Master of Shadows

by E. A. Copen

  Master

  of

  Shadows

  A novel in the Lazarus Codex Universe

  This is a work of fiction. Names, persons, places, and incidents are all used fictitiously and are the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locales, is coincidental and non-intentional, unless otherwise specifically noted.

  No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  E.A. Copen

  MASTER OF SHADOWS

  © E.A. Copen 2019

  All rights reserved.

  Please contact the author with typos, questions, or unicorns. I like unicorns especially. eacopen@eacopen.com

  ***

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dear Reader,

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Author Notes

  Get an Exclusive Story from The Lazarus Codex

  Other Books in the Laz’verse

  Dear Reader,

  The book you’re about to read is part of a much larger universe that contains books in The Lazarus Codex and Hellbent Halo. Reading all the books in both series is not required for Master of Shadows to make sense; it is a stand-alone adventure that helps develop the world as a whole.

  However, characters like Remy, Foxglove, and Finn were first introduced in The Lazarus Codex. To get a fuller picture of who they are, how their world works, and what motivates them, I recommend reading Knight Shift and Dark Horse. You might also find Death’s Door contains some fun Easter eggs concerning the blight and the villain of Master of Shadows. I recommend reading all of The Lazarus Codex, of course, since many of the characters that appear in Master of Shadows will also be appearing in future books in the series.

  For those interested in knowing the timing of this novel, it occurs between Dark Horse and Casting Shadows.

  I hope you enjoy this side adventure in the world!

  Sincerely,

  E.A. Copen

  Chapter One

  Finn O’Leary stepped out of the shadows and dusted off his long coat. Behind him, light flickered over squat sandstone walls, casting shadows. Dust danced in a narrow column of sunlight streaming through a hole in the ceiling. He cupped a hand in the dust, letting it gather like snow before tipping his palm to the side and sprinkling it along the floor. With a deep breath, he pulled the familiar damp air into his lungs, letting it out with a contented sigh. Nothing like the musty air of an untouched tomb, he thought and shifted the pack on his shoulder. Smells like treasure.

  He rummaged around in the pack a moment before pulling out an old phone. There was no service, but that was to be expected in Faerie. Besides, the last thing he wanted was for someone to call him. As far as he could tell, not even humans used their phones to make phone calls anymore. It was much more useful as a multimedia device.

  Finn unwrapped a pair of white in-ear headphones and slipped them on before tapping a button on the screen and flipping on the flashlight. With Billy Idol in his ears and a little extra pep in his step, Finn made his way down the narrow corridor to the first antechamber of the tomb.

  The shadowy outlines of doors sprang up on either side of the room under the bright light from the back of his phone. As with most tombs, no one had marked which door led to which chamber. The hope of the ancients was that he would choose the wrong door and go tumbling into a pit of iron spikes, or step on a trigger plate, releasing a cloud of poisonous gas. Things only an amateur would fall for.

  He slid his fingers along the collar of his jacket, popping it up, and swaggered over to the door on the right. With a flourish, he pressed his palm flat against the grainy sandstone door, closed his eyes, and extended his senses beyond the barrier to let the shadows speak to him. Darkness curled around his consciousness, a comforting and familiar sheet of cold nothing. No, not quite nothing. There was something skittering around in the dark beyond that door. Tiny, crawling things with extra legs and eyes that worked much better than his in a low-light environment.

  Finn curled down two fingers, leaving only the first three on each hand free to weave his spell. The creatures beyond may not have been citizens of the Shadow Court by birth, but that didn’t make them creatures of shadow any less. All slithering, skittering things were kin to the dark, and that darkness was his to command. It was a small thing to use the darkness around the centipedes and roaches to encourage them to act a certain way, an action so small and common Finn barely had to think about how he wove his fingers through the air, slowly weaving an ironclad connection between his mind and theirs.

  His eyes snapped open, but it wasn’t the dim antechamber he saw. Instead, his eyes focused on another corridor with painted walls and tiled floor. The creature whose eyes he’d borrowed made a sudden turn, avoiding a raised area of the floor before skittering on.

  The hallway spilled into a large, round room with colder air. Eyes flashed in the dark, peering out from behind glass cases suspended in air with ancient magic. Giant sandstone stairs loomed ahead, leading to a raised platform with burned-out torches on either side. There, resting on the platform, was a stone sarcophagus. Exactly what Finn was looking for.

  He flicked his fingers and broke the spell, snapping back into his own body with a gasp. Damn spell. He’d been poking around in the dark for too long and left his eyes strained. At least he knew where the stone was.

  A loose brick next to the door hid the lever he needed to open it. The lever groaned loudly when he flipped it down, and the stone door slid aside revealing the narrow hallway. As a bug, the hallway had seemed plenty large enough to make his way through, but as a fae, it was barely wide enough. Finn dropped to all fours and pulled himself through the space, shoving aside all kinds of insects and one or two mice. Once, his hand brushed against something long and dry like polished bone, but it didn’t bother him any more than the crawling creatures who raced along the corridor to escape him. Finding stripped bones in a tomb was hardly unexpected.

