The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  Grace slapped at his wrist and he laughed. “And we’re wasting time!”

  “We’re not. Today, we’re resting and evaluating our new situation. Caution is not only wise, it’s necessary.” Sevryn sniffed his fingers to see if the reeds had any discernible sap or odor. He couldn’t tell. He nodded, finished his reed diadem off with a twist, and settled it on her head, her glossy auburn locks shining in the sunlight. He knelt beside the fire and spit, where their meal dripped fat into the ashes and sizzled as if it might be done. He pulled the carcass toward him, dividing the small roast in two, and they both ate hungrily without words.

  Grace set her bones aside to lick her fingers, her mouth pursed as if she had words she needed to say and couldn’t. She examined her wristlet and let her hand drop into her lap. “I feel empty.”

  Sevryn abruptly lowered the quarter leg of meat he held, its fire-crisped skin hanging loose from now tender flesh, and then offered it to her. “I’ve had enough.”

  She pulled a face at him. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve had my half, now you eat yours.”

  Frowning, he brought the haunch up again. “What do you mean?” His neat, white teeth ripped into it, with a bit of juice escaping the corner of his mouth. She watched it glisten on his chin.

  She spread one hand into the air, palm up. “I wish I had a better way to say it. Just . . . empty. As if I can’t be filled, no matter how deep I breathe, or how much I drink or eat. As if I’m searching for something that I have to consume but can’t, because I don’t know what it is or where to find it, and everything else is nothing. Sometimes I feel almost frantic. And it weakens me.”

  “I find little wonder in that. You’ve cleansed three settlements in a handful of days, it has to be wearing.”

  “It has to be done.”

  “Yes, but not all at once! The water had been fouled with plague for decades at the last village,” he told her, and cut his bone through the air. “They could have waited another few days while you got your strength back.”

  “If I can get it back.”

  He bristled. “I will shove you back into Kerith if I have to, while I stay to deal with Quendius. It’s those souls draining you. It has to be.”

  “Possibly.” She twitched her fingers in the grass near her thigh, rolling the stems between her fingertips. “We’re resting today,” she added mildly.

  He tore meat off the bone with a savage bite, not answering.

  “I don’t know what it is. If I did, I’d tell you . . . and I think I’d know if Cerat was chewing at me the way you’re chewing at that.”

  He swallowed. Then again. “Perhaps.”

  “It could be the Goddess. We’re not home.”

  “No, we’re not.” He looked up, to the eastern quarter of the sky where a very small silver crescent rode the darkening blue. A songbird in a faraway branch faintly trilled. “We don’t have three moons. Although that one is hardly big enough to qualify.” He dropped the rest of his portion to a leaf platter. “It could be that, which means it’s vital that we move against Quendius soon. Our time here could be even more measured than we figure, if it’s wearing on you adversely.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you.”

  He reached out and caught up her hand, squeezing it lightly, and the aroma of the grasses between her fingers spread on the air. “You didn’t have to. I can tell. I was wondering when you might say something or if I would have to pull it out of you. You look pale. You act as though you feel transparent.”

  He held up their hands. Hers, pale against his tanned ones, her fingers long and tapered, his callused and scarred but showing strength. His skin warm against hers.

  “Lily would make me eat my greens.”

  “And Nutmeg would bring you fresh apples.”

  The corner of her mouth pulled. “Yes!”

  “And it would help.”

  She pulled their knotted hands to her forehead, pressing them close. “Yes, it would. So what will help me here?”

  “Getting done what we came to do, I imagine, and finding our way home.”

  He freed his hand gently so that he could finish eating.

  “If the bridge can be rebuilt.”

  “Daravan did.” He pulled a crispy bit of skin free and eyed it between his fingers. “A number of times, as far as I can determine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He entered Kerith at least half a dozen times, by what Gilgarran and I have noted. Not that either of us were eyewitnesses, but there were anomalies. Gilgarran noted the appearance of the Kobrir assassins and surmised they had been an imported race, such as we were. We know Daravan came to the Ashenbrook and the Ravela, and then to the Andredia in Larandaril. That’s twice. Not the same bridge, or he’d have had the same landing point, do you see? He picked his geography.”

