Cast in Secrets and Shadow

by Andrea Robertson

  She began to inch along the wall.

  The python was instantly alert. Her coils rustled as she stretched up to watch Ara more closely.

  “Forgive me, Mother, for this intrusion,” Ara whispered fervently, her heart hammering. “In Nava’s love, I mean you no harm.”

  The snake moved a foot closer to Ara, and she froze against the wall. Another foot. Another. The python had closed half the distance between them.

  Merciful Nava, lend me your aid.

  Ara gazed at the snake.

  The snake stared back at her, forked tongue kissing the air. For several moments, Ara couldn’t move. Her limbs refused to even twitch. She could barely draw breath. The only part of her body that seemed to be working was her pulse as it raced through her veins.

  Finally gaining command of her muscles, Ara dared to edge a little farther along the wall. All the while, she fought for control over the wild, thrashing terror that threatened to overwhelm her.

  The python’s green eyes stayed locked on her, but the snake didn’t come any closer.

  Ara slid along the wall a few more inches. It was pure torture. Every instinct screamed at her to run or to attack. To strike at the danger before it could hurt her.

  But she couldn’t. She would be found wanting. She would fail this trial.

  And she would probably die.

  The snake remained still.

  A bit more.

  Breath eased out of Ara’s lungs.

  She won’t leave the nest.

  The python had moved as far as she could without abandoning her eggs entirely. She did not want to pursue Ara past that point, unless absolutely necessary.

  Ara would show her that she needn’t give chase.

  Keeping herself pressed to the wall, Ara continued her agonizingly slow crossing of the cavern. She drew within a few feet of the passage and longed to dash for it, but running would make her look like prey. She couldn’t risk the python’s hunting instincts taking over.

  At last she was there. She took care to back into the opening, making sure her eyes never left the python. And then she was out of the cavern and climbing the strange, spiraling root steps. As she climbed, the passage began to change. Roots gave way to stone. Instead of filtered sunlight, oil-burning lanterns hung at intervals, filling the staircase with a gentle glow.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, Ara discovered a trapdoor. She pushed it open and gazed up into darkness. Given the changes in the passageway, she wasn’t surprised the stone steps hadn’t led her back to the Tangle, but a little light to reveal where the trapdoor led would have been a comfort.

  The only way out is through, she told herself again, and crawled up.

  The wind howled as it drove snow through the wintry air, but the fires of the forge kept the cold at bay. Old Imgar’s smithy was exactly as it had been the night she’d been taken by Nimhea and Eamon. She wore the same clothes: her undyed soft wool shirt, covered by her leather apron with its scorch marks, and her butter-soft leather leggings. Her tools were laid out on the worktable.

  Ara closed her eyes for several heartbeats. The wind continued to shriek in her ears, and the air held all the familiar scents of the smithy. She opened her eyes.

  I’m home.

  It was as if none of the events of the past month had taken place. As if it had all been wild workings of her imagination.

  Her heart swelled as she went to the opening in the smithy’s stone walls. The storm made it difficult to see her grandmother’s cottage, but light from within it bobbed and winked at Ara like welcoming laughter.

  With a cry of delight, she threw herself out of the smithy to run to the cottage.

  “Grandmother!”

  The shout left her throat at the same moment everything vanished, and she stood once again in the cavern of the Loresmith Forge, with its domed ceiling and endless stars.

  Her heart leapt. She hadn’t realized that part of her had missed this sacred place and longed to return to it. It hadn’t changed . . . except that where the forge had stood was Imgar’s smithy.

  “As my brother said, very good, Loresmith,” a voice boomed behind Ara. “Very good indeed.”

  Ara whipped around to find a figure, twice the size of Joar, standing before her. Wuldr, the Hunter. The god of her homeland. A silver-blue nimbus surrounded him.

  “You’ve completed this trial.” His giant hand enfolded hers. “Now you have work to do.”

  When Ara gave him a questioning look, Wuldr simply gestured to the entrance. She stepped back inside. Everything was as it had been. Her tools. The forge. The blizzard outside. The windows of her grandmother’s cottage blinked at her.

