Slight and Shadow

by Shae Ford

  Kael knew he couldn’t free the giants with the mages hovering over them. There must be some way to get around the spells … but how?

  He was deep in thought one night when Declan came in and interrupted him. “That healed mightily fast,” he said, glaring at Kael’s wounded hand.

  The slash that Eveningwing’s talons had left behind was too deep to heal on its own, and Kael feared it might become infected. So he’d been healing it a little each night, sealing it closed until all that remained was a white, jagged scar.

  He hadn’t realized it, but he’d been scratching at the scar while he thought. He tried to stuff his hand away, but it was too late: Declan had already seen.

  “You’re fortunate that it didn’t get rotted,” he said slowly. “Strangely fortunate, I’d say.”

  Declan had been questioning him an awful lot, lately. While Kael’s antics in the wheat fields had earned him something like a warm indifference from the other giants, Declan had become all the more reserved. If Kael ever felt himself being watched, he never had to look far before he’d spot Declan, eyeing him from a corner of the room. He followed Kael around like a gaping, cross-armed shadow.

  And he was growing rather tired of it.

  “Fortune had nothing to do with it. I kept it clean, is all,” Kael said shortly.

  “Hmm.” Declan shrugged and slouched over to his pallet. He didn’t say anything else, but Kael felt as if his ears were pointed towards him, straining to hear his thoughts.

  The wind blew high overhead. It brushed across the hole in the roof and made a low, drawn-out whistle. Brend groaned as he stepped into the stall.

  “We’re in for a long night, lads. With that clodded wind humming every five breaths, we’re not likely to get an hour’s rest between us.”

  “Why don’t we just tell Finks there’s a hole in the roof?” one of the giants said.

  “Nah — he won’t do anything about it. The mages are a bit … touchy, about holey roofs. Especially after what happened to ole Ludwig,” Brend said, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

  Kael recognized that name immediately, and he was determined to hear the story. “Why? What happened to Ludwig?”

  Fortunately, Brend was always eager to tell a tale. He plopped down cross-legged and the others crowded in. “Ludwig used to be the head mage of the Pens,” he began. “I never spent much time over there myself, so I can’t really tell you what he was like. But the rumor goes that ole Ludwig had a leak in his roof, and though he’d written to the castle several times for repairs, Gilderick never sent anybody out to fix it. One day, he got so fed up that he marched straight to the castle —”

  “Nobody goes up to the castle without permission,” one of the giants piped in. “Not even the mages.”

  “Then why did the guards let him through?” Kael wondered.

  “Oh, they’ll let anybody through the gates,” Brend said with a wave of his hand. “They like to see what sort of horrible punishment Gilderick will come up with for trespassing. But we’re straying from the tale.” He propped his massive arms on his knees. “So, Ludwig marched up to the castle — to Gilderick himself — and demanded that the roof be fixed. And you know what His Lordship did?”

  Kael shook his head.

  “He shoved Ludwig into a cage and hung him up in the castle courtyard! A few days of this, he said, and those holes will start to look a lot smaller.”

  The giants laughed, but Kael wasn’t sure he believed them. Brend was given to tell tales, after all. He had to work hard to keep the skepticism off his face. “I see … and then what happened?”

  Brend shrugged. “Gilderick said he’d be released in a couple of days … but Ludwig never returned. Though we did spot a swarm of crows hovering over the castle a week later. I’ll bet Gilderick forgot about him.”

  That didn’t make any sense to Kael. “But why would he waste one of his mages?”

  “Eh, I suppose he figures if he loses one, he can just send out some of the guards to watch us. He’s always hated the mages. If you ask me, he’s just jealous — I’ll bet he wishes he could cast spells.” Brend shivered. “Gilderick with magic. Now there’s a thought that’ll keep you sleepless!”

  The giants chuckled a bit before they drifted off to their pallets. It wasn’t long before the noise of snorts and grumbles filled the barn, and Kael knew they’d they fallen fast asleep.

