Sword of Shadows

by Karin Rita Gastreich

  “Tomorrow you will be bathed and given fresh clothes,” he said. “You are to meet the San’iloman. Just as you recognized Kahlil, you will recognize your new queen. You knew her once, as a fellow artist named Rishona.”

  “Rishona?” Adiana frowned. “Tahmir’s sister, Rishona? She’s the Queen of the Syrnte?”

  “And of Moisehén.”

  “And she allows all of this?” Adiana opened her arm in a low sweeping gesture. There was such honest confusion in her tone that Mechnes could not help but smile.

  “Allows it, and commands it.”

  “If her intention is to finish what Ernan started, there is no need. We live in peace with the Mage King; the magas are being restored to Moisehén.”

  “The San’iloman is the daughter of Ferien, the third son of Uriel. She is Queen of Moisehén by right of birth, and has come to claim her crown.”

  Mechnes allowed Adiana a few moments to assimilate his words.

  “I must speak with her,” she murmured.

  “If you try, it will be your death. Her guards are quick and ruthless. Any action in her presence that violates protocol will be met with their blades. I am warning you, Adiana: do not address her directly. If she speaks to you, you may respond, but do not meet her gaze. And for the love of any Gods you care to worship, never attempt to touch her.”

  “She will recognize me.” Adiana’s voice was resolute, her gaze steady as a lake on a windless day. “She will remember our friendship.”

  “Yes, she will.” Mechnes signaled for his guards, that they might return his prisoner to the cold solitude of her cell. “But you are a fool if you believe that will have any influence on your fate.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Unlikely Allies

  “What will become of me?”

  Eolyn started at the sound of Mariel’s voice, so accustomed had she become to her silence.

  Mariel lay upon her cloak, eyes staring vacantly into the space in front of her, as if contemplating a fire. Above them, tenebrous clouds shrouded a waxing moon.

  “When you leave us to find the King,” the girl said, “what will happen to me?”

  Eolyn, unable to sleep, had been sitting with her back against an isolated tree. Now she moved to lie next to her student, wrapping an arm around Mariel’s waist.

  “You’re cold,” she said. This worried her, as the night was very warm. “You should eat more, Mariel. You must maintain your strength.”

  “Why do you not answer my question?”

  Eolyn sighed. Her body ached from the day’s long journey through abandoned pastures and remnant woodlands. Her arms and shoulders were stiff from having spent the twilight hours practicing sword play with Borten.

  At nightfall, the knight had taken a position a few paces away to keep the first watch, Kel’Barú at his side. Eolyn’s keen ears picked up a shift in his position, as if he had turned to give greater attention to their words.

  “Because I, too, am uncertain about the future,” she confessed.

  “Will I be torn apart by one of those things that killed Sirena? Is that how I am going to die?”

  “No, Mariel. That will never happen. Not if we can help it.”

  “You won’t be able to help if you go to the King. You’ll be too far away.”

  Eolyn’s heart constricted at this truth.

  “And you’re taking your sword with you,” Mariel continued, agitation coloring her words. “That sword’s the only thing that will kill them.”

  “We have not seen another Naether Demon since we left the South Woods,” Eolyn said. “Perhaps that was the only one that escaped the Underworld.”

  “There are more. I am certain of it. Such evil cannot walk this world alone.”

  Eolyn paused at Mariel’s comment, sobered by the idea that evil might seek companionship. “Doyenne Ghemena often told me there is no evil in this world except that which we create by our own choices.”

  “Then whoever created that monster must be very evil, and must have much company.”

  Eolyn snuggled closer to Mariel. The night was indeed taking on a chill. “Let us imagine you are right, Mariel, and that there are other Naether Demons let loose in the living world. We must then assume the wards I cast every evening have kept them away. So if you learn those wards and use them after I fly north, then you will be safe.”

  Mariel shivered and choked back a sob. “How long must Sir Borten and I continue like this? Wandering in the wilderness?”

