12
The building was massive. Carth didn’t find him in the hall outside the room where she’d been held, a room that turned out to be much larger than she would have expected. Only part of the room had been used as her cell, and had she escaped, there appeared to be other ways to hold her. She smiled when she realized the lengths he’d gone to hold her in place, and the fact that she still hadn’t managed to escape.
A door from the room led into a hall. Carth took the hallway, holding on to a hint of the shadows so she could find her way more easily. Using the shadows somehow made it easier for her to see, something she still didn’t fully understand.
The hallway widened as she followed it. Carth had a sense of other rooms off of it, but between the shadows and something Ras had likely done, she couldn’t see anything with certainty.
Were there others like her? Had Ras collected others with similar power?
She considered searching for the doors, but that would only delay her, and right now she wanted to know what Ras had in mind for her, and why he’d freed her now.
The hall ended, and she had to choose to go either right or left. Carth debated which direction to take, not able to tell where Ras had gone. Using the shadows, she stretched along the left hallway. She suspected that if she reached the end of the hall and there was some sort of barrier to her shadows, that would be where she’d find Ras. There was nothing. As far as she could tell, the shadows continued to stretch, leading away from her before they gradually faded into nothing, a place beyond her reach.
She tried the right and pressed the shadows with more strength in that direction. Doing so gave her a sense of the contours of the hall. There were others there, but they were hidden behind other doors, places she couldn’t quite make out. She continued searching for Ras and finally found the resistance she expected.
Carth hurried down the hall. As she went, the connection to the shadows began to fade once more. It didn’t disappear completely, but it began to weaken, pressing against something, though she wasn’t quite certain what it was.
She reached a simple door made of unadorned wood with a silver handle.
Carth took the handle and twisted.
The door opened into a wood-paneled room. Two long padded benches faced each other with an ornate Tsatsun board in the middle. The pieces of the board were intricately carved, and appeared to be made of ivory and a dark metal, polished so that they gleamed.
Books lined shelves, and Carth scanned them; she wasn’t surprised to see how many detailed strategies for playing Tsatsun, but she was surprised how many had information about battle tactics and warfare.
What kind of man was Ras?
Carth knew so little about him. What she did know came from playing Tsatsun with him. She knew that he was adaptable, and that he was more skilled a player than she was, but other than that, she didn’t know nearly as much as she should.
A door on the other side of the room opened, and Ras entered, carrying a tray with a steaming pot and two mugs. He set it on a small table near the Tsatsun board and poured a heady mixture into it.
“Sit,” he said, motioning her to the bench.
Carth considered objecting but decided to take a seat. Was this some new tactic of his, or had something between them changed?
“What is this place?” she asked.
Taking a seat opposite her, Ras lifted the cup between his hands and inhaled deeply. There was something about the way he drank from the cup that reminded her of Jhon and how he had drunk the tea while sharing the room with her on the ship.
“I suppose you would call this a game room,” he answered.
“Who do you play here?”
Ras flicked his gaze to the pieces. “Myself, mostly.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I think we have gone over that more than once, have we not, shadow born?”
“Not to your”—she didn’t know what to call it; was it a prison, or some sort of bunker?—“place, but to this room. Why have you released me from my cell?”
Ras blinked. “Whoever said that you were released?”
“I—”
“And whoever said that you were imprisoned?” he went on, as if not expecting an answer to the first question. If he had expected an answer, he didn’t seem to care that she hadn’t offered one.
“What else would you call it, if not a prison?” she asked.
“There are many things I could call it. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that you needed to find another way to focus.”
“I think my focus was fine.”
“Was it? You were able to be defeated by a single man, even as you manipulated your powers as well as you did. Do you think that shows focus?” He took another drink from his cup and then set it down. “Now you’ve shown you can think, and that you can plan. I should like to see how far that takes you.”
“You said you would kill me.”
Ras nodded. “And I still might.”
“Why?”
“The same reason you thought to destroy the Hjan you encountered. You’re a threat, shadow born. One I can counter, but not all are as capable. I have not decided whether you should remain in the world.”
The simple way he stated it sent a chill down her back. “But you know how I feel about the Hjan! You know that I oppose them.”
“There are many who oppose the Hjan, shadow born. That doesn’t make your reasoning any more sound.”
“What do you want from me?”
He shook his head and set the cup down on the table next to the game board. “We have answered that as well. I think that we will play a game now.”
“No.”
“No?”
Carth checked to see that she could reach the shadows. She could, and there didn’t seem to be anything that would prevent her from reaching the A’ras magic either. Whatever barrier he had used in the cell didn’t appear to be in place now. That didn’t mean that Ras was incapable of putting it back into place, though. Carth suspected that he could do that quite easily.
