Shadowcaster

by Cinda Williams Chima

  Backstage, the assembled players bubbled like a pot coming to a boil, with dancers in costume darting this way and that.

  Speaker Jemson hurried past, looking harried, pursued by three dedicates, who were bombarding him with questions. When he saw Alyssa and Shadow, he said, “Thank the Maker,” and crossed something off on a list. “Trying to organize this thing is like herding fellscats.”

  Lyss peeked through the curtains and saw that the sanctuary was crowded already, with chairs set up on every level surface. Security was tight; blue-jacketed guards were stationed in the balconies and at the entries, and were peppered through the front few rows.

  “All right,” Speaker Jemson said. “We’ll open with a prayer, then the handbells, then the choir, and the Temple School dancers. After the intermission, we’ll bring you on. For ‘Hanalea,’ we’ll have the full choir and the handbells back. Sound good?” Not waiting for an answer, he sprinted stage right to where a young acolyte was struggling with one of the larger sets.

  Lyss pulled out her notes and went over the new lyrics. She’d be on her own for those.

  The crowd was growing more restive, and Alyssa knew it must be close to eight o’clock. Overhead, the bells in the tower began to sound, signaling that it was showtime.

  Somehow, miraculously, through divine intervention, perhaps, all of the musicians and singers were in place, in costume, ready to go when Speaker Jemson walked out to the front of the platform. “One thing about working in a temple,” he said, looking up into the bell tower, which was still resonating. “You always know what time it is.”

  13

  STAGE DEBUT

  The first half of the concert passed in a sensory blur: young voices echoing in the nave, the scent of candle wax, hundreds of upturned faces in the audience. Lyss stayed backstage, her apprehension warring with the pure, sweet magic of the music.

  At intermission, Aunt Mellony came backstage to help Lyss with her hair.

  Mellony unraveled Lyss’s usual thick braid and arranged her hair in a soft twist on the back of her head so it showed off her long neck and her grandmother Marianna’s diamond earrings, another loan from Aunt Mellony.

  “You should wear your hair like this more often,” Aunt Mellony said. “It’s very becoming.”

  “Maybe,” Lyss said, studying herself in the mirror. A stranger looked back at her, one with color on her eyes and lips and a dress that exposed her shoulders. On a chain around her neck Lyss wore the rowan talisman she’d inherited from her father, which was meant to protect her from magical attacks. The one that had saved her life at Queen Court.

  She’d planned to wear it alongside the locket her father had given her on her eighth name day. “You can put images of your sweethearts in there,” he’d said. “Stacked one on top of the other.”

  I’m not my mother, Lyss thought. One will do.

  In the dark days after Hana’s death, Adrian had gone to clan artists and commissioned tiny portraits of each person in their family—himself, Hana, Alyssa, their father, and their mother. With help from Shadow’s father, Fire Dancer, Adrian had mounted them into the locket. The images were cunning flashcraft. When she touched it, the portraits would shift, displaying first one person and then another.

  He’d demonstrated the trick of it, fastened it around her neck, and said, “See? We’ll be with you, every day. You’ll never be alone.”

  Not anymore. The locket had gone missing two weeks ago.

  This latest loss had hit Lyss hard. They’re still in your heart, she told herself, but she missed having something physical that she could hold on to. The last gift her brother had given her.

  She’d not told her mother—she’d not told anyone. Surely she’d find it before long, trapped between the bed frame and her mattress or along one of the paths in the glass garden on the roof of the palace or at the bottom of a trunk of clothing. Never mind that she’d already looked in all of those places. She couldn’t admit to losing one more precious bit of memory.

  “You seem preoccupied, Alyssa,” Aunt Mellony said as she applied the finishing touches. “Is everything all right?”

  Lyss realized she’d barely spoken a word while her aunt fussed over her.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” Lyss said. “This time of year always stirs up a lot of memories.”

  “For all of us, sweetheart,” Aunt Mellony said, resting her hands on Lyss’s shoulders. “In times like these, it’s difficult not to think of what might have been.” She smiled at her. “You look lovely. So grown up. Your mother is so proud of you.”

