Shadow Born (The Shadow Accords Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  He countered each.

  Carth studied the board, thinking through the different ways he might react and choosing to attack in a way that would force him to react the way she wanted. She pressed, then he countered. He pressed, then she countered.

  Only a few pieces remained. They each had the Stone surrounded, and Carth couldn’t see a way for either of them to push it to the other side, not where it could be defended. Ras watched her, rather than the board, an interested gleam in his eyes. He wore a hint of a smile, not bothering to hide it as he normally did.

  “There’s no move for either of us to make,” she said. “We’re at a draw.”

  He nodded. “I see the same.”

  “What now?”

  Ras moved to sit on his knees and studied the board before turning his attention to the pieces piled next to Carth. “How is it that you have progressed so rapidly?”

  “I just played.”

  Ras began picking up the pieces, placing them back into the bag. “Just played. There are many who would play their entire life, never to have a game like that. I think you managed to do more than just play. Tell me, shadow born, what technique you used.”

  What did it matter if she admitted that she had placed herself into the mindset of others as she played? Would it matter to Ras?

  “I already told you how I played.”

  “You told me you would place yourself into a different perspective, but that shouldn’t have allowed you to anticipate some of these moves.” He tipped his head, studying her with a different intensity than he’d had before. “Unless you intend to tell me that you used me.”

  “You, others I know. I played as all of them.”

  Ras said nothing as he finished picking up the pieces. He lifted the board as well, then stood and made his way to the edge of what Carth had determined was the cell.

  “Come with me, shadow born.”

  When he stepped through the light, the brightness of the cell faded completely, and the cold disappeared.

  Carth sat there, unable to move, uncertain what to do or how to react.

  Tentatively, she reached for her connection to the shadows. They responded as they always had, returning to her. Carth wrapped them around herself, pulling on the strength of the shadows before slowly releasing them. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the A’ras magic as well. It came with less hesitancy than she would have expected. The A’ras magic had always been a little more difficult for her to reach, always requiring that she have more emotion than she should in order to touch it, but this time it came fairly easily.

  She sighed, staring in the direction where Ras had disappeared.

  Should she follow him, or should she use her renewed connection to her abilities to escape?

  What would Ras expect her to do?

  He would have planned for her to do either. If she attempted to escape, she suspected he had some way of capturing her again. She didn’t doubt he was strong enough to hold her within the cell, or that he would come up with some way to trap her were she to outmaneuver him.

  Then there was the possibility that he wanted to explain more of what he knew.

  Could she pass up that opportunity?

  He knew something about the Hjan, and playing as them, even while doing it on a game board, had made it clear that she needed more strength—or more strategy—to defeat them than she had previously realized. But what would Ras really do to help?

  He hadn’t shown any interest in actually harming her. He had shown her how to play Tsatsun, and given her hints on how to improve. What if he wanted her to learn so that he could work with her?

  It was an idea that she hadn’t considered before, but one that made a certain sort of sense.

  Carth took a deep breath and followed Ras into the shadows.

  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?”

  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 a
gain. 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.”