“We took turns to watch,” Kallish answered, settling at the chair to one side.
“Kester is here,” Xeveran told Kallish, drawing Arrow’s attention. She had not felt anything in the building’s wards, blind to magic. She hoped her power would return soon. She hated being defenceless.
“Good. Send him in with Undurat. Take the others outside. Maintain watch,” Kallish ordered.
Arrow’s brows lifted. It was not like Kallish to exclude Xeveran. This seemed to be planned, though, as Xeveran made no comment, simply gathered the other warriors and left.
~
Kester and Undurat came in, both looking sombre, Undurat wearing a purple armband over his uniform. Mourning, among the Erith.
Her pleasure at seeing Kester faded and she rose in automatic courtesy. She drew a long breath in, but could not detect the unmistakable sweet scent of Erith death. She wondered who had died, her mind travelling over the warriors who were members of Kallish’s cadre. There had been no new faces there, and if any of her cadre had fallen, Kallish would be wearing purple too.
“I am sorry for your loss, svegraen,” Arrow said to Undurat. He looked shaken. The largest Erith she had ever seen, he usually seemed invincible. He had carried her more than once, simply gathering her up without pause, her weight no hindrance to him.
“Mage.” Undurat acknowledged. There were deep shadows under his eyes, skin paler than normal. He was also carrying a package that drew her attention. She did not have any power or second sight, yet she could tell there was some powerful magic in that package. Her interest spiked.
“We have matters to discuss,” Kester told her. He was as grim as the others, face not softening as she met his gaze. It had been days since she had seen him last, both busy with their own work. The last time had been a rare evening out for the two of them, light-hearted. Trying out a new, human, restaurant, both of them wearing their glamours, blending in with those around them. Something serious had happened in the intervening days.
“Would you like to sit?” she asked, glancing around, intending to tidy up the bakery bags. Kallish waved her back into her seat and swept aside the empty bags and boxes, leaving food and drink on the table. Bakery goods and tall takeaway cups which Arrow’s nose told her held coffee. She tightened her grip on the glass of water. No coffee for her. Not yet.
The four of them fit around the table. Just. An odd grouping. Two warriors in full uniform, an Erith lord dressed as a gentleman and an exiled mage still wearing clothes she had slept in. Yet the formality of the table seemed appropriate. She had a sense this was not a conversation for comfortable chairs and soft furnishing.
In the manner of the Erith, Undurat waited until everyone had taken some of their drink and eaten something before he began. He had placed himself opposite her, Kester and Kallish to either side.
“My brother is dead.” The words were matter-of-fact, the pain behind them anything but. Arrow felt an answering echo of hurt in her own chest. A brother. She realised how little she knew about Undurat. Then he went on, and it was much worse. “He was my twin. We took very different paths.”
He set the package on the table in front of him. Something soft, wrapped in plain cloth that fizzed with ward spells, amber clear in the first world. He lifted his gaze from the package, holding Arrow’s eyes across the table. “I would speak with you.”
Arrow stiffened. The words had significance among the Erith. There was an unspoken message that whatever he wanted to say would be difficult. Her fingers twitched, wanting a piece of chalk. She found one in her pocket and stopped, the drummers starting up in her head again.
“Svegraen,” she addressed Kallish, “I think this conversation should be hidden. And I cannot do so.”
Kallish agreed without comment, taking the piece of chalk and sketching the rune for confusion on the corner of the table, out of reach of a careless elbow brushing it aside.
That done, Arrow returned Undurat’s gaze.
“I am listening.” It was the appropriate response.
“My brother was a member of the Garden. A Gardener. The temple that sits at the far edges of House Nostren.” He paused, waiting for her to absorb that and gather the significance.
“I do not know that term. I am sorry.”
“You recall the null clothing, that was made in the temple?”