  She grew still, thinking. Then, “He did, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. He came close to piercing Calcort but could not hold it. I’m not sure if the spell needs to be docked or anchored to complete, it’s not a Talent I can even imagine, but it seemed he couldn’t manage it there. The Raymy came spilling through but not him.”

  She shivered at the memory.

  Sevryn finished off the meat on his bone and sucked at the marrow. “He didn’t want to come through there; he knew he wanted to be in the heart of Lara’s kingdom. Because of the Andredia, it was the last place any of us would think an invasion and attack could succeed.”

  “And it didn’t.”

  “But it almost did.”

  Rivergrace busied her hands by pushing them through her abundant tresses and pulling them back, and weaving them into a knot at the back of her slim neck. With one hand securing the knot, she plucked up a sturdy, thin twig and inserted it to complete the style. “But it didn’t,” she said, laughing.

  Sevryn threw another twig at her. Then another and another, until she got to her feet and ran to hide behind a tree. She stuck a hand out and waved. “I surrender.”

  “For today anyway.”

  Grace nodded. “You’ll be scouting?”

  “Just a bit after sundown.” He stuck a thumb at their next destination. “That’s a town, Grace, nothing like what we’ve dealt with already. With outlying farms and roads and businesses as well as that good-sized port. We risk a great deal going in there.”

  “Perhaps we should do it in early sunrise. Contact no one, if we can help it, but the water-gatherers and launderers will be up and about, readying for their day.” She peered at him from around the tree. “I should be able to know where I have to go.”

  “They won’t have a well and bucket system. That’s a fairly sophisticated town down there, as well established or more than Calcort. There will be sewers and the like. Ponds and cisterns. Aqueducts and culverts. Piped water will be calling you from every direction and most of it buried under their roads and buildings.”

  “Like a web.”

  “Exactly, and you searching for a spider which is most likely nowhere near the center of it. I’ll have a bit of trouble protecting you.”

  “I have faith in you.”

  He smiled but it didn’t warm his silvery-gray eyes. “As I have in you. Not tonight. Don’t press me to let you go tonight. I want to have a better idea of the town’s layout. We don’t know what we’ll find there—it’s prosperous, the port is open from what I can see—we’re not likely to find allies there. More like a people toiling under the obstacles they must, and others spying to make sure it’s done. It’s possible the town hasn’t been tainted.”

  “We have yet to find a place where the name Trevilara is not a curse.”

  He held a hand out and pulled her to her feet. “We’ve been at very independent, outlying communities, the sort that have always rubbed against rulers and rules. The first time we find a civilization that is loyal, unless we’re very caut
ious, could be our last.”

  “All right, then. You go be cautious and I will nap.”

  He tapped his index finger on her chin. “Exactly what I hoped you’d say.”

  • • •

  Although, deep inside the city, he found he worried about leaving her behind, that the heavy forested hills to the south of the town were not secluded enough. She could defend herself, he’d no doubt of that, unless she slept so deeply she could not hear an approach . . . He heard steps nearby, a presence he hadn’t noticed for worrying about Rivergrace and chided himself as he moved away quickly. He ducked behind an eaved building and slid into the muddy shadows of what had to be a tavern, smelling of roasting fat, and beer and urine, with the pungency of stables nearby. His nostrils stung. Really pungent stables. Someone ought to be after their stable lads for their lack of work ethic and basic care of horses.

  He rolled on his shoulder blade around the building’s corner, out of the deeper shadows, and almost into an illumination from a streetlamp which had just been lit. He saw the lamplighter trundle his ladder up over his shoulder and with a broken, whistling tune, make his way down the street to the next lantern pole.

  Again, thinking too much of Rivergrace and too little of his own caution. And what would she do when he didn’t come back with the dawn?

