Be still.
Golan went rigid. He struggled and she tightened the binding.
Her hold was absolute. Suddenly in control, she spun him onto his back. In an instant, she was on top of him, pressing her elbow to his neck, drawing the bone drain from her cloak.
His body went slack, yielding. He dropped his drain. His veil was pushed back, the scars on his neck running red to his chin.
He grinned manically.
Ahraia tasted blood in her mouth. Her lip was throbbing. She glanced in the direction of the alp and saw he was with the second figure, with his sword drawn. But it didn’t appear they had heard the scuffle, and it appeared the alp hadn’t seen her as he scrambled away. She and Golan had come to rest almost out of sight, hidden by the remnants of a fallen nit tree, but she could hear voices. She looked back to Golan.
“What in day’s light are you doing? Why did you do this?” she hissed, too flustered for conveyance.
Golan laughed. It was a gurgled laugh cut short by the press of her wrist on his throat.
“I came to finish what she started. But it doesn’t matter, she’ll finish you in the end.”
“All this for darkness?”
He struggled against the binding.
“Darkness? She doesn’t care about darkness. She just wants you dead. To think you worry her . . .”
Ahraia pressed the knife down. “What good am I dead?”
He laughed again, maddened. The link flooded with writhing disbelief. “What good are you alive?”
“Then why not do it herself . . .”
“Killing a wolf-binder . . . it would be enough to start a war.”
Ahraia let the pressure up slightly, her mind roiling like a raging river. If the Astra wanted her dead, maybe it made sense, to force her into her shadow test before she was ready. Yet, it seemed a stretch . . .
As she was thinking, a sudden urge rose in the ward to alert the lightwalkers, to ruin her test at the least. His mouth opened, a scream poised on his tongue.
Without thinking, Ahraia slashed the drain across his throat, silencing him instantly. His eyes widened. The linked surged with disbelief. He gasped, gargling on his own blood, but she grabbed his jaw, pressing it closed and keeping him silent. The vile mess streamed through her fingers, and then the binding severed.
Golan was still. And he was silent.
Ahraia looked towards the lightwalkers, but they remained where they were, not having noticed anything.
She looked down at the blood on her hands, waiting for the pain to crash over her.
Her heart pounded violently. Her hands dripped with blood. Any moment now, the breath would be squeezed from her; the void within would be ripped open. She would crumple into a ball and lay upon the forest floor until the light forced her to move.
Ahraia exhaled.
Nothing happened.
Golan’s jaw was still in her hands, and the only pain she felt was where his elbow had slammed into her face. But she was livid. She had half a mind to cut his head off and drag it to the Astra, to show her what became of treachery.
She stood up, looking back to where the alp and the second figure were. They were still talking quietly, unaware of the fight that had just taken place. Ahraia stepped over the dae ward’s body. She had a task to finish. She turned her attention to the lightwalkers with blood still dripping from her drain.
It’s time I get my shadow back.
24
Wraith
Ahraia crept towards the lightwalkers, her heart still hammering in her chest. Her thoughts were sharp, yet strangely detached. The kill felt surreal—unwanted—but not debilitating. It had been far more physical than visceral, but a cloud of awareness descended about her, as though she watched herself from afar. The sounds of the forest seemed muted, her feet numb and slow. Her cheeks burned with tingling blood.
I just killed a dae-ward, she thought, wondering why it wasn’t affecting her worse. I killed a sprite. The hot coating of his blood covered her fingers, the stench hanging right beneath her nose.
She paused, her thoughts cut off as the lightwalkers moved towards her. The alp’s ears turned left and right, scanning the woods almost like a sprite’s would. His sword glimmered in the last vestiges of day.
She was surprised to see the second figure was a human, a girl, who moved unafraid at the alp’s side.
“Come on, Den,” she said. “You’ve been waiting all summer for this. Don’t you want to explore, at least?” Her gaze traveled over the nits and shade trees as though she too knew what they were.
The alp hesitated to follow.
“Something is out here,” he said in the common tongue, not bothering to mirror his own language.