“Yes.” She remembered the null clothing well. The one wearing it, a disgraced member of House Regersfel, had attacked her, warned her away and then tried to kill her when she had been in the Palace. The clothing had allowed Learvis nuin Regersfel to breach her wards as though they did not exist. Undurat had been the one to recognise the cloth for what it was. Her spine stiffened as she remembered the other, critical, fact she knew about the temple.
The temple made mages’ cloaks.
They had not made a cloak for her. Not the first mage without a cloak, Kallish had told her. The lack still stung. Graduating as a war mage from the Academy, every other war mage she was aware of had one of the light-absorbing cloaks. Every one but her.
She began to have a bad feeling about what was in the package.
“The temple has had many names over the years. The current term is the Garden. Those who live there style themselves as Gardeners. It is said to be the place in the heartland closest to the Erith’s heart, and the Gardeners tend to her.” Undurat’s voice was flat, reciting information he had learned. Not the grief of someone who had lost his brother. Arrow’s skin prickled. Something was wrong. “Duraner has been at the temple almost his whole life. Had. Had been. Since we were old enough to decide. He said it called to him in a dream one night, and he had to go.” The pain was back in his voice.
“Those who go to the temple are free to come and go as they please,” Kallish added, voice low. “And visit their families from time to time. The place itself is concealed from the world.”
“I tried to find it with a group of friends once,” Kester added. “We sailed the waters in House Nostren territory for a year and more and never caught sight of it.”
“I had not seen Duraner for many years,” Undurat added, voice harsh. “Which was unusual. I sent him a message when we found the null clothing, to make sure there were no more sets. I heard nothing back.”
“I granted Undurat leave to seek his brother,” Kallish added.
“It was not necessary. He came to the Taellaneth. Yesterday.” Undurat swallowed, eyes brilliant with unshed tears. “Close to death. Tainted.”
Arrow’s breath sucked in, every nerve ending sparking to life. The drummers stopped for a blissful moment to let her take that in. Tainted. Surjusi.
The sword at her back was quiet. Even with her dulled senses she could tell that. There was no surjusi here. But there had been. Undurat’s brother. The sword was made to hunt surjusi. She had drawn the demons out before now and left the host alive.
Yesterday. She had slept over a day, Kallish had said. While she was sleeping, Undurat’s brother had arrived at the Taellaneth.
“We thought about waking you,” Kallish added, putting a hand on Arrow’s arm. It was an uncharacteristic gesture and drew Arrow’s full attention. “He was too far gone.”
“He was at his last few breaths when we got there.”
Arrow closed her eyes a moment. Kallish and her cadre had been on watch here, guarding her sleep. Whilst Undurat’s twin had arrived at the Taellaneth. She could all too easily imagine the frantic rush across Lix to get back to the Taellaneth in time.
And Undurat was not finished. “He tried to give me a message. It made no sense.” Undurat reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of crumpled parchment, and spread it on the table in front of Arrow. “I wrote down his words. He kept saying shadow-walker. Over and over. And danger. There is danger. And another word I could not understand. I tried writing it.” He indicated one side of the parchment where similar letters had been put together in different ways in a long column.
Arrow looked at the parchment, the words swim
ming together, making no sense to her eyes.
Shadow-walker.
Danger.
Then the word Undurat had tried to decipher. She looked at the letters and felt the blood drain from her face.
“Could the word have been gehthras?” she asked, lips stiff.
“Yes. That was it. What does it mean?”
Arrow straightened in her chair, wanting to get up and move. To run. And she hated running. The rune Kallish had drawn, shimmering with Erith amber, kept her seated. Moving too far would break the rune. This conversation was definitely not one to be overhead.
“It is the command that I use to go into the shadow world,” she told the others. “Ancient Erith. It means ‘open’.”
“A shadow-walker’s command,” Kallish murmured, eyes on the parchment. “You are quite sure?” The question was directed to Undurat.
“Yes.”
“That was not all, though,” Arrow said, reading the other words.
Hidden.
