He could hardly stay focused on what he was doing. Much of the work was repetitive, and he found his mind wandering again and again to Zerif’s words. To the Jade Serpent. Did his father have it?
Did Gar?
Would that mean Gar was the true king of Stetriol?
And why did that gall Shane so deeply, when he only intended to leave?
When the moon clouded over, he decided he had done enough. He pulled his project along the beach and found a thick bramble of shrubs where the sand met an inlet, a little stream running out to the ocean. It was the best hiding spot he could manage, and close enough to the water that he’d be able to make a hasty escape when the time came.
He knew he had to go. But he also knew he couldn’t leave, if the cure he’d hoped for all along was here.
Bleary-eyed and sore, he made his way back to the castle, following the stream and the scrubby plants running its length. The waterway grew wider and deeper as he went, and the only sounds in the night were its gentle burble … and a rustling noise ahead, like someone stepping carefully through the brush.
The moon broke through the clouds, and Shane could just make out a figure ahead, leaning over the stream as if examining its reflection.
“Drina?” he whispered.
The figure turned, and Shane had to laugh, because it wasn’t his sister — wasn’t even a person. It was a kangaroo. He’d never seen one so close to the castle grounds before.
Their eyes met, and Shane expected the animal to hop away, but it didn’t. It just stood there, considering him, and Shane was struck again by just how human it appeared. There was intelligence in those eyes, as if the kangaroo were puzzling him out.
“There’s no need to bow, friend,” Shane joked.
And then there was an explosion of water, and a monster leaped from the stream to smash its jaws down around the kangaroo’s head.
It happened in an instant, but Shane saw every detail: the teeth piercing the animal’s flesh, and the way its neck twisted at an angle that was all wrong as the beast dragged it down into the water. There was panic in the kangaroo’s eyes in the moment before they were submerged. Its legs kicked out blindly while the crocodile held its head beneath the surface and thrashed. One kick, two kicks, and then the kangaroo went still.
It was over before Shane could react. He howled in protest, drew his sword, and charged, but too late — the kangaroo was already dead.
All he managed to do was draw the crocodile’s attention.
It was a massive beast with soulless eyes glowing like flat, white disks in the moonlight. Its body — what he could see of it above the waterline — appeared carved out of the same stone as his castle, but older, showing more cracks, and dents, and sharp edges. Its teeth glistened black with fresh blood as it opened its mouth to hiss.
And then it pulled itself onto shore, heading straight for him.
Shane waved his sword in the croc’s direction and screamed, hoping to deter it, but it showed no sign of being impressed. He changed tactics, turning to run with only yards between them — and he slipped.
Shane fell, sprawling into the dirt. But he kept his grip on the saber. Lifting himself up on one hand, he twisted to face the predator as it bore down on him. He could see straight down its fleshy gullet.
Then, from out of nowhere, a wild dog bounded onto the croc’s back, snapping and snarling.
It was all the distraction Shane needed. He scrambled to his feet and ran, only daring to look back once he was clear of the brush and halfway across an empty field. The animals had not given chase.
Only then did Shane realize what an odd sight it had been. A wild dog attacking a crocodile? He’d never heard of such a thing. And if he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn the dog was no dingo. It was a smaller, lither animal. It looked like images of jackals he’d seen in books.
But there were no jackals in Stetriol.
Despite his exhaustion, Shane did not go straight to bed. He went instead to the gardens. The guards stationed at its entrance startled at the sight of him.
“My prince,” they said, one after the other. And then the boldest asked, “Uh, what brings you here at this hour?”
“The hour is irrelevant,” Shane answered. “It’s well past time the prisoner had an audience with my father.”
Shane had rarely been to his father’s quarters. He’d always feared the man.
King Irwyn did not abide weakness. He refused to acknowledge that he suffered from bonding sickness, even as that sickness took its toll, wearing away at him over the years. He refused, too, to admit that his wife had been sick. But when his daughter — his firstborn — was similarly stricken, something in the king had snapped.
“Behold the king of Stetriol,” Shane said. “My fearsome father.”
Zerif, for the first time, seemed at a loss for words.
The king’s eyes were open, but vacant. A thin line of drool hung suspended from his slack lips.
“Is he … still in there?” asked Zerif. His hands were shackled, and Shane felt certain the man posed no threat. He had dismissed the guards and his father’s caretaker, so that they could speak in private. He honestly didn’t know whether Irwyn could hear them or not.
“We don’t know,” said Shane. “Gar claims to speak with him, but he’s lying. He says that so people will do what he wants. To contradict him, I’d have to publicly admit that the king is … unfit. That Stetriol is without a true leader.” Shane sighed. “His last act was to name Gar regent, to act in his stead until I become king. So as long as my father lives, I can’t take the throne — can’t even touch it, according to our laws, and Gar continues to have … influence.”
“ ‘So long as he lives.’ Do you call this living?”
Shane shrugged sadly. “It isn’t death, exactly.”
“I’ve never known bonding sickness to ruin a mind so completely.”
“It wasn’t bonding sickness that did it.”
“No?”