Ahraia’s mind felt blurred after the jarring fight with Golan. Her lip felt fat and blood congealed between her teeth.
A human and an alp. Lightwalkers roaming alone in the woods, as night fell. They made an odd pair. But she had her choice of marks, and that protective part of her, the part who echoed Losna’s worries, lay in a pool of still-hot blood beneath the fallen ward.
The human stepped past the wall, peering through the darkening. The alp followed, his eye’s lingered when they passed Ahraia. She didn’t have to bind him to know his initial eagerness was spent; he was wary, doubly so with how close she had come to the kill.
Wariness won’t protect you from me, she thought.
The alp’s ears twitched. He grabbed the human, pulling her back.
“It’s getting dark, Merra. And we still need to make camp. Come on.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure gone? There’s nothing out here,” the girl said, a hint of play twining with her words. But she let herself be pulled away, taking one last glance of the central hollow.
Ahraia moved stealthily after them. She wondered if she should act before they conjured up angry light from nothing. She hesitated, wanting the full cloak of night.
If I’m going to make a kill, I should at least act like a sprite.
The deep part of her growled, but she ignored it, setting off after the lightwalkers, her plans well ahead of her feet. Camp sounded vaguely similar to an underdae, but to keep the night at bay instead of the light. Whatever it was, they would undoubtedly settle in for the night, absurd as that seemed and once asleep, Ahraia could finish what she started. A slight chill ran through her. Her thoughts felt clearer.
It won’t hurt me, not with what I’ve just done, she thought, her nerves still alight from the tussle with Golan.
Except he deserved it, the deep part of her reasoned, just like Gavea did.
Ahraia pushed down the thoughts. She had already made a kill. This wouldn’t be any different. And she had been so close to finishing the task already. She could still feel the bond: the way the alp had stood perfectly still in her mind, enraptured by her spell. In a way, it was intoxicating. A part of her wanted to bind him again.
With a final glance about the woods, the alp and the human turned away from the darkening. Ahraia followed them at a distance, stalking after them, her intentions solidifying with every step. She had to make a kill.
When the humans settled, Ahraia tucked herself nearby, hiding in the darkest corners of the forest, forced to wait while she planned her journey to Angolor. If she was quick enough with the task, she could set out tonight. The thought burned like a fire in her chest, blazing bright and hot. She settled back, watching. Waiting.
Willing now, she thought.
She could still hear the soft murmur of the lightwalkers’ voices. Her initial shock of discovering the alp had been forgotten with Golan’s ambush, but it was returning now. The more she watched him, the stranger he seemed, though not in a frightening way. He moved and talked like a human, and though his words were muffled, she could hear the human tongue in the rough intonations of his voice. His ears turned at all the small noises of the forest. But they also turned towards the human when she wasn’t looking. Ahraia had the sense that he was trying to impress
the girl, like a ward trying to impress a newly made sprite. He carefully placed his cloak around the girl and she drew it close against the cold.
He doesn’t seem a wraith, Ahraia thought, surprised how different he seemed from the alp in the Stone Tree. The deep part of her rumbled.
She watched nervously as he went about gathering dry wood into a neat pile. Perplexingly, he carefully took the string from his bow and replaced it with a second string, looking too long and too loose to be of any use. Curiosity getting the best of her, Ahraia crept forward to a better vantage, encouraged by the settling dark. She formed a light binding, trying to gain a sense of what he was doing.
Fire, his thoughts said. The flame in his mind made Ahraia’s hair stand on end, but she watched, unable to take her eyes away and wondering how he could make fire and light from sticks.
The alp started with a straight stick, sharpening it to a blunt point. Once he finished, he took the loosely strung bow and twisted it about the stick, so that the string wrapped tightly about the middle. He carefully arranged a bit of dry moss on the ground, then placed the stick on a small, flat plank which he had carefully removed from his quiver. He sawed the bow back and forth, the bowstring turning the stick, the point whittling against the board. Wood grated against wood. The soft noise sawed out in a steady rhythm, running against the erratic sounds of the forest awakening for the night.