Cloak.
Secrets.
Never good words among the Erith.
“No.” Undurat put his hand on the package. Even in the first world the spells reacted to his touch. He did not flinch as the amber crackled over his skin. “He was carrying this. He insisted this be brought to you. Said it had been kept from you.”
“He died shortly after,” Kallish added, voice soft. “The healers could do nothing apart from make him comfortable.”
“How did he get to the Taellaneth?” Arrow asked. Anything to avoid talking about that package. And she genuinely wanted to know.
“He rode for a bit. Then walked.” Undurat swallowed, looking away for a moment. “His feet were raw.”
“All the way across the heartland?” It was an extraordinary distance. An unimaginable distance, in fact. The heartland was vast. Most Erith travelled between points in carriages drawn by Erith horses, or through mirror relay. No one tried to walk all the way across the expanse.
“The healers insisted we raised his soul stone at the Taellaneth,” Kallish put in, face tight. The White Guard and the healers did not always get on.
Arrow’s breath caught. When an Erith died and their soul stone was raised, a vicandula rose in that spot. The sweet-fragranced Erith grave plant was immovable once it had seeded and there were none in the Taellaneth.
“Fortunately, Orlis was there. He performed a cleansing, told the healers to stop being such fussy idiots. Gilean backed him. He and Gilean prepared the body for travel,” Kester told her. Arrow’s throat closed up, imagining the scene. Orlis had one of the biggest, most generous hearts she had ever come across. She could easily imagine him brushing aside the over-cautious Taellaneth healers. For all his power as a war mage, Gilean’s support had likely not been needed.
“I must take his body home,” Undurat said. “But I needed to tell you this before I go. And to deliver this. It was meant for you. It has been in the Garden for some time. At least, that is what I believe Duraner was trying to tell me. Open it. It is yours.”
He pushed the package across the table until it was just in front of her folded hands. She drew her hands back, not wanting to touch it, and stared at the plain cloth wrapper.
If it was what she thought it was, it was something she had wanted for years. A recognition and acknowledgement of what she had achieved. Of the work that she had done at the Academy. Of her status among the Erith.
And yet. She was exiled from the Erith. She had been oath-bound to their service and was now free of that. She was building a life here. Helping the humans rebuild their Collegia. Working for the shifkin. Gradually getting to know some of Lix’ inhabitants. It was a simple life. It was her own.
The package represented a visible symbol of the Erith part of her. The greater part of her, that the heartland had revealed in its healing. And she was not at all sure she wanted it. Not anymore.
“You do not want it?” Kallish asked, her dark eyes intent. The warrior had a way of asking questions that cut to the heart of things.
“I do not know,” Arrow answered honestly and could not meet Undurat’s eyes as she said that. She unfolded her hands, set aside her glass, and reached for the cloth. “But Duraner died partly to bring this to me. So, I should at least open it.”
The ward spells faded away at her touch, cloth smooth under her fingers. She peeled back the layers of the package and stopped, frozen, unable to move on.
CHAPTER 5
It was a cloak.
It was not a war mage’s cloak.
War mage’s cloaks were pitch black, absorbing the light around them.
The folded cloth was quite different. It did not absorb the light. It appeared to move in the daylight, an apparently anonymous, plain grey cloth in first sight.
Arrow’s fingers moved before she knew what she was doing and she pulled the cloth out of its wrapper, standing up to shake the folds out. Still within the confusion spell. Just.
The fabric warmed under her fingers, waking up. It might look plain to those with no magic sensitivity. She could not see it all yet, her magic gone for the moment. Yet she knew that the cloth would have all the colours all at once. Every possibility woven into the fabric.
Not a war mage’s cloak.
A shadow-walker’s cloak.
She was not sure if anyone spoke the words aloud, but the realisation broke her focus on the cloth. Her fingers tightened, crushing the fabric. When she opened her fingers, there was no sign of creasing. Of course. A mage’s cloak had to withstand a lot.
