There was no question. These were the blood priests.
They were different than those she’d seen on the ship before. She suspected their ability was the same, as was the capacity to ignore the shadows, almost as if her ability was made useless. Would they use blood in the same way?
With the thought, the nearest man, a tall one with dark wrinkles along the corners of his eyes who was concealed in shadows cast by the hood of his cloak, waved his hand and the shadows around her vanished.
Carth had never experienced anything quite like that.
Was that what Isahl had faced?
When she’d faced Ras, he had used the power of the S’al to suppress her ability with the shadows. He had managed to tear them from her with light and pain, but had also managed to suppress her ability with the S’al by drawing away heat and warmth.
This was nothing like that. This was simply a dispersement of the shadows.
Dara was exposed without the shadows to conceal her and keep her safe. Without her ability, there was nothing Carth could do. That advantage was removed.
Carth began thinking in terms of gamesmanship. They had made a strong move, and now it was her turn to either make an equally strong maneuver or counter in an unexpected way.
Carth glanced to the bottom of the boat. Dara could be useful here, but she would need her to focus and to maintain her attack in a way that Carth was not entirely certain that the other woman would able to do.
“We have a change in plan,” Carth said. “I need you to focus your attack on that lead man there.” She pointed to the man nearest her. “Do you see him? Did you see the way he waved away the shadows?”
“I never see the shadows in the first place. All I can see is the darkness swirling around us like a fog.”
“They’ve dispersed the shadows. I suspect I’ll have minimal shadow ability around them.”
Dara cast a furtive gaze in her direction. “Are you certain we should do this? What if they—”
“I am not dependent upon only one ability.”
As she readied to attack, she hesitated.
A memory of a lesson taught to her, by Jhon and by Ras, came to the forefront of her mind. She couldn’t be too dependent upon her abilities. That was the reason she had been trapped by Ras in the past. She’d used planning and a little bit of luck to defeat the Hjan when they’d settled the accords, but with these men, she needed answers before she risked herself to destroy them.
She shifted her shadow ability towards the stern of the dinghy and used it to propel them around the back of the larger ship.
She noted with satisfaction how the lead man followed her. He didn’t seem to know what to make of the fact that she wasn’t attacking as she suspected he anticipated.
“How am I going to attack him if we’re back here?”
Carth nodded towards the ship. “Stay in this dinghy. I’m going on board. Be ready to attack, but don’t attempt to climb on board. I suspect they’ll be stronger than you’ll be able to resist.”
Dara looked at Carth with disbelieving eyes. “You’re going to leave me here? What happens if one of them reaches me?”
“For this to work, I think we need to work together. I can’t do this alone, but I don’t want to risk you getting harmed.”
“This is what you been teaching me for. I’m ready to help you—”
“No. Keep your focus as we discussed. Think of it like the game.”
“This isn’t a game. This is you risking yourself.”
“Isn’t it? Everything you need to know about strategy and battling, you can learn from the game of Tsatsun. Even this. Attack. Counter. Move again. They are the same.”
Carth began drawing on her S’al magic, using the power she could bind through the ring, and let this fill her. Dara did the same, practically glowing. Did Carth glow like Dara did?
Carth unsheathed her knives. She might not be able to use the knives with shadows, but she could certainly use the knife Invar had given her to draw strength and focus her S’al magic.
With the powerful leap, she burst from the dinghy and reached the back railing of the other ship. Carth threw herself over the railing and into a battle. Five blood priests immediately surrounded her. Each of them had streaks of dark maroon dried on their cheeks. Their fingers were stained as well. They stunk, a bitter and foul odor that emanated from them. Three of the men had no shirts and their chests were covered with dried maroon blood. These were more like the men from the ship.
“Reshian.” This came from a small woman with skin as pale as that of the man on the bow of the ship. Her face was like wax and seemed to drip. Pockmarks dotted her cheeks, as if she had been sick as a child and scarred. Her eyes had a steely gray to them similar to the other man’s, but she didn’t carry the same age, and stood before Carth empty-handed. “We have captured most of your ships. Were you on one that got away?”
Carth hesitated. Was that why she hadn’t seen any of the Reshian ships?
She pushed the thought away, taking a quick survey, and realized they all faced her without weapons.
She darted forward, slashing with her A’ras knife.
As the lead attacker reached for her arm, Carth jumped back, flipping as she did, and brought her foot around to connect with the man behind her, catching him on the temple. He fell forward, striking the railing. Carth flipped her heel around, and he went over the edge and into the water with a splash.
She offered a quick prayer, hoping Dara wouldn’t make the mistake of attempting to attack.
Four attackers remained.
They closed in on her, and as they did, she became aware of their foul odor and felt pressure against her. She had been holding on to a connection to the shadows. Whatever they did with the shadows weakened her.
She released them and focused solely on her Lashasn connection to the S’al.
