Forest of Souls

by Lori M. Lee

  With ease, my eyes locate Kendara’s tower and the wide lip of her balcony. It’s one of the tallest among the dozens of towers throughout the Grand Palace. Is she still tending to her weapons? Sometimes, I’ll return to her workroom to find her in the exact position as I left her days prior.

  I joke that she survives only on the crushed hopes and tears of her pupils, which incenses Saengo. Kendara’s age and high position warrants that she is spoken of with respect. Normally, I’d agree, except … well, she’s Kendara. As Shadow, she doesn’t just exist outside of Evewyn’s entire social structure; she exists above it, answering to no one but the queen. I’ve always found her remarkable for that alone.

  “Hatchlets!” Officit Boldis barks, falling back to speak to the first-years. His voice is grating. “You’ll do well to remember that the Valley of Cranes is a prison. There is to be no interaction with the shamanborn, and I would advise against straying from the group.”

  The first-years shift uncomfortably at the warning. These hatchlets would have been no older than six or seven when Queen Meilyr rounded up the shamanborn for imprisonment.

  “I’m sorry,” Saengo says.

  “For what? Lying?”

  She winces. “I thought it would help.”

  I paste on a smile despite that I’d like nothing better than to lie down, in the middle of the road if need be. Saengo is my best friend, and I value her as I value no one else save Kendara. The guilt will bother her all day if I don’t alleviate it.

  “I know, and we’d have gotten away with it if not for Jonyah, curse him.” Besides, I could have avoided all this if I’d been on time.

  She looks away, a line between her brows. Even despondent, she walks like reiwyn: chin up, shoulders back, impeccable posture. Her long braid, with its sleek black feathers, swings between her shoulder blades. We have the same midnight-black hair, but where my eyes are gray, hers are light brown, and where I was born to nothing, she was born to all the privilege and self-assurance of a reiwyn house, members of court. We are opposites in nearly every way, and yet I can’t imagine a life without her in it.

  “You know, you’re actually a very good liar,” I tease.

  Saengo rolls her eyes. “A skill that’s sure to come in handy in the Royal Army.”

  “Every talent has its uses.”

  “Unlike you, I don’t need such talents.”

  “Right,” I say, “because your winning personality is enough to get you by?”

  She angles me a haughty look through catlike brown eyes. “I am delightful company.”

  I choke down my laughter, but it’s enough to soften the stern set of her mouth.

  Aside from the occasional stray puddle, there’s little evidence of last night’s rain on the open road. Farms and orchards stretch eastward, broken up by patches of woodland. To the west, the Coral Mountains, named for the plum trees that thrive in the higher altitudes, are a vibrant, blushing procession. The serpentine segments of rice patties, with the fields prepared for the start of the rainy season, transform the mountainsides into a sinuous painting.

  Something sharp strikes my cheek. I flinch, instinctively ducking as another small projectile soars over my head. I quickly find the culprit. One of the other wyverns carries a handful of small pebbles. She launches them at me when the officit’s back is turned.

  Saengo’s cheeks flush. “Ill-mannered boar—”

  “She’s just angry.” I swat down a pebble before it can connect with my temple. Most of the Company students are content to ignore me and I them, but those like Jonyah certainly make up for that.

  Around noon, we’re at last allowed a break to eat and relieve ourselves. The girls head into the trees first. When Saengo and I return to our drakes, I find the contents of my satchel spilled across the dirt road. Yandor is eating what’s left of my dried mango.

  “You can share with me,” Saengo says quickly as we kneel to return my blanket and other supplies to my satchel. A light gust scatters the herbs I’d planned to apply to my legs tonight. A mixture of anger and frustration claws through my gut, but I only press my lips together, jaw tight.

  I leave the remains of my food. There’s not much I can do to recover them, not even the sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, which someone had taken care to step on. Officit Boldis sits on his drake nearby, eating his lunch and pretending not to see.

  Behind me, one of the other wyverns approaches. Judging by the faint crinkle of paper tucked inside a pocket, I assume it’s Jonyah. He always carries paper money, which reiwyn prefer over coins. He thinks it makes him more important. He sneaks up quickly enough to snatch the feathers from the end of my braid.

