“This,” Ilira said. “This, right now, is enough.”
She leaned across the table and pressed her face against Myrin’s forehead. Tears fell on Myrin’s cheeks.
“You feel so warm,” Ilira whispered. “I have touched the cold flesh of shades in the last century, but never a warmblooded, living creature, man or woman—not without bringing death. The shadow cools you somewhat, but you feel …” She shivered. “You feel so good.”
Myrin trembled. “Thanks?”
Ilira’s face dipped and their lips came close. Their eyes met and they exchanged an understanding few ever know. Myrin licked her lips, making ready.
Abruptly, Ilira’s lips moved in words. “Can you see anything else? Any memories?”
“Oh.” Of course. In that moment, Myrin had forgotten about the memories. “Nothing. I can only see those memories that relate directly to me. And if you have none, then that means—”
“I never met you,” Ilira said. “I was there at your birth, and Shalis spoke of you that once, but in all those years of searching, I never even saw your face. I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Myrin said. “You met my parents—loved them, even. Can you … can you tell me about them?” She cursed herself for the sudden and impulsive question, particularly if it meant driving Ilira even the tiniest bit away. “I mean, if you want.”
“I’d love to.” Ilira smiled wryly. “How much time do you have?”
“All night, I suppose,” Myrin said. “I mean, if you’re sure—you’re sure you don’t want someone else. Brace, for instance, or …”
Ilira closed her hands tightly around Myrin’s own.
“Oh, Brace is going to be so disappointed,” Myrin murmured.
“Let him,” Ilira said. “There are plenty of things two people might do that don’t involve touching.” She leaned closer and added in a whisper: “And a few that require it.”
Myrin’s eyes slid closed.
“Watching Lost Gods damn it!”
The outburst drew Kalen’s attention from working on his bonds. The gnome sighed and set aside the parchment he’d been working on.
“What troubles?” Kalen relaxed to allow blood back into his hands, which had turned an unsettling shade of purple. He’d come close to freeing himself, but it would do him no good if he could work free, only for his hands to prove unable to clutch a weapon.
“Alas, I’m a terrible poet,” Brace said. “I should crumple this up and toss it aside as in some melodrama, but alas, a working footman such as myself has but a limited coin supply, and the canvas of my art doesn’t come cheap. I just hope I have enough remaining to finish before I have to take this to the scribner’s for cleaning. I tell you”—he waved his quill at the shadow on the wall—“your mistress is proving harder than I thought to properly honor with flowery words.”
Ilira’s shadow made no reply, but kept its gaze on Kalen tied to the bed. There was a rustle outside the window, as of leaves disturbed by the wind.
“A question, friend gnome,” Kalen said.
Brace turned in his chair and regarded him. “I’ll pause, certainly.”
“You seem to admire yon Lady Shadow very much,” he said. “Does it bother you—she an elf, you a gnome, and neither of you able to touch?”
The gnome smiled absently. “Methinks you know little of love, Saer Shadow, if you limit it to such tawdry concerns as race or stature. Even magical curses can be overcome—”
The shutters of the window exploded inward, followed by a man who kicked Brace off the chair and out into the room. Shadowbane perched on the desk like a panther. As Kalen watched, black flames spread to shroud him in a full suit of plate armor.
His own armor of faith—black as death.
The shadow on the wall exploded into motion, rushing toward Shadowbane, but Kalen saw gray flames surge as Vindicator materialized in the man’s grasp, and its flame turned black.
“Wait—” Kalen struggled against his bonds. He could not free himself in time.
The shadow lunged, and Shadowbane sent a blast of searing black radiance straight into it, shattering the beast into a thousand motes of darkness that rained around the room.
The gnome, blood leaking from a cut high on his forehead, managed to crawl a pace, and his form started to waver into invisibility.
“Not this time, gnome,” Shadowbane said, his voice like that of a man hideously burned.
He plunged Vindicator through Brace and into the carpet. The gnome cried out and struggled against the blade pinning him to the floor. Blood surged down the blade.
“Stop,” Kalen said. “Let him go.”
