Master of Shadows

by E. A. Copen

  After he read Declan’s letter, Sir Malcom produced more witnesses who spoke on their own. Guards had seen Cian creeping around the palace just before the attack. Then there was the cook who claimed Cian forced her into his bed and bragged about his plan to kill the queen and all the money Shadow had paid him.

  In just a few short hours, Sir Malcom seemed to have the entire case wrapped up nice and neat, presenting motive, method, and opportunity in neat little boxes. Too neat. Even the loyalists Remy had tried and executed shortly after she ascended the throne didn’t have such clear-cut guilt. Either Cian was the stupidest Summer fae who ever lived, or someone wasn’t telling the truth. The latter seemed impossible. Fae weren’t supposed to be able to lie, though they could twist the truth. For Cian to be wholly innocent, at least some of what Malcom presented as evidence would have to be a flat-out lie. But how would fae be able to lie? Was that even possible?

  By the end of the court session, Sir Malcom seemed very proud of himself. He dismissed the last witness and turned to Jessica.

  “Have you any more witnesses to call?” Jessica asked.

  “No, My Queen. You have heard all the evidence against the accused.”

  Jessica stood and peered out over the room one more time. “And still no one wishes to speak on Cian’s behalf?”

  A low murmur went through the crowd, but no one dared raise their hand. It wasn’t common for anyone to ask a second time. Maybe she’d made a mistake. No, something wasn’t right with this trial. She could feel it.

  “Given the evidence, have you reached a decision?” Sir Malcom asked.

  Jessica peered down at him. It was clear he was expecting her to judge and sentence him now. That was exactly what Remy would do, wasn’t it? She trusted Foxglove and Malcom implicitly. If he said Cian was guilty, would she really insist on digging further?

  If she had the same feeling in her gut that Jessica did, yes.

  Jessica folded her hands as she’d seen Remy do dozens of times. “I have not yet reached a decision. We’ll adjourn for the day and continue the trial tomorrow.” She stepped down from the throne and swept past Sir Malcom so quickly he barely had time to step aside.

  As expected, Sir Malcom caught up with her in the hallway. “Your Majesty, given the amount of evidence against Cian, would it not be more efficient to simply pass judgement now? Why wait? The man has literally no defense.”

  She frowned and eyed the knight practically jogging beside her. “You seem to have recovered quickly.”

  He hesitated a step. “Pardon?”

  “Your limp. It’s gone. I was simply remarking at your quick healing.”

  “Ah, yes. The healers are very good at what they do. Now about Cian’s trial—”

  “I find it odd no one will speak in his defense.” Jessica tilted her head to the side. “Cian has been at court his entire life. He has family here, friends. And the claim that he would force himself on one of the servants strikes me as strange.”

  “How so?” Malcom folded his hands behind his back. “Fae can’t lie, therefore the testimony given isn’t suspect.”

  “Cian is hardly the type. Yes, he can be annoying, rude, and even racist against other fae and humans, but he’s a happily married man, is he not? Was the wife aware of the affair? Why didn’t she testify for or against him? Certainly, she should’ve weighed in.”

  “Yes, his wife Verbena is here at court, but she hasn’t left her room since his arrest. The guards say she’s become quite agitated. I thought it best to give her some space.”

  Jessica nodded. “It must be difficult to have your husband on trial for treason.”

  “Indeed,” said Sir Malcom.

  She stopped and turned to face the knight. “I would like to speak to Verbena, woman to woman. Perhaps that will set my heart at ease. It troubles me to leave her without a husband.”

  Sir Malcom made a sweeping bow. “As you wish, My Queen. I shall send for at once and arrange the throne room so that—”

  “Was I unclear? I thought I said I wanted to speak to her privately.”

  He hesitated halfway through rising from his bow. “Apologies. Where should I send her?”

  “To my quarters. That will be all, Sir Malcom.”

  As she ascended the stairs to the royal apartments, she let out a shaky breath. Malcom was pushing hard for Cian’s execution, which didn’t sit right with her. He’d never been a particularly violent person, even for a knight. Usually, it was Sir Malcom who was cautioning Remy against the use of force. For him to be the one encouraging it was strange.

