Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One

by McPhail, Melissa

  “We’re less interested in the presence of blood than we are in the astonishing lack of bodies to account for it,” Morin noted.

  “Oh. Well, I didn’t see no bodies, milord, and that’s Raine’s truth, but I vow something had happened there. The whole place felt…well, Raine’s truth, milords, it felt wrong. All wrong. And those men—Her Majesty’s men—they were rightly spooked. They talked a lot about dogs, but I never saw no dogs, but I’m sure they weren’t pretending being scared to Shadow of them.”

  “One more question,” Morin said. “Did you see Creighton Khelspath anywhere?”

  The soldier looked baffled. “No, milord. Wasn’t he taken with the prince?”

  “Thank you, soldier,” the king murmured. “You may return to your post.”

  “Actually, I’m off duty now, Sire—”

  “Get out, man!” Rhys barked.

  The soldier fled.

  When the doors were closed again behind him, Morin leaned back in his armchair and rested his head against the cushion, closing his eyes and pressing steepled fingers against his lips. Errodan regarded him thoughtfully. He was not a bad looking young man, with blond hair, brown eyes and a cleft chin kept cleanly shaven, though he was nowhere as handsome as her three sons and hardly older than her eldest would be now—may Epiphany bless and keep him—had he not been murdered in cold blood by Basi assassins. Morin had proven himself sharp-witted, however, and he didn’t cringe from the truth. Errodan had heard his name frequently while still in Edenmar, always spoken with a certain mixture of awe and fear; a good indicator that any Master of Spies was doing his job well.

  “Too strange,” Rhys noted while Morin deliberated. “Her Majesty’s men are certain the traitors were eaten and Creighton slain, but none of them can tell us what happened to the bodies of the men who supposedly died just inches away from them.”

  Bastian val Renly cleared his throat. “Milords,” he offered tentatively, “is it possible…did the—the darkhounds, did they eat the men, bones and all?”

  “We haven’t ascertained it was darkhounds did the deed, Lieutenant,” Rhys growled.

  “I think we can ascertain it wasn’t Her Majesty’s terriers, Captain,” Morin said with closed eyes.

  “And what of poor Creighton?” Bastian went on. “Epiphany preserve us—we’re honor-bound to send word to the boy’s father if he is truly dead, but we’d be fools to tell one of the most powerful nobles in Agasan that his son was slain by a Shade, of all bloody things, and then have no body to account for it!”

  Gydryn knuckled his forehead looking pained. “Where is Creighton’s body?” He looked to the assembled group. “I will not believe the boy dead without seeing him lying before me.”

  Errodan felt immensely grateful to hear those words. Teams of soldiers were already scouring the kingdom for Ean—my dear, dear boy!—and Gydryn’s determination meant more would leave in search of Creighton as well.

  “We must proceed very carefully,” Morin advised, finally rejoining the conversation with a statement that spoke volumes. “There is the slimmest of chances, found in the inexplicable involvement of a man named as a Shade, that the prince’s capture did not go off as planned. If that is true, then there might still be a way to turn this catastrophe into a coup of our own.”

  Errodan feared the result if they couldn’t turn events to their favor. They’d invited dignitaries from seven kingdoms to attend a fete for a prince—Ean had personally pressed his seal to four hundred invitations—but now they’d no prince to present. Few of the nobility knew just how unstable Gydryn’s hold was on the Eagle Throne. Beyond the people in that room, in fact, only one other might have some inkling…

  Morwyk, Errodan thought scathingly at the same time that Morin said, “This has Morwyk written all over it.”

  “Morwyk,” Rhys growled. He spat on the floor and ground his boot over the mark.

  “I would be thrilled to lay this at the Duke of Morwyk’s feet, Morin,” Gydryn said while casting Rhys an annoyed look, “but I don’t see Stefan val Tryst orchestrating such an appalling scene—really, a Shade, Morin?”

  “Not the Shade—by Epiphany’s Grace, if he’s there to be found, we’ll uncover the actor who performed that stunt, Sire.” He tapped a finger on the arm of his chair. “No, I mean the earlier half of this plot, before the inexplicable arrival of a man pretending to be a Shade. That’s when Morwyk’s heretofore well-orchestrated plan fell to pieces.”

