Keeper of Shadows (Light-Wielder Chronicles Book 1)

by Bridgett Powers

“The stranger had come to claim their unborn child,” said Olivia. “She was all solicitude and generous condescension at first. Her reasons were simple; she had no children to carry on her family legacy and could provide what Lysander and his young wife could not. When they refused, the lady revealed her true nature.

  “With a sudden burst of power that blasted apart one wall of Lysander’s forge, the lady acknowledged herself as a sorceress, bent on the child’s destruction.”

  Noire tensed. Venefica.

  Olivia’s words conjured vivid images of Lysander shielding his wife. “Run. Hide yourself and the babe,” he’d whispered, nudging her toward the rowan grove. “I shall speak with the lady and settle this.”

  “He must have known this wouldn’t end in peaceful resolution,” said Olivia. “For, even as he ushered his wife away, heavy tools and unfinished metal hurtled toward him. Brianne ran, or rather waddled, as fast as a woman eight months with child could. Through the rowan grove and into the wood behind her cottage, she fled, intending to conceal her path back toward Cloistervale so she could rally the men of the village. She never got that far.

  “Just as she entered the wood, a boom shook the ground. She turned back, gazing in horror upon the geyser of flame that had once been the seat of her husband’s trade. So violent was the fire, flame rose above the trees.”

  “The accident,” Lyssanne whispered.

  “Yes,” Olivia said. “Drowning in tears and fear, Brianne plunged deeper into the wood. Soon, sounds of pursuit shadowed her aimless flight. Winded and unable to go on, she stopped in a clearing and turned to face her attacker.”

  “What neither Brianne nor the sorceress knew,” said Jada, “was that a young faerie of particular skill in the healing arts had been assigned to watch over your mother, to nurture her health and yours until your birth.”

  “So, this faerie,” Lyssanne said, her voice hoarse, “she confronted the sorceress?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Olivia said. “No warrior faerie she, Tria suddenly found herself the only defense between her charge and certain death.”

  “She may have been no fighter,” Jada said, “but she took her mission as seriously as any battle. Volunteered for it, in fact, our queen’s own daughter, and paid the highest price.”

  Lyssanne gasped and covered her mouth with a trembling hand.

  “Yes, well…” Olivia cleared her throat. “The sorceress insisted she would have you. If Brianne resisted, she would share Lysander’s fate. Brianne said you were a gift from the King, and what He had given, the sorceress had not the right to steal.

  “Tria shot across the clearing like an arrow snapping free of its bow. The King’s own words upon Brianne’s lips had loosed her. So, when the sorceress flung forth her hand, hurling a bolt of darkness at Brianne—at you—it met Tria instead.”

  “She gave her life for love,” Jada said. “Love of the King, love of your mother who so faithfully followed him.” She turned away, blinking rapidly, and mumbled under her breath, “Love of the mortals you would one day save.”

  Noire’s head twitched. Save? Ha! Lyssanne couldn’t even save herself.

  “What happened to the sorceress?” Lyssanne asked. “To my mother?”

  “She fled,” said Olivia. “The King’s own power was released in that clearing, and I daresay it terrified her. Your mother was unharmed, for only a trickle of the dark magic reached her. It left you with physical limitations, but wasn’t strong enough to take your life.”

  “My sight,” Lyssanne said.

  “Yes. That wasn’t the only change left behind. Where Tria fell, a ring of white blossomed, a living testimony forged of sacrifice. The faerie ring you’ve twice discovered is, for you, a sanctuary. For, it testifies of the King’s action on your behalf.”

  “Like in the Kingsword,” Lyssanne whispered. “‘They overcame by His sacrifice and the word of their testimony.’”

  “Exactly,” Jada said. “No enemy can reach you within Tria’s ring—or even see you once you’re inside. For, none can touch or take from you what the King has done.”

  Lyssanne sat in silence, myriad emotions flitting across her face. “The sorceress…” she said. “If she wanted a child to inherit her legacy, why did she try to kill me?”

  “Your death was always her goal,” Olivia said. “If possible, without revealing her power. Once the ruse she perpetrated on your parents failed, I doubt she intended to let any of you live.”

