Shadow of the Phoenix

by Rebecca Harwell

  He inclined his head. “Very well.”

  This was going to be fun.

  The Guardmaster approached the smelter as if it was an enemy entrenchment. He waved off Shay’s offering of a seat, instead opting to pace back and forth in front of the smoldering coals. Shay stood off to one side, waiting for him to speak. She latched on to the calm energy of the furnace’s low flame, soothing her inner fire. The last thing she needed was to set the smithy ablaze in front of Nadya’s father.

  “You traveled with Nadya these past months, yes?”

  Shay nodded. “We did travel together, along with my forgemaster. We followed a caravan down to the northern edge of the South Marches. Kipperwell was the last place we stopped. Your message found us there.” She tried to hide the bitter edge in her voice.

  “You’ve been an apprentice long?” Shadar asked.

  She frowned, unsure of the point of this line of questioning. “Yes, nearly a dozen years now. Ever since…” Shay paused. How much did he know of her origins? The Guardmaster was no fool, she knew that much, so she plunged onward. “Ever since I left Storm’s Quarry.”

  Shadar didn’t even flinch. She had guessed correctly that he surmised her past long beforehand. “That is an innocuous way of putting it.”

  “The past is the past. Can’t change what happened,” Shay muttered. She fiddled with the edge of her tunic. “Is that what you wanted to speak about?”

  “In part. I wanted to ask you about my daughter and what your intentions are toward her.”

  Shay could have melted into the floor right there. She swallowed hard and glanced around, but there was no sign of Kesali or Marko to rescue her; at this point, she’d take Peanna and her trained rats for a distraction.

  “Nadya and I are—” She couldn’t bring herself to say friends. Nomori frowned upon same-gender relationships, another thing Shay was grateful to have left behind. Still, she was not ashamed of her relationship with Nadya, and she did not want to lie about it. “We are close,” she said finally. “Shouldn’t you have asked Nadya about this? Before she left, I mean.”

  “She had just lost her mother. The last thing she needed was…well…” Shadar cleared his throat. “I am asking you. She is my daughter, and I am concerned for her…choices.” He paused in his pacing, drummed his fingers against his leg, and looked at the wooden shelf to the left of Shay’s head.

  Thank the stars he’s an uncomfortable as I am, but the thought did not untie the knot of nerves in her chest. “Because I’m a wandering apprentice, not a good Nomori who lives inside this city’s walls? Or is it because I’m nivasi? Or”—she did not hold back the anger that edged her tongue—“is it because I’m a woman?”

  Shadar sucked in an audible breath. He looked directly at Shay for the first time. “So you are…involved.”

  She groaned. “I’ll say it plainly—we are together. Romantically. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  Shay would apologize to Nadya when she returned for the graceless way her father had been told about their relationship. Right now, she just wanted the Guardmaster to be anywhere but the smithy.

  “Did you persuade her into such a thing?” he asked, after apparently recovering from Shay’s frank answer.

  “Did I what?” Shay shook her head. Her temples pounded; she needed a long drink of water, and then a longer drink of spirits. “No, I did not. I didn’t lure her into a relationship or into my bed.” Shadar flinched at her bluntness. Before she lost the nerve, Shay continued, “You are unbelievable, you know that?”

  The edge of the Guardmaster’s mouth twitched.

  “Your daughter is a nivasi, one who dresses up every night like a carnival performer to protect the city against criminals. She has fought a mind controller, broken into a Cressian stronghold, threatened a Cressian dignitary, and now she’s off on a dangerous mission into Wintercress itself, and this is the choice that upsets you? You were all right with her leaving Storm’s Quarry to find herself. Why does me being with her change that?” Shay let out a caustic laugh. “Stars, you were all right with her being nivasi? No one else in your family was, and yet that didn’t stop you. Now you find out that she has a preference for women, and that’s the final straw?”

  “I—” Whatever Shadar had been about to say deserted him, and he did not meet Shay’s eyes.