  Come after him, of course, no matter what sort of trouble he might have run up against. And he knew she would, too. The corner of his mouth pulled into a half-smile. With that in mind, he found a drain pipe and shinnied up it until he could gain the rooftop and from that advantage, watched the streets below as he moved through the night.

  He froze in place at the sound of voices. He sussed out words and accents, and finally drew on his Voice to understand more clearly, warming his Talent and listening as finely as it allowed him to. A breath or two and then the surliness came through as he lay down on his belly in the dark.

  “. . . marks not the border, y’see, and she cares naught if anyone dies out there!”

  “Shut yer mouth. She has ears and eyes everywhere.”

  “Only if there’s money in’t. If it’s just flesh and blood, Trevilara won’t be caring. And there’s an army out there, I tell you. A dread army of shadow and steel that bleeds whatever it crosses and throws the carcasses to the side and doesn’t care at all for gold or gems.”

  “Only the dead don’t care about money.”

  “Exactly, I tells you. Something unnatural is out t’ere and it cares not a whit for money or prayer or the queen, flames and all.”

  “Yer wrong. She marks it, she has to. That sort of army could do for her.”

  “Nothing does for her. She cannot die, our queen, no matter who might wish it.”

  “So whut are you sayin’, then?”

  “Don’t take your caravans that way, no matter what bounty she offers, or it’ll be you and yours drained dry and thrown aside like a sack of dried bones to the road. That’s all. I told you the warning and what you do with it is your own cursed business.”

  “Bah. Th’ queen has offered a fair bounty to travel for goods that way. I’d be a fool to turn it down.”

  “And I jus’ told you why you’re a fool if you go.”

  “A dread army.” A scoffing sound. “She has never let an army stand against her. The last one she blasted off th’ face of Trevalka for even thinking of going against her, and who has ever heard of those Houses since? Eh? Brave warlords and knights and fighters all, blown off the face of the earth.”

  “In your father’s time. If it happened. I say she opened a pit and buried all the bodies, every rag of the traitors, down to the last dog and wagon wheel.” Boots scraped the alleyway. “Yer goin’ despite whut I say, right?”

  “I have t’ go. I have contracts to fill and bills t’ pay. I can’t run from armies I never heared of before, now can I? And I trust th’ queen. She wouldn’t send anyone inta harm’s way, not for goods she needs. ’Tis a pretty bonus she’s payin’ when I bring the caravan home.”

  “Think on it, lad. Why the bonus? ’Cause damned few are comin’ home!” Another shuffle of boot soles in the wet and grime. “Bah. I tol’ ya. It’s all I can do. Light on ya, and hope you make it back.”

  The voices dropped beyond his hearing. Sevryn pulled back tightly. It sounded like Quendius and his men had taken a stand on a crossroads, living off the fat of the land there and waiting to see what authorities they might draw after them. Rivergrace hadn’t told him that the Undead fed so voraciously, but then she might not have known. Quendius would not keep them under wraps the way Narskap had, mostly to protect his daughter, a worry Quendius did not feel. Now, with that constraint gone, the appetite of the Undead seemed to have grown in leaps and bounds, making Quendius the master of a very unruly pack.

  And it might well be a calculated move. Quendius would have a formidable reputation when the time came for him to meet Trevilara, a background of bloodthirsty and relentless action. The weaponmaster might even hope that Trevilara had built up a reluctant respect for him and would treat with him as an equal.

  Sevryn breathed in, long and slow, and went to his hands and knees to make his way across the rooftop. His path took him crisscross over the town, but he never heard a conversation that piqued his attention quite so much as the first one. No word of bad water, only talk of plague, and those few who mentioned it did so in hushed, frightened words that told him the plague was feared, under strict control measures and no longer in daily outbreaks. He culled the information he needed as he drew close to the center of town, near the town guard headquarters, from the gossip on the air as well as the grousing of tradesmen. Among the most important tidbits he heard was the location of the stables in the opposite quarter of the town. Rivergrace would walk no farther, he decided, not with Quendius nearby, and changed his rooftop route to go in pursuit.