  “Only a few more days. He intends to take you north to the lands of his father, where he will hide you among the servants of his household. You will be safe there until the King comes to the aid of Moehn, or until I return. In the meantime, you must always do as Sir Borten says. Promise me that.”

  “You don’t do as he says.”

  “No.” Eolyn allowed a hint of amusement in her tone. “But I am a lucky fool, for the Gods have kept me safe in spite of it. They may not have as much patience with you.”

  Something between a sob and a laugh escaped Mariel’s throat. Her shoulders shook, and she drew a sniffling breath. “They’re all dead, aren’t they? All our sisters are gone.”

  “Sir Borten insists they are dead to us, and in this he is right, Mariel. We cannot think about them anymore. Our first concern is the good of the kingdom, and the future of our magic. Even so, in my heart I believe the Gods have not yet called them home. I am hopeful we will one day be reunited.”

  “I miss them. I want them back.” Tears spilled down Mariel’s cheeks, and the girl surrendered to a fit of weeping. The outburst brought some relief to Eolyn. At last her student’s wall of silence had crumbled. The girl would be better off for it, more able to look after herself in Borten’s company, after Eolyn’s departure.

  She held Mariel a long while, whispering words of comfort until mourning gave way to exhaustion and then to sleep. Kissing the girl’s forehead, Eolyn tucked Mariel’s cloak close around her shoulders. Then she rose and sought Sir Borten’s company.

  “You, too, should sleep,” he said as she approached, though the admonishment was filled with gentle concern.

  Her eyes had long since adjusted to the intermittent moonlight, and she could see his profile as he scanned the shadowy landscape. He did not allow as much as a glance to stray toward her as she sat next to him.

  “I cannot sleep. Every time I close my eyes I am visited by horrible visions, of Adiana. The girls. The men who destroyed the school.”

  “You must keep your mind on the future, and have faith in the coming of the King’s justice.”

  Eolyn had suffered the King’s justice when she was a small girl. Kedehen’s wrath had left nothing in its wake, leveling her village, murdering the innocent, destroying all she had known and loved. She had loathed the King’s justice in those times, and had dreamed of a world where such cruelty would cease to exist. Now she longed to have that same terror executed on her behalf, to see all those who had caused this misery suffer under Akmael’s most brutal retribution.

  “Gods help me,” she said. “I fear I am learning to hate.”

  Eolyn heard Borten shift his position, and felt the solid weight of his hand upon her shoulder. What an extraordinary gift the Gods had given to men, that they could communicate such strength in a single touch.

  “Hate, well tempered, can be a powerful weapon,” he said.

  She nodded, then drew a sharp breath. “Doyenne Ghemena would have a few things to say about that, were she still here.”

  “The struggles you face are your own, not hers.”

  Eolyn knew not whether it was his words or the cadence of his voice, but her tutor’s specter faded into the shadows.

  Borten returned to his surveillance of the fields, and Eolyn remained at his side in companionable silence. A humid wind rustled through the leaves and grass; the contented songs of crickets and frogs filled the air with a rhythmic pulse.

  “They expect rain,” she said.

  “Rain?” Borten�
��s puzzlement was plain in his voice. “Who expects rain?”

  “The frogs. They expect rain, and are most glad for it. It is a good night to…” She paused, having been on the verge of saying to find a mate, and finished instead with, “To sing.”

  Borten chuckled, a low sound that she had heard often in recent days, despite the many trials they had endured. “Your conversation is strange at times, Maga Eolyn. Do you always pay so much heed to the small creatures of the fields?”

  “Of course. Sometimes we find the greatest wisdom in the smallest of creatures, Sir Borten.”

  “So you are inclined to listen to frogs, yet disinclined to listen to men-at-arms?”

  The question was put forward with humor, and Eolyn smiled. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

  “And what else do the frogs tell you, Maga Eolyn?”

  He had taken her chin in hand, though Eolyn had not noticed when, so natural was his touch. Borten’s face was outlined by the shadows of the night. His musk of loam and crushed leaves wrapped around her and settled upon her shoulders like an old, familiar cloak.

