“Whoo,” it called softly. Where?
Ahraia breathed a sigh of relief. She focused her mind and shared the memory of her hiding spot, the specific tree and specific nook where the bow rested. She imagined how the owl could retrieve it and carry it, careful to emphasize keeping the clutch upright. She finished and the owl blinked in understanding. It seemed to trust Ahraia even more upon seeing her choice of hiding spots.
“You have to be back here by nightfall.”
“Whoo,” it reassured her. With a blink of its great, round eyes, it leapt into flight. The branch shook, leaves all swishing once, and then heavy wings beat the air. The owl soared across the forest and then up, and out of sight.
Ahraia exhaled. The arrows were her only chance. She only hoped the owl didn’t tip them out.
She climbed the hill to Losna, fearfully aware how dim the Dae-Mon looked behind a distant wall of clouds. She hoped that she had been clear enough with the owl. It was the shortest bonding she had ever tried and her and Losna’s lives depended on it. She found Losna with her haunches sticking out of a half-dug hole.
Losna scrambled and scraped and then wiggled back out of the den. Ahraia helped her pull the loose dirt away from the area. She set about stirring the ground with a fallen branch to hide the evidence of her digging.
“Where’s the orb?” she asked, wondering where the brilliant light had gotten to.
I buried it. Losna kept digging, clawing at the ground frantically, burrowing beneath a large tree root. What are we going to do about this chain?
“I’ll have my bow any time now.”
You think you’ll be able to break it? Losna asked. She continued to dig, spinning loose dirt onto the ground, her whole body disappearing into the den.
“I think so.” They’re alpish arrows—with metal tips.
Losna dug, worrying and working. The Dae-Mon dropped lower.
Ahraia turned her eyes to the sky, growing more and more nervous with the lengthening shadows.
“It shouldn’t be taking this long,” she said finally. Too much time had already passed; the owl should have retrieved the bow and returned already. Dark thoughts began to creep back into Ahraia’s heart; the burst of hope that had blanketed her despair now drew back, poisoned with dread. What if the owl couldn’t find the bow? What if he couldn’t carry it? What if he was another spy of the Masai?
Losna peeked out, looking towards the sky. The first sliver of the Bright Moon slipped into the sky in the east, yellow like a wolf’s eye, watching as the west burned in red light. The Dark Moon followed minutes later, a smaller grey eye joining the first.
Ahraia, are you sure . . .
The owl was nowhere to be seen.
Even with your bow, can you really break this? Losna lurched her head, causing the metal links to clink together.
The Dae-Mon sank behind the mountains. Dusk had come, and the first star twinkled in the east. Red. Bloody. The Masai would be coming at any time. Losna’s digging was done.
Where is that drain? Losna thought, sniffing in the direction Ahraia had cast the blade.
Ahraia couldn’t believe the owl hadn’t returned. She had been so sure that it would work. She heard a sharp, loud rustle down the hillside, towards Angolor. The wall had opened.
The Masai was coming.
A wet nose pressed at her elbow. Losna was holding the blade in her mouth.
You have to end this. I’m not going to be skinned. You can still hide.
Ahraia refused the blade. She looked to where the moons were rising in lockstep over the silhouettes of the fir trees. Losna butted her head against her.
Please.
How long would it take the sprites to climb the hill?
Losna whined, pleading with her. Ahraia looked to the sky in desperation.
A dark shape drifted across the Bright Moon, then the Dark Moon. The breath in Ahraia’s chest caught.
Broad wings stretched wide, sailing swiftly and silently downward with something misshapen beneath it. Her bow and quiver. Ahraia’s skin was aflame with hope.
What is that? Losna thought.
“That’s our only hope. Get to the end of your chain and pull it tight—as tight as you can.”
The owl’s talons hung heavily, ladened by the quiver and bow. Inky feathers stuck from the quiver. It circled low, and dropped the clutch of arrows at Ahraia’s feet, just as the Masai’s voice rang through the woods.
“Ahraia, come forth.” The harsh command carried up the hillside like the cracking of branches under ice. The owl’s wings beat at the air, startled by the voice.