  But he couldn’t relax. The puzzle of what to do about the mages stuck to the front of his head, keeping his eyes peeled open. His mind spun so quickly that he thought he might be in real danger of losing it.

  He was just about to roll over when something thunked onto his shoulder. Eveningwing had taken to roosting in the rafters above him. And even though they told him not to bring his kills inside, sometimes he would sneak in a rat or two. Kael reached behind him, preparing for the worst, and was surprised when he grasped the end of a rope.

  It trailed upwards and out of the hole in the roof. Eveningwing the boy watched him silently from where he was crouched on the shingles.

  “I can’t.” Kael had to raise his voice to be heard over the giants’ snoring: “I promised I wouldn’t try to escape.”

  “We aren’t escaping. We’re exploring,” he whispered back. “Come on.”

  After a moment, Kael decided that it couldn’t hurt to look around a bit. He never really got a chance in the daytime, what with the mages roaming about and Declan watching him constantly. Besides, he thought the night air might help clear his head.

  He pulled himself carefully up the rope and out onto the roof. The heat of the afternoon still clung a bit to the evening. His collar was damp by the time he made it to the top.

  Eveningwing dug into the front pocket of his dirty tunic and handed Kael another roll of parchment. “This is from your fiddler friend.” He broke out into a wide smile. “I like him — he’s amusing.”

  “He is, at that,” Kael muttered, stuffing the parchment into his breeches. He didn’t know when he’d get a chance to read it, now that Declan hovered over his shoulder at all hours of the day. “Are there … there weren’t any other letters, were there?”

  Eveningwing bit his lip. Then he shook his head so vigorously that Kael expected to see him lose bits of his hair.

  He tried to hide his disappointment.

  When Eveningwing returned from the seas, Kael had been hoping to hear some news from the pirates: perhaps a note from Lysander, filled with far more questions than any useful information. Or at the very least, a scolding letter from Morris — one made much less severe by the fact that it had been written in Aerilyn’s neat, curling letters.

  And then there ought to have been some news from Aerilyn, herself. He thought she’d be worried over him, and he’d been expecting a packed-to-the-seams message from her, most of all — an envelope spilling over with a volume of her letters.

  So it had hurt when Eveningwing returned empty-taloned.

  “Where are we going?” Kael said as he coiled the rope.

  Eveningwing shrugged. “Wherever you please. I’ll watch the skies. Though …”

  “What?”

  His strange eyes flicked over Kael, as if he was trying to interpret his expression. “I’m unsure — the voices usually tell me where to go next. But now that the shackle is gone I don’t hear them. I don’t know if I should make a suggestion. Or perhaps I should leave it to you. Or perhaps we’ll both —”

  “Just tell me what’s on your mind,” Kael said, before the poor boy could confuse himself any further. “Tell me what you’re thinking about right now, at this exact moment.”

  “I ate a rabbit today.”

  Kael blinked. “All right … but what about where we plan to go? Do you have anywhere in mind that you think I ought to look?”

  Eveningwing’s head bobbed up and down. He pointed across the dusty courtyard to Eastbarn. “See the little light outside the door?”

  Kael found the lantern and nodded.

  “There’s a light
outside of every door — except for one.” He squirmed excitedly, smiling. “Do you think that might be something?”

  “You know, it just might be,” Kael said, with a smile of his own. “Lead the way.”

  Eveningwing took off immediately, changing shape and leaving his tattered shirt behind. Kael rolled the shirt up tightly and held it aloft. He flinched when Eveningwing swooped down and snatched it; the wind coming off his powerful wings blew Kael’s hair back.

  He moved cautiously at first, worried that there might be some guards patrolling the road. But he supposed if there had been, Eveningwing would’ve warned him. Soft beams shined down from the moon, and they were a welcome change from the boiling sun. It wasn’t long before Kael was sprinting through the tall grass, enjoying how it felt to be able to run as fast as he pleased.

  It didn’t take them long to reach the Pens. Most of the animals were nestled inside their barns for the night. Some slept on four legs out in the pasture, their necks hung down and their tails swished contentedly as they dreamed.