  Errodan conceded there were few men in the kingdom with the necessary support to both learn of Ean’s arrival and infiltrate the Palace Guard with so many traitors. The Duke of Morwyk had his talons set on the Eagle Throne and made no secret of his criticisms of the war in M’Nador and Dannym’s support of it. He preyed on Gydryn’s patience with seditious talk behind the thick walls of his castle in the south.

  The king had no illusions about Morwyk’s plotting. The man was rumored to be raising an army “for defense of his own eastern holdings,” but every day they caught another of his spies in court. Gydryn had many enemies, yes, but few were as powerful as the Duke of Morwyk. It would’ve taken someone with Morwyk’s connections—and riches—to pry information about Ean’s secret landing from otherwise loyal men.

  As if hearing Errodan’s thoughts, Morin said, “The names of the king’s men who rode to retrieve the prince, those unlucky bastards who were apparently consumed by hounds…they weren’t impostors to the Guard. They were commissioned men sworn to serve you, Sire.”

  “What’s your point, Morin?”

  “My point is that this trap wasn’t just thought up overnight and scraped haphazardly together. We know Morwyk has hundreds in Calgaryn—even within the palace—who are loyal to him—”

  “And gains more every day this damnable war continues,” Rhys grumbled.

  “Rhys,” murmured the king.

  The captain looked belligerent but held his tongue.

  “So in your estimation there were two plots to harm my son?” Errodan asked. “One that failed and one that…didn’t?”

  Lieutenant Bastian val Renly cleared his throat again and offered hesitantly, “Is no one willing to believe that the Shade and his darkhounds were real?”

  The men in the room exchanged looks. Even Errodan found the idea implausible.

  “I only ask because this isn’t the first inexplicable thing that’s happened recently.”

  “That body in the catacombs, you mean,” offered the king.

  Bastian nodded. “And the hole, Sire, melted through stone and earth.”

  The king frowned as he considered these facts in a new light. Finally he looked to Vitriam. “What say you, Truthreader?”

  Errodan had rather forgotten he was there. She frowned at the man—he looked for all intents and purposes as if he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. No doubt it takes him a minute or more just to draw breath, she thought irritably. The man is so ancient!

  After a long silence in which it seemed as if the Truthreader was inhaling one spoonful of air at a time, the elderly Adept straightened in his chair and looked to the king. “I can only say, Sire,” he announced at last, “that those of Her Majesty’s men to whom we spoke believed wholeheartedly that the man they saw was a Shade, that his power to bind them was real, and that the dogs were darkhounds raised from the shadows of the night.”

  “So he was convincing,” Morin said. “That only makes him a gifted illusionist.”

  “Indeed, Spymaster. Indeed.”

  They retreated to their own thoughts, and Errodan began to think the matter had been abandoned when Vitriam chimed in again, adding, “But would it not also be imprudent, Spymaster, to dismiss the possibility out of hand? Shades did once walk the realm, and darkhounds seem mythical now only because none living have ever faced them. One may go many years without seeing a redbird, or live all his life without meeting the olyphaunt. These are not reasons to believe a thing does not exist.”

  Morin still looked skeptical. “Björn v
an Gelderan and his Shades were banished three centuries ago to T’khendar, Truthreader.”

  “Yes, so we have all been told,” Vitriam agreed. “Yet it has been occasioned that the banished return, some having never known—or even cared-- hat they were banished to begin with.”

  Errodan frowned at him. She was convinced that sometimes the Truthreader just talked utter nonsense.

  Morin still seemed dubious, but he let the matter rest. “His Highness’s situation notwithstanding,” he said, nodding to Vitriam, “the problem we face most immediately is one of perception. Until the prince is found, or until we receive word of him, no one can know of the true events of this night. Things must proceed as usual.”

  Errodan shook her head in frustration. “We cannot have a parade without a guest of honor, Morin.”

