Ahraia formed a spring, leaping into the air just as the fog behind her stirred by a clawed hand.
The dead tree toppled across the river, crashing down over the water half a moment before her feet landed.
Boom!
It exploded with tremendous force. Freezing water sprayed upward. The fog billowed away and the massive trunk split right in half in the middle of the river.
Ahraia’s feet were churning—she was running into the light, out from under the eaves of the forest and over the raging water. The river poured over the break in the tree. She leapt over the channel, landing on the other side just as the first half broke away and settled deeper. She ran the length of the log, pulling her hood close. She didn’t stop until she leapt onto the banks of Angolor.
The Shad-Mon roared and shook the trees. They gnashed the teeth and bellowed in anger.
Ahraia turned back to the forest nearer at hand and slipped into the merciful shade. The Dae-Mon rose so bright that she was sure it would seer her in place if it touched her. Terrible and radiant. Round as the Bright Moon, but bigger, brighter, resplendent and frightening all at once. It stung her eyes and burned her skin all over again, and yet, she was alive.
Movement through the woods caught her eyes. A hooded figure was running towards her.
A dae-ward.
Given all the racket streaming out from the Shadow Woods, she couldn’t tell if he was running towards her or away from the Shad-Mon. She didn’t wait to find out. Shouts filled the woods. Light streamed into the upper canopy. She started towards Losna’s howling.
Her feet carried her like the wind, and she didn’t know how long she ran when she finally saw the Sprite Maker’s wall ahead. The closures were still open. She ran headlong, dodging shafts of light as she went.
I’m coming, she thought.
She slipped through a closure. A rush of leaves and swishing branches filled the air. The wall snapped together, forming a tight barrier with a resounding rustle, like a trap ensnaring its prey. An owl screeched nearby and took flight, its wings beating heavily against the air. Ahraia ducked, covering her head as the great owl thundered into the canopy. She turned towards the hill, unconcerned with the wall. As fast as her legs would carry her, she clawed up the hillside, feeling a familiar tug at her mind.
The howling stopped.
Ahraia?
She sprinted through the woods, scrambling towards the dazzling morning sky. The Makers were mercifully shaded and the exposed hilltop still rested in shadow, blocked by the towering eastern firs.
Losna! She saw day-lit fur and sharp ears. Ahraia pulled her hood close and sprinted out beneath the light for the second time.
Ahraia! Losna whined and pulled at her chain, jumping, choking herself in her excitement. Ahraia crashed into her shadow, throwing her arms around Losna’s neck.
My Shadow.
31
Unbroken Bond
Losna’s coarse tongue lapped wildly across Ahraia’s face. Ahraia ignored the burning light, her arms wrapped tightly in thick fur, her hands clenched about the folds of her shadow’s neck. Her heart, weighed down by so many hopeless nights, unclasped, and tears streamed down her face.
Ahraia. My Shade! Losna thought. What are you doing here? It’s full day. She tried to cover Ahraia’s face, wrestling her to her knees.
“I’ve missed you,” Ahraia said, flooded with relief. But worry tarnished their bond; Losna was beyond nervous.
You can’t be here. It’s too light, she thought. Her tail was stiff and her ears pointed.
Ahraia held her, uncaring. Her shadow pulled away.
I’ve heard things . . . the Shad-Mon has been roaring.
“Dae-Mon and daemons,” Ahraia shuddered. “I’ve seen them both.”
You saw it? What happened! Losna pressed in closer, trying to shield Ahraia from the light that hung everywhere in the air.
“Daemons,” she said, sharing a memory of the Shad-Mon. “There are two of them.”
Losna fur bristled like it never had before. You saw them?
Ahraia wrapped Hayvon’s veil beneath her eyes and drew her hood tight as she told Losna all that had happened. Losna’s eyes glowed golden and she bared her teeth as Ahraia recounted the Astra’s words. She let out a growl when she heard what the third and final task would have been.
I knew this place was evil. It’s soaked in the blood of a thousand shadows. I can feel it beneath my paws. I can smell it with every breath. It lingers on me, even in sleep.
Ahraia could feel it too. The hilltop was a place for killing. Even the daylight couldn’t burn away the touch of it.