“As you wish.” Shadowbane twisted Vindicator viciously. Brace shrieked and collapsed.
Until now, Shadowbane had kept silent by habit, and now Kalen knew why. As much as the man tried to hide his voice in an affected rasp, he sounded terribly familiar. And what Kalen heard turned his bowels to water. “You,” he said. “But that cannot be. Not you.”
“Not the boy you knew, and not Shadowbane, either. I am Vengeance.” He raised Vindicator, point downward. “And you are nothing.”
Ilira recoiled from Myrin with a gasp. She clutched the edge of the table for balance.
“What is it?” Myrin felt her heart suddenly racing. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, it’s—” Ilira clutched at her chest, where Myrin could see her line of black runic tattoos burning and evaporating like smoke. “Gargan, he—they’ve destroyed him. My shadow.” Her tear-filled gold eyes turned black with rage. “We’re under attack.”
Myrin grasped Ilira’s hand tight. “I’m going with you.”
The elf nodded, then her eyes went wide. “Away!” She shoved Myrin back from the table. The wizard was at first shocked, but then she saw fire bloom in Ilira’s metallic eyes: a blade wrapped in eldritch flames was hurtling toward them. The blade struck the table, blasting it—and their half-eaten meal—into blackened cinders and a cloud of smoke.
The force threw Myrin sprawling into another table and deafened her. She saw the world as a bleary dream. Rain fell on her face as she lay blinking, but she forced herself up. Suddenly, the night rushed back in, filling her damaged ears with choked screams of terror.
Ears ringing, Myrin glimpsed their attacker through the smoke and rain, standing tall at the edge of the Lurking Wyrm’s patio. “Rujia?” she asked. “What—?”
As patrons panicked and fled around her, the deva strode toward the elf and the wizard, majestic of stature but deprived of the serene façade she had once worn. Her white-and-purple face was a storm of rage, anguish, and—above all—undying hatred.
“No more running,” she said. The blackened ruin of her sword rose from the cinders and reformed in her hand, shining and pure. “My vengeance will wait no longer, Ilira Nathalan!”
As Rujia spoke, an aura of threshing, spectral blades appeared around her.
“Go.” Ilira touched Myrin on the shoulder, making her skin tingle at the heat. The shadow she’d stolen from Hessar was burning away. “I will face her.”
“But—?” Myrin could hardly think as Rujia stalked toward them.
“Go.” Ilira gave her a gentle smile. “I trust you. Trust me.”
Myrin’s heart beat faster.
She summoned the spell of flight and soared back toward the Blue Banner.
The Trickster watched Myrin go with equal parts trepidation and satisfaction—Kirenkirsalai would be displeased, but Myrin just might find a way to defeat the vampire. The wizard was a resourceful woman. Also, the Trickster felt a hint of relief that she would not have to face Myrin, and—unexpectedly—a tiny surge of hope that Myrin would survive the night. Even though they could never be friends after this, the Trickster still cared about her.
The Trickster had made her choice, and she would face its consequences.
“I’m sorry, Myrin,” she murmured as she faced Ilira. “I just can’t leave it in the past.”
The two women gazed up
on one another over the emptied battlefield. Ilira had come dressed the part in something similar to the adventuring outfit she had worn when she had broken the Trickster’s heart. She even wore a sword now, as she had not in some years.
“A blade—good,” the Trickster said. “This would not satisfy me if there was no duel.”
How she had prepared for this moment! It was time to use the skills and magic she had honed in the year since her last attempt at vengeance on the woman she hated more than anything else in the world. She tightened her grasp on her sword, through which she’d painstakingly learned to channel her magic. She no longer had any need for a wand.
Drops of water fell on her face and she glanced up. The clouds had finally decided to burst. Perfect—not only for the tone it lent this deadly business but also because a storm would block the moon and there would be fewer shadows for the Nathalan woman to use.
“You have the advantage of me, lady,” Ilira said. “You know much of me, but, except that I have done you wrong, I know naught of you.”