  “She made that much obvious in her words to Brianne,” said Jada, her fists clenched at her hips. “If Brianne had consented to give you up, you’d have died, never having been born.”

  “Mother told me none of this,” Lyssanne said.

  “Perhaps our queen advised against it,” Olivia said, glancing at Reina and the dove. “She visited your mother just after the attack. What they spoke of, no one knows. This much is certain; Brianne feared the sorceress would return. Perhaps she thought you’d be safer if she kept silent.”

  “The Shadow Mist,” Lyssanne whispered, eyes widening. “She’s the one, that sorceress, the Keeper of the Mist.”

  “She is.”

  Olivia’s words rippled through the emotion-thickened air like boulders through water. Lyssanne shuddered with the impact. Their distant vibration reached even Noire, in the sharp tingles that stabbed his length from beak to tail feathers.

  Venefica had heard…everything.

  “I feel like one lost in a wood,” Lyssanne said. “I’ve pressed through branches, stumbled over underbrush, only to find I’m back where I began.” She shook her head. “’Tis the same old question I must ask. Why?” She speared Olivia with a steely look. “Why did she wish me harm? Why does she still?”

  Jada inhaled as if to speak, but Olivia grasped her by the arm.

  “It is forbidden,” she said, low and ominous.

  Jada paled, nodding.

  Olivia released her and turned back to Lyssanne. “Some things, you must discover for yourself,” she said, her wings lifting her into the air. “Nor do we know all. This, though, I can tell you. Trust in what the King puts before you. When He has fully prepared you, He will lead you to the answers you seek.”

  The faeries departed, leaving stillness in their wake. As the afternoon waned, Lyssanne and Reina lingered in the meadow. They spoke little, and then only to rehash what they’d already discussed. Noire remained among his weeds, in case any further insight should strike them.

  The full story of Venefica’s first attempt to destroy Lyssanne spawned musings of his own. To think, a sorceress who seemed so confident of her own power had feared an unborn child! Lyssanne must have shown potential for great power, indeed, to prompt Venefica’s fear and a faerie princess’s self-sacrifice.

  Another realization struck him. In the earliest days of his service to her, Venefica had only suspected Lyssanne as the child she’d attacked years before, the one she’d called Light-Wielder. Not until she’d witnessed that Light through his eyes, had she been certain.

  And she dared question Noire’s usefulness? Nearly every bit of progress she’d made toward regaining her power, she owed to him.

  By the time Lyssanne left the meadow, the sun was fading. Noire shook off the stiffness of the afternoon’s indolence in favor of frantic flight. He must reach the Hall before light vanished from the horizon.

  Towers and walls blurred beneath him as he pointed his beak toward the library turret. That window would be open even at this time of day. He alighted on the sill then hopped to the carpet-strewn floor an instant before shifting.

  The library's hourglass revealed that he had scant time to dress for dinner. Arriving late to a feast held in his honor would be bad form.

  At least the evening’s activities, unnecessary though they were, would afford him an excuse to delay speaking with Venefica. He wanted his full wits about him for that conversation.

  Lyssanne quickened her pace, all but jogging through the corridors. She hadn’t intended to remain so l
ong out of doors or return this late.

  A hundred thoughts raced through her mind. Her father had been murdered. He and a faerie—not just any faerie, but the daughter of their queen—had died to save her. A powerful sorceress had wanted her dead, likely still did. And the most difficult to bear—her mother, with whom she’d believed she had no secrets, had withheld those truths. Doubtless, she’d had reason, but that couldn’t lessen the pain.

  What would have changed, had Lyssanne known? The truth of the Shadow Mist, and the sorceress responsible for it, might have helped her sway the Council. Would they have sent her away, knowing such a person wished to kill her?

  What was done couldn’t be altered, as Reina had pointed out. “Only you can choose how to use the light you’ve been given, the Light of your gift and the light of this information.”

  Lyssanne’s skirts threatened to trip her as she raced up the grand staircase. She couldn’t risk insulting her hosts. Oh, what if she were already late? She turned a corner and nearly collided with a tall figure.

  Her breath hitched. Prince Brennus!