Shane tugged at his own hair tiredly. “Don’t get me wrong — he was sick, all right. But the real trouble happened when he decided he could cure himself. He decided … He thought … Well, he killed it. He killed his own spirit animal.”
Zerif sucked breath through his teeth. “That would be like killing a piece of yourself. Like cutting off your own limb.”
“Some animals will gnaw off their own limbs to escape a deadly trap.” Shane frowned. The room smelled sour, and he felt his sleepiness bearing down on him. “I don’t know. Maybe we’re cursed after all.”
“Maybe you are,” Zerif said. “But it’s not the fault of any Great Beast. It’s the Greencloaks who have done this to you.” He rotated his hands in their manacles, rattling his chains. “That’s the other piece of news I intended to give the king. And here’s my audience, I suppose.”
“Go on,” Shane said, his sleepiness receding.
There was a flash of light, and suddenly a jackal stood beside Zerif, watching Shane with curious eyes that reminded him very much of Zerif’s own.
“Just as I suspected,” Shane said. “You have a spirit animal.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem sick.”
“No.”
“You’ve been cured?”
Zerif shook his head. “I was never sick. Here’s the truth, Prince Shane: The Greencloaks cured the bonding sickness long, long ago. Everywhere but here — and here, whether by curse or foul luck, the sickness is more common than it ever was anywhere else in Erdas. Despite this, the Greencloaks have ignored your plight.” He ran a shackled hand along his beard. “They left your people to suffer while they silently took over the rest of the world.”
Shane ground his teeth together and growled like a cornered animal. “Tell. Me. Everything,” he commanded.
The Jade Serpent had been right under Shane’s nose all along.
He realized it as soon as he had Zerif repeat Kovo’s words. “Tell me exactly what he said,” Shane insisted.
“ ‘The Jade Serpent is where only Stetriol’s king may retrieve it, hidden away in his seat of power.’”
Zerif had assumed the king’s “seat of power” was the capital, or the keep. He wasn’t thinking literally enough.
“The throne,” Shane guessed. And sure enough, when he touched the throne for the first time, tugging at the ornamental snakes, one of them came free in his hand. A heavy green snake carved from jade.
The sense of triumph he experienced in that moment was nothing compared to what he felt when, at Zerif’s bidding, he submerged the talisman in a bowl of murky swamp water. The water changed instantly, becoming a warm amber color, almost glowing with its own light. Shane didn’t doubt for an instant that it was magic.
Drina grimaced as she drank it in the morning, and Shane frowned to see the sour twist in her features, bracing himself for her verbal abuse. But she swallowed, and blinked her eyes rapidly, and then she broke into a smile.
“How do you feel?” he asked her.
And he knew the answer just by looking at her. Her cheeks were a healthy shade of pink. Her fever was gone, and her blue eyes caught the sunlight, flashing a bright, vibrant yellow.
The curse had been broken.
Shane stood upon the beach that night and watched his sad little handmade boat go up in flames.
It was his thirteenth birthday. And no one in his family had ever summoned a spirit animal later than age twelve.
Which meant he was free. The one thing he’d always feared above all others had not come to pass.
He used to ask himself what kind of person would want a spirit animal.
Now he regarded the amber fluid in the stoppered vial, holding it up to the dancing light of the flames, and he thought he knew the answer.
Two castle guards came crashing through the dry brush at the edge of the beach. They saw Shane there and they bowed, immediately and deeply, planting their knees into the sand.
“The … the king is dead,” one of them said. “Long live the king.”
“My father is dead?” said Shane flatly. “What happened?”
The guards kept their heads bowed. They seemed hesitant to answer.
“Well?” said Shane.
“A … a dog,” said one.
“Some kind of wild dog,” continued the other. “It got into the castle and tore out his throat. We don’t know where it came from.”
They kept their eyes turned toward the sand, giving Shane a quiet moment for anger or for grief.
He felt neither. But while their eyes were averted, he allowed himself a furtive smile.
“Sire, if there’s anything we can do —”
“There is one thing,” said Shane, and he slipped the vial into a pocket over his heart. “I’m going to need a crocodile. A live one. A big one. I know just where you should look.”
What kind of person would want a spirit animal?
A ruler, thought Shane.
A king.
Shane dreamed he’d bonded with a crocodile.
It was the largest beast he’d ever seen: a prehistoric nightmare with razor-sharp teeth and pitiless eyes. They brought it into his throne room in chains, but it had not come easily. The creature had drowned one man and maimed two others before it had been subdued. All who looked upon it felt awe.
Shane drank down the Bile in one gulp, and the crocodile was his.
He woke slowly from an untroubled sleep. For a moment, he worried it had just been a dream.
Then he looked down at his bare torso, and saw the image of the crocodile branded there.
And Shane knew there would no longer be any question who was in charge.
She saw Halawir give one mighty thrust and then furl his wings, shooting up out of the great hall. The Great Beast disappeared into the sky, along with Shane.
— Spirit Animals: Book 6: Rise and Fall
SHANE CLOSED HIS EYES AND SMILED INTO THE WIND. HE allowed himself to enjoy one perfect moment of total victory.
The war was over, and he’d won it.