Our siblings are dead? Losna asked.
Ahraia nodded.
Losna butted her forehead into Ahraia’s chest. Her low whine turned to a growl. And the Astra too? Good. Her brow furrowed with grim satisfaction. Ahraia released the clump of fur she held.
“But the Masai’s still out there,” she said, leaning back, “and she wants us both dead. We need to get you loose before it gets much lighter.” Her eyes burned. Even with all that had already happened, the Dae-Mon had only just risen. Soon enough it would scorch directly down on them with its fiery eye.
She fumbled at the tight collar choking Losna’s neck. We need to get you to darkness, Losna thought.
“How does this confounded thing work?” Ahraia asked.
The outside of the collar was perfectly smooth, but sharp metal thorns ringed the inside, cutting into Losna if she tried to pull free. Ahraia grasped the chain; the metal clinked together as she tested it. It was cold as though wet, flexible, and yet, solid.
“We only have until nightfall to get away from here,” Ahraia said. If not sooner.
Losna’s gaze turned to the sky then dropped to the woods. Do you think the dae-wards will come for us? she asked, sensing Ahraia’s concern.
“I don’t know.”
Ahraia wasn’t even sure if the wards had seen her, but the wall would have alerted the Masai by now. Would she wait for nightfall? It wasn’t as though Ahraia and Losna had any means of escaping: they were trapped in the Makers, in the beating heart of the Silh, surrounded on every side by woods teeming with wards. And Losna was rooted to the very ground.
Ahraia ran her fingers over the unnatural metal, feeling the links one at a time. She tried to bond them, but they were lifeless, just like the smooth tree the chain was affixed to. She searched for springs to rip at the chain but nothing of any substance would reach Losna.
Light pervaded the hilltop. A disturbing, pale color spread across the sky. The top of the skeletal tree was glowing in the first rays of the Dae-Mon. She kept her eyes down.
“How did they fit this on you?” she asked, her hood pulled close and a sheen of sweat sticking the veil to her cheeks.
Losna watched her, worry furrowed across her brow. Ahraia, you need darkness.
“How did they even get it around your neck?” Was it all one piece? Ahraia conveyed, shaking the chain. The collar was too perfect to have been placed at once, and yet, she saw no seam or flaw in it. Sweat beaded beneath her nose. The collar was magic.
They had me enchanted, Losna thought nervously. It folded. From two pieces. The Masai somehow fixed them together once they had it on me. She slipped something beneath my chin, on my throat. I couldn’t see. It made a noise.
“A noise?”
Ahraia remembered the metal fittings of the wagon, the strange magic of the humans that had held the dead wooden piece together. She recalled them snapping shut.
“Show me,” she said.
Losna focused on the memory, and Ahraia formed a deeper binding. She closed her eyes, drifting into the thoughts of her shadow. She heard the wind growing and felt starlight on her skin.
When she opened her eyes, it was night. A sliver of Blood Moon hung above her, silhouetting a sprite. The Masai.
Losna lay pinned to the ground, immobilized by a dozen enchantments. Only her eyes could move. Fetid, blood-soaked ground lay bene
ath her, stinging her nostrils, reeking of rot and decay and odious betrayal. The Masai craned over her, a smile spreading across her face. The cloak. It smelled even fouler than the ground.
Something metallic rattled nearby. She heard a voice—it was the Masai’s voice.
“Bring the chain.”
The clinking came closer. Something heavy draped across her back, but she couldn’t even lift her head to see it. The Masai stooped, her hand resting in Losna’s fur. When she spoke, her voice was soft and calm.
“The beauty of a lock is it is not a spritish thing. It is a type of human devilry. Incorruptible, to its very core.”
Losna felt the heavy thing draped over her back.
“It cannot be bent, or bound, or broken, though your shade—should she ever show up—will undoubtedly try. It’s the nature of shades to try. For a lock, you must have a key. Of which, there is only one.”
A cold something slid around Losna’s neck. She whined as barbs dug into her skin.
“Tighter . . .” the Masai said. “Until she bleeds.”
Losna yelped. Stabbing pain bit into her from every angle. She yelped louder as the sprite cinched it down, knives piercing through her fur.