Ahraia could feel the words tugging at her, but she resisted. She picked up the bow, fitted an arrow to the string and took aim. Losna pulled the chain as tight as she could.
“Hold still,” Ahraia said.
The arrow snapped off the bowstring and skipped off the chain.
Losna pulled tighter.
Ahraia took a step closer, holding a second arrow just a foot away. She let loose and it hit the chain dead on. It ricocheted back and sliced across her hand.
“Light take me!” she cursed.
Blood streamed off her fingers and ran down the shaft of the bow. She drew another arrow. She could feel the sprites coming closer; their minds reached out like feelers from a wicker spider. The sky was growing darker. Once close enough, the wards would weave their web of enchantment around her and Losna.
We’re running out of time. I can hear them, Losna thought. I can smell them.
Ahraia let the third arrow loose.
Crack!
The arrowhead snapped. The metal tip spun away uselessly. “Dae-mon above!” Ahraia said, accidentally kicking the quiver over in her panic. The remaining arrows spilled to the ground. The human’s things tumbled out from the clutch—the mirror and the metal comb.
The comb! She lurched to the dirt, scrabbling for the fine piece. She bent a tine aside, a narrow finger of metal, almost as long as her drain but thin as a pine needle. She scrambled back to Losna, who stretched her neck skyward. Ahraia stuck the tine into the hole, quickly digging out the bark clogged the inside. She stabbed at the inside of the lock, unsure that it would work. She twisted and prodded, and suddenly—
Click.
Something had disjointed inside the lock.
“That’s it!” Ahraia pulled and the collar fell open. Losna lunged backward, letting out a yelp of mixed pain and elation as the points came out of her skin.
Ahraia thought she saw movement away through the woods.
Quick. Into the den. She hurriedly gathered her bow, the loose arrows, and the human’s things, and ran to the hole that Losna had dug. Crouching into the opening, Ahraia nearly retched. The den, steeped in the blood of a thousand shadows, reeked of death. The ground was so deeply saturated that it choked the life of the tree above it.
How did you stand it? Ahraia gasped.
Losna slipped in after her.
What choice did I have?
Ahraia swallowed down the bile in her throat and tucked her bow and the arrows underneath her. She reached out and pulled a lone broken branch over the top. Then, from within, she pushed death-riddled loose dirt towards the opening so that only a small closure remained, just enough to breathe through.
“Losna,” she whispered. “They’re going to try and enchant us—to bring us out.”
Won’t they think we’ve run?
“They’ll know we haven’t passed the wall. Whatever you hear, you can’t follow. No matter what twisted thoughts or threats are given, no matter how sweet her lies sound.” And they will sound sweet, sweet as the ever-running plains and herds of deer and rabbits as far as you can see. But no matter what they say, you must remember that you are my shadow. Ahraia held Losna by the ears, pulling her close so their foreheads touched and their noses pressed together. You are my shadow.
And you are my shade, Losna thought stoically.
Ahraia projected warding thoughts all about her, sending them out
to any spritish mind she touched. They aren’t here. There is nothing here. They’ve gone. They made for the mountains. She simultaneously readied herself to ward off the Masai’s enchantments as she peered through the branches and saw sprites coming through the woods.
“Where are they?” one of them called.
They’re gone. Ahraia projected in answer, keeping her mind and Losna’s concealed.
“They’re gone,” a dae-ward echoed. “Get the Masai.”
Broken chain . . . broken arrow. They’ve run. Ahraia continued, manipulating the clouds of thought passing over the hillside as sprites emerged on the hilltop. They’ve escaped. Probably from your side of the woods. They’re already in the forest.
The faces Ahraia could see twisted in affront. Eyes narrowed beneath veils and hoods, as wards and sprites alike thought they had been accused of failing.
“She didn’t escape our side,” voices called defensively.
She must have, Ahraia conveyed, continuing to weave distrust and hoping in the confusion she could lead them astray. She runs like a wolf. How did she escape the Shad-Mon? How did she open the collar? She must be strong—and dangerous. Losna’s chest rumbled in contentment at the seeds she was sowing.