  “You’re a disgrace.” Jonyah flings the feathers into the dirt.

  Saengo stands, fists balled. I straighten alongside her and place my hand on her forearm, stalling whatever she means to say.

  Jonyah sneers and doesn’t back away as I step close enough for my fingers to dart along the pocket of his uniform pants. For a tense second, we only glare at each other. Then his gaze flicks to Saengo.

  “You dishonor our House by—”

  “If I want your opinion, I will ask for it,” Saengo says.

  His lips compress, but he backs away with a curt bow. Once he’s gone, I slide my hand into my pocket along with the paper money pressed into my palm. Then I kneel again to finish gathering my scattered supplies. Whenever we’re assigned the same duties, he never fails to make them more difficult for me. After seeing Jonyah’s name on the duty report under the list of wyverns assigned to this supply delivery, I’d groaned and then asked Saengo to shoot him with an arrow and plead that the sun was in her eye. I would gladly have taken the penance.

  “Swine,” Saengo mutters. She retrieves the gray feathers and blows gently against the soft edges. “Here, let me.”

  Although my legs scream in protest, I remain crouched over the small pile of my things in the road as she returns the feathers to my braid.

  The privilege of a feathered braid is one only given to fourth-years, when our hair has grown long enough. The style and adornment are meant to represent the tail of a wyvern, one of the most fearsome predators in all of Thiy. Of course, they’re not real wyvern feathers—wyverns are native only to Kazahyn, a mountainous kingdom to the southeast.

  To Saengo, the feathers are a mark of achievement. She wears them proudly. Even I’d felt a tiny spark of pride the day we became wyverns and earned our feathers, although the feeling faded quickly. I’d chosen gray ones to match my eyes. Kendara sometimes has a point when she calls me vain.

  Now, though, I sometimes hate the sight of them and what they’ve come to symbolize. My place in Evewyn. My place in this Company. The insults I’ve had to tolerate, the penance I’ve had to endure, every slight the officits and people like Jonyah believe are my due because of my low station.

  We stuff my things back into my satchel and secure it to Yandor’s saddle as the others ready to leave. The hatchlets re-form their lines, and everyone returns to their positions. Saengo offers me one of her rice balls, but I shake my head. I’m not hungry, and her food will have to last her through tomorrow when we make our return journey.

  The cry of a falcon sounds overhead. Instead of up, I look at Saengo. Her eyes search the clouds, her brows pinched together. The tightness around her mouth relaxes when she spots what she’s looking for—Millie, her pet falcon. Pets are prohibited within the Queen’s Company, but Millie isn’t truly tame so the officits can only do so much.

  Officit Boldis casts the sky an annoyed look and then barks, “Back in formation!”

  The wyverns farther ahead quickly correct the lines as we begin to move again. Beneath their anger with me lies a barely contained restlessness.

  For the last few weeks, all the fourth-years have shared a jumble of excitement and uncertainty over our upcoming graduation. Students like Saengo are usually posted within their own lands. Saengo actually received her assignment last week, to join the royal ranks sta
tioned at Falcons Ridge, her family’s ancestral home. She submitted a request to have it changed.

  However, students like me, with no allegiance to a particular lord, take a little longer to receive our postings. If the decision were up to Officit Boldis, he’d probably put me in the east. I’ve heard other fourth-years say that’s where the troublemakers get assigned.

  Evewyn is a small kingdom, long and narrow like a sword blade. Two kingdoms lie east of us—the shaman-ruled Nuvalyn Empire to the northeast, and Kazahyn, home to the shadow-blessed, in the southeast. But soldiers assigned to the eastern border are met only by the Dead Wood.

  The Dead Wood is a growing swath of impassable darkness that separates us from the other kingdoms, leaving open only the stretch of the northern grasslands between Evewyn and the Empire. According to other fourth-years, soldiers have been known to go mad staring at those cursed woods day after day.