“A powerful Reshian,” the little woman said. “You will make a fine addition. We have claimed enough of the Reshian, but few have the power you display. There was one, but he managed to escape us.”
The blood priests closed in on her.
Now was the time for her to change her approach.
She had told Dara the truth about Tsatsun. If nothing else, it informed everything she did. She needed to understand what they were capable of. There was only one way to do it.
They took a step closer.
She waited.
Another step.
Behind them, the older blood priest neared. She could practically feel power coming off him, almost as if in waves. He watched her, his gaze unreadable. Carth knew she needed to draw them in, but that didn’t change the flutter of fear and the worry that she’d made a mistake.
Dropping to the deck, she swung her legs around in a quick arc.
Carth had been trained by the A’ras, and she used this training to deadly effect. As the first man fell, she slashed with her knife, her blade flashing with S’al magic.
She continued in a rapid sweep, knocking the blood priests down and stabbing with the S’al. Each time she did, they screamed.
Leaping to her feet, she saw that only a few of the blood priests remained. She noted the woman and the older man, but a third, one she didn’t recognize from earlier, stood near the helm of the ship. He watched, almost as if disinterested.
With certainty, she knew that was the man to fear.
Carth jumped at the woman. The blood priest caught her wrist and threw her to the ground. Carth exploded upward, fueled by the S’al magic, and spun. When she landed, she kicked, catching the woman in the back so that she staggered forward.
Turning to the older man, she watched with a horrified fascination as he pulled a jar of blood from beneath his cloak. He opened the top and poured it over himself.
Thick maroon blood cascaded down his cheeks and into the folds of his neck, catching in the wrinkles of his face.
He changed before her.
She had no other way to describe what happened. Muscles b
uilt beneath his flesh, pushing them outward. She had thought his features sallow and sagging and wrinkled, but all that disappeared under the blood magic.
The other man, the man she assumed captain of the ship, did something similar, though his jar was larger and his transformation more terrifying.
The woman pulled herself to her feet and used a similar jar of blood, but—more horrifying than the other two—poured it into her mouth, letting it run over her cheeks and down her chin.
All three of them changed into enormous creatures like something out of a nightmare. One she could have faced by herself; three were more than she could handle.
“You will be powerful, Reshian,” the older man said. His voice was deep and had a rasp that grated on her ears. “We will empty your blood into our basins and sing songs of your death as we use your blood to destroy the rest of your kind.”
It was all Carth needed to know.
She pulled upon the power she possessed from the S’al magic, drawing through the ring. Taking the knife, pulling as much power as she could, she slammed it into the deck of the ship.
This was Invar’s knife, one he had given her, crafted for her to match the one her father had possessed. It was a perfectly weighted blade, and one she valued, one that had been a marker of all her time in Nyaesh. It was a focus. Once upon a time, Invar had thought she needed the focus. Now Carth no longer did. She had her mother’s ring. She understood Lashasn magic. She understood the S’al. Now what she needed was to forge her own knife if she was to embrace that side of her.
But it was a focus.
She pressed all the power of the S’al through the knife, and through the connection she possessed.
It began glowing, taking on a brilliant white light. It seared the wood of the deck around it. The power of the knife pressed back the three transformed blood priests.
More than that, it began burning a hole through the ship.
Carth jumped, letting the force of her magic carry her out over the water and hopefully into the dinghy waiting below, where she crashed into the sea.
As she sank below the surface, she pressed all her S’al magic into the focus of Invar’s knife she’d left plunged into the deck. It burned against her senses and exploded in a ball of fire and light.
Carth burst out of the water. Dara sat on the dinghy only a boat length from her. She swam toward her, but as she tried climbing into the boat, something grabbed her.
Carth spun, remembering the man she had kicked off the ship. She slashed with her shadow knife, knowing it would have little effect against him with his blood magic. All she could hope was that the blood magic would be countered by the water, washing it from him.
A wave smashed into him and dragged him away from their small dinghy.
Carth clung to the edge of the dinghy, kicking to drive it forward, pulling shadows with her and streaking them through the water. The farther they got from the now-burning blood priest ship, the more she was able to relax.
Carth settled in the bottom of the dinghy, breathing heavily.
Dara watched her. “What… what happened there?”
Carth smiled to herself. “We made our move. Now it’s time to see what they do to counter.”
“What will we do?”
In this case, the obvious answer was the right one. The blood priests had admitted they had killed off the Reshian, which made finding them more difficult than she had anticipated. That left her with the other plan, the one she knew those of Isahl wouldn’t approve of—but what choice did they have if they wanted to be safe?
“We will go to Nyaesh.”
19
The inside of the Goth Spald was dim enough to let her see the soft glow coming off Dara. She possessed such power with her connection to the S’al that it made it so she practically exuded power, enough that she could barely contain it. Carth doubted that she possessed the same glow as Dara did.