  He did not see the rotted corner of the next roof he crossed, not until too late, when it collapsed with a thunderous noise, dropping him to the streets where he lay and tried to catch his breath. In the next blink of an eye, he found himself surrounded by city guard, their spear points down and glinting sharply in the pale light of city lanterns.

  • • •

  He meant to leave her sleeping, but she couldn’t. The smell of the fire ebbing down to little more than glowing ash filled her senses, along with a restless wind that did not blow steadily into the trees but fitfully, so that each new gust rattling branches came as a little bit of a startlement. The noise of predators moving far off, twigs snapping now and then, a faint yelp of a prey caught—those came to her as well. Nothing could be as noisy, though, as the sounds of her own body: the rush of her pulse in her ears, the knocking of her heart, the whoosh of her breathing, the occasional gurgle of her stomach, the pounding of her thoughts. She hated that he had gone without her though she knew he could move faster and quieter without her. Always dangerous, his stint with the Kobrir had given a razor-sharp edge to his abilities. They had meant to. His captivity had not been accidental but fortuitous, he’d told her. He had been sharpened so that he could face off against Daravan and deliver the man to the Kobrir for justice. His prey had no intention of going willingly, so Sevryn failed in that regard, though Daravan could hurt and manipulate them no longer. He counted that as a victory for the Kobrir, though far from their intentions and he might have to settle with them when—or if—they ever returned to Kerith.

  Rivergrace shifted to try to find a more comfortable position. If they returned. She had not thought that far ahead nor did she now. Her father had had a plan in mind when he insisted she anchor the souls of the Undead, but he’d never told her the extent of his thoughts. His voice echoed in her half-dreams. “Remember this,” he’d told her. “Cerat is never diminished no matter how many times he is divided.” And then, “He lives to corrupt. Innocence is the most perfect bait to catch him. He is most powerful whole . . . You’ll understand i
f you remember.”

  She remembered, but she was no closer to understanding what he meant or what he’d hoped the two of them could accomplish, the legacy that he’d passed to her. Narskap was not always in his right mind, seldom actually, but in his moments of lucidity, he could do great things. That was why Quendius held his leash and kept him close as his Hound. He had known another way, she thought. Had planned that he would have time to impart his scheme to her, and failed.

  What had he meant?

  She was the innocence of his statement: that was the only fragment of his words that she understood and she knew that he had been mistaken then and now. She would work with that element when the other parts of his statement fell into play. She knew one thing with surety. He’d been speaking of dealing with Quendius. She’d have to worry at it like a dog over a bone until she knew how to do what she must. Quendius would be stopped.

  She turned onto her back. The night, not as dark as it could be, lay sprinkled with stars, unfamiliar stars, not like the ones she and Nutmeg used to picture from tall orchard trees they climbed up and perched in on lazy summer nights. Her faraway sister used to tell her that there was no problem that couldn’t be solved by climbing a high enough tree to get a new view on it. She wondered how Nutmeg was, after her loss of Jeredon, and how the baby was, and if they were doing all right. She wondered if Nutmeg thought she’d died when she went through the Gate at Larandaril and given up on her, telling her baby about the lost aunt, like the lost father. How Tolby and Lily fared, and her brothers—Garner, Hosmer, and young Keldan—thrived, if they did. Garner had a free-roving spirit and likely had taken to caravan guarding, like his father, with more than a little gambling on the side. He might never come home again, to Lily’s sorrow, but she let her son go. He was, after all, more than man grown and how could she scold away the traits that helped her to fall in love with her husband, his father? Hosmer was grown, too, now a captain in the city guard, as solid as an emeraldbark tree. Keldan, now, like the hot-blooded horses of the Vaelinar he so admired, could set a wild eye on you as if he would bolt away at the first suspicious word, but his craft and kindness with animals couldn’t be disputed. Rivergrace wondered if he’d become a healer and trainer of them. All three were bound to be doting uncles for Nutmeg’s child. If Garner stayed true to his wandering soul, he’d still send gifts back, trifles he’d found along the way that he thought might be loved or useful.