  With a tightening of her chest, Ara understood that this place must be significant to the task at hand. But how?

  It might be a challenge of her will, requiring that she focus on her craft while she longed to be home or at least with her friends again. But the work of the Loresmith demanded her full attention, and it was work that she must complete alone, no matter what her heart wanted.

  Is this meant to be a lesson about Teth, too? she wondered. Could it be that solitude is the Loresmith’s lot?

  She shrank from that idea and dismissed the thought. Not always. I’m not always alone. Only at the forge. And even at the forge, I have a god for company.

  While the weighty memories of Imgar’s smithy, of home, might challenge her, the reason Wuldr wanted her to work here was something else. As if in response to her musings, the wind called again and snowdrifts crested like waves.

  Winter. The north.

  Wuldr appeared amid the swirling blasts of ice and stepped into the smithy.

  “Bracing.” The god grinned at Ara.

  She thought he must be teasing her, as she doubted he’d be touched by the cold.

  He shouldn’t have been able to fit into the space, but the building shifted to accommodate him. A horse-sized hound trotted into the smithy.

  “My companion, Senn.” The god reached out to scratch behind his hunting hound’s ears. Senn wagged his tail. “Senn, meet Ara. She is the Loresmith, and vital to our cause.”

  Senn turned his gaze on her. Ara didn’t know what to do other than act how she would with any strange beast. She lifted her hand to let him sniff. He obliged, then gave her a friendly lick that covered her entire arm. She tried not to wince. This was a dog she didn’t want to offend.

  Wuldr gestured to the forge. “I will see to all your needs whilst you toil.”

  The snow. The highlands.

  “The weapon will be for your knight,” Ara said, grasping the reason for the Fjerian god’s presence and Imgar’s forge.

  The second Loreknight has been chosen.

  He nodded.

  Meeting his gaze, Ara traveled to her homeland in his eyes: forests, rivers, ice-capped mountains, a lonely coast filled with ruins. A storm of snow and ice flared in his eyes, and a song filled her head.

  She knew.

  Wuldr smiled when he saw she understood. “I leave you to your task.”

  Ara was taken aback by her realization. This hadn’t been what she’d expected. Or rather who.

  She went to the forge and collected iron ingots that she would need to create molds. This project would require two molds and ask much more of her than Tears of the Traitor. Wuldr’s knight required two weapons, one for each hand. It would take days to finish. Her body thrummed with anticipation. She set to work.

  While the molds were cooling, Ara gathered ingots of godswood she found stacked on the worktable in the smithy. She could have sworn none had been there when she first entered the space. As she inspected the unusual material, she speculated about its origins. It had qualities of both wood and metal. Was it mined or harvested? Woodsman that he was, Ara wondered if Wuldr supplied the gods with this precious material.

  Whe
n she left the smithy, the gods’ cavern changed to meet her needs. When she grew tired, a bed appeared for her to rest upon. If hungry, Wuldr was there with hot meals. They differed from those Eni had brought to her. Where Eni—as the old woman—cooked up comforting soups and delicious cakes, Wuldr’s fare consisted of smoked and roasted game accompanied by wild greens with herbs and foraged mushrooms.

  Wuldr maintained a respectful distance, always ready to answer Ara’s questions as she crafted the weapons. But Senn was ever curious about her activities and often came sniffing around the forge.

  At first the hound’s presence set her on edge, but as days passed she grew comfortable with the great beast and came to enjoy seeing him bask in the warmth of the forge. It would have been perfect had she been able to convince Senn not to continue giving her his friendly licks.

  Ara forged the blades first, then turned her attention to the hafts. As she worked, she became troubled by the aesthetic of using the same material for both haft and blade. There was no questioning that the godswood must be forged; she wanted a way to distinguish blade from haft. She considered several options before settling on silvering the blades. The moment she had made her mind up, Senn came into the smithy and dropped two slobber-covered silver ingots at her feet.

