Malice of Crows: The Shadow, Book Three

by Lila Bowen

  Nothing happened.

  At first.

  Then Cora dragged her hand down over Meimei’s heart, and the little critter’s chest rose as she coughed and began crying. Laughing and sobbing at the same time, Cora helped her sit up and murmured to her in their language, and the little girl answered her the same way, voice hitching and high and lisping with no trace of Trevisan.

  “Is it her?” Rhett asked.

  Cora looked at him and gave him a smile he’d only seen once before, in her tent at the train camp when he’d first brought the little girl from Trevisan’s car.

  “It is her. I’m sure. You have succeeded.”

  One time, perhaps, they would’ve hugged. But now Rhett just smiled back and said, “I’m glad, Cora. I’m real glad.” And then, softly, over her shoulder, “Hey there, Meimei.”

  “Rhett,” Dan said, real sharp-like.

  “Now ain’t the time to holler at me, Dan. I succeeded, remember?”

  He meant it as a joke, but Dan wasn’t smiling. He was looking over at Inés, and in all their time together, with all Dan’s preaching and shouting and threatening, Rhett had never seen him look this stony, this somber.

  “Rhett,” Dan said again.

  “Well, what’s wrong now? Can’t you let a feller take a moment to relax?” But Rhett could hear the pleading in his own voice because he knew something was desperately wrong, so wrong that Dan couldn’t tell him what it was.

  He swallowed hard and stood up, turning and shading his eye to see what Dan was looking at. It wasn’t Josephina on the ground, nor Herbert, that had captured Inés’s focus.

  It was Sam.

  Rhett ran to Sam, uncaring of anything else. Trevisan was gone, or good enough. Cora was happy, and if she wasn’t, he didn’t give a shit. What had happened to Sam?

  Sam, who was supposed to stay back with his Henry.

  Sam, who Rhett had told again and again to stay out of the line of fire.

  Sam, who was covered in blood, his normally sunny smile a grimace of pain.

  Sam, whose bright blue eyes were wet and scared and latched onto Rhett like a starving baby.

  “What happened?” Rhett asked, sinking to Sam’s side.

  “He… He got me, Rhett. I’m sorry. You were right. I shoulda stayed out of sight. Covered you with my gun. Like we talked about.”

  “No, Sam. No. You did just fine. I always knew you’d have my back.”

  Sam’s hands were over his belly, but he pulled them away to show the hilt of Trevisan’s pocketknife, the one he’d thrown at Dan… and missed. Or had he?

  Blood burbled out, and Sam groaned and put his hands back over it. Rhett briefly put his hands over it as well, wishing that his magic could help instead of hurt. He’d trade everything he had to fix it for Sam, to take the pain away. Hell, he’d take the knife, right now. In the gut, in his other eye, anywhere. He’d carry it with him forever if he could change places with Sam. It didn’t escape him that this was the same knife Trevisan had stuck into his own chest. But unlike Sam, Rhett had simply plucked it out and kept fighting.

  “We can fix this, right? Inés? We can pull out the knife?”

  The nun sat back on her heels, hands on her lap. He couldn’t see her face, and it was a good thing, because her silence said more than he wanted to know.

  Her head shook, just the tiniest twitch. “It’s in his guts.”

  “So pull it out and…”

  “It’s not the same for him. His body won’t seal off and heal as quickly as yours did. If the knife comes out, the contents of his intestines flood his body. It’s septic, Rhett.”

  “I seen it before,” Sam said, voice quavering. “A man can’t survive it. A man can’t…”

  He trailed off, his eyes finding the sky.

  Rhett looked to Inés. “Then what? What can we do?”

  He wanted to hold Sam’s hands, wanted to draw the man close and hug him, but Sam seemed as fragile as a dying butterfly, his body rigid and his hands firmly pressing down and his face as white and tight as a hotel bedsheet.

  “We can do nothing,” Inés said. “Humans are fragile. That’s their curse.”

  “Nothing?”

  Her head shook. Rhett looked to Dan, whose face was grimmer than grim.

  “This is not a wound that humans can survive, Rhett.”