“You should!” The Trickster suppressed the angry tears that threatened to choke her. “You took everything from me—you and that slave of yours, Yldar! The two of you murdered my mother before my eyes, and you didn’t have the decency to die for it.”
Ilira looked at her with an oblivious expression.
As the Trickster spoke, she wove a subtle spell that would bind Ilira to her. It was meant for protection, this aegis, but she had perverted its purpose to her own ends. Her magic would remain upon Ilira even if she tried to flee. As she cast the spell, she felt another tracing spell upon the elf, but she found they would not conflict.
The clouds chose that moment to open fully. The torrential deluge plastered Ilira’s hair to her head and soaked her garb. The Trickster felt her own leathers clinging to her false body.
“I will never, never forgive you for what you’ve done,” the Trickster said. “I have spent decades striving to bring you nothing but sorrow, but it is not enough. Nor will it ever be enough—not until you lie dead at my feet with your blood on my hands.”
“Oh, child.” Ilira’s face grew sad, but no doubt that was artifice. She would feel true pain soon enough. “Who have I wronged so grievously?”
With a flicker of will, the Trickster shed her guise. She was no longer Rujia, the woman she had spent a year building for just this moment. She shrank and slimmed in stature until she matched the lithe elf shape of her nemesis. Her skin lost its odd pattern of colors and became pale with hints of silver to match her pupil-less, silver eyes. A forked tail sprouted from her tailbone and a pair of graceful antlers curled from the tangled shock of her red-pink hair.
“I am Ellyne, named for sorrow,” she said. “But you will call me the name I have chosen for myself—the name of your doom.”
The Trickster sneered through her fey’ri fangs.
“And that name is Fayne.”
Vindicator plunged down, but even as it fell, gray flames swirled around the blade and it vanished just before the point could pierce Kalen’s chest.
Overbalanced, Shadowbane—Vengeance—staggered and caught himself on the bed, his face a hand’s breadth from Kalen’s own.
This was Kalen’s moment: he twisted his left hand against the bedpost to break his thumb with an audible crack. Then he slipped his hand from the bond and dealt his reeling attacker a vicious left hook to the jaw. The armor deflected the blow, but Vengeance still fell back. Immediately, Kalen reached across to untie his other hand … but what he saw made him stop short, hardly able to breathe.
Standing in the doorway, clad in dark leathers with a helm to hide his face, Vindicator burning in his hands, was another Shadowbane.
“If you are Vengeance, then I am Mercy.” The second Shadowbane raised the blade high, revealing the rune of Tyr burning in white on the back of his hand. “Now stand away, and maybe I’ll show you some.”
PART SEVEN:
BROKEN MIRRORS
This deceptive dance hails from the treacherous land of Sembia. At least three lords clad in identical garments dance in a circle around a single lady, faster and faster until none is sure which is which: not the attendants, not the lady, nor even the lords themselves.
Shalis Ptolexis, Celebrant of Sharess
Wanderings in Love’s Name,
Published in the Year of the Bow (1354 DR)
NIGHT, 2 ELEASIS
FAYNE MADE THE FIRST MOVE, LEAPING BETWEEN MOMENTS to slash at Ilira from behind. Her magic permeated the veil of reality between this world and the Feywild, and she used it to move impossibly far with a single step.
Ilira swayed back, drew her rapier, and parried Fayne’s overhead chop in the same motion. The fey’ri had little enough strength to put behind the blow, but her magic lent the strike enough power to knock Ilira to one knee.
“This is the great Fox-at-Twilight? Slayer of demons and breaker of hearts? Pathetic!”
Ilira’s blade flashed in the moonlight, and Fayne suddenly recognized its distinctive blade: white hizaghuur, vanishingly rare, mined in the deepest reaches where most dwarves feared to tread. Moreover, she knew this sword was called Betrayal and was her father’s sword. Fear filled her—had the awful woman got to him as well?
“How much will you take from me!” she cried.
Ilira thrust at her belly, but one of Fayne’s warding spectral swords swatted the point aside. It was an ancient elven magic, one Fayne had toiled long months to learn, and although she hardly possessed the skill of the armathors of old, it would suffice to kill one out-of-practice blade-dancer. After waiting nearly all her life for this moment of vengeance, it disappointed her a bit to see Ilira so clearly overmatched.