  Even if she agreed with him, Jessica couldn’t allow the execution to go forward until Remy was back. If they tried to execute Cian without Remy present, she’d be exposed. Her head might go on the chopping block next.

  She paused near a window in the tower overlooking the front gate of the palace. The crowd of protesters from a few days ago was still there, marching back and forth and shouting. They carried signs that seemed vaguely threatening to her. Why wasn’t anyone more worried about them? If they ever got particularly angry, one or two of them might scale the walls and open the gates. Should dozens of angry protestors flood the palace all at once, many more fae could be hurt. At least none would die so long as Remy stayed away.

  Jessica sighed, gathered her skirts and climbed the rest of the way to her room. She’d meet with Cian’s wife and do her best to prolong Cian’s life as long as she could, if only to ensure her own survival. But while she was stalling, what did it hurt to look into things just a little bit more?

  Chapter Twelve

  Foxglove’s head ached, and he felt a little woozy sitting atop his horse, but he didn’t complain. The concussion was minor and there wasn’t anything to be done for it. He still had to accompany the rest of them deeper into blighted lands where there might be more rotting bears and beasts to contend with.

  The black, blighted land stretched out on either side of them and as far into the distance as they could see. Some of the blackness had nothing to do with the blight at all, but the fires set by Sir Malcom’s men. Remy had come up with the scorched earth policy herself. The theory at the time was that the pulsating black vines crawling over the land were feeding off the living plants and creatures and that if life were removed from its path, it could spread no further.

  But the blight was persistent. Once it reached the burn line, the vines had simply paused to grow thicker and gorge themselves on water from some far-off place. When the blight vines finally crawled through the burning fire, they burst and put it out. With no life for miles on the other side, they should’ve had nothing to sustain them, but the damn things just kept growing. Nothing could stop them.

  Perhaps this whole quest is a fruitless effort, he thought looking out over the fields. It was midmorning and fog clung to the ground, a blanket of fluffy gray over the rotting corpse of the land. This is what all of Faerie will look like eventually.

  They were supposed to be following the vines back to their source where the queen hoped Finn would be able to help destroy it. It seemed to Foxglove that the vines didn’t have any one source. They sprang from everywhere and nowhere, growing over everything in their path. If there was no source, their plan was folly. It seemed almost too much to hope that there was a single enemy waiting for them at the end, one battle to fix everything. How could any one person or place be responsible for all that destruction?

  Near midday, they came to the border between Shadow and Summer. The sky darkened, despite the high sun, and the shadows had been growing longer the closer they got. At the border, a huge shadow stretched over the land, bathing one side in eternal twilight and the other in what felt like an evening sun.

  They stopped at the border. Sir Malcom’s forces had gotten further than this by at least a day, but no further. According to Malcom’s reports, about a day’s ride in things got much worse and his men had started to disappear. There was supposed to be a village about that far in, a tiny border town named Rilvand. The
town itself was probably empty, but they might be able to find some provisions there that weren’t spoiled yet. Maybe. And maybe the blight had ruined all of it.

  “This is the first time I’ve been home in a long time,” Finn said quietly.

  “Didn’t you flee with the rest of the refugees?” Gwen turned in her saddle.

  Finn nodded and leaned forward. “Auryn and I were some of the first people to get out. We were lucky. I haven’t seen how bad it got. Part of me doesn’t want to imagine it. How can anything be worse than what we’ve already passed through?”

  Foxglove urged his horse up between the two. “Sir Malcom’s reports say his people disappeared on the other side of this border. Though he searched, he was never able to find them.”

  “How do you suppose we’ll keep that from happening to us?” Declan asked, his voice slightly high.

  Foxglove dismounted and unwound a long rope from where it hung on the horse. He tied one end around his waist and passed it to Declan. “If something takes one of us, the rest of us will notice.”