  Four barns stood out in the moonlight. They were identical to the ones in the Fields and arranged the exact same way: in a large square, with a patch of dust between them. Each one of the barn cottages had a lantern glowing on its porch. Only one doorway was darkened, and he thought he might’ve been able to guess who that cottage belonged to:

  Ludwig.

  Eveningwing drifted over to it and landed silently upon its roof. The moonlight glinted off his eyes as he twisted his head towards Kael, ruffling his feathers expectantly.

  Kael knew he shouldn’t. There could be all manner of spells guarding the cottage, after all. But he was too curious to listen to common sense. He headed towards the barn, his heart thumping excitedly in his chest.

  His breath quickened as he reached the foot of the stairs. He climbed them one step at a time, concentrating on moving as lightly as he could. The crickets’ song grew to a steady hum, matching the wild pace of the blood that hissed through his veins. His ears thudded with the frantic grunting of the frogs:

  Turn back … turn back, they seemed to croak.

  But Kael didn’t listen. He made it to the top of the stairs and paused at the cottage door. There was no spell wrapped over it, of that he was certain. So if there wasn’t anything keeping him out … why wasn’t he moving?

  His heart climbed up his throat until it became difficult to swallow. The sweat around his neck suddenly felt cold.

  Turn back … turn back …

  A dry, rustling noise drew his eyes to the roof. Eveningwing was perched over the door — the feathers on top of his head stood up impatiently.

  “All right,” Kael whispered, so lightly that it was hardly a breath. He swallowed his heart back down and pushed on the door.

  The cottage hadn’t been opened in a while: dust rained down from the ceiling as the door swung inward, falling so thickly that Kael swore he could hear it strike the ground. He went to take a step inside and the shadow of his curled hair moved slightly.

  That’s when he saw it.

  A white string lay across the floor — stretched so thinly that he might’ve mistaken it for a cobweb, if he hadn’t known it for what it was. He followed the line of the spell out the door and saw it reach towards the neighboring barn. He thought immediately of what Brend had said about Churl: that sometimes he didn’t show up to watch his barn, and one of the other mages would have to do it for him.

  Someone else must’ve been watching Ludwig’s barn, then.

  Kael knew he’d been incredibly lucky. Had the moon not been full, he never would’ve seen it. A large part of him hissed to leave it at that — to turn around and go back the way he came. But curiosity clung to him like grass beneath his shirt, itching all the more furiously as he looked about the room.

  Moonlight fell from the peppered holes in the roof. He saw a small bed, its sheets yellowed and stiff with dust. A dresser leaned against the wall, slightly cockeyed on a broken leg. A short desk sat across from the bed …

  And there, sitting on top of the desk, was a book.

  It was covered so thickly in dust that Kael might not have seen it, had the shadow cast by its spine not given it away. He couldn’t help himself — he had to look.

  He stepped quickly over the cobweb spell and made straight for the desk. The dust clung stubbornly to the wet on his palms as he brushed it away, revealing a tome bound in black leather. There wasn’t a title on its front. When Kael turned the book over to check the spine, the entire front cover fell off.

  Whoever owned it last hadn’t taken very good care of it. He hated to see any book ruined, even the exceptionally boring ones in Amos’s library. He picked the cover up and was surprised to find a loose leaf of paper beneath it. His first thought was that the whole blasted book must’ve been coming apart in pages. But when he looked closer, he saw that it wasn’t a page at all.

  It was a letter, folded over and sealed with wax. There was no name written on it, so he had no clue who the letter had been meant for. He realized he would never know …

  Unless, of course, he opened it.

  Kael broke the seal with his thumb and unfolded the letter. His eyes followed the hurried words through the moonlight:

  I’ll admit it — I never believed Churl when he said there was something suspicious about Lord Gilderick. Vile, depraved, contemptible — yes. But suspicious? I hardly thought so. He’s been quite out in the open about his black-hearted humor. One can’t really have any suspicions about it.

