*
An hour later, she passed through the palace gates with Po by her side, pausing to gaze briefly over her shoulder at the fortress she’d called home these last months. From a second-story throne-room window, King Isavor gazed back. After a moment he gave a subtle nod, which Despiris returned. And then she faced the waiting city and put her stint at the royal estate from her mind, laboring to embrace this sudden displacement. Just like old times, she told herself, but was keenly aware of the helpless young boy at her side that made that grossly untrue.
As for Radu, she’d made the heartbreaking yet calculated decision to leave him in the care of his heroic new mentor and the rest of the palace staff, afraid of the path he might take under her lawless care on the streets. He needed stability. Discipline. Rules. Honorable influences.
She was mostly certain no one would boycott his care when they realized Despiris was no longer a resident at the palace – but if for some reason his caregivers discovered a sudden penchant for heartlessness and cast him out on the streets after all, she would be right there to collect him.
In the meantime, it would be her and Po. Carving out a new place for themselves in the big, wide world. She hadn’t wanted this for him, but they would make it. After all, she’d once grown up on the streets under the care of an infamous miscreant herself, and she hadn’t turned out half bad, had she?
As much as she had wanted to provide Po with a life of luxury, he didn’t need a palace to thrive. Neither of them did. There was luxury in freedom. Adventure in the unknown. Security in knowing that the streets, however volatile, would never banish them.
On the streets, they could belong.
In truth, she always had.
*
For a single day, she adopted her own haunt in the city and debated whether or not to return to her Shadhi roots. After all this time, after everything she had put him through, what would Clevwrith do if she showed up on his doorstep, wanting her old life back?
Would it even be possible to convince him at this point that it wasn’t just some ploy to get him to trust her again, that she might pounce when he least expected it?
One thing was certain, however. Without something to lose if she didn’t deliver the Shadowmaster to his hunters, her desire to continue the game evaporated.
She’d tormented him enough.
What she didn’t know was how much damage she’d truly done. While it was clear enough Clevwrith still possessed a copious amount of affection for her, she’d done a number on the way they related to each other. On their ability to trust one another.
She’d betrayed him one time too many, and she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t a significant part of her that was afraid things could never again be the same between them.
Still, she had to wonder – did he miss her as she missed him? Did he lament the space between them? Did he sometimes wish he could hold her close instead of holding her at bay?
There was only one way to find out.
Ready to rekindle what had been lost between them, Despiris left Po to his own devices and went out in hopes of reuniting with her estranged master at last.
*
She scoured the city for Clevwrith, but it was just her luck that he’d gone strictly into hiding and was nowhere to be found. At the end of the day her search proved fruitless, so she tried again the next day.
The next day, the next night – all to no avail. There was no sign of the Master of the Shadows or his mischief anywhere.
She began to wonder if she really had overdone it, if he’d recognized nothing remained for him in this city but doom and heartache and had retreated for good.
Was it possible the Master of the Shadows had packed up shop and…left?
Despiris couldn’t imagine it – Clevwrith, leaving? He owned this city. Yet if he knew his demise was imminent, knew the only soul he’d ever really cared about was gone for good, hellbent on his ruin… That he would destroy himself for her…
Surely not…
Troubled by the notion, Despiris checked the greenhouse at SFH headquarters. Yesterday she’d peeked in only long enough to confirm that Clevwrith wasn’t there. Now, she took a closer look, finding a collection of withering roses.
Her heart sank. Maybe it was possible. Maybe the Shadowmaster was gone.
Dismay turning to alarm, she clattered out of the greenhouse and raced down through the stacks, a wave of denial compelling her to tear apart Shadhi headquarters afresh. He had to be here. He had to.
She ravaged every nook and cranny until she came to the maze of mirrors, where dappled moonlight danced across a thousand-thousand shards, filling the chamber with magical, disorienting auras. Even destroyed, the place played its tricks, clinging to the golden days of what it once was.
A quiet melancholy came over her as she gazed sorrowfully over the gleaming carnage. Remembering when Clevwrith had brought her down here to remind her who she was, commanding she study her reflection and tell him what she saw. I am Shadhi, she had said, that bittersweet conviction echoing meaningfully in her head.
She should never have continued to question it, should never have gone off on some tangent of so-called ‘self-discovery’ in which she singlehandedly forsook and destroyed everything that had once mattered.
He had kissed her here, too – that first kiss that had blossomed, albeit down a twisted path, into something undeniably deeper. Something that left her heartbroken as she looked upon the graveyard of glass now before her, remnants and relics, a monument of brokenness that so poignantly represented what had become of–
Clevwrith.
A form lay crumpled in a bejeweled bed of glass, resting among the soft prisms with foreboding finality.
Her mind went blank for a single moment, and then a flutter of terror nuzzled through the numbness. “Clevwrith?” Uncertainty pigmented her voice, some instinctive part of her cautious to probe at what lay before her, afraid of what she might find.