  The narrow hallway ended abruptly, and Finn found himself staring at a drop in complete darkness. With a grunt, he shifted the cell phone to shine the flashlight down, but he still couldn’t see the bottom. Bloody cell phone flashlights were too weak to penetrate that much darkness. It could be a drop of two meters or twenty. Either way, he was sure the sarcophagus chamber was down there, which meant that’s where he needed to be also.

  Only one way to find out. He felt around for a rock to drop into the abyss, but in turning he overestimated how much space he had and smacked his hand against the wall. Pain radiated over his knuckles like a bite. He pulled away on instinct only to realize too late he’d let go of the phone. He grabbed for it, but all he managed was to skip to the next song and yank the earbuds out.
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  Finn winced and waited for the crash.

  A second later, the opening riff of “Under Pressure” floated up to greet him. He peered over the edge and spied dust dancing in the bright light. I’ll be damned. Somehow the thing survived the fall.

  Even better, the drop wasn’t near as far as he thought it would be. With a grunt, he pulled himself out to hang from the ledge and let go. He landed on both feet and sent up a huge cloud of dust. The impact of his feet against the granite floor sounded like thunder in the small chamber. He stayed frozen in a squat for a long moment, holding his breath, waiting to see if landing had triggered any last-minute defenses. Nothing.

  Finn let out a breath and stood before going to collect the phone. The screen was cracked, but it still seemed to be working if the music was anything to judge by. He shut off the song and tucked the phone into his back pocket before facing the stairs. They had seemed giant before, but now that he was in the room with them, they were no larger than normal stairs.

  This is it. Finn licked his lips and crept toward the stairs. The second Speaking Stone. How long had he been searching for those damn rocks? He’d stumbled through temple after temple, ruin after ruin on the edges of Faerie kingdoms, hoping to find another. There were supposed to be three in all, each one with a myriad of legends and rumors surrounding it. One would get him set up wherever he wanted to go, but if he could sell two, he and his sister would be set up for life no matter where they chose to live.

  His feet carried him up the stairs on their own, his brain buzzing with possibilities. They could go to Hawaii or Bali, or maybe even buy their own private island. Beachside parties that stretched late into the night, private jets stocked with the finest alcohol for him, and the best schools and a featherbed for Auryn. He could afford to buy her that dress she’d been ogling for weeks too. No one would kick them out of places or tell them where they could go and when. This stone would change their lives for the better. All he had to do was grab it.

  Finn stopped beside the sarcophagus. It was a plain thing made of granite and a little silver filigree. He was surprised to find it in such good shape after so many years. Fae didn’t die often, and Faerie queens even less frequently. At least, that’s how it used to be. All the recent instability had made death and regicide more commonplace, but things would smooth themselves out. By the time they did, he and Auryn would be long gone.

  This queen’s name was carved into the top of her sarcophagus: Oonagh, High Queen of Faerie. No years denoted her birth and death since most fae didn’t track such things, but everyone knew the story of Oonagh’s death. Murdered by her own lover during the Uprising. All the stories said she swore to lay a curse upon any who disturbed her bones. Good thing Finn didn’t believe in any of that.

  He pushed on the sarcophagus lid with a grunt, sliding it away from the top. The thing moved painfully slow, groaning and grinding the whole way only to clatter loudly to the floor once he got it past halfway. Finn put his hand over his mouth and nose to block out the smell of decay, but quickly lowered it as he peered into the sarcophagus.

  The queen lay with her hands folded over her chest as if she were asleep, her body no more decayed than the day of her death. A crown of white gold laced with roses sat firmly around her head. Her dress was the same color and sparkled in the light from his phone as he passed it over her. Rosy cheeks, pale skin... She was as fresh and beautiful as she must’ve been when she was alive.

  He stopped the light on her chest and whistled. “Wish I’d come a couple of centuries sooner. Bet you were a lively one in the sack. Get it? Lively?” He sighed. “Why is it no one is ever around to appreciate the good jokes?”

  Finn moved the light to her hands, which clutched a large brilliant blue topaz. The second Speaking Stone, also known as the Royal Stone.

  Finn put the phone down on top of the body and tugged on the dead queen’s hands. They were stiff and resisted letting the stone go. He insisted. With a little more force, the arms cracked like old wood and he peeled the fingers away. Finally, a better life was within his grasp.

  Finn wrapped his hands around the stone.

  Magic rose and bit into his palms like an angry serpent. He tried to pull away, but whatever the spell was, it held him tight. Frozen, he could do nothing but watch in horror as the spell slithered up his arm and around his neck before rearing back and then burrowing into his eyes. He opened his mouth in a silent scream only to have the magic pour in.