But only a bit.
Ilira had no shadow to telegraph her movements, but then of course she wouldn’t. With luck, losing her shadow would weaken her. Fayne hadn’t known that would happen, but she was not one to turn aside Beshaba’s blessing.
Ilira reached into an alley, shaped shadows into a noose, and hurled it toward Fayne’s neck, but the shadows were fading as the downpour intensified. A simple word of fire magic let Fayne burn the shadow lasso away. Even as Fayne stepped through her own small inferno and raised her sword, Ilira vanished into the shadows her conflagration had created.
Light destroyed one shadow, but in so doing, it created more. In this way, would darkness ever be wiped from the world, as Kalen sought to do? Foolish sentiment.
Fayne had expected this, and so she listened to the hum of her aegis. It beckoned down the street toward the river, and she let its magic pull her through the bleary Feywild to the cobblestones right behind Ilira as she crouched. Fayne’s sword raked across the elf’s left thigh, and bright blood bloomed in the misty night air. She deflected Fayne’s follow-up attack and staggered away, limping slightly.
“You followed me. How—?” Ilira looked down at her star-sapphire bracelet as though at a treacherous friend.
“I know all about the Shroud, whore,” Fayne said. “I know how to counter it.”
“Very well.” Ilira shifted her rapier to her left hand and reversed her stance to favor her injured leg. She turned her full focus to the fight. “Biir kerym.”
Fayne smiled. “And may your swordplay fall to dust as well.”
Myrin stepped out of her shadow door into an isolated corner of the common room of the Blue Banner. She staggered and almost fell in the dizzying aftereffects of magical travel and promptly tripped over something yielding on the floor. It was a man, she realized—no doubt a patron sleeping off a few too many ales.
She was about to apologize for disturbing him when she saw the way his neck bent at an unnatural angle and that his chest was drenched in an ocean of blood. Then she saw his vacant, staring eyes fixed upon her. It was not a man, but a corpse.
Myrin loosed a small, horrified cry and would have fallen had not strong hands caught her under the shoulders.
“Hail and well met, Lady Darkdance.” Hessar’s eyes fla
shed yellow. “All’s well, lady—for us, anyway. Not as much for you.”
She looked past him to a common room littered with mangled bodies: patrons killed in a similar way to the man she’d tripped over. Men, women, and even a few children lay strewn around like broken dolls. Blood coated the walls, dripping from corpses slung over the stairs and balcony. After the horror of the dead man in the corner, she felt numb when she looked at the awful scene. She thought, morbidly, that the Blue Banner had been dyed red.
Also, the terror faded away because something about the scene looked familiar to her. Impossibly, a memory surfaced of another chamber—filled with blood. Blood on her hands …
“Shadowbane’s bloodlust is impressive,” Hessar said. “You’d think he was one of them.”
“He—” Myrin paled. “You don’t mean Kalen. He couldn’t have done this.”
“Oh, no, ’twas the younger, stronger Shadowbane.” Hessar traced his fingers down her cheek. “Although have no doubt that when the Eye arrives, dutiful Kalen will get all the blame. Levia should be here any moment. We should make the most of our time alone.”
Myrin recoiled. “Away from me, you monster!”
He caught her wrist as she raised the orb toward him, and she could not move against his overwhelming strength. She called upon her magic, but there was no reply—what countering spells had he woven in anticipation of their battle? In spellwork, they might have been equals, but physically, he was far superior. And he had surprise on his side.
“Pity,” he said. “You’d have been far warmer in my bed than the Shadowfox.”
“Shadowfox—?” Myrin asked.
“You know her as Ilira Nathalan,” Hessar said. “But I trust you’ll die even more easily.”
Myrin’s heart raced and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She couldn’t move. Myrin felt as she had a year ago, when Rath the dwarf had kidnapped her: helpless.
“Kalen!” she cried.
Shadowbane: Eye of Justice Page 31