“Either you kill me or you release me.”
“Those are the only two options that you would consider?” Ras asked, disappointment plain in his voice.
“You could always help me,” she said, though she didn’t expect him to offer.
“Have I not helped?”
“You think what you’ve done has helped?” she asked.
“Tell me, shadow born, what you would see done differently?”
Carth stared at the board, considering doing something foolish again. Did Ras really believe that he had helped her?
If he did, was that why he treated her as he did? Did he help by holding her captive? He forced her to play games… but hadn’t that game given her a different perspective? She began to see the world differently, thinking through the different options, and the possibilities, in ways that she hadn’t before.
In that way, Jhon had been right. She had taken to attacking first, and thinking to question only later. She had come to rely on her abilities, not only because she was strong with them, but because once she’d learned of them, she hadn’t had to go without them. The only time she’d been forced to attempt something similar was when she’d worked with the A’ras, and even there she wasn’t without power—she still had her ability to use the A’ras magic, even if she struggled to reach it consistently.
Even when she’d lived with Vera and Hal she had used her powers at the time—the tricks that her father had taught her—to help her collect scraps. Carth had never had to do anything other than use her abilities.
The first time she’d been forced to do more than rely on skills she had that others didn’t, she had failed. Ras had captured her. And now he had given her a different way to search for success, if only she managed to outthink her opponents.
His question remained: What would she have done differently?
“Did they ask you to do this to me?”
“Did who?”
&nbs
p; She couldn’t tell if he really didn’t know, or if he played some game with her. It was possible that Ras concealed his true agenda—that was a strategy he would employ while playing Tsatsun.
To understand more, she had to shift her play, just as she would have to shift it while playing Tsatsun. Isn’t that what he had taught her?
“Why were you there that night? It wasn’t for me, unless you detected my presence and came that quickly.” She didn’t think he could flicker—travel—the same way that the Hjan could, but she still wasn’t certain. “Were you there for the girl?”
“That girl should not have been there.”
That girl, not the girl.
“You knew her.”
Ras blinked. “I know many people, shadow born. It should not surprise you I knew this girl as well.”
“You weren’t there to harm her at all. You went to help her.”
“Have we not had this discussion once before? Must you make the same move over again?”
“If you weren’t there for me, and you knew the girl, you weren’t expecting me. Then why hold me?” She still didn’t have the answer to that question and thought it was important to understand the reason.
Ras didn’t answer, instead choosing to make the first move on the Tsatsun board.
“Did someone send you after me?” Carth thought about statements Jhon had made about her use of her abilities. Had he set up her abduction so that she would learn to use other abilities? After what she’d gone through—and what he knew she had gone through—she wouldn’t think he would do that to her, but what if he had?
Ras flicked his gaze up and met her eyes. “I came across you by chance, shadow born. You were where you should not have been.”
She didn’t know whether to believe him. “What now?”
“Now you will play a game of Tsatsun.” He waited for her to sit. She ignored the tea set in front of her, wanting nothing to do with it. “When you win, you may leave.”
13
Carth stared at the game board, still unable to believe that she had won. She’d maneuvered the Stone to the other side of the board, and Ras had no other moves that would let him win. He stared at the board, not moving or blinking, for long minutes.
The game had gone like the last one, though this time, Carth had countered using every person she could place herself within, trying to pretend that she was Ras, Invar, her father, or countless others, before finally playing as all of them. Doing so allowed her to see the board in a different way, one that opened up before her, creating possibilities. With each possibility, she knew how Ras might move, and knew how to counter him as well.
Ras took a deep breath and looked up from the board. A part of Carth worried he wouldn’t do as he’d promised, that he would trap her once more. Hadn’t he said he had no one to play with other than himself? She imagined him using that as an excuse to hold her, forcing her to continue to play him until he beat her again. That had been the risk she’d accepted when she’d agreed to make another move.
Without speaking, he stood, lifted the pot of tea and his cup, and left the room.
Carth stared after him. Was she to follow?
She glanced once more at the board. Something about it troubled her, though she couldn’t quite place her finger on what it was. Maybe it was the fact that she had won. Playing Ras had never been easy, and he had always managed to counter everything she intended before, but this time, she had somehow been able to anticipate where he would move and use that to avoid the traps he had attempted to set.
As she stood, she considered taking the board and the pieces with her, but this was Ras’s board; she would not take it from him and give him another reason to hold her. If she really did get to leave, she would miss playing. She couldn’t deny she had come to enjoy the challenge. There was much about the strategy she enjoyed, and she had discovered she actually liked trying to place herself into a different perspective. It helped her understand others better than she ever had before, though whether that was something real or not, she didn’t know.