  “Indeed, Your Majesty. We shall explain the circumstances as the tardy arrival of the Sea Eagle and not call off the parade until it is obvious the ship isn’t going to arrive. The Sea Eagle’s captain should have received the bird with his new orders by now. He will head out to sea and not return until we send word again. With any luck, no one will have seen the Sea Eagle in near waters at all.”

  “The Festival and fair should begin as usual then,” Errodan offered. “It will distract our noble guests from Ean’s absence and give them other matters to gossip about.”

  “My men are accompanying the palace guard in their searches for the prince,” Morin said. “We shall spread a number of false rumors to keep Morwyk’s spies guessing. I’ve already dispatched a team to investigate the battleground more closely and follow up on these many disparate and confusing leads.”

  “We will speak of this to no one,” Errodan declared. “As far as any of us know, the Prince’s ship is merely delayed.”

  Thus agreed, everyone looked to the king.

  “One week,” Gydryn told Morin d’Hain. “You have one week to find my son.” He had no need of finishing the sentence, for they all knew the conclusion that followed.

  Or the val Lorian reign may soon see its end.

  Five

  ‘All things are formed of patterns.’

  – The Sobra I’ternin

  ‘I know Hell, for I have died there. Hell is a blessing compared to what awaits us all if he fails.’

  Ean spent the better part of the next day pondering the Shade’s words. No matter how he tried to put an explanation to them, no sense ever came. He finally concluded that he wasn’t meant to understand, that the man had just been speaking with his own anger, not foretelling some cataclysmic eventuality.

  As he settled into his tent that night, he couldn’t stop wondering who he was.

  It was after midnight when Ean woke to a powerful shaking of his shoulder. He opened his eyes with a jerk of alarm, and a hand clamped down over his mouth. “Speak not,” warned a deep voice.

  Heart pounding, Ean nodded.

  The hand released him, and Ean sat up to see a shadowed form barely discernible in the darkness. “We must go. There’s little time.”

  Something in the man’s tone brooked no argument. Ean rushed to don his boots, but a thousand thoughts raced through his mind. Surely this was rescue, yet how was it even possible? Who could’ve found him? Where was the Shade? What of his guards?

  Ean followed the stranger from the tent and found eight shadowed forms lying scattered beneath the moonlit night. “What in Tiern’aval…?” His rescuer appeared to have single-handedly eliminated his guards.

  Ean spun a stare at the stranger, who more than matched him for height. He knew they’d never met, for he would remember such a man: raven hair falling in loose curls to his shoulders, sculpted features equally statuesque and stern, and compelling emerald eyes. The man stared intently back at him. “I see you are well enough,” he murmured as he ran those emerald eyes over Ean. “That is a blessing.”

  “Whole, at least,” Ean managed, thinking of his two near escapes from death. “But who—?”

  “Keep your voice down!” the stranger hissed, glancing around. Ean saw no sign of the Shade, but men walked a distant patrol, and others huddled by a far fire, apparently engrossed in dicing. An excited shout erupted from the gaming group, whereupon the stranger urged him forward. “Stay close. We must hurry.”

  Ean went, somehow never thinking to suspect the man or his motives, though other questions found their way across his lips. “Who are you?” he whispered as he matched the other’s long, fast stride. He took the man’s arm in a firm grip. “Why are you risking your life for me?”

  “I risk nothing.” The man jerked his arm free and upped his speed toward the forest.

  They moved silently into the trees where a waxing moon shone in brief glimpses. Ean fell into step behind the stranger, watching his heels as they brushed and lifted his heavy dark cloak that seemed to be congealed of night. Everything about the man inspired confidence, but Ean was bursting with questions, and his impatience got the best of him.

  “Please,” the prince said after they were well inside the trees and ducking to avoid low branches, “you must tell me. Who are you? How did you know I was here? Who are these men, and what—what business brings a Shade to task with me? Please—” he grabbed the man’s arm, but released it again, startled. The stranger’s flesh might’ve been marble for all it yielded to his touch.

  “Do I look a Shade to you, Prince of Dannym?” the man meanwhile growled. “My business is not his business, and his is not mine. Where our paths intersect, we cross without touching.” He turned a penetrating gaze over his shoulder. “And there is nothing I must do.”