For months, he had been seeking fifteen talismans of great power from all across Erdas. Any one of the talismans had the power to change the world.
Shane had eleven of them. Eleven! And three more were in the hands of his army.
He whooped, pumping his fists into the air, then felt his balance lurch dangerously and brought his hands back down to grip Halawir’s feathers. He was riding cross-legged on the back of the massive eagle, and every time Halawir flapped his wings, Shane swayed.
Since leaving his home some months ago, Shane had seen many amazing sights. He had climbed the mountains of Amaya, scaled Zhong’s great wall, and sailed the seas from the rigging of his very own warship.
But he’d never been anywhere near this high up before.
It was as if all of Erdas were spread out before him. The sea sparkled below like a shifting landscape of precious gemstones, ringed by two great landmasses. At this height he couldn’t even tell the difference between Nilo and Eura. They were identical swaths of green spreading out to distant mountains.
But who needed to tell them apart anymore? What was the point of borders, anyway? It all belonged to him now.
He lifted his hands again, slowly this time, and leaned into the wind, grabbing at clouds that puffed away to nothing in his fingers. The cold wind brought tears to his eyes, but he fought to keep them open.
“Pleased with yourself?” said Halawir. As a Great Beast, he was able to communicate without actually opening his imposing curved beak. Shane heard the mighty animal’s voice in his head, clear and piercing, and he winced.
“Yes!” he answered, shouting his reply into the wind. “Yes, I’m very pleased. We’ve won, Halawir. That was it! The Greencloaks are finished.”
“I confess, you achieved your objective much faster than any of us expected.”
It was the closest thing to a compliment Shane had ever heard from the bird — Halawir was majestic but pompous, and usually gave Shane the impression that he’d rather be anywhere else than in the company of humans. But the two of them had more in common than Halawir might like to admit.
They’d both been lying for a very long time, hiding their true natures, like a crocodile hides beneath the surface of the water, waiting to strike.
In truth, Shane’s infiltration of Greenhaven had gone nothing like he’d intended. Abeke’s friends had exposed him almost immediately. His original plan had involved a lot more sneaking around, and he’d almost been looking forward to spending some time on the island. The days he’d spent on the boat with Abeke had been … Well, they had been a pleasant respite from months of war.
The fact that Shane’s true identity had been revealed and he’d still been able to get away with all of the Greencloaks’ talismans made his victory all the sweeter.
“Did you see the look on Olvan’s face?” he called out to Halawir. “When he realized he’d been beaten? Priceless!”
Halawir opened his mouth and emitted a piercing cry. Shane wondered for a moment if that was his version of laughter — and then the bird veered sharply to the side, nearly throwing Shane off into open air.
“Hold on, mammal!” said Halawir. Rather unhelpfully, Shane thought. There was not much else Shane could do.
Halawir dove, dropping several yards in a single second, and Shane felt as if they had left his stomach in their wake. Before he could complain, he saw a sphere of dull gray metal, larger than a coconut, whiz past, arcing above his head. If Halawir hadn’t acted so quickly, it would have smashed right into them. And judging from the speed at which it plummeted back down toward the sea, it was frightfully heavy.
“Was that … Was that a cannonball?” Shane shouted.
“We are under attack.”
Shane followed the arc of the cannonball back to its origin and saw a ship on the sea below. It was long and narrow — a schooner, built for speed. Its sails were bright green.
“Greencloaks,” Shane hissed. So they must
have managed to get a ship out from Greenhaven to follow him after all. There was an explosion on the deck of the ship, a cloud of smoke, and Shane shouted, “Incoming!”
He brought his head back around and leaned in low, hugging Halawir’s body as the great bird tilted. For one terrifying moment, Shane’s feet were in midair, his grip on the slick feathers the only thing keeping him from twisting away in the wind — and then Halawir leveled, and Shane came crashing down.
“Have a care!” Shane shouted. “Lose me and you lose the talismans.”
Halawir screeched again. This time there was no mistaking the sound for laughter.
“It’s a sailboat!” Shane cried. “Don’t you have power over the winds?”
“They have whales pulling the boat,” Halawir answered. “And there is only so much I can do with a rodent tugging at my feathers.”
Shane ignored the insult. “Then we need to get over land, where whales can’t follow,” he said.
Halawir made no reply but veered south, toward Nilo.
Shane gritted his teeth. He had a sword sheathed at his hip — useless from up here. He had nearly a dozen talismans of formidable power — but couldn’t risk sorting through them when it was all he could do to hold on.
If there was one thing Shane couldn’t stand, it was feeling powerless. He’d had enough of that back in Stetriol.
But he hadn’t truly been powerless in a long time. Not since he’d drunk the Bile and joined Zerif in his campaign against the Greencloaks.
“Grahv!” he called. “I need you.” The tattoo that wrapped across his chest and down his stomach flared with light, and then was gone, and Shane caught just a glimpse of his crocodile’s great scaled tail as the animal plunged into the sea below.
“That will slow them down,” he said. “Grahv is more than a match for a couple of whales.”
“A momentary reprieve,” Halawir replied. “We can’t allow ourselves to be tracked back to camp.”
The Book of Shane Page 4