When he didn’t respond, she broke free of her guarded hesitancy and rushed forward. Broken glass chimed under her boots and dug into her knees as she knelt hastily by his side. He was face-down, arm flung up by his head as if he had collapsed and tried to catch himself. With a shaking hand she grasped his shoulder, turning him carefully onto his back. Little cuts criss-crossed his face. “Clevwrith…”
His eyes fluttered weakly open, his unfocused gaze swimming uncomprehendingly over her face. Grasping his hand, she gave it a squeeze, trying to anchor him. His focus roved in confusion over the cavern before returning with a flicker of recognition to her face.
“Des…?” he croaked, voice barely audible.
“What is it, Clevwrith? What happened to you?” Her gaze roved quickly over his body, searching for evidence of his ailment. She should have brought a light source.
A feverish shiver wracked Clevwrith’s form, his eyes rolling back in his head. He didn’t reply.
The terror fluttering just below the surface erupted to fill her body, Clevwrith’s condition frighteningly bleak. She tried telling herself she was overreacting, that it looked worse than it was, that he’d caught a common winter cold and pushed himself too hard, driving himself to collapse. He just needed a warm bed and hot tea and someone to tend to his cuts, and he’d be strong as an ox again in a week. It was rare to go the whole winter without catching something, especially out here on the streets, exposed to the elements.
But there was something about the debilitated man she saw before her that told her this was something more. Something serious.
“Please, Clev,” she pleaded, trying to keep her voice steady. “Tell me what’s wrong.” A second sweep of his body showed one hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist. Instinctively, she reached to uncurl his fingers. When she pried them apart, stiff and resistant, she stared at what she discovered nestled in his palm.
A strip of lace, strangely familiar.
It was hers, she realized. He must have kept it as a token to remember her by. A heart-
wrenching enough realization on its own, but all the more so to find him clutching it now, like a last-resort attempt to comfort himself as he…
“I think I’m dying, Des,” Clevwrith managed to ebb out, rallying a last bit of strength to be with her in that moment.
Horror and denial flooded her at his words, tears springing instantly to her eyes. Dying? Not possible. Clevwrith was invincible.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, but her attempt at casualty failed over the lump in her throat. “You’re the Master of the Shadows. You outrun fate like it’s child’s play.” You don’t just crawl into a hole in the ground and die. “You’re just sick, Clev. We need to get you into bed–”
“Des.” The quiet conviction in that one syllable stopped her, willing her to just be still. She knew the truth before he said it, but couldn’t accept it. “It’s…the plague.”
“No…” Denial laced her voice. Oh gods, no. Please no… Not the plague. How many had she seen succumb to the contagion, robbed of life in the blink of an eye by that thief in the night? He needed the cure, and he needed it fast.
But what if it was too late already? How long had he already been lying here?
Long enough for roses to start withering.
She wouldn’t let herself think on it, shifting her efforts suddenly to scooping him off the ground. Her arms slid under his form, unmindful of the glass, straining against his deadweight. “We have to get you help. They can cure you.”
“Des,” Clevwrith stopped her again, and, with a grunt of frustration, she let him back down. She’d just as soon tear him to shreds trying to drag him out of the shards as get him to safety. “Why would they…cure me? They’ve been…after my head…for a lifetime.” He spoke haltingly, struggling to find the strength for each word.
Tears slipped out her eyes and skipped down her cheeks. “They want you alive,” she argued, desperate to convince him. She still didn’t know how she would get him out of this shattered trap, but she would find a way. She’d get blankets from the stacks, roll him onto those and drag him out that way.
Clevwrith labored to swallow, working to form another arduous sentence. “Their medicine…will not cure me. It will condemn me.”
She knew it as well as he did, of course; they would grant him the cure only after taking him into custody. He would recover only to find himself behind bars. Alive, but a prisoner.
“Don’t let them have me, Des,” he pleaded weakly. Through her tears, she met his gaze, seeing his need for her to understand his wishes. Same as when she’d caught him, and implored him to come with her without a fight. She’d needed him to understand then, and he needed her to understand now. “Let me…die free.”
A sob escaped her then, something in her breaking. She bent over him, clutching at him meaninglessly, blood welling unnoticed beneath her knees. She didn’t feel the gouge of glass; the rest of her pain made it nothing. “I won’t let you die,” she choked out, her months-long vendetta dissolving into inconsequential ash, cast aside like it had never been. None of that mattered anymore. And it brought her to a single, poignant revelation, heartbreaking in its timing: “I love you.”
Clevwrith had spent too much of his strength to respond. The tormented determination in his gaze softened, however, giving way to something that might have mirrored the sentiment.
How she wished she could hear the words, though – not just imagine them in his eyes. How she wished for him to confirm what had secretly been growing between them since the first time they stood together in this room – maybe sooner. How she wished to be gifted that last meaningful piece of the puzzle before he went, the piece that would complete her, even if just barely in time.
But he couldn’t. Couldn’t say anything at all.
She came to terms with a hard truth there in that glimmering, broken place. The Master of the Shadows was not invincible. She’d known it – had tried time and again to convince him of it. Had been secretly trying to protect him in her twisted way ever since she’d left him.
But she couldn’t protect him from this.