  “I know the Nomori disapprove of what Nadya and I have.” Shay pressed on, knowing that if she did not say it now, she’d never work up the nerve to do it again. “I think it’s ludicrous, but that is the way things are with your—our—people. But they also disapprove of what we are. You were strong enough to leave that hatred and fear behind. Why not this?”

  The Guardmaster swallowed visibly. “You do not understand. We have lost so much over the centuries. This city has been a haven for us in many ways, it has been our Natsia, and still it takes from us. We cling to whatever we can. You are too young to know what it is to be a leader to our people.”

  “And it was our people who declared that I never see past my sixth birthday.” Shay turned around. The dull orange glow of the coals seared blue then white as Shay’s anger fueled the forge. She took several breaths, gaining control of herself. “If you’ll excuse me, Guardmaster,” she said, but it was not a request.

  Shadar did not argue. Shay heard his retreating footsteps leave the smithy, and she slumped against her workbench. It was too much, she thought, Nadya’s absence, the resistance, her sister’s death, and now the Gabori family demanding answers about their relationship. How foolish she had been, Shay thought with a grim smile, to believe that she and Nadya had found their happily ever after on the road together, no secrets, no old-fashioned Nomori traditions, and no Storm’s Quarry.

  Happy endings were for heroes. Not creatures that parents warned their children of, that fueled the nightmares of young and old alike. Not creatures like her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  One far too early morning, just over three weeks since Nadya left, Shay yawned and walked out of the mess, nearly slamming into the chest of Shadar Gabori. The Guardmaster, though out of the traditional crimson uniform of his order, looked as polished as ever in gray Nomori trousers and a lightly embroidered tunic.

  Shay staggered back, swallowing the last bit of biscuit she had been chewing. She sighed and glanced around. “I don’t want another argument. Not this soon after breakfast, at least.”

  “I am not here to argue.” He gestured away, past the smithy and to the makeshift barracks where the warriors of the resistance slept and trained when they weren’t engaged in other duties. “Come, practice with me.”

  “What?” Shay was sure she hadn’t heard correctly.

  “I’ve seen you fight. You know how to use a blade. I’d like to observe you close-up.”

  “To gauge my weaknesses?” Shay was only half kidding as she said it.

  He chuckled. “Out of curiosity, more than anything. And I find sparring relaxes the mind.”

  She agreed with him there. Shay followed him through the cavern. She waved to Alla, who gave her a small smile as she folded up clean laundry. At least, Shay thought wryly, someone knew where she had gone if the Guardmaster decided to do away with her.

  The Guardmaster’s skill with a blade was well known throughout the resistance. He had been the trainer, then confidant, of the young Duke, after all. Two minutes after picking up a pair of practice rapiers—neither was keen to use their true weapons—Shay held no doubt about Shadar’s ability.

  Nomori men were fast and strong, their preternatural fighting skills a supposed gift from the Protectress that mirrored the psychic gifts of Nomori women. Shadar Gabori was stronger and faster than any guardsman Shay had fought before, and it was only her experience sparring with Nadya that had kept her from being knocked to the ground so far.

  It was still quite early, she reminded herself as the Guardmaster’s blade sliced downward a hairsbreadth from her nose. Shay spun out of his reach and brought her own rapier up in a defensive
stance, wincing as iron clanged upon iron. They parted once more, circling one another.

  Shay still wasn’t convinced that Nadya’s father wasn’t trying to kill her while making it seem like a training accident. Shadar raised his blade until it was perfectly parallel to the ground and pointed at Shay.

  “I must apologize,” he said suddenly, and Shay nearly dropped her practice rapier.

  He did not take advantage of the obvious opening her stuttered movements provided and continued to circle her. “For my words last week, the morning of our raid on the Cressian shipment.”

  She remembered them well. “Why?” Shay asked, her blade flashing toward him.

  He parried it with ease and followed up with a crescent-shaped attack that nearly knocked Shay off her feet. “Because I was wrong. About you.”

  “Really?” Shay cleared her throat. “I mean, what made you realize it?”