  Rhett had to touch Sam, so he put a hand on the boy’s shoulder as he looked around the home site. He found no one and nothing that could help. Cora and Meimei, Josephina and Herbert, two monsters, four horses. No medicine, no sawbones, no magic. He’d beat Trevisan. He’d won. But he would trade it all to have Sam standing and whole. No victory was worth this.

  “Necromancy?” he asked.

  “No!” Inés snapped. “That way lies darkness. Sam would not kill another so that he could live.”

  Sam’s eyes fluttered open. “I wouldn’t, Rhett. Not that way.”

  “But there has to be a way, Sam.”

  Sam coughed, his voice wheezing. Little bubbles of blood popped at the corners of his mouth, dribbled down into the golden fuzz of his beard. “It’s okay, Rhett. Not your fault. I’m a Ranger. Was. Always figured… I’d go this way. S’not so bad. Looking up at a fine blue sky and my best friend.”

  “I’m with you to the end, Sam.”

  Sam looked up at Rhett, his eyes unfocused and as blue as a sunny day and his smile as sweet as sugar.

  “I reckon we’re there already, Rhett.”

  extras

  about the author

  Lila Bowen is a pseudonym for Delilah S. Dawson. Find her online at whimsydark.com

  Find out more about Lila Bowen and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net

  if you enjoyed

  MALICE OF CROWS

  look out for

  SKYBORN

  Seraphim: Book One

  by

  David Dalglish

  The last remnants of humanity live on six islands floating high above the Endless Ocean, fighting a brutal civil war in the skies. The Seraphim, elite soldiers trained for aerial combat, battle one another while wielding elements of ice, fire and lightning.

  The lives of their parents claimed in combat, twins Kael and Breanna Skyborn enter the Seraphim Academy to follow in their footsteps. They will learn to harness the elements as weapons and fight at break-neck speeds while soaring high above the waters. But they must learn quickly, for a nearby island has set its hungry eyes on their home. When the invasion comes, the twins must don their wings and ready their blades to save those they love from annihilation.

  PROLOGUE

  Breanna Skyborn sat at the edge of her world, watching the clouds drift beneath her dangling feet.

  “Bree?”

  Kael’s voice sounded obscenely loud in the twilight quiet. She turned to see her twin brother standing at the stone barricade that marked the end of the road.

  “Over here,” she said.

  The barricade reached up to Kael’s waist, and after a moment’s hesitation, he climbed over, leaving behind smoothly worn cobbles for short grass and soft dirt. Beyond the barricade, there was nothing else. No buildings. No streets. No homes. Just a stretch of unused earth, and then beyond that… the edge. It was for that reason Bree loved it, and her brother hated it.

  “We’re not allowed to be this close,” he said as he approached, each step smaller than the last. “If Aunt Bethy saw…”

  “Aunt Bethy won’t come within twenty feet of the barricade and you know it.”

  Wind blew against her, and she pulled her dark hair back from her face as she smirked at her brother. His pale skin had taken on a golden hue from the fading sunlight, the wind teasing his much shorter hair. The gust made him stop, and she worried he’d decide to leave her there.

  “You’re not afraid, are you?” she asked.

  That was enough to push him on. Kael joined her at the edge of their island. When he sat, he sat cross-legged, and unlike her, he
did not let his legs dangle off the side.

  “Just for a little while,” he said. “We should be home when the battle starts.”

  Bree turned away, and she peered over the edge of the island. Below, lazily floating along, were dozens of puffy clouds painted orange by the setting sun. Through their gaps she saw the tumultuous Endless Ocean, its movement only hinted at by the faintest of dark lines. Again the wind blew, and she pretended that she rode upon it, flying just like her parents.

  “So why are we out here?” Kael asked, interrupting the silence.

  “I was hoping to see the stars.”

  “Is that it? We’re just here to waste our time?”

  Bree glared at him.

  “You’ve seen the drawings in Teacher Gruden’s books. The stars are beautiful. I was hoping that out here, away from the lanterns, maybe I could see one or two before…”

  She fell silent. Kael let out a sigh.

