Shadow Lost (The Shadow Accords Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Extinguishing it? That’s just a matter of using the shadows.”

  Invar smiled. “Not the extinguishing of the flame. The rekindling of it.” He glanced to her hand, noting the ring she wore. “Working together to light the flame is difficult enough. There are few with the strength to light it alone. You really have grown stronger since we last met.”

  “I’ve been forced to, Invar. Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve been used.”

  “You were never used here.”

  Carth tipped her head. “No? I think my parents even intended for me to be used by the A’ras. My mother was Lashasn, and she wanted me to come here to develop my abilities.”

  “That is different than getting used.”

  “How? I was here because I descend from both Lashasn and Ih. I can use the abilities of both ancient bloodlines. That fact was used to stop the war.”

  “I would argue that you did something necessary.”

  “It doesn’t change that I’ve been used.” She fixed him with a hard gaze. “Will you help?”

  “I don’t know that I can.”

  “Because you aren’t willing to, or you’re afraid?” she asked.

  “I’ve told you—”

  “Yes. The Reshian and Lashasn have been in conflict for centuries.”

  “The accords will only delay it for a moment.”

  “Then the Hjan will attack,” Carth said. Invar nodded. “We can stop it, Invar. You can help stop it.”

  As she left, Invar said, “You will always be welcome in Nyaesh, Ms. Rel.”

  Carth paused at the door. “I was never welcome in Nyaesh.”

  As she passed through the doorway, she fixed Alison and Samis with a gaze. “You can come with me if you’d like.”

  “What are you going to do?” Alison asked.

  Carth glanced back to Invar. He watched her as well, his hand resting on the basin holding the flame. She should remain in Nyaesh and find out more about the flame, learn why it was that she could reach the S’al completely while others needed to draw from the flame of the A’ras, but what did it matter? In that sense, she was born to the S’al no differently than she was born to the shadows. The others… they were more like the shadow blessed. Able to touch the basic ability, but nothing more.

  She sighed. What would she do?

  She had been used, but even she understood that it had been necessary. Her parents had brought her to Nyaesh in hopes of finding peace. And she had forged it. Because of her, the accords were in place. Now she had to see that they remained.

  That meant understanding and knowledge. That meant that she was not surprised. That meant that she had the pieces of her board arranged in such a way that others would not be able to outmaneuver her.

  Carth didn’t know how she would do it, but she would have to find a way.

  Alison watched her, her eyes filled with unasked questions.

  “I will do what is needed.”

  “And that is?” This came from Samis. Some of the doubt he’d displayed had eased, and now he watched her as carefully as Invar.

  “I intend to see that peace remains.”

  25

  The docks along the River Road remained as busy as Carth remembered. The scents here were the same—that of fish and a hint of salt from the distant sea and the promise of rain. Noise filled the air, that of gulls cawing and hawkers yelling and children playfully running through the street. Carth knew enough to watch the children in particular. If anyone would be likely to sneak up and attempt to steal from her, it would be the children.

  Carth noted the Spald and the fact that it didn’t seem to be in any danger before turning away and heading down the street.

  “Carth?” Alison asked.

  She turned. Samis had remained on the palace grounds. Carth hadn’t actually expected him to join her, but it would have been nice having another friend with her, even if the connection she’d forged with him had changed when he’d betrayed her. With Alison, there was history between them, but it didn’t feel as easy or as comfortable as it once had. Still, Alison had agreed to come. In many ways, Carth wasn’t surprised.

  “Where are you going?” Alison glanced to Dara, but Dara only shrugged.

  Carth nodded to the solitary building at the intersection of River Road. It was a low-roofed wooden building with shuttered windows and a plain-looking door that was tightly closed. A faded sign hung from a hook off the front. Carth didn’t need to see the sign to recognize the sigil.

  “There’s one stop I have to make,” she said.

  Alison nodded and fell silent.

  Carth approached the Wounded Lyre as she would approach an attacker: with uncertainty and a hint of anxiety. Just like with an attacker, she didn’t exactly feel fear, but there was enough worry that gnawed in her belly that she wasn’t comfortable either.

  Years had passed since she’d come.

  When she’d been freed to patrol the city, she’d almost stopped here several times. Why hadn’t she? Was it because she was afraid of what she’d find, or was it because she was afraid she wouldn’t have been missed? Maybe it was a combination of both. The Lyre had been a place of safety to her when she’d badly needed it, and then had become a place where she was the liability. Her presence had put the others in danger. Leaving had been the only way to keep them safe, but she’d left without so much as a goodbye.

  “I’ve always wondered what they thought of me,” she said as Alison stopped next to her.

  “I’m sure they feel the same as they did then.”

  “Do they? I don’t know how they felt then, only that I was welcomed. I was provided for. And I left them.” In that way, was she any different to her father? Hadn’t he left her when he thought she would be safer without him?

  “Are you going to go in?”