  “You did. You spoke the truth, if a bit bluntly.” He smiled and lunged. Shay barely had enough time to block his blow before it landed on her shoulder. She twirled around his blade, drawing it up and releasing it, then dashing away to the far edge of the practice circle.

  “My forgemaster always says the truth needs no softness,” she said, breathing hard.

  “Your forgemaster sounds like a wise woman.”

  “The wisest I know.” Shay struck quickly, aiming for his unguarded side. Shadar swiped her blade aside with his own as if it was an annoying insect.

  “I was reeling from the death of my wife. I still am,” Shadar said suddenly, and the sorrow that dripped from his words brought a cold chill to the base of Shay’s neck. “I lost my city, my Duke, and now my beloved Mirela. When I saw you with Nadya as her mother lay dying, the way you held one another…I knew that you were together. And it pained my heart, because it felt as if I was losing my daughter as well.”

  “Nadya loves you,” Shay said. She brought her rapier up in a defensive stance. “Not even your disapproval of her blood or her choice in partners could change that.”

  “Protectress help me, I am not deserving of that love.” An instant after he spoke, Shadar struck. Too distracted by what he had said, Shay misread his movements. She blocked too late, and before she could draw a breath, her back slammed into the hard ground.

  Shay lay there a moment, wondering what assortment of bruises she’d wake up with the next morning.

  Shadar leaned over and offered his hand, and Shay took it, still reeling from the speed with which he had taken her down. “Good fight. You’ve more than raw talent, and you don’t rely on your weapons to carry you through the fight. Something my daughter is still learning.”

  “Thanks.” Shay held the practice rapier awkwardly at her side.

  “I hope I get a chance to meet your forgemaster one day. I would like to speak with the woman who trained and raised you.”

  The thought of the two masters meeting—one the commander of the Duke’s Guard, the other of the art of the smith—made Shay’s temples ache. She didn’t know if she would survive such an encounter, and she was sure Nadya would feel the same way. Yet she could not help but be grateful that Shadar was taking such an interest in her life. Perhaps it did truly mean that he had left behind the Nomori distaste for their relationship.

  “Well,” Shadar said after Shay couldn’t find any words, “thank you for humoring an old man with a bout of sparring. But now, we are needed in the Bulwark.”

  “We?”

  The Guardmaster nodded. “Come. There is a special assignment for you.” He sheathed his rapier and began walking out of the barracks area.

  Shay bit back a barrage of questions. She hung up her practice weapon, hoping no one would notice the scorch marks on the hilt, and followed him.

  * * *

  “You want me to what?” Shay blurted out, unable to keep her silence any longer. “Forgive me, but I could have sworn you just laid out a suicide mission in which you send me to up to the palace, which happens to house the Crown Prince of Wintercress, his weaponized nivasi, and nearly the entire Cressian regiment.” Shay shook her head. “But I couldn’t have heard that right.”

  She stood in the Bulwark. Shadar had positioned himself behind her, his back to the door, a casual hand on the hilt of his rapier. Marko and Kesali leaned over the room’s only table, as covered in parchments and maps as always. In the far corner, Drina Gabori sat in a rickety chair that squeaked every time she shifted her weight. Shay had wondered at her presence at what seemed to be a war council, but she wouldn’t put it past the Nomori Elder to have invited herself, with no one being brave enough to tell her otherwise.

  Kesali sighed. “We are not trying to throw you to the wolves, Shay.”

  “Really, because it feels like just that.” Shay immediately regretted her words when the Stormspeaker’s face hardened. She didn’t like Kesali, and doubted she ever would, but the Stormspeaker had earned her grudging respect in the past weeks with the way she worked tirelessly for her people. Such jabs felt petty and left Shay with a sour taste in her mouth.

  Behind her, Shadar spoke. “This evening, the Prince will greet a new regiment of soldiers sent by his father. He and his nivasi will be at what remains of the front gate. It’s the best time to infiltrate the palace.”