  Every so often, some thief or drunk farmhand gets it into their head to brave the woods. But the trees have a will of their own, and no one survives them without the protection of the Dead Wood’s ruler, Ronin the Spider King. Rarely, someone foolish enough to enter the woods comes clawing their way back out, broken, hollow, and barely human, only to seize anyone close enough to offer help and drag them into the darkness with them. Soldiers who’ve witnessed what the trees do to their victims are never the same again. At least, that’s the rumor.

  I’ve seen my share of dangers since becoming Kendara’s pupil, but she’s never sent me near the Dead Wood. I can only assume the rumors are true.

  “What are you thinking about? You’ve a look on your face,” Saengo says, nibbling primly at her rice ball. I make a quick gesture, like I’m about to shove her food into her face, and she dodges, snickering.

  “What look?” I say as she shifts her food to the hand farthest from me.

  “Like you’re imagining something unpleasant.”

  “I was thinking about how Officit Boldis would probably assign me to the eastern border.”

  She groans. “If I were a vengeful person, I’d ask my father to have him removed.”

  “Well, I am a vengeful person, so you could do it for me?”

  Rolling her eyes, she says, “If you’re assigned to the east, maybe you’ll get to meet Ronin.”

  She sounds intrigued. As the enforcer of the peace between the three kingdoms of Thiy, Ronin’s power is immense. That would intimidate most people, but not Saengo, heir to an ancient Evewynian House. I, on the other hand, have no desire to meet the Spider King. If there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s more people to lower my head and play subservient to.

  Anyway, I prefer to believe that the real reason I haven’t received my posting yet is because my place is to remain in Vos Talwyn with Kendara as her official apprentice.

  I hold Yandor’s reigns with one hand and stuff the other into my pocket. My fingers touch the money I’d lifted from Jonyah. I pull it out.

  “What is that?” Saengo asks.

  “Jonyah’s. I was being petty.” I don’t care for his money—I just wanted to retaliate somehow.

  But when I glance down at my hand, I’m surprised to see crumpled parchment instead. I frown. My gaze finds the back of Jonyah’s head at the front of our party as I smooth out the crinkled note.

  My feet stutter at the neat, precise handwriting. Only Yandor’s forward momentum keeps my legs moving because my mind has gone blank with confusion. Why in the names of the Sisters would Jonyah have a letter from Kendara?

  Tonight. Talon’s Teahouse. Wait for the man with crossed swords. Commit his words to memory. Return by dawn. Burn this upon reading.

  The words tumble through my skull, upending all logic. The world goes suddenly loud, every sound magnified: the shuffle of tired legs, the plodding of boots through dirt, the wind raking over the grass. My breath falls quick and harsh through my nose as my fingers tighten around the paper, nearly tearing it.

  “Sirscha?” Saengo asks, uncertain.

  “He’s a pupil,” I whisper through my teeth. I shake the paper at Saengo. “He’s one of her pupils.”

  Saengo is the only person with whom I’ve shared my secret. It was impossible not to, given that she is my best friend. As she takes the paper and skims the words, another realization strikes me, even more shattering than the last. Kendara’s notes to me have only ever been instructions for mundane assignments, like retrieving an object, overcoming a mental test, or hunting some obscure beast.

  Never assignments like rendezvousing with an informant or relaying back a message. This … this is not training. This is Shadow business.

  My fingers grip tightly to Yandor’s reins, a paltry anchor as the true meaning of this letter hurls against me. If she hasn’t already, then Kendara plans to name Jonyah her apprentice. For long seconds, I can do nothing, letting the impossibility tear through me. Every part of me screams in denial even as heat rises from my chest into my cheeks. I curl my fingers around the troll bone at my wrist. Kendara wouldn’t choose Jonyah over me.

  I scowl at the russet dirt that passes beneath our feet. How dare she not tell me this morning? I clutch the troll bone so tightly that my palm aches.

  It occurs to me what the talisman might really be: a parting gift.

  My anger suddenly drains, leaving me swaying. Only the shreds of my pride keep me from tumbling to the ground and ripping into the earth at the unfairness. Somehow, in some way, I was not enough.