The girl watched too now, and Ahraia sensed contentment in the alp’s emotions. She wondered if making fire was some strange ritual for lightwalkers, like when wards sometimes tried folding darkness for sprites. The alp pushed the bow backward and forward, backward and forward.
Nothing happened.
Ahraia shifted, wondering if she wasted a binding in vain, when suddenly smoke began to curl upward. She froze.
The alp kept working, his concentration wrinkled across his brow. Smoke rose more quickly. He stopped, stooped and then somehow breathed flame into the moss. If Ahraia hadn’t been bound to him, she would have been sure it was some alpish magic, but all he had done was breathe. And suddenly the small bit of the moss ignited, a miniature flame flickering to life. The alp carefully added more moss, and then the fire formed in earnest, burning outwards. The light touched Ahraia’s skin, but she didn’t flinch.
Instead, she settled in and waited. Waited for the cover of true dark. Waited for the lightwalkers to grow complacent. Waited for the moment to coax one away and finish her task.
Above, the clouds were breaking and a few stars were beginning to emerge. Her anticipation grew, watching the flame fighting feebly to keep the dark at bay. It wouldn’t last forever. She sat, trying to decide which one she would kill.
The alp was undoubtedly the more dangerous of the pair—with a sword and bow and a searching mind. The girl was just a pixie of a thing, nearly as small as she was. It seemed almost unfair to kill her, without any virtue in the least. The growl inside her was quieter than before. At this point, Ahraia just needed the kill. The alps ears twitched at the call of an owl through the woods. His wariness fortified her decision. Ahraia buried her guilt.
The human it is, she thought.
Midnight came and went and still the lightwalkers hadn’t slept. If they didn’t soon, they were both dead. Ahraia wouldn’t have a choice.
The flame of the fire—once wicked and gleaming—waned, hardly more than a flicker. And while the fire waned, the Dark and Bright moons waxed; both coming towards full though the Dark Moon would be far slower than her sister. The journey to Angolor would be long and perilous. Ahraia needed to be on the move, back to her shadow.
The barest cold brushed against her nerves. Autumn’s first chill, she thought, missing the warm comfort of Losna. Deep down, she knew it was more than the cold that chilled her. It was the coming kill.
The stars turned about the world. The Dark Moon slipped downward in the west. Soon enough, the Bright Moon would follow, leaving only the Blood Moon. Fitting, Ahraia thought. The fire settled and the forest grew darker. A few stray leaves drifted down amongst the underbrush. Eventually, the girl lay down and slept. The alp stayed up, sitting late into the night, watching. He stoked the fire again and his sword glimmered in the new flames, but it was just a flicker in a world full of night. Eventually, he too lay down to sleep.
Ahraia’s gaze settled on the girl. She lay next to the alp, sleeping with her arm stretched above her head, towards his, but never touching.
Such a simple mistake.
Ahraia knew to keep Losna within touch. If one were roused, the other would be too. The Bright Moon dropped beyond the trees in the west.
Good. Ahraia didn’t want the great hunter to know what she was about to do. Even as it did, the Blood Moon seemed to brighten, watching her like a single, red eye. The alp was deep in sleep, his chest hardly rising.
Time for this to be over. She was ready.
The link formed easily as she cast out her enchantment. The girl’s mind was filled with simple dreams, unfettered by worry, and without any resistance to Ahraia’s touch.
The girl had seemed curious about the darkening, so instead of rousing her outright, Ahraia made thoughts of Daispar drift across her mind, like the lazy clouds in the sky above. She closed her eyes, imagining rain streaming through the darkening’s sieves and pools, the patter of water and incessant dripping that sang both night and day during a storm. She envisioned autumn leaves snagging on the wall. She could smell eaves-web being grown for cloaks and summer blankets, and hazelnuts being roasted in the hidden cook fires.
Wake up.
The girl stirred, her eyes coming open and her head rising off the ground.