  The corridor lurched, and her stomach fell into her feet. She wasn’t ready for this! Her intention to plan her next words to him had gotten lost in Olivia’s tale. She must say something. She couldn’t just stand there, fish-faced.

  “Your Highness.” She dropped into as deep a curtsey as she dared. It would not do to fall over in front of a prince.

  He merely nodded and continued walking. Just as he passed her, he stopped. The top of her head prickled from his gaze. The warmth of his hand enveloped hers, and he lifted it. Belatedly, she realized he meant to lift her from her curtsey.

  “These corridors can be quite drafty,” he murmured. “The dining hall is warmer, but perhaps you should don your cloak or a shawl.”

  “I am not cold,” she whispered.

  “Don't be foolish,” he said, still holding her hand. “You’re shivering.”

  “I, ’tis just…” Her face heated. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I did not know!”

  “Know what?”

  “That you were…who you were.”

  He dropped her hand. “You knew what I wished you to know.” His voice was steel wrapped in black silk.

  “But I, I spoke to you so familiarly. And Jarad—he all but scolded you. Surely you must know, had we been aware…Still, it was not our place.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “I have matters to see to.”

  She stepped back to allow him passage. The wide corridor seemed suddenly too small for the two of them. She leaned against the wall to collect her scattered thoughts. The emotions of the past pair of days collided in a dizzying melee.

  The feast! She pushed herself off the wall and rushed toward the corridor that led to her chambers—in the opposite direction Prince Brennus had gone.

  16

  Perception

  Brennus stood amidst the swirl of silken gowns, brocaded tunics, and festive, idle chatter filling the receiving chamber off Duncan’s great hall. From the free-flowing, sparkling wines and juices, to the jewel-encrusted hilts of daggers and gem-laden tiaras glowing in the soft lamplight, everything in the room scintillated with opulence.

  He was no exception. To honor the trouble Duncan’s household had undertaken, he’d unearthed his best court attire from the valuables he kept locked in Duncan’s towers. He shrugged to ensure his knee-length, ornamental cape remained fastened to the gold raven’s-head broaches at his shoulders. The motion shifted his ancestral sword, and it brushed the leg of the man nearest, jabbing one of the metallic wings beneath the sword’s guard into Brennus’s hip.

  Grimacing, Brennus shifted the weapon. If he were to wear this bejeweled, ceremonial scabbard any more often, he must have it fitted with a leather backing like the one his battle sheath provided between the cross-guard’s wings and his body. “I beg your pardon,” he said, turning to the man his blade had jostled. He blinked in the glare of the man’s tunic—a garish ensemble the exact shade of the orange fruit on Duncan’s sideboard, covered in gaudy, gold embellishments.

  Busy expounding on some exaggerated adventure, the man paid Brennus no heed.

  “I daresay there’s more adventure in Sir Fenard’s flirtations than in his feats as a knight,” the captain of the Avery guard murmured in Brennus’s ear. “Hard to believe he’s Duncan’s kin.”

  “Indeed,” Brennus said, though his thoughts had shifted elsewhere.

  The object of those musings entered the room, saving Brennus from further inane chatter. Indeed, Lyssanne’s appearance arrested all conversation—along with his breath.

  Her hair, arranged in an intricate cloud of braids, beads, and ribbons, glowed beneath the soft light. Ribbons and spirals of hair cascaded over her left shoulder. A common affectation designed to give calculating ladies an air of guilelessness. With her averted eyes and youthful features, however, Lyssanne radiated a shy innocence no prickly flower of the court could feign.

  Again, Brennus had to shake off images of a faerie princess in some tale. How many other knights in that chamber felt a stirring of protective instinct? Most, he would wager.

  The golden insets and trim adorning Lyssanne’s silken, jewel green gown set the copper in her hair aflame, completing the fey illusion. The gown, one of MeMe’s, no doubt, flowed about Lyssanne as if designed for her.

  She glanced his way and gasped. Doubtless, as in awe of his finery as of his station.

  He favored her with a nod as the room’s hush swelled into a surf of whispers.

  What drew all eyes to Lyssanne? Certainly not uncommon beauty. Compared with such cultivated roses as Sir Fenard’s sister, Countess Fynnette, she was a wildflower springing from the underbrush. Ah, but Lyssanne was a mystery begging to be solved. Despite devoting a year-and-a-half to watching her, even he felt as if he were seeing her for the first time.