  “Is she?” Lyss blurted.

  Mellony cocked her head, frowning. “Of course she is. Raisa will be right in the front row tonight. Why would you doubt it?”

  “It’s just . . . it always seems like my mother and me—we’re pulling in different directions. She’s never here, or if she’s here, I’m gone. And when we are together, I feel like she’s watching me, waiting for me to do the wrong thing.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” Mellony said, licking her finger and smoothing down a wayward strand of Lyss’s hair. “It’s just that she’s worried about you. She’s had so many losses already.”

  “She’s always correcting me, pointing out how I could have done better. It’s like she’s constantly comparing me to Hana.”

  Mellony hesitated, as if choosing her words carefully. “Well, if she is, she shouldn’t be. Hana was . . . remarkably gifted, and Raisa spent years grooming her to be queen. She shouldn’t expect so much of you. I think she’s just conscious of a . . . a shortened timeline.”

  “It’s not like I want her to go easy on me,” Lyss said. “I want to be a good queen.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “You and Julianna are so close, it’s like you share everything,” Lyss said.

  “Not everything,” Aunt Mellony said. “She’s really her father’s daughter. Sometimes I—” She stopped and bit her lip.

  Lyss groaned inwardly. Lord Barrett had died young, too, of a fever, just a year after her own father. Their loss was even fresher.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Mellony,” Lyss said. “I didn’t mean to unload on you.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about, dear,” Mellony said lightly. “I’m not as fragile as you think. Just be fair to your mother, Alyssa. I have a lot more time to spend with Julianna, and there’s less pressure on the two of us, so it stands to reason that we would get along.” She kissed Lyss on the forehead. “Now. I’d better go back out front before they start up again. And don’t worry. Tonight is your night to shine. I can’t wait to see you up on stage.”

  Returning to the backstage area, Lyss checked the tuning on her basilka one more time. Speaker Jemson walked to center stage, and Lyss’s heart beat faster. Shadow joined her in the wings. Despite his initial reluctance, he didn’t seem worried at all.

  This has to go well, Lyss thought. Shadow has to find his music again.

  Maybe I have to find mine, too. So many important things have been pushed aside by this war.

  “And, now, as promised, we have a special treat in store for you—two stellar musicians who trained right here in the Temple School. Two musicians who represent the diversity of our students, onstage together for the first time. Rogan Shadow Dancer and Her Highness Alyssa ana’Raisa, known as Meadowlark in the uplands, the heir to the Gray Wolf throne.”

  As if in a dream, Lyss followed Shadow onto the stage, keeping her eyes fixed on her feet so she wouldn’t stumble. Also so she wouldn’t see who was out there, beyond the wizard lights that lined the edge of the stage.

  Their entrance was greeted with a roar of approval that rolled over her like ocean waves. When Lyss raised her eyes enough that she could look over the edge of the stage, she saw that the two front rows were filled with a gaggle of temple students of varying ages. Behind them, her mother, smiling up at her. Captain Byrne, Shilo Trailblazer, Micah Bayar, Aunt Mellony, Finn and Julianna, General Dunedain, and the healer Harriman Vega.
Filling the other rows, a quilt of faces of all colors, all ages, and every social class.

  Sasha and Cam stood stage left and right, scanning the crowd for signs of trouble. Lyss saw other spots of blue scattered throughout the sanctuary.

  As Lyss and Shadow launched into the opening notes of “Upland Dancer,” the familiar magic of music calmed her down. When she looked over at Shadow, he had his head back, his eyes closed, as if he were far away, but he never missed a note. As he played, some of the tension in his shoulders eased.

  Following “Upland Dancer,” the melancholy “Summervale” left people lost in wistful memory, but then the rollicking “Baston Bay” brought the crowd alive, with clapping and impromptu sing-alongs. Lyss and Shadow faced off and sang the call-and-response between the innkeeper’s daughter and the ship’s captain, bringing cheers and laughter and catcalls. She’d forgotten the simple joy of making music.

  It was already time for Shadow’s solos. Lyss sat to one side so she could watch both him and the crowd.