  Declan frowned and tied himself in. The other two did the same before Foxglove got back onto his horse. He’d have to lead the procession and let Gwen take up the rear, which was just fine with him. She seemed more than capable of being the rear guard.

  Secured to each other, the four of them ventured into Shadow.

  Aside from the deep twilight sky, nothing seemed to get worse with the border crossing at first. Yet the deeper they went, the more vines they saw. They grew so thick in some places that the only way to move forward was to ease the horses over them. All four horses balked at going, so they wound up dismounting and pulling the horses along. Walking made for slow going, especially with the horses being stubborn.

  After a few hours, they came on a stream and Declan dismounted, canteen in hand. Foxglove put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Best not,” he said, gesturing to the stream with his head. “Look closer.”

  Declan leaned over what had at first appeared to be clean, clear water and recoiled. The vines had crawled down into the stream and ran along the bed, but that wasn’t the worst of it. A frog sat on the edge of the river, bloated as if it were dead, flies buzzing around it. The poor frog let out an awful, pained croak, opened its mouth and lashed out at the flies with a black tongue that looked suspiciously more like a tentacle than a tongue.

  Foxglove suppressed a shiver as the frog hopped off. “We’ll make do with whatever supplies we have from here on out. I don’t want to risk one of us being affected by the blight.”

  Disappointed, Declan got back on his horse and they rode on.

  Their first night in Shadow was spent in an old abandoned farmhouse. Blight aside, no one had been there in a long time. Cobwebs and dust covered the furniture. At least there was a fireplace and plenty of room for the four of them in the main room. They’d tied their horses to the post outside and untied themselves from each other. With all of them sitting in the same room, it seemed pointless to be bound up, and the rope just made it harder for them to move around.

  Foxglove set himself to lighting a fire in the fireplace while Declan cut up a few potatoes, carrots and onions and tossed them into a big pot they’d found and washed out with their reserve water. Gwen had inventoried their rations and determined they had plenty, enough to make it to the far border of Shadow. If they didn’t find what they were looking for by then, they’d turn around and head for home.

  There wasn’t much conversation as Declan went about putting together his stew. He’d apparently brought a few ingredients of his own, including an old ham bone he’d snagged from the kitchen on his way through the palace. He snapped the bone in half and tossed it into the pot with a little water from his canteen and a ration of jerky. With a few dry biscuits, they’d have as close to a feast as a crew on the road ever had.

  Finn was the only one who didn’t bother contributing any whatsoever once they stopped. He put his pack down by the broken window and sat there, staring solemnly out it the whole time. Foxglove would’ve yelled at him to do something, but he’d already accepted that Finn was going to be more of a burden on this journey than a help. For a refugee, he seemed only inept at most basic survival skills. He couldn’t start a fire, for one, not even with flint and steel. He wasn’t any good at tying off his horse either. Foxglove had gone by after him and fixed the mess he’d made of that too.

  His ineptitude was irritating. Honestly, it was like following Titania around. She didn’t know how to do any of those things either. Foxglove was thankful he’d taken the time to teach Remy basic survival skills, though Titania had objected to her learning. The former Summer queen didn’t think it was necessary for a princess to learn how to take care of herself. She would’ve pampered Remy if she hadn’t been so paranoid someone would come and steal her.

  In the end, Titania had been right, but not in the way she expected. Remy’s father came to save her from where Titania had imprisoned her. Like most queens, Titania suffered from a touch of madness toward the end. He had hoped Remy’s humanity would keep her more balanced than the other queens.

  I wonder how she’s doing, he thought and lifted his canteen for a drink. He pictured her sitting in the garden with Auryn, the two of them laughing and playing together. Remy probably couldn’t help herself. As serious as she tried to be all the time, she was still a child at heart. Being around a little girl was probably good for her, even if the circumstances weren’t ideal.

  “What’re you smiling about?” Gwen sat down across from him, placing her sword on the floor next to her.

  “The queen probably,” Finn offered without looking away from the window. “Which is kind of creepy. Aren’t you old enough to be her dad?”