She smoothed her hand across the fabric, and, unable to resist, risked a fresh assault from the drummers by opening her second sight a fraction, pain lancing through her head. She tried to trace the spells in the cloth. Spells for protection, for warmth, for cooling. A dozen other spells, some so complex they were mere tangles in second sight. All settled into fabric that had lain dormant until she touched it. Somehow the weavers and spell workers had known her magical signature, making this cloak just for her.
The pain spiked and she shut her second sight down.
As well as the spells, there was one very important additional piece of information.
The cloak was not new. The spells had had time to settle into the fabric so that the whole thing felt familiar to her touch.
“This was made a while ago.” The words came out as a flat statement of fact. This cloak was years old, if she had to guess. Made when she was still oath-bound to the Taellan. Made whilst she still had her power locked inside her, the seals a heavy weight inside, hiding her true strength, protecting her. The cloak had been made then, when the silver power she bore was the only hint of what she was, the silver marking her forever as different, sharp contrast to the Erith’s amber. Arwmverishan. And the cloak had been made then. Probably before she had first heard the term shadow-walker.
“The temple knows,” Undurat told her. He shook his head slightly. “Something Duraner told me years ago. That the temple makes cloaks for specific mages. And somehow it knows what to make. And for whom.”
Arrow stood holding the folds of cloth for a moment more. Her pulse was too fast. The temple had known. Somehow. Had known about her power, about the nature of her magic. They had withheld the cloak from her. She wondered why. Wondered if she was expected to be grateful that the true nature of what she was had not been apparent when the Taellan had her oath-bound. She shook her head. The temple was a mystery, and trying to follow the line of thinking of unknown Erith was impossible.
“There is something else.” Arrow folded the cloak and settled it back into its wrapper, sitting at the table again. The confusion ward was still active. She had not gone far enough to break it. “Duraner would not have walked across half the world simply to bring me a cloak.”
The words on the parchment lay between them. Danger. Secrets. Gehthras.
And a member of the temple tainted by surjusi.
“The temple is one of the best-kept secrets of the Erith. And it has been compromised.” Kal
lish’s jaw tightened. “We think Duraner was trying to find you for a reason.”
Arrow looked away from the table for a moment, the exhaustion of too many nights without sleep weighing on her, the echoes of the screams from her nightmares ringing in her ears for a moment. Along with other memories, these ones real. The clasp of a clawed hand around her ankle as she came through the portal from the surjusi realm. The giant head of the surjusi lord, eyes filled with hate. His mocking voice. The shape of his name. Too big for her to hold and yet, like the surjusi power she had carried, she still held echoes of the name inside her.
And, closer to where she was now, the memory of impact against her wards. The concussive force of explosions. Holding her wards against bullets. Danger and violence wrapped up together. And she did not know if the Prime was free of danger. The world needed the Prime where he was. Cunning, ruthless, and powerful enough to make the other races listen.
And here were more Erith with more requests for her.
“You want me to go with you to the temple.”
She would not look at them. Her heart was racing, pulse loud in her ears. She did not want to go. She wanted nothing more to do with surjusi. Or Erith politics.
“Arrow,” Kester began. She looked at him, saw the worry in his face, and looked away.
“We do,” Kallish answered. The warrior’s face was serious, eyes direct.
“If the temple falls, the heartland falls,” Undurat told her.
“Explain,” she said, her voice flat and hard. There was always something, with the Erith. Some twist. Something they did not tell. Secrets. Hidden. Words from the parchment Undurat had brought.
“I am not sure we can,” Kallish told her, voice as gentle as Arrow had ever heard it. The warrior shook her head, frustration tightening her face. “There is much that we just know. That we learned from our families. And from the heartland herself.”
Things which Arrow could not possibly have known. She had been the heartland once in her life, and had not been raised in a family. She straightened, stiffening her spine.
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