Slowly, the stars came into focus and the pain receded to a sharp ache.
The Masai grabbed her firmly by the muzzle. “You see, the lock is dead,” she said calmly, as though they were strolling through the woods at midnight. “Should it be of wood or living thing, then your shade’s mind could bond it or bind it to trick or coerce it. But this is a lifeless thing. Which is fitting, considering where you lie.”
Losna lay in a daze. The Masai fidgeted with something at her throat. She heard a small click beneath her chin.
Tick.
And somehow, she knew it wouldn’t move again. The Masai let her head fall just as she slid something into her cloak. Then she used Losna to push herself up, sinking long claw-like fingers into her ribs.
With the sharp pain, Ahraia withdrew from the memory and the night faded.
She blinked, squinting her eyes against the stark brightness of the day.
“What in the name of light is a lock?” Ahraia said, rubbing her sides where the Masai’s fingers hadn’t truly been. The fur of Losna’s neck was matted with blood. Ahraia followed the stains to where the Masai had meddled with the collar. A narrow opening formed in the metal, a fissure that she hadn’t seen before. Her shadow held perfectly still while she examined the small hole.
It was precisely shaped, too small for even a finger. A hole for a key. Ahraia had never heard the word “key” before, but the Masai had inflected enough meaning that she could guess what it was. Taking her drain, she aligned the tip against the opening. The blade was too wide and butted uselessly to a stop. Ahraia didn’t dare press harder—not with Losna’s throat beneath.
The thick chain looked even tougher than the collar.
I’ve already broken two teeth on it, Losna said, sensing Ahraia’s thoughts. Nonetheless, Ahraia slunk across the hilltop in search of a large stone. Finding one, she hurried back, raised it high above her head and slammed it down.
It clattered away uselessly.
She hefted the stone again and again, each time the chain wriggled and jerked, unaffected. She bloodied her hands in the process, flinging the stone aside in frustration. The Dae-Mon’s rays were halfway down the skeletal trunk.
Next, she went to the forest, dragging back a large branch, almost so big she couldn’t carry it. She dropped it on the chain. It bounced harmlessly. The Dae-Mon crept higher in the sky, almost clearing the eastern trees.
Losna huffed in frustration and dismay. Ahraia was sweating worse. Her knuckles were scraped raw from pulling and twisting at the metal but it hadn’t even been marked.
You’ve got to find shelter, Losna thought.
Ahraia examined the connection where the chain met the collar. That joint was thinner, but still far too strong to break. Maybe with an arrow, she thought, wishing she had her bow. Even if she did, it would be a risky shot so close to Losna’s neck.
Do all sprites really kill their shadows? Losna wondered. Did Kren?
Ahraia knelt, her options exhausted. She nodded. Light-scars etched across her fingers and hands in gray permanence. She squinted and pressed her palms to her eyelids. Her eyes stung in the morning light. Losna’s yellow eyes flared, bursting with gold and wreathed in white. Ahraia had never seen her like this. Full day had come.
That’s what this place is, Losna thought. A place to kill shadows. She held Ahraia with a penetrating stare. You’re going to have to leave me.
“I’m not going to leave you,” Ahraia said firmly. “We’ve just got to find a way to break the chain. I need something stronger. I need my bow.”
She startled as the air snapped with a raven’s call.
Caw!
Losna flinched, then turned her gaze skyward. A moon raven, whiter than the brightest snow, circled. It landed, its red, beady eyes staring at the pair of them. It hopped closer, cawing again at Ahraia.
That’s a spy of the Masai . . . I’ve seen it before. Losna poised herself to leap.
The raven stayed beyond the reach of the chain. It hopped closer to Ahraia.
“A messenger.”
I’ll give it a message. Losna pulled right to the end of the chain. The raven cawed mockingly.
Ahraia walked towards the bird, eyeing it before she bound it. The message lay at the tip of its thoughts.
Ahraia closed her eyes. As soon as she had, murky dark surrounded her, and she was in the deep of the forest. The Masai’s black cloak glared at her. Ahraia tried to reach for her drain, before she remembered herself, though her heart beat hard against her chest. The Masai was surrounded by a host of wards, both day and night. She spoke directly to the raven, but her words were made for Ahraia.