  “I call this ‘Bittersweet.’” Shadow never offered much of an introduction onstage. Either the work delivered, or it didn’t. In his case, it always did.

  The words and music captured the brilliant anguish of love and loss. It was as if he was reflecting back the shared experience of the queendom. There were few in the audience who had not lost a loved one in this never-ending war. Lyss looked out at the crowd and saw tears running down her mother’s face.

  When the applause died down, Shadow said, “‘Aspen Autumn.’” This one was an instrumental eulogy, the sweet runs of notes calling to mind the glitter of golden aspen leaves in the wind.

  And then it was time for Lyss to step out front.

  She stood, resting the base of her instrument on the floor. “It has been far too long since Shadow Dancer’s music has been heard in the mountain home. I am humbled to be sharing a stage with him. Let’s encourage him to keep writing, and to keep sharing it with us.”

  This was met with noisy enthusiasm.

  When it ebbed, Lyss said, “My name is Alyssa ana’Raisa, known as Meadowlark in the uplands. I am the second daughter of Raisa ana’Marianna and Han sul’Alger. I’m going to sing about love and war tonight. First, a song I wrote about people who had no business falling in love. It’s called ‘The Raven and the Rose.’”

  She slung the strap of her basilka over her shoulders, set her feet, and began to play. Trying to ignore the crowd in front of her, she kept her eyes on her fingers as they traveled over the strings. She’d written the song in the style of the timeless ballads sung by traveling minstrels, ballads that were easy to learn, that grew and changed as they passed from hand to hand. It was the story of the clever raven Han Alister, and how he found a home in the Briar Rose’s heart, despite her many thorns.

  Lyss had hesitated to write it, and then to share it, because she worried that she wasn’t the best person to tell this story—both because she wasn’t good enough, and because it wasn’t her story to tell. By the time she reached the last chorus, Shadow had joined in on the basilka, and everyone in the sanctuary was on their feet, singing along with her.

  The song ended to thunderous applause and foot-stomping. Alyssa looked down to see her mother smiling, still dabbing at her eyes—and she wasn’t the only one.

  It took a deal of time for the audience to settle enough for Lyss to be heard over the ruckus. “I wrote this next song because sometimes love is not enough. Sometimes you have to take the fight to your enemy. It’s called ‘Children of the North.’” She began with a measure or two of wild upland notes, and then began to sing.

  “We are children of the north,

  Born among the trees.

  We will not take the collar

  And we will not bend the knee.

  We will fight you in the winter snows

  And in the summer mud,

  And the slopes of Hanalea

  Will be watered with your blood.

  “We are children of the north

  And we do not fight alone.

  Our mothers fight beside us

  To protect the mountain home.

  From mountain camp to upland vale

  You’ll hear our battle cry:

  You think you’ve come prepared to fight.

  Instead, prepare to die.”

  Now Lyss advanced to the front of the stage, looked her mother straight in the eye, and sang, each word a blow against their common enemy.

  “We will find you in the flatlands

  Where there is no place to hide.

  We’ll drown you in the marshes

  Where the Waterwalkers bide.

  We’ll force you from your strongholds

  And we’ll drive you to the sea.

  We’ll burn your golden cities

  And we’ll set your captives free.”

  Lyss tossed her head, feeling tendrils of hair coming loose. Kicking off her shoes, she stomped up and down, making eye contact with one person after another, trying to ignore the fabric ripping round her knees. Speaking up wasn’t hard when the music freed her. Truth be told, it was a bloody and warlike song to be singing in a temple, but it didn’t seem to matter. The entire sanctuary was rocking with the stomping of feet. The students in the front row stared up at her with rapt faces. It didn’t feel like a solo when the entire crowd was with her.

  “We are children of the north.

  This time we fight as one.

  Wizard, clan, and valefolk,

  Our daughters and our sons.

  We are not made of flesh and blood,

  We’re honed of steel and stone.

  We will raise another mountain

  And we’ll build it with your bones.”