  But Churl didn’t listen. He went up to the castle to poke around and got himself tortured. I suppose that’s what happened to him. There weren’t any wounds on him, but now he carries on like such a madman that there really can’t be any other explanation.

  Poor fool. Had he kept his wits a little longer, he might have been able to claim the reward he earned — the one I now plan to take from him.

  He returned from the castle, wild-eyed and muttering gibberish, and thrust this book into my hands. I don’t know why, but I hid it from the others. And now I’m so glad that I did. The giants are far too stupid to read, so I’m convinced that Churl must have stolen it from the castle library, from Gilderick’s personal collection. From the moment I read its title, there was no mistaking what it was: the literature of the enemy!

  What purpose Gilderick might have in hoarding it, I do not know. But this is a serious offense against the crown. If I am able to turn Gilderick over to Midlan, I might earn my way out of this boiling grass bowl. It shouldn’t be too difficult to capture him: one netting spell ought to do the trick.

  Though I am confident, I am also a cautious man. If you are reading this, it means something went horribly wrong. My advice to you is to burn this cursed book and flee as far as your legs can carry you — if you are free to do so.

  If not, may Death find you before Gilderick does.

  -Ludwig

  Kael read the haunting words once more, slowly piecing the mage’s story together. There’d been more to it than a leaky roof — much more, by the sound of it. He wondered what sort of book might call down the wrath of the King. And more importantly: who was the enemy?

  He knew that if he wanted answers, he’d have to open the book. He sat Ludwig’s letter aside and turned the first crackling page. The second page was blank, as well. But he found the book’s title scrawled across the third:

  The Dreadful Journeys of Ben Deathtreader.

  Well, it was no small wonder that Ludwig thought the book was cursed. As if the title weren’t hair-raising enough, the words themselves had a darkness to them: every letter was drawn sharply, every line pressed down and slashed across the page. It made the words look rather … sinister.

  Kael was deciding whether or not he should turn the next page when a noise drew his eyes across the room.

  A man dug through the dresser behind him. When Kael saw the black pants and scarlet tunic, his heart very nearly leapt out of his chest. But then he noticed the gray feathers
sprouting from the back of the man’s head, and realized it was only Eveningwing. He must’ve found the clothes stashed inside the dresser: now he was opening and closing the filthy drawers so zealously that Kael thought for sure someone would hear him.

  “Quiet!” he hissed, waving for him to stop.

  Eveningwing’s hands dropped obediently to his side. He stood, fidgeting for a moment. His head flicked quickly towards the dresser, then back — as if he was trying his best not to look. His head swung back and forth several times before Kael finally hissed:

  “For mercy’s sake, what is it?”

  “I found a knife.” Eveningwing pointed at the top of the dresser, where the curved end of a blade glinted in the moonlight. “Do you want it?”

  “Sure.” Kael caught the knife by its handle. It was simply made, with an iron blade and a hilt carved from bone. “Sit there and don’t move,” he said, pointing Eveningwing over to the dusty bed. “This will only take a moment — I’m going to read Jonathan’s letter while I have the chance. And then we ought to get out of here,” he added, with a quick glance at Deathtreader.

  He scanned Jonathan’s note. It was mostly about how he still hadn’t been able to charm his way into the ladies’ room. The margins were packed full of woeful poems, each more miserable than the last.

  Kael didn’t have time for Jonathan’s nonsense. They were trying to escape, after all — and he didn’t care if the fiddler felt like a rose with all thorns and no bloom. In fact, it took a considerable amount of effort to keep himself from crumpling the letter and hurling it out the door. He opened the second leaf, hoping that it would be more useful than the first.

  This bit of parchment had been filled with crude drawings of the castle. It was easily the worst map Kael had ever seen: the hallways were wavy and uneven, the doors were often too big for the walls they sat in, and absolutely nothing was labeled. He didn’t even know which way to hold the page.

  So he wrote, in very large letters, for Jonathan to label everything as precisely as he could — and urged him to find a way into the tower.