“My wards tell me you are alive. How? I cannot fathom. I would call them liars, but I’ve heard the Shad-Mon roaring and my walls tell me they’ve been breached.” A twisted sneer spread across the Masai’s face, beneath the black maw of the wolf’s mouth. “And to think, you could have run.” She shook her head, and then went on.
“Once night falls, I’m coming for you, Ahraia. And when I bind you, I won’t put you back in the Shadow Woods. I’ll make you suffer as you never thought possible. You were a threat to me. But now you’re going to be an example.”
Visions began to flow through Ahraia’s mind; threats from the Masai. Ahraia saw Losna laying in total darkness, whimpering in pain. Her eyes were glazed, but she was alive. The Masai stood before her with a knife, and a cloak: it was gray and silver, dripping in blood. It was Losna’s fur.
“You’ll watch as I skin your shadow alive,” the Masai said.
Ahraia broke the bond, unable to suffer the sight or sound. The raven hopped closer, the message unfinished.
“Get away from me!” Ahraia said. She scampered towards the bird, hands raised. It took flight, squawking and cawing at her.
What did it say? Losna thought.
Tears of rage stung at Ahraia’s eyes. Losna leaned in closer, pressing her to answer, but she couldn’t.
“It said we need to break that chain before nightfall.” Ahraia set her jaw. She glared after the raven, who took a perch in the highest fir.
Ahraia looked to the dead tree, its weather-smoothed roots snaking over rock and barren dirt, making small shadows. The Dae-Mon’s light was moving across the ground. It was only feet away from where she stood.
“Can you make me darkness?” she asked. “Can you dig me a den? Somewhere to hide from the light?”
To what end?
“I’m going to get my bow. We need something stronger to break the chain, and I don’t know how much more light I can suffer.”
Losna’s fur was brilliant in the morning light. Her tail hung between her legs.
Where is your bow?
“Outside.”
Losna didn’t move.
Ahraia reassured her t
hrough the bond. “I’ll be back. Just make sure I have somewhere dark to hide.” She ruffled her shadow’s ears and headed for the woods.
Losna growled but turned and began to claw beneath the deadened roots of the withered tree.
Ahraia retreated from the hilltop, stumbling into blissfully dark shade. Her feet crunched over fallen charberries, her eyes feeling a stinging relief while her bond with Losna faded with every step.
The alp’s arrows were metal tipped, and if she was going to have any hope of breaking the chain, it came from that. Her hiding spot wasn’t far from the Makers—she could move through the canopy, recover her things, and slip back to the hill before the Masai could even cross the central hollow. Losna’s thoughts carried down through the woods before her mind became too distant.
Be careful . . .
The link faded to a thin connection, buzzing from both ends with anxiety. The dark became truer with every step—a murky sort of daytime dark. She heard an owl call loudly, the same one she had startled before.
A solid wall of leaves waited for her at the base of the hillside. Branches, tied together by centuries of enchantment, frowned down at her menacingly. Ahraia let out a slow sigh. She pulled the veil down to her chin. The scars felt crisp and hot, and the skin at her wrists was charred gray. She wished for a cool pond. That and a key . . . or at least a way through this fiendish wall.
All hope of breaking the chain lay outside, and the Masai’s enchantment lay before her. But foldings were her province.
She sat down, arranging herself carefully—close, but not too close—before closing her eyes. The binding came naturally, though with resistance, of course. She hesitated a moment, choosing her tack. Honesty, she decided. Trees were proud things, and anything else would end up getting her thumped again.
I’m not going to coerce you . . . I need you to listen to me. I am a daughter of the forest. And I come to you in need.
The enchantment sang with her soul. Branch by branch, tree by tree she bent them to her will. One by one, they relented, surrendering to her pleas, spreading her desire to those about them. The Dae-Mon, hidden by the canopy, crept skyward and still she worked. The morning stretched on. Birds sang with her, their calls forming a harmony with her enchantments. The wind settled to listen. The whole wood turned inward on itself.
Between the Shade and the Shadow Page 40