  For all the force of his gaze, Ean wouldn’t be so easily deterred. “The safety of my father’s kingdom may depend on what information I can gather. If there is nothing you can tell me, I will be forced to return and attempt to question the Shade’s men.”

  Abruptly the stranger stopped and spun, forcing Ean to draw up short. “Don’t be a fool! Your life is more important than you know.”

  Ean stood, stunned by his words.

  The stranger grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him into the lead. Ean stumbled into motion, feeling oddly chastised, unexpectedly childish, and keenly aware of the man’s presence just behind.

  A pale and distant horse grew substance in the moonlight, and as Ean focused on it, his expression brightened. Caldar! Something familiar, thank Epiphany. Motion behind the horse of a darker sort, and Ean saw yet another great stallion as shadowed as its master. They soon gained the horses, and Ean felt his hopes surge. We’ve really done it! We’re going to escape!

  “We’re not out of this yet,” the man warned as if reading the prince’s thoughts. Almost in answer, the grating bellow of a horn erupted in the night, sending a nearby flock of birds scattering out of their slumber. Ean spun with a sharp intake of breath.

  But the stranger wasted no time; he bounded in silence onto his saddleless horse—just the creak of leather britches as they stretched with the tightening of his thighs. Taking up the reins, he swept his cloak behind him and gave Ean a frightening and humorless grin. Tiny fang teeth glinted in the far corners of his mouth, teeth the prince never would’ve noticed had the man not smiled just like that.

  Ean froze.

  A zanthyr. Ean swallowed. Strangely, the truth seemed somehow appropriate. A mortal man stealing into the Shade’s camp to whisk him away seemed impossible, but a zanthyr…

  They were Alorin’s most ancient race, harboring two distinctly separate forms: one human, one animal. Both as elusive as the wind.

  Ean reminded himself to breathe.

  “Hurry,” the zanthyr urged. “They know you’ve escaped now.” He swung his stallion in a rearing arc and charged off through the trees.

  Ean mounted quickly and set his heels to Caldar’s flanks. He pushed the warhorse to catch up, hoping above hope that the animal could see where he could not. The zanthyr’s black cloak billowed behind him as he rode through the night, making him look very much the part of the famous s
pecter of All Hallow’s Eve. The horses surged down into a ravine and splashed across a dark-running stream. Back up the other side, the zanthyr turned them hard to the north.

  They rode for hours, sometimes furiously, sometimes carefully, but always pressing unfailingly northward. By the first twinge of dawn, they’d gained a trail where the horses fell into an easier, loping canter.

  Ean took advantage of the silent riding. He decided a few things in those quiet hours, not the least of them that the zanthyr had to be working some kind of magic to replenish their horses’ strength.

  To think that zanthyrs can wield elae! That was something no one knew, surely. The creatures were already relics by the turn of the current age, and they’d only grown more elusive as the centuries passed. Humankind knew little enough about them, but the one thing everyone seemed to agree upon was that zanthyrs were notoriously disloyal. Stories of their capricious acts abounded throughout the kingdoms of man; tales of a zanthyr pledging his fidelity to each of two warring kings, only to sell each monarch’s secrets to the other and make fortunes off the both. Since the dawn of their creation, the creatures had apparently been betraying someone.

  And while this zanthyr may have been saving Ean’s life, that very fact troubled him. He would have to be daft indeed not to realize that any matters concerning Shades, zanthyrs, and elusive assassins went deeper than a ploy for a throne. Now that they’d involved him, he meant to get to the bottom of the mystery.

  The prince brought Caldar alongside the zanthyr as they walked the horses beneath the grey dawn light. “Tell me,” he began in a sharp whisper, “why are you helping me?”

  The zanthyr turned and gave him a withering look. “Be grateful that I am and leave it at that.” But at the prince’s injured glare, his manner softened and he offered, “I don’t know if you noticed that I repaired your sword for you.”

  “My sword?”

  He indicated Ean’s saddle. Frowning, the prince spared a closer inspection and caught the glint of a well-known jewel. He retrieved the weapon from its secured place, and his eyes widened. It can’t be!