Conveyance brimmed through the air from the wards, echoing Ahraia’s suggestions: How did she open the collar? How did she escape the Shad Mon?
No wonder the Masai wants her dead. She’s destined to be the Masai—Ahraia cast the last thought, treasonous and poisonous, like a serpent gliding openly between the wards’ minds, the mere risk of its bite enough to incite panic. Confusion spread to disbelief, and disbelief to fear. They were looking at the chain and looking at each other, wondering who would dare think such a thought, seeing the arrows, the empty patch of ground and wondering: Is she more powerful?
A silence moved up the hillside: first as stamped out voices, next as extinguished conveyance. Even the wind squeezed from the night, leaving it thin and still.
She’s going to be the next Masai, Ahraia projected, knowing it would be the last echo heard across the hilltop.
“Enough!” The Masai’s voice split the air like lightning from a clear sky. “She’ll no more be the Masai than the Dae-Mon will rise dark and shadowed.” Her words intertwined with threats: light for sprites, exile for wards, and death for any whose thoughts tarried towards treason. Images of torture, too vivid to be anything but memories, danced before Ahraia’s eyes even though her mind was closed: she saw faceless sprites writhing beneath the day in shadowless glades, without veil or hood or even cloak to guard them; she saw wards pinned with drains to the ground of the Shadow Woods, waiting for the Shad-Mon. Light, brighter than any she had seen, shimmered in her mind, searingly bright, so that her scars itched from within and she squinted her eyes that were already closed.
Ahraia lifted her head, just enough to peer through the thin gap in the earth. Through the pine bough, she could see the Masai standing over the opened collar. The ears of her terrible wolf-cloak rose above her, as though listening lifelessly for Ahraia.
The Masai picked up the abandoned chain, then the broken arrow.
“Check with the walls. See if they’ve managed to escape,” she said, her voice terrifyingly calm.
Ahraia considered inciting her further but swallowed back her thoughts at risk of exposing herself. Instead, she buried her face within Losna’s fur, grounding her thoughts in the deep, coarse coat, smothering her mind from the hilltop, from the Masai—from the fate they hadn’t yet escaped. Losna’s heart thumped against her ribs, loud enough that, without the muted earth to bind it, Ahraia was sure it would give them away.
Her shadow smelled of dust and dried blood. The Masai’s mind ferreted through the air, sniffing, feeling blindly for them. Dust and blood. Dirt and death. That is all that is here. Ahraia focused on being unidentifiable from the long-dead roots, well aware that if they were found, they would be no different.
“To the one who finds them, I’ll make you Astra or nit-ward of your own darkening,” the Masai called. The conviction of the Masai’s words spread like unfurling darkness to sprites whose minds were flooded with unbearable light. Immediately, Ahraia sensed the brush of a dozen different seekers.
Where are you? Wolf? Shade? Where are you?
Ahraia overtook Losna’s mind, making sure her shadow wasn’t seduced by any spritish trick. She made them invisible, emptying their minds of all worry or fear, making them indistinguishable from the earthen tomb around her. Hiding from enchantment was different than hiding from eyes or ears or touch. It was a matter of not being—indistinct from dirt or den. Ahraia lowered herself into a trance. Root and rock. Gray rock. Silver rock. Veins of roots. Intertwined and entangled. She thought of anything to do with earth or the tree above her, the roots around her, the muted deep of the dirt.
A voice broke through her thoughts. “The wall says the shade tried to leave, but that was near midday. A serapin was able to sting her, but she escaped back to the hillside.”
“Then she’s bound to be here, possibly laying poisoned. But her shadow must be with her. I want them found.”
Ahraia pushed a thought to a single ward. If they escaped the Shad-Mon, they might be able to escape the wall unnoticed. He opened his mouth without thinking and repeated it aloud, just as she had intended.
The Masai stepped in front of the ward, ears twitching. Ahraia didn’t see the blade, but when the Masai stepped away, the ward’s body crumpled onto the dirt.
Feeling the barest guilt, Ahraia made another conveyance. But how did she escape the daemons? She let the thought pass through another ward.