Quiet, Ahraia insisted, brushing the girl’s thoughts, careful not to arouse suspicion. Aren’t you curious about what’s in there? Wake up.
Ahraia formed a hazy image of the darkening wall, imagining a closure forming invitingly. Trying to make it more appealing to a lightwalker, she placed a tiny Dae-Mon sitting within, casting light all about the central hollow. It took all her cunning not to recoil from the vision.
Come here, Ahraia coaxed.
The girl rose to a knee. She stood and eagerly peered over the alp. Before Ahraia could stop her, she opened her mouth to speak.
“Denali—”
Shhh. Ahraia jumped as her voice leapt into the night like a lightning bolt. Shhh, she urged in panic. Quiet. Don’t wake him!
The alp stirred slightly, but he slept on.
Ahraia let out a silent sigh. Just you. He won’t come, not tonight, she thought, regaining her composure. Come. Come, see what I have to show you. She purveyed another thought of the darkening, this time at twilight, even more alluring.
The girl rose, wrapping her cloak tightly about herself. She stood a moment longer, looking towards the woods. Ahraia saw the alp’s arrows lying close to him and hope stirred in her chest.
Bring his quiver. Carefully.
The girl leaned down and grabbed the clutch of arrows.
Good. Bring them with you, Ahraia conveyed, excited by the prospect of having arrows to do the task rather than her drain. The arrows were thick and straight, with silky-black feather fletchings.
The girl started towards the darkening, choosing each footstep on her way out of the firelight. The barest sense of fear crept into her thoughts.
It’s okay. You’re safe, Ahraia soothed. The keress had been hesitant to follow her, and every stag or rabbit she had bound was wary through and through. But the girl’s fears seemed eager to fall to the point of absurdity. She followed Ahraia away from the firelight towards the darkening with the naivety of a spriteling.
Willing as she was, she stumbled as though she were blind. She stepped on branches and ran into tree limbs, moving so loudly that Ahraia was sure the alp would awake.
Quiet, Ahraia hissed, forcing the human to stop after her feet snagged an enormous fallen limb and dragged it across a bed of ferns. That’s too loud, even for a bear, she chastised, And you’re not a bear, are you?
&nb
sp; Dim shame flowed off of the girl’s mind. “I’m not a bear,” she answered in a whisper. “There aren’t bears out here, are there?”
No. Ahraia thought firmly, not about to let unnecessary fears creep into the girl’s mind. Staying hidden, she folded back a branch for the girl.
Move slowly. Put your foot forward, keep it low so it doesn’t catch, seeing as you’re blind as a sheller pike.
“I’m not blind.”
Yes, you are. Now slowly. Ahraia bent back ferns and limbs, pointing out roots and brambles, trying to clear a path for the girl to stumble forward by. Ahraia darted from one tree to the next, never allowing herself to be seen.
Finally, and with great difficulty, they reached the darkening. She guided the girl to the middle of what had been the central hollow. She lingered, half-hidden behind an old nit tree as she gathered her courage for the task.
The old shell trees were frayed and tattered, no more complete than a thick but unsewn forest. A hole was torn from the central hollow, and the human stood bathed in untarnished starlight, casting about with dim eyes.
She looked as innocent as a fawn.
Sacrifice an enemy? Ahraia tried to suppress the rising guilt in her stomach. This girl was no enemy. If anything, she was more innocent than the keress, and the keress at least had an instinct to defend itself. This girl was simply uninhibited. Curious.
The girl stirred. She looked up, her gleamless eyes turning straight towards Ahraia. A shiver of awareness travelled through the bond. Ahraia held perfectly still. But the human’s voice broke the night with the soft suddenness of the autumn wind.
“What are you?” she asked. “Are you a faerie?”
Ahraia ducked further behind the nit tree, heart hammering. The girl knew she was there.
“Don’t be scared,” the girl called.
No, no, no, Ahraia thought, trying to separate her worries from the binding. What was she supposed to do now? She had intended taking the arrows and then letting the girl loose. Would the girl call the alp? Could she make light like the other human had?
Between the Shade and the Shadow Page 32