  Lyssanne stood frozen, a flightless sparrow facing a brace of trained falcons. MeMe rushed forward, the consummate hostess, allowing not a moment to stretch into awkwardness. She introduced Lyssanne to those nearest, then ushered her past Brennus toward a group of ladies, pausing only long enough to exchange the proper courtesies.

  How had he never noticed the grace with which Lyssanne carried herself? Silks and ribbons had transformed her delicacy and fine features, for which he’d thought her weak and insignificant, into the marks of a gentle lady’s elegance. He shook his head. She was a peasant—an outcast, homeless peasant—enemy of his oath-sworn lady, and a sorceress.

  She laughed at something one of the ladies said, interacting smoothly with those of a rank no inhabitant of her village would likely ever encounter. Ah, but the mask of her easy manner couldn’t conceal from Brennus the tense lift of her shoulders or the increased darting of her eyes.

  Lyssanne wouldn’t look at him, though she faced his direction. His jaw clenched, and his stomach tightened as it had in the corridor. At least his parentage was the only information MeMe had disclosed. He must make certain that remained the case.

  A sudden impact against his midsection and a high-pitched squeal of “Uncle Bren!” drove all other thought from his mind.

  “Noel?” he muttered. How had Duncan’s daughter managed to enter without his notice?

  The child flung her arms around his waist and laughed. “Madam Stingeford said Papa had a guest, but I didn’t know it was you!”

  “And you,” Brennus said. “How you’ve grown in the past three years!” He swept her up and twirled with her, as he’d done countless times since her infancy, then settled her upon her feet. “Soon, I shan’t be able to do that.”

  “I’m pleased you noticed, Uncle, uh, I mean, Your Highness,” Noel said, shooting a look over her shoulder. Her grin shrank to a dignified smile.

  A pinch-faced woman, swathed from hair to toes in severe grey, scowled back. Ah, Noel’s nurse, Madam Stingeford.

  Noel backed away a pace to offer Brennus a curtsey, her eyes still sparkling. “This winter will be my tenth,
you know.” She glanced at the other guests awaiting the announcement of dinner. Lifting a brow, she leaned close and said in a stage whisper, “Papa didn’t introduce me.”

  She coughed into her hand, casting her eyes toward her father as if to mask the gesture as a hint. But that cough held a rasp no subtle lady’s ploy would produce.

  Feigning a grave air, Duncan sauntered over to present his daughter, Lady Noel Avery, to the room at large. Then, he introduced Lyssanne as the friend and guest of Brennus.

  “I am honored to make your acquaintance, My Lady Noel,” Lyssanne said, offering Noel as deep a curtsey as she had MeMe the night before, though not so deep as the one she’d offered Brennus in the hallway a scant two hours past.

  Noel beamed, maintaining her courtly air barely long enough to return the courtesy. With eyes a-twinkle, she edged closer to Lyssanne and said under her breath, “Uncle Bren is the bravest knight in the Seven Lands, except for my Papa. Would you not say?”

  “I know little of such things,” Lyssanne said, “but I have witnessed his courage, yes.”

  “Have you met Lady Shelly?”

  “I do not believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Lyssanne said.

  “She’s in the corner behind you,” Noel whispered. “Her brother is Papa’s captain.” She again flitted to a new subject. “Is Uncle Bren guarding you on your journeys?”

  “Not precisely,” Lyssanne said, flushing. “Though, your, um…uncle?…has come to my rescue a time or two.”

  “I knew it!” Noel clapped her hands. “I knew you could help me. I told Lady Shelly’s daughter he was the bravest. If you meet her, you could tell her I’m right.”

  “Careful with your flattery, daughter,” said Duncan, “else Brennus will need to ply his sword to fit his head through my door!”

  Amid the good-natured chuckles of those nearest, Noel again spoke to Lyssanne in that conspiratorial way of little girls. “He’s not really my uncle,” she said, “just Papa’s dearest friend. I’m the only one who’s permitted to call him that, you know. Papa doesn’t even call him Bren.”