She pushed open the door to their room. It was a small space, but then, everything on the Spald was small. The ship was fast, which was why Guya liked it, but that meant it was narrow of hull. Inside the room, Lindy sat next to Andin and two of the others from Isahl. She looked up when Carth entered, as if she’d been waiting for her to appear.
“I’d like to talk to Lindy,” Carth said to Andin. She would convince her first. Then she would explain to Andin what they needed to do.
“Not by herself. I’m going to stay.”
“Do you think I’m going to do something to hurt her?” Carth asked. “Haven’t I shown you that I’m working with you?”
Lindy touched his arm. “This is Carth, Andin. She’s one of us.”
“She’s one of them, too.”
“Which is why I want the accords to hold,” Carth said.
Andin stared at her. “If you harm her—”
Lindy laughed, surprising Carth. “Do you think you could do anything to her? You’ve seen her fight. There’s nothing either of us could do when it comes to her. Go to the surface and wait for me. I’ll be fine.”
He sighed but stood, pulling the others with him.
When they were gone, Carth closed the door and sat across from Lindy. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed, and because of that, quite lovely.
“How did you stay safe when Isahl was attacked the last time?” Was there anything there that would help them stop the blood priests?
“It was like they knew to target those with shadow skill. Andin protected us. The rest of us… we can use the shadows, but we’re not like you and Andin.”
“I don’t think that’s quite true. I saw how you could use the shadows. There’s one with you who disappeared in them.”
“Disappearing is only a trick, and one too many know how to look through. These attackers must have known.”
“Which is why Andin thinks the attack was A’ras.”
“Lashasn, but yes.”
“Lashasn has been destroyed the same as Ih. There is no more Lashasn. The people of that land have scattered.”
“You have one with you on this ship. You must descend from one as well, or else you wouldn’t have the abilities you do.”
“Descended, but then my parents were of Ih-lash,” Carth reminded her. “I’m trying to work through what happened and how to prevent another attack, but I will need your help. And your cooperation.”
“Why?”
“I’m struggling with the process,” Carth admitted.
“My mother used to teach me a game when I needed to focus my mind,” Lindy said.
Carth smiled. “My father taught me plenty of games.” But then, he had been shadow born as well. She still didn’t know if he had known that she was, but maybe it didn’t matter anyway.
“You are of Ih. You should have known the games.”
“I didn’t know they were something everyone learned,” Carth said. “For me, they were my father’s way of keeping me safe when we visited new cities. We moved around so much that we needed to have a way of keeping us safe.” It was something she thought fondly of, even if her father had never shared with her why he had taught her the games. She had only known them as a way to keep safe. She would hide when needed, or learn how to find him. Never anything more than that, and certainly she had never imagined that he was teaching her to use some magical ability. Had she known that, would she have put more effort into it?
“What did you learn?” Lindy asked.
“The earliest was simply a game where he had me follow him. The goal was to remain hidden so that he didn’t know that I did. I was never as good with him as I was with my mother.”
“I imagine he was shadow blessed at least,” Lindy said.
Carth nodded. Now wasn’t the time to reveal that her father was part of the Reshian, and it certainly wasn’t the time to reveal that he was shadow born, not only shadow blessed.
“Did he name it?” Lindy asked.
Carth shook her head. “None of the games had a name.”
“We call what you describe the
Skulking. It is the first of many, but the basis for so much. Many never progress beyond the Skulking. Mastering it is difficult, even for the blessed.”
“We played it every day.”
“You are lucky.”
“Why is that?”
“To practice with another shadow blessed, even once a week, is considered lucky. There are too many to work with, too many to determine whether they are only able to detect the shadows, or whether they are something more. Few get even that much time, and you were able to practice daily.”
Carth had never considered that side of it before. Of course, they would have worked to train others with the shadows. Had her father been selfish in taking her from Ih-lash? If he could train others, what kind of loss had his disappearance been for the people of her homeland? More than that, he was shadow born. Losing that ability would be even more of a loss for Ih-lash.
“Did you progress beyond skulking?” Lindy asked.
“There were several others. He taught me to find him when hidden, or he would shadow me and I would have to discover him.”
Lindy nodded. “The Fade and the Thief.”
Carth smiled. Learning that her games had names made them playful in some ways, nothing like the way her parents had used them. There had been some playfulness to the games, but nothing like what these names made them seem. Would she have embraced them differently had they been named? To her, they had been the way she had interacted with her parents, and with her father in particular. Her mother had never played any games like this, only fostering what her father had done, helping him to teach her.
“How far did you progress?” Carth asked.
“I almost mastered skulking before…”
Before the attack. Before the Hjan came and destroyed Ih-lash. Before.
“You mentioned your mother taught you a game to focus your mind. What was that game?”
Lindy brushed back loose strands of dark hair and leaned forward with a sigh. “She had a game she called Tsatsun. Few know of it, at least around where I was raised. Mother said it was a game she learned from her grandmother.”
Shadow Lost (The Shadow Accords Book 4) Page 14