  That has been the constant of my life. Not obedient enough. Not clever enough, except maybe in languages, and what use is that? Not humble enough to suit my betters.

  Not enough for the parents who abandoned me, or the monks who raised me, or the officits who trained me.

  Although I met Kendara when I was eleven, the first time I fought her was at thirteen, during my final year in the Prince’s Company. By the time graduation neared, not even the officits could best me in the sparring circle. Kendara found me training alone, and when she stood opposite me in the sword ring and ordered me to attack her, I laughed, thinking she was joking.

  Blind and weaponless, she defeated me in less than two seconds.

  This, she said, meaning her own skill, was what I could achieve if only I stopped pitying my circumstances and started demanding that I become more. That I deserved more.

  Kendara always believed I could be something great.

  But I spent the last four years devoting myself toward this single goal, and now? I only joined the Queen’s Company because Kendara required it of me—a test of my dedication, she said, of what I would endure to win my place as her apprentice. And I have endured. Oh, but I have endured.

  Perhaps my pride was my downfall. The Shadow must not draw attention, must allow herself to be underestimated. For the sake of securing my future at her side, I could lower my head and swallow my pride—except in the sparring circle. Not there, the one place where I’m allowed to fight back, where I can bury my fear of worthlessness beneath the proof of my strength.

  What was it all for?

  Up ahead, a path cuts away from the main road, heading west. Until now, we’ve been on Keistra’s Flight, which stretches from Evewyn’s southern shores, through the capital of Vos Talwyn, and north to the port city of Byrth. But the path that leads west is little more than a couple of narrow depressions in the grass formed by the passage of wagons and drakes.

  The hatchlets grumble beneath their breaths when the guardsmen veer off Keistra’s Flight onto the narrow, uneven trail. I glare at the back of Jonyah’s head and jerk Yandor’s reins, bringing him to a stop. With a worried glance at the growing distance between us and our party, Saengo pauses as well. No one has noticed our departure.

  Saengo clutches my arm hard enough to regain my attention. “Sirscha, talk to me.”

  I take the note from her, glancing at the words again before crumpling it in my fist and shoving it back into my pocket. To reach the teahouse by tonight, Jonyah will need to leave soon. He’s likely already inv
ented some excuse to gain Officit Boldis’s permission.

  When I trust my voice not to break, I say quietly, “I’m going to the teahouse first.”

  In less than a month, we will graduate. I will be cast about the kingdom at the whim of the Royal Army, left to rot in obscurity at an outpost for six years until my required service ends. And what then? I have no family, no home, no talent other than fighting.

  If I’m not to be the Shadow, then I am nothing.

  I am tired of being nothing.

  THREE

  We remain on Keistra’s Flight, hoping to put as much distance between us and Officit Boldis’s party before we’re missed and someone is sent after us. I briefly consider turning back for Vos Talwyn to demand an explanation from Kendara, but she would never tolerate such impudence.

  “You should go back,” I say when Saengo glances over her shoulder for the dozenth time in as many minutes. “I don’t think you’re going to get out of penance this time.”

  Saengo’s cheeks flush at the reminder that I’m the only one punished for our shared transgressions.

  “It’s possible,” she says, sounding almost hopeful. “But someone has to watch your back. What are you planning to do when we get to the teahouse?”

  “Take his place, of course.” Talon’s Teahouse is about a half day’s ride south, directly along Keistra’s Flight. We’ve got a head start. With luck, I’ll have whatever message Kendara wants from “the man with crossed swords” before Jonyah even catches up.

  In the past, fellow pupils were known to either sabotage or eliminate one another to thin out the competition. Kendara herself had killed two of her competitors when she’d been in training beneath the previous Shadow.

  For her own pupils, she’d chosen to keep our identities hidden. She disliked how the practice drew unwanted attention, especially when the dead pupil turned out to be someone of influence. She also preferred her pupils focus solely on their training and not on one another. However, she implied that should one of us expose ourselves, another pupil could capitalize on it. From Kendara’s mouth, it is all but permission.