  “Is that really why you’re out here?”

  It wasn’t, not fully, but she didn’t feel comfortable discussing the other reason. Hours ago their mother and father had sat them down beside the fire of their home. They’d each worn the black uniforms of their island of Weshern, swords dangling from their hips, the silver wings attached to their harnesses polished to a shine.

  The island of Galen won’t back down, so we have no choice, their father had said. We’ve agreed to a battle come the midnight fire. This will be the last, I promise. After this, they won’t have the heart for another.

  “It is,” Bree said, wishing her half lie were more convincing. She looked to their right, where the sun was slipping beneath the horizon. Nightfall wouldn’t be long now. Kael shifted uncomfortably, and she saw him glancing behind them, as if convinced they’d be caught despite being in a secluded corner of their small town of Lowville.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll stay with you, but if we get in trouble, this was all your idea.”

  “It usually is,” she said, smiling at him.

  Kael settled back, sliding a bit farther away from the edge. Together they watched the sun slowly set. In its glow, they caught glimpses of two figures flying through the twilight haze, their mechanical wings shimmering gold as they hovered above a great stretch of green farmland. The men wore red robes along with their wings, easily identifying them as theotechs of Center.

  “Why are they here?” Kael asked when he spotted them.

  “They’re here to oversee the battle,” Bree answered. She’d spent countless nights on her father’s lap, asking him questions. What was it like to fly? Was he ever scared when they fought? Did he think she might become a member of the Seraphim like they were? Bree knew the two theotechs would bless the battle, ensure everyone followed the agreed-upon rules, and then mark the surrender of the loser. Then would come the vultures, the lowest-ranking members of the theotechs, to reclaim the treasured technology from the fallen.

  The mention of the coming battle put Kael on edge, and he fell silent as he looked to the sunset. Bree couldn’t blame him for his nervousness. She felt it, too, and that was the reason she couldn’t stay home, cooped up, unable to witness the battle or know if her mother and father lived or died. No, she had to be out there. She had to have something to occupy her mind.

  They said nothing as the sun neared the end of its descent. As the strength of its rays weakened, she turned her attention to the east, where the sky had faded to a deep shade of purple. The coming darkness unsettled Bree. Since the day she was born, it had come and gone, but it was rare for her to watch it. She much preferred to be at home next to the hearth, listening to her father tell Seraphim stories, or their mother reading Kael ancient tales of knights and angels. Watching the nightly shadow only made her feel… imprisoned.

  It began where the light was at its absolute weakest, an inky black line on the horizon that grew like a cloud. Slowly it crawled, thick as smoke and wide as the horizon itself. The darkness swept over the sky, hiding its many colors. More and more it covered, an unceasing march matched by the sun’s fall. When it reached to the faintly visible moon, it too vanished, the pale crescent tucked away, to be hidden until the following night. Silently the twins watched as the rolling darkness passed high above their heads, blotting out everything, encasing the world in its deep shadow.

  Bree turned her attention to the setting sun, which looked as if it fled in fear of the darkness complete.

  “It’ll be right there,” she said, pointing. “In the moment after the sun sets and before the darkness reaches it.”

  Most of the sky was gone now, and so far away from the lanterns, the two sat in a darkness so complete it was frightening. The shadow clouds continued rolling, blotting out the field of stars that the ancient drawing books made look so beautiful, so majestic and grand. But just as she’d hoped, there was a gap in the time it took the sun to vanish beyond the horizon and for the rolling shadow to reach it, and she watched with growing anticipation. She’d seen only one star before, the North Star, which shone so brightly that not even the sun could always blot it out. But the other stars, the great field… would they appear in the deepening purple?

  Kael saw it before she did, and he quickly pointed. In the sliver of violet space the star winked into existence, a little drop of light between the horizon and the shadows crashing down on it like a wave. Bree saw it, and she smiled at the sight.