  She had thought she would. That had been the reason for coming here. But now that she was standing in front of the doorway, Carth wasn’t so sure she could. What would she say? What did she hope to accomplish? Going into the Lyre now after all this time wouldn’t help her meet any of her objectives. It wouldn’t help her understand what had happened with the Reshian, or where her father had gone, or why the blood priests had attacked.

  “Sometimes you should allow yourself a chance to feel,” Dara said.

  Carth sighed. She’d been trained to avoid her feelings. Working with the A’ras, she’d been taught to fight and to get stronger. And then when she’d left, thinking that she’d gone to train with the Reshian, she had learned from Ras to think critically. Emotion hadn’t played a part in it other than for her to use her awareness of it to ensure she knew how others would react. Now she didn’t even know how she would react.

  “Going in here won’t help me with anything.”

  “Are you sure?” Dara asked.

  Carth watched the door, thinking of all the times she’d run through it. As strange as it was, she had fond memories of her time at the tavern. Vera and Hal had been kind to her, and that kindness had mattered. It still mattered.

  “Go,” Dara urged.

  Carth touched the door.

  The shadows shifted.

  She felt them flicker. The effect was faint, but it was there.

  Carth spun.

  “Carth—” Dara started.

  She ignored her. The shifting of the shadows came from near the Spald.

  Carth reached for her knife.

  “What is it?” Alison asked, unsheathing her sword.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Something isn’t quite right.” She didn’t know what it was, only that what she felt was wrong. It was more than only the shadows having changed. There was something within the shadows that was wrong.

  She started flowing forward, using the shadows as she did, ignoring Alison and Dara’s cries for her to wait. How could she wait when she didn’t know what was happening? How could she wait when the shadows were off?

  There was only one person who she thought could use the shadows like that
, but why would Andin do so? She had warned him against it here, and had warned him that Nyaesh would be dangerous for him were he to reveal himself, but Andin hadn’t listened. If the A’ras discovered they were here—especially if there were those in the palace inclined to violate the accords…

  She knew what would happen. Peace would fail. They would fail. The Hjan would be free to attack again. And too many would suffer.

  She reached the ramp leading up onto the Spald.

  Carth expected to see Guya and the others from Isahl, but they were gone. Had they ventured into the city? Had they been captured? The A’ras were trained and they would be deadly, even against someone like Andin with his ability to use the shadows. The A’ras had experience in stopping those with shadow abilities, and with the previous attacks on the city, she doubted they would handle them lightly.

  The deck was empty.

  That wasn’t completely true. She found a pool of blood near one of the rails and realized that it led over the edge of the ship. Carth looked down and saw a bloodied face bobbing in the water.

  Guya.

  Carth dove.

  She reached Guya quickly and grabbed him under his arms. She was a strong swimmer—more so when she used the shadows to augment her abilities—but the river had a powerful current. It wasn’t the first time she’d swum in this river, and each time, it seemed someone’s life was in danger. It wasn’t even the first time she’d had to swim Guya back to shore. At least this time the shore was closer, though he seemed in worse shape than before.

  When she flopped him onto the rocky shore, he coughed and opened his eyes. “Too much like the last time.”

  “The last time you had a mutiny.”

  He coughed again and started to sit up. Carth restrained him with a hand to his chest. “No mutiny this time, but an attack.”

  “The A’ras?”

  “Not A’ras.”

  “The Reshian?” She couldn’t imagine Andin attacking Guya. He had been through quite a bit, but that didn’t seem like the kind of thing she would have expected.

  “Not the Reshian. They were the ones attacked.”

  Dara had reached them and, seeing Guya, she touched his head, her skin glowing softly. Dara had some way of healing using the S’al, a trick Carth hadn’t taken the time to master. She’d learned that she was protected in some ways—when she’d broken her leg, she had discovered that she healed faster than most—but she hadn’t learned to project it outward, not the way that Dara could. Was it something Invar would have taught her had she remained?

  Guya gasped, and the bleeding from his scalp slowed.

  Dara pulled her hand away. “That’s all I can do for now.”

  “What was that?” Alison asked her.

  Carth helped Guya to stand. “Dara is Lashasn.”

  Alison frowned. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

  “You’re supposed to know that all of the A’ras originally came from Lashasn. They don’t teach that, but it’s true. It’s like the Reshian and how they come from Ih.”

  “Ih? As in Ih-lash?”

  Carth nodded curtly, eyes scanning the street. The crowd of people who had been out only moments before had disappeared, almost as if they had detected the shifting current of power, but that shouldn’t have been possible, not with the shadows used. Had they detected the use of the A’ras magic?

  She didn’t know. “Do you know where they went?”

  “Carth—”

  She shot Alison a hard look, cutting her off.

  “We need to find them. We need to know where they would have been taken.”

  Guya wiped his hands on his pants and looked up to his ship. “There were men and one woman. They moved so quietly that I couldn’t hear them. When they reached the deck of the ship, they attacked before I even saw them. It was like—”

  “They were cloaked in shadows,” she finished for him. What he described sounded too much like the movements of someone with a shadow blessing, but why would they have attacked the children of Isahl? Those were their people. They shouldn’t have attacked.