  “I don’t know,” she stammered. “Just what I said…about the rain, and the song.”

  He kissed her, a brief and gentle touch that receded, then returned with greater need.

  Eolyn released herself to his desire, even as uncertainty overwhelmed her heart. Had she not just a fortnight before professed her love for Akmael?

  Yet that seemed another world now, a different age inhabited by an unfamiliar Eolyn, an illusion on the other side of a chasm created by devastating and irreversible loss.

  And Borten, who had walked with her through the fires of these days, who had sustained her in moments of unimaginable terror, was now washing away even the pain of her impossible love for the King, making her dreams of Akmael seem distant and small, like the stars destined to surrender their brilliance upon the arrival of the sun.

  “Sleep, Eolyn,” he murmured, gathering her against his chest. “I will call you when it is time.”

  “You can hardly expect her to sleep after a kiss like that.”

  The man’s voice, bold and sarcastic, had Borten on his feet in an instant, Kel’Barú unsheathed.

  Eolyn rose as well, heart pounding in her chest. She cursed herself silently for having left her staff at Mariel’s side. Indeed, for having left Mariel at all.

  “Nor should you let her sleep,” the intruder continued, “for a maga’s passion is quick, but her heart is fickle.”

  In that moment, Eolyn recognized the voice. She placed a restraining hand on Borten’s arm.

  “Mage Corey,” she demanded, “show yourself.”

  A few paces away, a flame ignited inside a malachite crystal set upon a long staff. The virescent glow illuminated Corey’s face in eerie shades. His eyes sparked with a dry amusement that Eolyn had come to know all too well.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “I was sent by our revered King, who having had news of events in Moehn is sick with worry over his beloved maga, as was I until this moment. I can see now we had no reason to fear. At least, not for the maga’s life.”

  Eolyn sensed Borten’s uncertainty at the strange and unexpected appearance of the King’s cousin. The knight did not lower his weapon, and Eolyn stepped away that he might have room to use it.

  “How did you find us?” Borten’s words came sharp and settled like a blade at Corey’s throat.

  The mage regarded him like a cat assessing whether this particular field mouse was worth the trouble of a chase. He held his free hand close to the glow of his staff and let dangle from it a jewel of fine silver threads and glittering crystals. “With this.”

  Crying out, Eolyn sprang forward and snatched the silver web from his grasp.

  “Ghemena.” She clutched the medallion to her heart, her breath caught between fear and hope. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

  “She is in the King’s City, enjoying all the comforts of the Fortress of Vortingen.”

  “Impossible.”

  “This device brought her to us.”

  “It was meant to bring her to me!”

  “So I understand.”

  Eolyn bit her lip, tormented by doubt, the memory of her brother’s betrayal opening like a fresh wound in her heart. “Syrnte warriors have invaded Moehn.”

  “I know, as does the King. Young Ghemena shared everything she saw.”

  “What did she say of Catarina and Tasha? Of Adiana?”

  “The girls were with her and unharmed when she used the device. She was not certain about Adiana.”

  “Not certain?”

  “She had not seen her for many hours.”

  “You lie!”

  “Lie?” Corey seemed truly taken aback.

  “Always, you have deceived me. Why should I believe you now?”

  “I do not lie, Eolyn. Certainly not to you.”

  “You have friends among the Syrnte,” she insisted. “Old friends in powerful positions. How am I to know you were not with them when they took Moehn, when they burned my school? How am I to know they did not send you to me now?”

  “You have friends among the Syrnte as well.” He replied in crisp tones. “Indeed, you had a lover among their princes, if I remember correctly. Am I then to suspect you of treason?”

  “Enough of your insults!” Borten lunged at the mage.