  Wuldr must approve, Ara thought as Senn lowered his head so she could scratch behind his ears.

  Once silvered, the two blades shone with bold contrast to their dark hafts. She was pleased with the result, but her work felt unfinished. She looked to her past for a solution. All the work she had done for Imgar. The variety of techniques he’d taught her.

  When business was slow or Ara grew tired of crafting endless horseshoes and farmers’ tools, Old Imgar let her practice engraving and etching. She was infatuated with the contrast between the brawn required when working at the forge and anvil and the delicate work of creating images in forged metals. Both were essential skills of a master smith. Though she could use gravers to create letters or patterns, Ara worked the hardest to render scenes from nature. Flowering vines ringed the edges of steel plates she created for her grandmother. Her proudest achievement had been etching the scene of a hunt on the blade of a woodcutter’s ax—a great stag running through the forest pursued by hounds and a man on horseback. This she presented to Imgar as a gift. She would never forget how pride shone in his eyes when he accepted it.

  The bright blades before her wanted an image from the wilds, but not one she’d created before. She gazed into the ever-raging storm outside. Gusting winds, blasts of ice, and swirling clouds. Forces with more strength and power than the greatest warriors could claim. She imagined the blizzard streaming into the smithy and pouring itself into the steel blades.

  Ara had no trouble finding the beeswax she needed to etch the blades. It appeared just as the godswood had. She applied the wax to the blades, creating the ground she required, and then became absorbed in carving the intricate image of a winter storm traveling across the blades. The screams of wind and hissing of ice outside the smithy encouraged her hand.

  When the image was finished on both blades, she prepared the acid bath in which she’d submerge the ground. Though ready to continue the process, she paused. Within the sounds of the storm, another sound rose. A voice. Someone singing.

  Setting the acid aside, Ara went to the smithy door and peered into the blizzard. A figure walked amid the storm. Wuldr. He lifted his hands to the sky, and his great booming voice sailed on the wind. Senn romped alongside the god, howling his delight. The song was joyful and exuberant, bolstering her spirit and filling her with determination.

  Returning to her task, Ara removed the ground from each blade and then dipped the carved wax into the acid. She lifted the acid-covered grounds from the bath and carefully applied them upon the blades once more. As the images from the grounds were etched upon each blade’s surface, Wuldr’s song grew louder. It filled the smithy. She watched the acid work its way into the blades and sensed Wuldr’s song infusing the godswood with his blessing.

  With the etching completed, Ara cleaned the acid from the blades, then polished them. The storm on the blades looked alive, as if at any moment the etching would begin to move across the silver surface. She could hear the echoes of Wuldr’s song. When she looked up she expected to see the god still striding through the blizzard, but he and Senn were gone. The faint music came from the blades. And though she had created them, she couldn’t help but look upon them with wonder.

  Ara took the finished weapons and left the smithy. She was unsurprised to find Wuldr waiting for her in the gods’ cavern.

  “What do you have for me, Loresmith?”

  She held the pair of axes out for him to take. “Lord Wuldr, I present to you StormSong.”

  Accepting the weapons, Wuldr took his time to examine them, poring over the etched images, testing their weight, and taking broad swings that whistled through the air.

  Senn barked and danced around the god’s feet.

  “Yes, my friend,” Wuldr said to his hound. “These are worthy weapons indeed.”

  To Ara, he said, returning the axes to her, “Bestow them upon the one I have chosen.”

  “If I may ask,” Ara said, “is it not strange that a Koelli should be named Loreknight and not another of my company?”

  Her thoughts were of Nimhea and how this news would sting the princess. First Teth, now Joar. Would the time come for the heir to the River Throne? And if not, what did that mean?

  “Though not born of Saetlund, he is a child of this land and has been called to serve its people,” Wuldr told her. With a mischievous smile, he added, “Just as a thief could be asked to become a hero.”

  She felt the blush on her cheeks.

  “There have been many surprises on this journey,” she admitted.

  Wuldr grinned. “And there will be more. But answer me this, Loresmith: What lesson did you learn in the Tangle?”