“I don’t care!” the Masai snapped, spinning to see who had conveyed the thought. Her voice was sharp and violent now. “I want them found. Search the woods. Bring every tree and creature to bear if you must. Send them crawling beneath roots and climbing amongst leaves. I want them found and I want her brought to me. Tonight!”
The last word caused Losna to flinch, a shrill bark that sent the wards scattering from the hillside. Ahraia calmed her, stilling her mind through the bond. Soon enough, the Masai stood alone, a black wolf, corrupted by a thousand kills, the worst of which she wore draped over her shoulders. She prowled off the hillside, her wards fleeing before her.
The clouds broke and moonlight filtered down on the hilltop, protecting them. Ahraia let out a relieved breath, knowing the Bright Moon alone would keep all but the dae-wards away. Now, it was just a matter of waiting for morning. Once the Dae-Mon rose, all but the dae-wards would be forced back into the deeper forest. Losna felt her thoughts and grew worried.
But the morning? Won’t it burn you?
No more than it already has. The scars on her arm ran like rivulets from a hillside, joining in a branching pattern that grew larger and larger from her wrist to her elbow, flooding together in darker and darker lines. Her neck burned all the way around her ears, and along the line of her jaw. She guessed they would be just as dark. It doesn’t kill.
Losna licked at her scars.
The night never truly settled. The sprites kept to the forest, seeking her in the safety of the deep woods. Dae-wards crossed the hilltop on occasion, but mostly to pass from one side to the other, not figuring that Ahraia would have hidden so close. Slowly, the night passed, with Ahraia and Losna never daring to sleep.
Sniffing creatures shuffled out along the roots of the deadened tree. The hilltop was drenched in the smell of shadows, and of Losna, so they never truly sensed her. A few got close, but Ahraia simply bound them and reminded them they were searching for a wolf. The threat was enough to send them scurrying for the forest, eager to forget.
Midnight came and went. Ahraia had never hoped for the morning like she did now. Soon enough, the light would purge all but the lowliest of wards to the shadows. No sprite, and certainly not the Masai, would linger into the dawn.
They lay in the quiet dark, breathing in their slow, steady pattern, while the earth pressed around them. Their ears turne
d at any noise. Their eyes came open at any call. The night moved agonizingly slowly, the stars revolving towards dawn.
It was nearing morning when Ahraia sensed most of the sprites gathering near the base of the hillside, in the direction she had tried to escape from during the day. She heard rising voices and some kind of disturbance.
Losna’s ears turned towards them. The den pointed eastward, the narrow slit showing the faintest navy above the black-tipped firs. Losna’s thoughts brought Ahraia out of her slow reverie.
What if we run now?
With all these wards about? No.
But the Makers. The wall is open . . . the closures are still formed. They’re off to the north. If we slipped away now . . .
Losna raised her muzzle, sniffing. Ahraia searched about the hilltop with her mind. She did it subtly, so that no sprite would notice if they felt her enchantments.
But they’re gone. They’re down the hillside. We could slip into the woods unnoticed . . . Losna thought.
Ahraia could sense the sprites, distantly. They were all gathered below, and the Masai with them. She could still hear their voices rising up the hillside. The blood in the dirt seemed to press inward. Ahraia wanted to be free of the den; she wanted to be running. Maybe Losna was right. Maybe if they went now, the closures would still be formed—they could slip away. They could run, beneath the moonlit woods of Angolor, out to the snow-capped mountains and their overbearing shadows, or to the plains stretching on and on, beyond forest and hill out into nothingness, where the Masai and no sprite would ever dare run. Now was their chance. The day would be burning bright. Dangerous. Too dangerous.
We can leave now, Losna thought, ready to be out of the cramp of the den. While they don’t suspect it. It’s now or never.
Ahraia nodded, slowly coming around to her shadow’s thoughts. Okay.
Come on, Losna urged. Ahraia made her decision. Her knees scraped against the dirt, and her back pressed against the top of the den as she readied herself to run.
Between the Shade and the Shadow Page 42