  Corey raised his staff to deflect the blow, but Kel’Barú cut through the magically cured walnut as if it were butter. Astonished, the mage sprang backwards and invoked a swift ward that threw Borten off balance. Corey then hurled a yellow flame at the knight, but Eolyn intercepted it with a searing blue arc of her own. The fires exploded upon contact, then fizzled into a shower of sparks, leaving behind a smell of sulfur and charred grass.

  The frogs and crickets ceased their song.

  Maga, knight, and mage watched each other in tense silence.

  After a moment, Mariel’s voice wafted toward them, anxious and uncertain.

  “Maga Eolyn?” she said. “Is everything all right?”

  “Stay where you are, Mariel,” Eolyn replied. She strode toward Corey, her anger fueled by years of unspoken resentment. “Leave us. We do not want or need your assistance.”

  “Akmael will be most disappointed if you refuse my aid.”

  “I don’t care who sent you or why. Go back to the rancid hole you crawled out of.”

  “I cannot go anywhere now. The silver web that brought me here is in your possession, and your vile knight has broken my staff.”

  “Then shape shift into the snake you are and slither away! With any luck, Owl will make a meal of you before dawn.”

  Corey studied her with narrowed eyes, a percipient smile playing upon his lips.

  “What a strange fate the Gods have woven for you, Maga Eolyn. Here you are, on the high plains of Moehn, lost in the night, dogged by Syrnte invaders, robbed of your school and your nascent coven. Alone and with only two men to whom you can turn: I, who betrayed your brother.” The mage’s eyes flicked toward the knight, his words piercing the air like small daggers. “And Borten, who killed him.”

  Eolyn gasped, disbelief curdling under a wave of dread. “What?”

  She looked toward Borten, hoping he would deny the accusation, but the knight said nothing. His face lost all expression, save for his eyes, which hardened like granite and remained fixed on the mage.

  The earth wavered, and Eolyn struggled to maintain her balance.

  It should not matter, she told herself, though her inner voice was desperate and small. They did not know each other in those times, and Borten had only acted to protect his liege.

  Yet her stomach churned at the thought of the pleasure she had just taken from his kiss. Ernan’s cruel accusations thundered forth from her memories, pounding inside her head.

  Will you betray your kin, Eolyn, as Briana betrayed hers?

  “Ah.” Mage Corey’s quiet voice cut through her thoughts. “I see yo
u have not yet discussed this particular piece of your history.”

  Eolyn had never despised Corey more than in this moment.

  “You are not welcome here,” she said. “You cannot stay.”

  “I have sworn an oath to the King to return you safely to the City,” Corey replied. “We can depart now, if you like, you with the jewel and I on your staff. Or you can endure my company for as long as necessary while we hide in this wilderness.”

  “If you remain,” Borten informed him tersely, “you will not live through this night.”

  “Do not try to slay me with that insipid blade of yours,” the mage shot back. “I can send you to the Underworld in half a breath. You have already slain one friend of Eolyn’s. I would counsel you against slaying another.”

  “You are no friend of mine!” Eolyn said.

  “Oh, but I am,” Corey said, steady against the heat of her rage. “I’m the most valuable friend you have, though you have long refused to see it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Queen of the Syrnte

  Adiana woke with a start. The smell of dirt and straw greeted her, followed by the more acrid sting of human waste. She registered shouts of men, stamps of horses, the sounds of metal and wood. Beneath it all, a rhythmic tremor in the earth. The deep rumble reminded her of the day Ernan’s troops had emerged from the forests of East Selen.

  Trumpets sounded in the distance.

  Rishona has arrived, and an army with her.

  Adiana rolled onto her back, wincing at the pain in her ribs. The dirt floor was hard and unyielding; her prison dark and plagued by strange rustlings in shadowy corners. There was not a muscle in her body that did not ache, except perhaps the most intimate part of her, the heart of her womanhood.

  That will not be spared much longer.

  If only Mechnes would let her see the girls. Just that much would make everything else bearable.

  Oh, Eolyn. Why have the Gods abandoned us?

  Presently, a wash basin was brought to her, along with the fresh robes Prince Mechnes had promised.