Pausing at the door leading from the room, she glanced back. The hall behind her, the one that led away from her cell, now glowed with a soft white light again. Pulling on the shadows of this room, she pushed against the hallway, and against the light, and found resistance there.
What of the others she thought she’d detected along that hall? Should she attempt to find out more about them, or should she follow Ras?
Escape. That had to be her focus now. If she really was freed, then she could decide later whether she would return.
Carth made her way through the halls and found Ras standing at a simple doorway. Another hearth, this one cold and unlit, faced the doorway. A plate of uneaten food rested on a table next to the hearth. The flooring had a layer of dust, and she noted that Ras somehow managed to avoid leaving footprints. Her knives rested on a table near him.
He leaned on the door, one hand on the handle. “You have grown more than I believed possible, shadow born. I will honor my end of the bargain.”
“What bargain was that?”
His face showed no emotion as he pulled open the door.
A cool breeze fluttered into the room, but one that was natural and held the humidity of the air and the scent of the sea. Shadows followed, and Carth breathed them in without realizing exactly what she did.
“Have you decided your next move, shadow born?” he asked.
She barely had time to process the fact that she actually was getting free from him. After all the time she’d spent trapped here, she didn’t think he would actually free her. Now it seemed that he would—unless this was some sort of trap.
Yet, she knew what she needed to do.
Playing Tsatsun had given her the answer to that, and had shown her that she might be able to do more than she had realized.
She had left Nyaesh with the intent to go and learn elsewhere, giving no thought to what might happen after she left. From playing Tsatsun, she had seen that maybe she had made a mistake in not thinking that through. Jhon might have made a similar mistake… unless he had something else planned but had not shared it with her.
“The Hjan still threaten the north.”
“They will always be a threat.”
“You could help me stop them. I can tell you want that as well.”
Ras’s eyes twitched in what she recognized as a display of emotion. “There are many things I want. Most require what I do not have.”
“I’ve seen your strength. With the two of us—”
“Did you learn nothing, shadow born?” He started to pull the door closed and Carth tensed, thinking that her chance to escape had disappeared. Would he take that from her now that she was so close? Had she said the wrong thing to him?
But she had noted his reaction when she’d discussed the Hjan. Somehow, he had been harmed by them as well.
“Have you not seen that there is no power that will overwhelm the Hjan? They learn, and they adapt. They might not have the same abilities you possess, but they have numbers that make them stronger than you. There is nothing you can do that will change the course of what they intend.”
Carth flashed back to when she had played as the Hjan. Not as one individual, but as the entire group. She had been ruthless, and conniving, and… she realized that what Ras said might be true. The Hjan would come with more numbers.
Which only made it more important that she do something.
“I have friends in Nyaesh. There are others I care about. I can’t sit back and do nothing.”
“What do you think you could do, shadow born?”
How had she defeated the Hjan when she’d played as them?
“There might be nothing I can do, but I have to try. Didn’t your game show me it’s not about how strong the move might be, but about the tactics?”
Ras pushed on the door again, letting it open into the night. “Perhaps you learned more than I realized.”
He turned away from her, leaving
Carth standing facing the open doorway.
“You won’t help?”
“My fight is here, shadow born.”
“And what fight is that? From what I’ve seen, you sit and you play games with me and others, but you don’t do anything.”
She thought goading him this way might get some reaction out of him, give her something she could work with, but it didn’t. He continued back down the hall, leaving her standing in the doorway as he likely returned to his game board.
Carth collected her knives and stepped out into the night.
Shadows swirled around her, at first an unfamiliar sensation. It was much like what she had experienced when she had first left the palace grounds after training with the Nyaesh as long as she had. There was comfort in the shadows, and in knowing she could use them. They made her stronger, quicker, more silent, but she had become dependent on them.
After going a hundred yards or so, she glanced back, searching for Ras’s home, but found nothing but emptiness in the night.
She paused. How had he disappeared?
Not only him, but how had the entire building disappeared?
Carth drew on the shadows, shifting them around herself, trying to see through the darkness, but even as she did, there was nothing that told her there had been anything else. It was as if the building simply did not exist.
She started back, heading in the direction she knew the building had to be, and found herself making a steady circle, never getting any closer to anything that could be the building.
Carth smiled to herself. Had Ras somehow managed to hide an entire building from her? It would be the best way to keep it protected. If she couldn’t find it—if others couldn’t find it—there would be no way for him to be discovered.
No wonder he didn’t have anyone to play Tsatsun with.
She paused and listened for the sound of the sea. The salt clung to the air, so she knew she must be close, but in the darkness of the night, she couldn’t see any sign of it. Distantly, there was the sound of waves lapping at the shore.
Carth made her way toward it.
The Shadow Accords Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 47