  “Imagine not one but thousands,” Bree said as the dark clouds swallowed the star, pitching the entire city into utter darkness so deep she could not see her brother beside her. “A field spanning the entire sky, lighting up the night in their glow…”

  Bree felt Kael take her hand, and she squeezed it tight. Neither dared move while so close to the edge and lacking sight. Perfectly still, they waited. It would only be a matter of time.

  It started as a faint flicker of red across the eastern horizon. Slowly it grew, spreading, strengthening. Just like the shadows, so too did the fire roll across the sky, setting ablaze the inky clouds that covered the crown of the world. It burned without consuming, only shifting and twisting. It took thirty minutes, but eventually all of the sky raged with midnight fire, bathing the land in red. It’d last until daybreak, when the sun would rise, the fire would die, and the smoky remnants would hover over the morning sky until fading away.

  A horn sounded from a watchtower farther within their home island of Weshern. The blast set Bree’s heart to hammering.

  “They’re starting,” she whispered.

  Both turned to face the field where the two theotechs hovered. The horn sounded thrice more, and come the final call, the forces of Weshern arrived. They sailed above the field in V formations, their silver wings shimmering, powered by the light element that granted all Seraphim mastery over the skies. Hundreds of men and women, dressed in black pants and jackets, armed with fire, lightning, ice, and stone that they wielded with the gauntlets of their ancient technology. Despite her fear, Bree felt an intense longing to be up there with them, fighting for the pride and safety of her home. Sadly, it’d be five years before she and her brother turned sixteen and could attempt to join.

  “Bree…”

  She turned her head, saw her brother staring off into the open sky beyond the edge of their island. Flying in similar V formations, gold wings glimmering, red jackets seemingly aflame from the light of the midnight fire, came the Seraphim of Galen. The two armies raced toward each other, and Bree knew they’d meet just above the fallow field, where the theotechs waited.

  Bree pushed herself away from the edge of the island and rose to her feet, her brother doing likewise.

  “They’ll be fine,” she said, watching the Weshern Seraphim fly in perfect formation. She wondered which of those black and silver shapes was her mother, and which her father. “You’ll see. No one’s better than they are.”

  Kael stood beside her, eyes on the sky, arms locked at his sides. Bree reached for his hand, held it as the armies neared one another.

  “It’ll
be over quick,” she whispered. “Father says it always is.”

  Dark shapes shot in both directions through the space between the armies, large chunks of stone meant to screen attacks as well as protect against retaliation. They crashed into one another, and as the sound reached Bree’s ears, the battle suddenly erupted into bewildering chaos. The Seraphim formations danced about one another, lightning flashing amid them in constant barrages. Enormous blasts of fire accompanied them, difficult to see with the sky itself aflame. Blue lances of ice, colored purple from the midnight hue, shot in rapid bursts, cutting down combatants with ease. The sounds of battle were so powerful, so near, Bree could feel them in her bones.

  “How?” Kael wondered aloud, and if he weren’t so close she wouldn’t have heard him over the cacophony. “How can anyone survive through that?”

  Boulders of stone slammed into the fallow field beneath, carving out long grooves of earth before coming to a stop. Bree flinched at the impact of each one. How did one survive? She didn’t know, but somehow they did, the Seraphim of both islands weaving amid the carnage with movements so fluid and beautiful they mirrored that of dancers. Not all, though. Lightning tore through chests, lances of ice with sharp tips punctured flesh and metal alike, and no armor could protect against the fire that washed over their bodies. Each Seraph who fell wearing a black jacket made Bree silently beg it wasn’t one of her parents. She didn’t care if that was selfish or not. She just wanted them safe. She wanted them to survive the overwhelming onslaught that left her mind baffled by how to take it all in.

  The elements lessened, the initial devastating barrage becoming more precise, more controlled. Bree saw that several combatants were out of elements completely and forced to draw their blades. The battle had gradually spread farther and farther out, taking them beyond the grand field and closer to the edge of town where Bree and Kael stood. Not far above their heads, two Seraphim circled in a dance, one fleeing, one chasing. They both had their twin blades drawn. Bree watched, entranced, eyes wide as the circle tightened and the combatants whisked by each other again and again, slender blades swiping for exposed flesh.