  Visions flashed behind his eyes at breakneck speed, scenes and symbols without any meaning or connection. A crown like the one Queen Oonagh was wearing lowered onto a woman’s head, except this crown was black and dripping with something that looked like oil. The oil raced down the woman’s face and the drops came alive, wriggling into her ears. The woman opened her eyes, but there was nothing there. Her eyes had burned away, leaving only black pits.

  The scene faded, replaced by a decimated Earth city. Ash fell from the sky, piling up like snow. A child’s bike lay overturned in the street next to a decaying car. Black tendrils crept over the road, pulsating as if they were living things, but that was impossible. The air was green and putrid. Nothing, not even darkness could live in such a place. A distant flash of light sparked and the whole scene turned to dust.

  When the light faded, Finn found himself standing in an open field. Smoke rose all around, the land charred by fire. In the distance, the familiar tower of the Summer Court stood in ruins while a battle waged in front of its gates. No, not a battle. This was a slaughter. The forces of Winter were slaying Summer’s soldiers by the hundreds. Torches painted the midnight sky red like blood while the anguished screams of the dying played like a twisted symphony.

  As suddenly as they began, the visions stopped. Magic fled. Finn released his hold on the blue topaz, which he had somehow lifted from the sarcophagus during the visions. It tumbled to the floor and rolled down the stairs where it lay, his reflection dancing in the facets of the gem.

  A flurry of movement filled the chamber, the telltale clink of armor and the whisper of steel being drawn. In a moment, guards from the High Court of Faerie had surrounded the entire platform, swords drawn and pointed at him.

  Finn searched for a shadow to step through, one that would take him anywhere beyond the queen’s tomb. He flinched when bright lights flared to life in every corner of the room from ceiling to floor. The lights bathed the room in brightness in just such a way as to prevent anyone from casting a deep enough shadow for travel. Dammit all.

  “We meet again, thief.” The line of armed fae parted to let one of their own through. He was tall, broad shouldered, and wore a white cloak that denoted him the commander of the High Court’s forces. He removed his helmet and passed it to one of the other men, revealing a crooked nose, short dark hair, and a rounded chin.

  Finn raised his hands in surrender. “Actually, my name is Finn. Finn O’Leary? I told you that last time you arrested me. Or tried to. You know you have no cell that can hold me, Braes.”

  The knight’s face twisted, and he ground his teeth. “That’s Sir Braes to you.”

  “How do you spell that? Like the sound an ass makes?”

  Sir Braes scowled.

  Finn shook his head. “That’d be too on the nose, wouldn’t it? Say what you will. Sometimes the universe has no sense of humor.”

  “Seize him,” the knight shouted.

  Before any of them could move, an arrow whizzed past Finn’s ear, far too close for comfort, and six warriors in green stepped through a door he hadn’t noticed on the other side of the room.

  “What’s this? Where’d you come from? Who’s in charge?” Sir Braes’s head looked like it was about to explode.

  “I am.” The fae leading the small force wasn’t as tall as Sir Braes, nor as wide in the shoulders, but he was much closer to the image most humans had of the fae. He had the natural beauty often found in members of the High Court’s royal family, and the unmistakable silvery glow. He wore his hair long a
nd swept to one side, probably because he thought it covered the large scar that went over his eye.

  Finn perked at the sight of the second fae. “Sir Foxglove! How’ve you been?” When Braes’ men stared at him, Finn gestured to the long-haired fae. “We know each other.”

  Sir Foxglove rolled his eyes and pretended not to know him, choosing to address Sir Braes instead. “Thank you, Sir Braes, for your assistance in apprehending this criminal. We’ll take it from here.” He nodded to his men.

  Everyone but the dark-haired archer at his side stepped forward.

  “Just a minute,” Braes barked. “He’s our prisoner.”

  Foxglove raised an eyebrow. “On whose authority?”

  “On the authority that he’s robbing the tomb of our queen!”

  “Former queen,” corrected Foxglove. “And he’s wanted for prior crimes against the Summer crown. And the Winter crown.” He thought for a moment before adding, “and on Earth. I suppose you’ll have to wait your turn, seeing as how he hasn’t technically stolen anything from you. You seem to have prevented that. At worst, he’s guilty of trespassing, and theft far outweighs that charge.”

  Sir Braes gestured back toward the sarcophagus. “And abuse of a corpse.”

  “I didn’t touch her!” Finn protested and glanced down at the body, wincing. “Well, not much anyway. What’s she care? She’s dead!”

  “You see?” Sir Foxglove nodded to Finn. “Crimes against the living far outweigh crimes against the dead, so we’ll be taking the prisoner.”

  Sir Braes puffed himself up and clenched his fists before marching up to Sir Foxglove. “You’re not even with the Summer Court, are you? You work for that bloody Court of Miracles. You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re a disgrace to your whole bloodline.”

  Foxglove’s face hardened. “Nevertheless, we will be taking the prisoner with us to Summer. Unless you want to settle this with a duel?” His hand went to the sword at his hip.

  Braes’ eyes snapped to the sword, calculating.