  Gwen frowned. “Didn’t you say yesterday that you were afraid of the queen and her powers?”

  Foxglove cleared his throat. “Fear isn’t always a bad thing. There was a time when fear was just another word for respect.”

  “No,” said Gwen firmly. “That wasn’t how you meant it.”

  “Why the sudden interest, Sir Gwen?” Foxglove turned away, pretending to adjust his pack so it would be more comfortable to lean against.

  Gwen opened her mouth to respond, but another sound, one from outside the farming hut, cut her off.

  “Mommy?” The child’s voice cut through the air as shrill as a violin. “Mommy, where are you?”

  Finn jumped up, eyes wide.

  “A child? What’s a child doing out here?” Foxglove stood.

  “Could be a survivor.” Gwen grabbed her sword and moved to the door.

  Finn caught her before she went out, hand closing over her wrist. The look she gave him was practically venomous. “That’s no child,” he said and gestured to the window.

  Foxglove joined them at the window, straining his eyes to see into the dark. A strange green fog had settled over everything. He could make out the skeletal outline of the mutated trees at the edge of the property, abandoned farm equipment, the side of the barn... And a strange black shadow about four and a half feet tall standing not thirty feet away.

  The shadow shifted its head, revealing two shining eyes. It stared at them for a moment, then disappeared only to reappear ten feet closer into a beam of pale moonlight. Foxglove’s blood chilled. The orbs he’d initially mistaken for a pair of eyes weren’t just a pair, but two huge, oversized balls of tiny, unblinking eyes. Hundreds of them. A too-wide mouth opened, revealing gleaming white fangs. “I want my mommy.”

  Foxglove shuddered.

  “What the hell is that?” Gwen whispered.

  Finn didn’t answer. He turned over his shoulder. “We need torches. Now!”

  Declan searched around him, his eyes landing on an overturned and rotting chair. With a kick, he broke several of the legs off in pieces and held them to the flame before rushing to hand them to Finn.

  Finn handed one of the torches to Foxglove and another to Gwen. “We need to form a perimeter of light around this place, a b
and where no shadows fall. Declan, we’re going to need more of these.”

  “On it!” Declan rushed back to the chair and started breaking off more pieces while the other three ran into the night.

  Gwen thrust her torch into the ground a few feet out. “What are we doing?”

  “Finish the circle,” Finn urged. “Then I can explain.”

  Foxglove jabbed his torch into the murky green fog and found the ground soft beneath it. He stood up and suddenly found the child-like creature two feet in front of him. It blinked all of its eyes with different timing and reached as if to touch him. The child’s skin was worn and gray like that of a corpse and sizzled when it touched the light, though it didn’t seem to notice until the skin turned black from burning. Slowly, it pulled its arm back into the shadow and grinned at him. He backed away and then sprinted to gather more torches.

  As they erected their barrier of light, more of whatever they were gathered in the darkness, just watching. Occasionally, one would try to cross the barrier, but one of them would always arrive just in time to stick a torch in the ground and light up the space. It took twenty minutes of rushing back and forth to get a circle all the way around the farmhouse, and in that time eight creatures appeared. All of them seemed distinct. Three adults and five children, almost like a family.

  “They lived here,” Finn said as they all gathered, breathless, on the safe side of the barrier.

  Foxglove wrinkled his nose at Finn. “What do you mean?”

  “Before the blight.” He sounded sad, his thoughts distant. “Like the bear. Living here with it all around you, it changes you. This is what happened to the people who didn’t get out.”

  Gwen hugged herself and shivered. “Are they still...them?”

  “You mean do they know what’s happened to them? Are they sentient?” Finn shook his head. “I don’t know. I do know what happens if you let the torches go out.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “We thought we were safe. The walls were high and enchanted. Everyone was armed. Our magic was strong and our will even stronger. But those things, they don’t stop. They tore down the stones with their hands until their fingers were bloody nubs. As terrifying as it was to watch them dismantle the whole place, stone by stone, it was nothing next to seeing what they did to the people. I’ve never heard a scream like that before, and I haven’t since.”