  “Am I getting backup again?” Shay asked to buy herself time to think through what they were asking of her. It sounded suicidal; even with the Prince and the nivasi away from the palace, it was a fortress unto itself.

  Marko shook his head. “You will be on your own. Will you accept the assignment?”

  His question carried far more behind it than whether or not Shay would break into the palace. Will you be part of the resistance? Will you fight for us? Will you die for us?

  “Fine,” Shay said. “But I expect to be present during the interrogation.”

  “That will be fine,” Kesali agreed, surprising Shay will her lack of argument.

  “Great. Should be a ball, then,” Shay muttered.

  She was completely wrong.

  For every Cressian soldier patrolling the lower tiers there seemed to be three in the palace, and they all enjoyed loitering in Shay’s path. As soon as she crested the staircase and slunk along the wall of the palace’s courtyard, Shay had to slow to a crawl to look around every corner and listen for any sound of a guard. One alarm, and she’d have to blast her way in.

  And, as the Guardmaster had told her sternly, if she got caught on the way in, there was little chance of getting out unnoticed. So she took no chances.

  Shay suffered no delusions that this separated her from Nadya, a stark difference that somehow they’d managed to overcome. Nadya, in all her goodness, abhorred taking a life and avoided it at all costs. Gedeon’s death, however necessary, still haunted her, Shay knew. But she had no such qualms about taking a life that had brought pain to others. Looters, thieves, rapists—they had all found death under her blade. Cressian soldiers were no different. She had killed before, and she would kill again, and so when the only way to clear a tricky corridor in the upper wings of the palace was to draw a glowing dagger across the throat of an unsuspecting recruit, Shay did so without hesitating.

  She paused as she passed by the entrance to the throne room. The last time she had been there, she had risked her life to save the city she despised from a poison in its water supply. For Nadya, she had told herself at the time.

  Always for you, Nadya, she thought as she snuck up behind an unsuspecting soldier who guarded the hall to the palace’s living quarters. Her fist smashed down upon his head, and he crumpled instantly. She might not have Nadya’s strength, but she certainly could apply some force when necessary.

  “Should have worn a helm,” she whispered to the unconscious soldier as she stepped over him and continued down the hall.

  Fire shot from her hands, an extension of her own body, and melted the lock on an ornately carved door, just down the hall. The wood charred and smoked, and the door swung inward.

  Shay ignored
the lavish quarters and their finery, protected from the city’s damp by a suffocating amount of cleaning ointment, and walked into the room. She was not alone.

  A figure in white turned away from the window. Councillor Aster smiled at Shay. “I assume you have come for me.”

  * * *

  A shanty at the far edge of the cavern had been evacuated, stripped of all furnishings but for two wooden chairs; one sat in the center of the room, and one in the corner. Several guardsmen were posted in a circle surrounding the building, but far enough away that they could not hear the interrogation within.

  When their prisoner had been secured and the door latched tightly, Marko stepped forward and tore the blindfold off Aster’s face.

  Despite being dressed only in a disheveled nightgown and tied to a chair, Councillor Aster carried a commanding presence, and she looked down her nose at her captors as if she was evaluating some hogs for sale. She certainly didn’t seem like someone who had been smuggled between buildings and through mining tunnels for the better part of the night, hot blades of light a hairsbreadth from her vulnerable back.

  “Well, I cannot say this is unexpected,” she said in drawled Nomori. Shay’s eyebrows shot up; she didn’t know the councillor spoke the Nomori language, and the sharp breath from Drina’s corner indicated that the Nomori Elder had not expected it either.

  “Nice to see you again, Lord Marko. Or is it Duke Isyanov now?” Aster asked with a slight smile, and Marko’s white-knuckled hand closed in upon the hilt of his rapier. “And you as well, Lady Stormspeaker. Commander of your own small army, I see. Everything your mother trained you for, no doubt.”

  Kesali’s mouth drew into a tight line, her lips nearly disappearing. “Your smugness does you no credit, Aster. There will be no escape for you.”