  “Not shadows,” Guya said. “This was something natural. They were quiet, but they weren’t magic.”

  “No abilities?”

  “They were unpowered.”

  Unpowered. The term amused her, but partly because she had once been unpowered, or at least thought herself unpowered. “Then how would they have escaped? If they were unpowered, they would not have been able to disappear easily.”

  “Carth.”

  She looked up at Dara and frowned. “Did you see something?”

  “Not see. I feel it. Like a soft burning that settled beneath my skin. I… I don’t know what it is.”

  Alison looked from Carth to Dara.

  Carth knew what it was that she felt. It was the same thing Carth felt when one of the A’ras used their abilities, something that she never felt outside the city. It came as no surprise that Dara should feel it. Most of the A’ras would not—could not—because they weren’t connected as deeply to the S’al as she was, or as deeply as Dara was, but then most weren’t as directly descended from the Lashasn as they were either.

  “Where?” she asked, but she didn’t need to. All she had to do was release her connection to the shadows and she would be able to feel the slow burn of the A’ras power again. As she did, and as she felt it, she recognized where it came from, and recognized the strange shifting of shadows within it as well.

  The palace.

  And if that was where she detected the shadows, that meant the A’ras now had the Reshian. But Guya hadn’t detected the A’ras.

  What was going on here?

  Regardless of what it was, Carth couldn’t leave them. Which meant she would now have to break them out.

  26

  The inside of the palace yard was quiet. Carth thought maybe it was too quiet, but perhaps that was only because she felt on edge after the attack. They had to reach the Reshian and then get out of the palace grounds before getting caught again. When she jumped the fence again, she was met by Invar and Samis.

  “I sensed what happened.”

  “Then you know I couldn’t leave them.”

  “I understand.”

  “What has happened here?”

  “There are those who have taken to actively trying to break the accords, Ms. Rel. I haven’t been able to find out how before now, but I fear your blood priests might be allies of theirs.”

  “Of others in the A’ras? People have died, Invar. Innocents, not only the Reshian.” Invar didn’t say anything. “Where would they have brought them?”

  Samis looked from her to Invar, questions on his face, but he didn’t say anything. Carth was thankful that he’d helped, but still didn’t know whether he could be trusted, not after what he’d done to her when she had still been here.

  “Do you not feel them?” Invar asked.

  Carth shook her head. “I don’t detect anything of the shadows. The protections here are too stout for me to be able to do so.”

  “They have kept from me their plans, Ms. Rel. I cannot tell you where you would find them.”

  Samis licked his lips and swallowed, as if he were coming to a difficult decision. “They’re in the palace,” he said. “There’s a place beneath the palace…”

  Invar looked over to him, head cocked to the side. “They wouldn’t use those rooms.”

  “I’m not sure what’s in them, but I heard Evan and some of the others talking about it once. They were excited about what they discovered.”

  “What is it?” Carth asked, pausing at a staircase inside the palace. She’d spent some time captured within the palace walls, and held in such a way that she couldn’t escape, but that hadn’t been within the palace itself. She didn’t actually think they would have kept her within the palace. Doing so put her too close to others with power.

  “A place that has been here since the founding of Nyaesh,” Invar said.

  “Why does it sou
nd like this is worse than where they kept me?” she asked.

  Invar met her gaze. “Because for your kind, it is.”

  “Samis?” Carth asked. “What do you know?”

  He shook his head. “They had a way of removing the Reshian without violating the accords.”

  “Do you know what that way was?” Carth demanded.

  Samis shook his head. “They didn’t tell me.”

  “Then let me. I call them the blood priests. They drain the blood of their victims, and they use it in some twisted magic. They find the Reshian particularly appealing, I think because they can use their blood better and have an immunity to the shadow magic. And now they’ve drawn the attention of the Hjan.” She glared at him. “Tell me, is that worth removing the Reshian? Is it worth it for entire villages to fall? Is that what you would have happen to me?”

  Samis closed his eyes. “I didn’t know.”

  “Then help us. Let me get the shadow blessed away, and help me stop the blood priests.”

  Samis looked to Invar before nodding.

  Invar went down the flight of stairs before stepping off and leading them down a hall. The walls changed here, less of the solid white stone and more of a grayish rock. Marks on the surface looked almost as if the rock had been dug free by hand. There was no light here, and Invar held his hand out, creating a softly glowing light, enough to push back the darkness. Even here, with all the darkness around her, Carth couldn’t detect the shadows.

  The suppression might even be more pronounced here.

  She strained for them, and could almost feel the trailing edge of the shadows, but then it slipped away. The protections within the wall were too potent for her to overcome.

  Samis hesitated. “I’ll watch the stairs for activity,” he said.

  She took a slight step toward him. “If you betray us—”

  “I made a mistake. I didn’t understand.”

  “You weren’t strong enough to question.”

  Samis breathed out, his shoulders sagging. “I thought I was. I always thought I’d be able to stand up to anything, but when it came down to trusting you or the A’ras, I… I failed, Rel.”