  Ara considered his question, her mind retracing the events that had transpired since she stepped into the dome of vines. She thought of puzzle, trials, judgment, and worthiness. It all came down to choices: the choices the people of Saetlund and its rulers had made, the choices the gods had made, and now the choices she made.

  A tragedy of poor choices, of selfish desires, had allowed the Vokkans to conquer Saetlund.

  They had reached a moment when new choices could be made. When a lost kingdom could be restored.

  “A new Loreknight is chosen when we face the god’s inner nemesis,” she told him. “Ofrit’s brilliance is countered by madness and obsession that he struggles to control. I must overcome what drove each god from the people of Saetlund, so that they may return to us.”

  “Good.” Wuldr nodded his approval. “You know your path. I have given you a hunter; now it is your turn to seek out the hidden places where the gods have locked away their dark secrets. Even mine.”

  He paused, a shadow passing over his face. “Saetlund’s salvation lies in the restoration of its guardians. Both gods and Loreknights. The Loresmith stands at the heart of this truth.”

  Senn lifted his head and let out a howl that made Ara’s gooseflesh rise.

  In a voice so low she could barely hear it, Wuldr whispered, “Do not fail.”

  14

  Ara had hoped that Wuldr would do her the kindness of magicking her and her companions back to the village, but when she opened her eyes she was sitting inside the dome of vines. The spiraling descent had vanished, and she sat on a plain earth floor utterly unextraordinary except for the odd growth of vines around it. The opening on one side had reappeared. Outside the dome, Ara heard the ceaseless noise of the jungle, trilling birds, buzzing insects, chirping amphibians. And a new sound. Shouts.

  Scrambling to her feet, Ara wedged her body through the slender opening of the dome. Free of the muffling dark, she could hear the cries clearly. Shouts of alarm, anger. An ax in eac
h hand, she ran through the jungle as fast as she could, frustrated that her speed was hampered by snagging vines and rotting tree fall.

  Where there first had been the shouts of multiple voices, Ara now heard only two voices. She recognized both. Joar and Nimhea.

  Where are Teth and Lahvja?

  Her muscles wanted to seize up with fear, but she forced her worst imaginings away and kept running.

  The shouts were close now, loud.

  She came around a corner on the game trail and stopped, staring at the scene before her with horror.

  Beside the swamp, a tree had come to life and was attacking her companions. No, not a tree, but a creature that had perfect camouflage. Its long, narrow body resembled a tree trunk, but the knots on that trunk were moving, opening and closing. Mouths. It walked on broad, root-like appendages that splayed out around it, resembling a spider’s legs.

  One giant eye, bile yellow with a slit of an iris, stared from the conjunction of its trunk and limbs.

  Instinctively she knew this was no child of Nava. Here was a creature spawned by Ofrit’s madness.

  The mouths shrieked as the tree creature’s vine-covered limbs lashed out like tentacles. The tips of those limbs featured needle-like thorns from which yellow slime dripped.

  Teth had found a perch in a nearby real tree and fired an endless barrage of arrows at the tree beast, but the arrows were deflected by whatever armored its limbs. Some of his shots had lodged inside the mouths covering the monstrous trunk-body, but the creature batted away most of Teth’s arrows.

  Wearing his butcher crow helm, Joar created a terrifying appearance barely outmatched by that of the tree beast. He looked like a nightmare brought forth from the same wicked realm as the horror he faced. He fought with his entire body, whirling, slashing, leaping over tentacles that attempted to knock him off his feet. His ax had better success against the beast than Teth’s arrows. He methodically chopped at the swinging limbs, hewing thorns wherever he could.

  The axes forged at Wuldr’s behest belonged in Joar’s hands. Ara was about to call out to him when she caught sight of Lahvja’s body lying motionless beside Nimhea, who had taken up a defensive position alongside the helpless summoner. The princess’s blade flashed out, slashing tentacles that reached for their prey. Huntress had joined Nimhea in drawing off the creature’s attempts to grab Lahvja’s body.