  The clamor of the crowd reverberated off the stone walls, echoed against the cavernous ceilings, and resonated in her bones. Shadow joined hands with her and they stood side by side. Lyss heard wolfish yips and howling, and looked up to see that almost the entire balcony was taken up by her salvo. It was some time before the crowd quieted enough that they could move on to the finale.

  It was “Hanalea’s Lament,” a traditional ballad of the high country, sung by the full choir, with Shadow and Alyssa on basilka. The audience stood again and sang along. Now tears were streaming down Alyssa’s face, too, but she didn’t care.

  This, she thought. This is what I’ve been trying to say all along.

  When the song was over, nobody seemed to want to leave, but all stood, arms joined, swaying, still singing the refrain, howling, or shouting, “For the queen!” and “For the Gray Wolf!” and “For the Staff and Flash!”—that being the High Wizard’s signia.

  After the concert, audience members crowded forward, most of them friends and family members of the performers. Lyss ducked backstage to the small room where she’d left her change of clothes. She returned her basilka to its case, kicked off her mincy shoes, and shed her dress, sucking in her first unimpaired breath since before leaving the castle close. Gratefully, she pulled on her leather breeches, softspun shirt, and mourning coat, finishing with a pair of well-broken-in boots. Draping Aunt Mellony’s dress over one arm, she picked up her instrument with the other.

  “Your Highness?” It was Sasha, just outside the door. “Do you need any help?”

  “Coming.”

  When Lyss emerged, Sasha said, “Well, you look more like yourself. Are you still planning to go out with Finn and the others?”

  Lyss nodded. “I know you didn’t plan on that originally, so—”

  “I talked it over with Captain Byrne, and he’s leaving you five more Wolves as escorts. That’ll be six of us—plus a wizard, two upland warriors, and a fierce Highlander captain. Think that’s enough?”

  “That’s enough,” Lyss said. “We’d better go before they leave without us.”

  When Lyss and Sasha descended from the stage, the crowd in the sanctuary had thinned considerably. Shadow stood by the first row of seats with his father, Fire Dancer, and Queen Raisa, A
unt Mellony, and Trailblazer.

  “Dancer!” Lyss embraced him. “Thanks for coming.”

  Dancer smiled at her. His face was lined with care, and his blue eyes had faded a little, but his smile was as brilliant as before. “It’s not often that so many of my old friends are all in one place.”

  Shadow looked Lyss up and down, taking in her transformation. “That didn’t take long,” he said, grinning.

  “Alyssa,” her mother said, her cheeks pinked up with emotion, her eyes bright with tears. “I had no idea . . . I never imagined that you could . . . That was remarkable. I had forgotten what a pleasure it is to hear you sing and play.”

  Me too, Lyss thought. “I’m so glad you came,” she said. And, then, cheeks burning, she added, “I hope I didn’t . . . I hope you didn’t feel like I meant to embarrass anyone by making a political statement up there.”

  The queen smiled. “Alyssa, we won’t always agree, but when you speak, it is always worth hearing. I am so glad that I did not miss it.”

  “Meadowlark,” Trailblazer said, “your anthem reminds me of a Demonai battle dance—it stirs the blood in the same way. Do not be surprised if you hear it echoing through the Spirits this spring.”

  Captain Byrne appeared, snow dusted over his shoulders and hair. “Well done, both of you,” he said, smiling at Lyss and Shadow. He turned to the queen. “Your carriage is outside, Your Majesty.”

  “Would you like to ride back with me and Aunt Mellony, Alyssa?” her mother asked.

  “Well, actually, I—I’m going out with some friends,” Lyss said. “We’re celebrating Julianna’s engagement.” Suddenly aware that Aunt Mellony’s dress was bundled under one arm, she added, “Thank you for the dress, Aunt Mellony.”

  “Here. I’ll take it,” Aunt Mellony said, reaching for it. “It looks like your hands are full.”

  Her mother came up on her toes and kissed Lyss on the cheek. “I am so very proud of you, Alyssa.” She paused. “Don’t stay out too late. We have a breakfast meeting tomorrow, early.” She hesitated, then couldn’t seem to resist adding, “And . . . be careful. It’s . . . the dark season, and the wolves are running.”