beginning to beat faster. Almost instinctively, she reached out to bind the Astra, before realizing what that would mean.
She stopped.
“You knew perfectly well you weren’t to leave,” the Astra said, seemingly unaware of the brief brush of Ahraia’s mind. “Where have you been?” she asked again.
“Roaming . . .” Were your wards looking for me? she added. A sudden absurd desire to carry through with her binding tingled across her mind, to hold the Astra, to bind her firmly in place, just to see if she could. Ahraia hardly noticed that her thoughts had tumbled out unchecked. But the Astra had. Her ears turned down in truth now.
“You forget yourself, Ahraia . . .” She bristled at Ahraia’s contempt. Her lips pursed dangerously.
Ahraia met her eye, feeling nervous but defiant, refusing to bow or apologize.
“Do I?” she said.
“Silence,” the Astra ordered, forcing Ahraia’s mouth closed with a binding. But Ahraia let the next words escape by sheer intention, undiminished by the enchantment.
“You aren’t welcome here.”
The Astra froze. Ahraia’s spine tingled, first with accomplishment—followed swiftly by fear. She knew the fear was unreasonable: what more could the Astra do? What had her hand not already taken? The darkening beyond the nit rippled.
The Astra stepped forward and grabbed Ahraia by the arm, casting a heavy-handed enchantment at the same time.
But Ahraia was ready; she had been expecting it. The filaments of the enchantment were palpable, like the faintest hanging threads of an unseen web draped across a forest path. But instead of sticking to her face, they fell over her neck, right down to her spine. The first was the bonding, the link. Next was stillness, the Astra’s intention. Beyond that there was fear, sown by the Astra’s thought.
She fought the urge to submit, stepping backward and pulling her arm free, as the Astra tried to keep her enchanted. They stood eye to eye, both surprised.
“You don’t control me. Not anymore,” she said. Ahraia had never been so bold or rebellious with anyone, not even Gavea or her father. The surge of control was intoxicating.
“I’m your Astra,” the Astra said, obviously stunned by Ahraia’s resistance, tightening her binding.
Ahraia felt her mouth forced closed by enchantment. She choked, feeling as though her tongue was being shoved back down her throat.
The Astra’s face was inches from her own, her voice tempered by forced calm. “This is my darkening. You answer to me.” She drew her drain from her cloak.
It’s your darkening. But this is my nit. Ahraia bound the nit above, the branches swinging easily to her mind. Ahraia brushed the Astra’s head with the bough, as though she had flicked her with her own fingers.
The whole darkening shuddered, threatening to rip the nit tree apart if it touched the Astra again.
“Let go of your tree,” the Astra commanded.
Ahraia managed the barest smile. “It doesn’t answer to you, does it?” She flicked the branch just behind the Astra again. The darkening creaked and shuddered.
“Don’t forget, your sisters and brother are under my watch . . .” the Astra said.
“And those seeds you want are under mine,” Ahraia answered, unflinching.
The Astra stepped back and the binding dissipated.
“If it were any sprite but me, you’d be dead.” She slipped the drain back into the folds of her dress. “The Bright Moon is waning. Your task is almost upon you.”
Ahraia remained silent, with nothing to say.
“Tomorrow night, your second task begins. Come to the central hollow for your instruction, once the Dae-Mon is down.” The Astra turned, giving her one final glance before departing the nit.
Ahraia had half a mind to smack her across the head with the nit tree, but resisted. The moment the Astra disappeared, she imagined a thousand different insults she could have said. She wished she could have let the nit tree grab the Astra and drag her unwilling into the air. Still, Ahraia reveled for a moment in the sensation of surprise that had flowed from the Astra when the branch had brushed her head.
It made her ears quiver right to the tips.
She felt a flutter at her breast but it wasn’t her heart. She heard a small chirp and remembered the sparrow.
You weren’t supposed to hear that. She took the sparrow from her cloak. It burst into flight, zipping all about her head, hopping mad and ready to fight, chirping and puffing its chest exuberantly.
“Quiet,” Ahraia urged, laughing at its diminutive courage. Eventually, she got the little bird to calm, by which time she had settled as well. She turned back to Kyah’s shade tree.
You’ll have to stay here for a couple of days, she thought to the sparrow, taking it inside the tree. She persuaded the tree to form a small nook, filling it with seeds for the sparrow. Once she finished, she left the little bird in the fold and hurried back to her own shade tree.
She looked about in search of a marker that Kyah couldn’t miss. Only one thing was unmistakably hers.
Her moon flower.
She took a deep breath and made a binding, running her thoughts from the tip of its roots to the edge of its curled petals. It had taken her a full three seasons of coaxing until it had agreed to bloom. Now, she needed to persuade it to let go of its hold. It was a testament of its trust that it slowly loosened its tendrils, letting the roots detach until she held the whole flower in her hands. Its senses were fogged and unformed; it was naked, vulnerable and frightened. She soothed it, promising good earth and fresh darkness as she carried it carefully to Kyah’s shade tree. Inside, the little sparrow watched curiously as Ahraia convinced the flower to send its roots into the earth and its stalk along the trunk until it rested just beside the sparrow’s nest. When she was finished, it looked as though it had never moved. Its petals hung like the Bright Moon, but outside, that moon wouldn’t be hanging at all, it would be turned, facing off with the Dae-Mon just as Ahraia would be facing her own daemons. She leaned back, finally ready to leave. Kyah couldn’t possibly miss the signal now.
Ahraia bound the sparrow, holding out her hand.
Now repeat it back to me, like I am Kyah.
The sparrow twittered out of its perch and landed on her hand. It wanted to sing the message, but Ahraia had stressed that there were no songbirds in the dark. She bound it and listened as it relayed the message. The intention was reasonably clear. She hoped Kyah saw it the same as she did.
“Good. Now, just remember, Kyah has a fox—don’t let him eat you.”
The sparrow zipped into its nook, peering out fiercely, with only its eyes and beak sho
wing next to the moon flower.
As the evening of her test approached, Ahraia lay half-awake and bitterly alone, waiting for the Dae-Mon to drop from the sky for the last time. The crackling air of afternoon buzzed outside, but inside, the darkness was absolute, pressing inward.
It was the first time in weeks Ahraia had sat idle, and now the absence of Losna struck like a thunderstorm from an already black sky. The weight of the second task loomed before her, unknown, unwanted.
Unwilling.
She worried over Kyah and the spritelings, and the message the sparrow bore. But more than anything, she worried for Losna. Half a turning had passed, and yet, another whole turning would come and go before she saw her again. She wondered if Losna was fed. She wondered where she slept. Was she still hurt from the keress? Was anyone looking after her? The day turned to dusk, and the light turned from gray to dim to dark. She rose from her shade tree, knowing it would be the last time she ever set foot inside.
I’ll miss you.
The tree shuddered. Its leaves hung downturned, spent. It was an empty farewell.
A closure formed without her asking. She looked about one last time, searching for any belongings she might miss. Hayvon’s light-veil was already stowed away in her pocket. The drain she had carried since the first task was at her hip. A blanket of winter-weave lay tucked in the corner, along with a few keepsakes and tokens from the woods. She took a step and stopped. Something was off.
Something was missing.
She turned about.
The blade from the Stone Tree. Ahraia frowned. The alp’s blade was gone. She had left the handle sticking from the branches, just so. The Astra had been sitting at the edge of her tree, playing with a drain. Ahraia hadn’t taken notice of the blade, but she would bet her shadow’s life it was the one.
Between the Shade and the Shadow Page 28