Just then there was a commotion at the entrance. Despiris glanced over her shoulder, vision blurred by tears, just as a convoy of the king’s men spilled into the chamber.
No! cried a voice inside her as this crisis went from bad to worse, her despair deepening. She willed them away, willed them to just leave her and her dying master alone. Somewhere in the back of her grief-stricken mind, she realized they had probably been following her since she was sent away from the palace. Lady Verrikose would have jumped at the opportunity, knowing that sooner or later Despiris would reunite with her master.
I led his hunters right to him.
It was too cruel a thought, everything in her insisting this couldn’t be the way it all ended. “Stay away,” she warned brokenly. Two guards hesitated; one advanced. She rose threateningly to her feet, shards of glass strewing around her. “Get out!” a visceral cry tore from her lips, giving the brave fellow pause.
They knew she was dangerous.
Nevertheless, they had their orders. The advancing guard addressed her with a placating tone, “We have come to place the Master of the Shadows under arrest. Step aside, Lady Despiris, and you will be spared the same fate. You have earned your clemency in his Majesty’s service.”
But she didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t give a damn about clemency. “I said ‘get out’.” They would learn very quickly that her pardon had been a mistake, that her time in the king’s service meant little when it came to choosing between his good graces and her dying mate. She may have challenged the Shadowmaster’s ideals and pursued a new legacy for herself, but that didn’t mean Clevwrith was not, in the end, her soul mate.
The guard’s interim of respect for her ran its course, a brief window for her to make the right choice. When it was clear she would stubbornly defend their prize, the man before her grew ruefully resolute. “We have our orders, lady, and we will not deviate from them. You will step aside, or we will go through you.”
Clenching her jaw against her quivering lip, she squared herself into a defensive stance – muscles coiled, fingers twitching close to the blade at her thigh. “Then you will go through me.”
“Step aside.”
“Come and get him.” Tragic though the circumstances were, there was something so freeing, so redeeming, in uttering those words. In establishing herself once again loyal to the Shadowmaster.
At his side where she belonged.
Clevwrith’s words from so long ago came back to her. “From ashes to shadows you will rise. A black phoenix. A dark horse. Champion to those who go unseen in this world.”
I am Shadhi, echoed the words she’d said in this very chamber, as she’d gazed at her reflection in a thousand truth-telling mirrors, and a devilish shadow gazed back.
Recognizing the unwavering conviction in her stance, the guards proceeded with their mission. They stepped forward as one, ready to subdue her. But they were ill-prepared for the force that awaited them.
Something primal and possessive rose within her, a savage desperation to protect Clewrith’s dying wish at all costs. She lashed out at the encroaching threat, seeing nothing but faceless invaders through her blind desperation. Her world was falling to ruins, the way forward splayed and distorted by violent shards, reason diced into a mosaic of hysteria.
A knife was in her hand before she realized she’d reached for it, slashing at those who sought to steal her fallen companion away from her. The guards met her blows in kind, three-against-one not odds she could withstand. As one adversary dodged too close, fingers closing around her arm, instinct drove her blade into his middle.
With a gasping sound, he released her, slumping to the floor in a ringing clatter of glass.
It was that brutal action that snapped her out of her frenzy, her rampage dissipating as her own vehemence left her in shock. She stared wide-eyed at the man stricken down before her, his gasps turning to gurgles and his fingers clutching at his
middle in a futile attempt to hold his blood in his body.
Horrified at what she had done, the fight went out of her. In a daze, she was seized by the two remaining guards and wrestled, un-resistant, into submission.
The soft prisms dancing about the chamber became suddenly blinding, blurring the world around her as her wrists were cinched tight and Clevwrith was taken into custody behind her.
31
Night’s Evil Twin
“…when there are no windows, and no doors, and yet you do not feel caged. You are not merely confident you can get out, but escape is inevitable.” – An echo of poetry from a lost era of fairytales, as so many years of gospel whispered in the shadows became delusion overnight.
*
How quickly the palace reeled her back in, those two-faced walls erecting themselves around her with unyielding finality. The luxuries she had enjoyed within those walls withered like spoiled fruit, wasted, the pretty wallpaper that had become so familiar to her peeling away to reveal the cold, austere walls of a prison, rather than a home.
And it was a prison Despiris did not think they would soon escape. For so long, in the back of her head, she’d justified catching Clevwrith because there was always the option of escape. But the authorities knew better than to take their eyes off the Shadhi for even an instant, after Despiris’s first stint behind bars had made a mockery of prison security. A constant presence of guards haunted the aisle outside the Shadhi’s cell, and they all seemed determined to carry out their watch with statue-like intensity – a panel of uncanny, unblinking faces.
Lady Verrikose came to the dungeon to gloat, accompanied by no less than three servants to hold her skirts up out of the mildew and muck. She spouted another monologue of superiority and derision, making up for her less-than-satisfying jab when she got Despiris banished from the palace.
But Despiris hardly heard her. She hardly noticed anyone, her back turned on the world. There was only Clevwrith, fraught and fading, and she sat loyally and helplessly by his side until the king came to see her.
Game of Towers and Treachery (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 2) Page 25
