Forest of Souls

by Lori M. Lee

  But my concern is less about whether sabotage or interference is allowed and more about the repercussions.

  The Queen’s Company is run far more rigidly than the Prince’s. The first time I spoke out of turn—a simple, honest question—the officit struck me hard enough to knock me off my feet. He’d wanted me to wear the shame of my disrespect on my face until it healed. After that, I quickly learned my place, for what little good that did. Students like Jonyah delighted in reminding me of their power, cornering me when I was without Saengo or spinning lies that would earn me all manner of penance.

  Abandoning our posts, however, is a worse offense than anything Jonyah’s ever concocted. The Prince’s Company is compulsory for children eleven through thirteen, but continuing on to the Queen’s Company is voluntary. When I enrolled—at Kendara’s bidding—I committed myself to the service of the Royal Army and all the consequences therein.

  If I’m not outright expelled and branded as a deserter, I will likely have my feathers stripped and my braid cut, demoted to a previous year.

  But if I do nothing, then I will lose Kendara, and with her, my entire purpose. There is no punishment the Company can bring down on me that would be worse than that.

  Stealing Jonyah’s mission is a dangerous gamble, but it’s one I have to take. I must prove to Kendara that I am the better choice. My entire future depends on it.

  By the time we spot the red shingles of the teahouse’s roof, the day has almost ended. A crescent moon hangs low, a silver scythe to cut away the light. The teahouse is a small two-story building with dark columns and a dramatically curved roof ending in splayed talons at each corner. It’s impossible to miss, even in the dark, and a popular stop for travelers in need of refreshment.

  We agree that Saengo should remain outside with the drakes to keep an eye out for Jonyah. Unless he took a different route, we should have beaten him here. Before dismounting, I brush my fingers along Yandor’s jaw. He’s panting heavily, but he still leans into my hand.

  With the heavy flapping of wings, Millie lands on the nearby hitching post to keep Saengo company. She sets about watering the drakes. I tear the feathers from my hair, along with the distinctive red sash of a Company fourth-year from around my waist. I stuff both into my satchel and retrieve a long gray scarf I’d brought on our journey to shield against light rain. My legs are stiff, and my bruised muscles sting fiercely. But I bite my tongue against the pain as I head inside and send a prayer to the Bright Twin to keep luck on my side.

  I wrap the scarf loosely around my hair and neck, taking care to conceal my face and the collar of my uniform. Inside, the low light of a single fireplace and several oil lamps cast the room in flickering shadows. The teahouse is nearly empty. Tables are arranged in a square around an empty platform where the entertainment would perform, likely a musician with a two-stringed lute or a storysinger, who relays old tales through lilting, rhythmic songs.

  The earthy scent of firewood is ruined by the curdled odor of the day’s unwashed patrons. A trio of hooded men sit quietly at a corner table, sipping tea or perhaps something stronger. As far as I can tell, none wear crossed swords.

  As expected, Jonyah isn’t here. I release a slow, even breath. He won’t be far behind us, though. Hopefully, Kendara’s mystery informant shows up soon. I choose a table with a clear view of the entrance. A short woman with dark brown curls and a round face emerges from a door that I assume leads into a kitchen. She presses her palms to her floral apron and dips her head in a polite bow.

  “Anything I can get you?” the owner asks.

  “Some hibiscus tea, please.”

  She returns a moment later with a tray bearing a steaming ceramic teapot, a small saucer of honey with a dainty spoon, and an upturned cup. Once she’s filled my cup, she leaves the tray and disappears again into the back. I spoon some honey into the aromatic tea and then take a light sip.

  Someone jerks my scarf off my hair. I’m instantly on my feet, the dagger hidden within my wrist guard sliding into my hand. I freeze at the sight of Jonyah. How had he sneaked up on me?

  “It is you!” he snarls. He would be handsome if his face weren’t always twisted into an ugly sneer. The firelight from a lantern casts copper tones in his dark hair, which he has freed from its usual braid. “Pray the Twins favor you, if you’re here for the reason I think you are.”

  When I don’t shrink back, the muscles in his neck go taut. His hands lift, fingers flexing as if he’d like nothing better than to throttle me.

  “And what reason is that?” I ask coolly. We’re far from the Company and anyone who knows who we are. Since he’s hardly going to report my disrespect without giving away his own little adventure here, I can speak to him however I wish.

  When he doesn’t answer, I lean my hip against the table and ignore the way my thighs protest. I pretend to study the blade of my dagger, which glows faintly orange from the firelight. I stole it from the armory two years ago. Kendara doesn’t always warn me when she’s sending me off into danger, so I try never to be unarmed.

  Jonyah grips my forearm, yanking me far too close for my comfort. His grip is bruising, the only sort of grip he’s capable of, I suspect. I almost smash my fist into his face.

  Instead of replying, he spits out, “What are you up to?” His reluctance to name his task irritates me, because it proves he did learn something from Kendara.

  “What do you think? Work it out yourself,” I say and then casually withdraw the note from my pocket.

  Jonyah goes still. The brief flash of alarm on his face is almost comical. But then he laughs, the sound abrupt and harsh.

  “You’re one of her pupils? She must have been desperate. You’ve lost, Tshauv Taws. She’s going to choose me.” He spits at my feet. “Because I’m better than you in every way. My name, my station, my skills.”

  My nails bite into my palms. Tshauv Taws. In old Evewal, which is taught only to reiwyn, it means “ashes.” Saengo told me after the first time he’d called me that. It’s a translation of my last name, Ashwyn, which isn’t a true Evewynian surname. The monks gave it to me at the orphanage as an unsubtle way of saying I come from no one and nothing.

  Despite the insult, he’s unwittingly revealed what I’ve been desperate to know since reading the note—Kendara hasn’t yet named him her apprentice. I haven’t lost everything. Not yet. “She doesn’t care about any of that.”

  “Doesn’t she?” He looks me over. “You’re a skinny bit of nothing with no true name and no future. I’ve been trying to get you to do everyone a favor and turn that dagger on yourself for seven years. When will you understand? No one will miss you.”

  My jaw feels like it might crack from how tightly I’m clenching my teeth. I remain still because if I don’t, I’ll stab my blade into Jonyah’s thick neck. While he helps himself to my tea, I exhale slowly through my nose and consciously relax my body, muscle by muscle.

  Chairs scrape over the scratched wood floors. My gaze lifts to the corner, where the three men are now standing. They pass in my periphery, their heads bowed. The last one looks up, and his eyes, beneath the heavy folds of a scarf, find mine. I stiffen. He has the luminous scarlet eyes of a firewender, a fire shaman.

  Sparks dance around his fingers. Instinct takes hold, and I vault over the table as my chair erupts into flames. I hit the ground and then dive behind the center platform.

  My pulse races. Shamanborn roaming free in Evewyn? Impossible. The queen imprisoned them all. But if they’d somehow escaped capture, they would be in hiding. These have to be Nuvali, shamans from the Nuvalyn Empire. What in the Sisters are they doing in Evewyn?

  Everything turns red and hazy. The pain in my legs becomes secondary as I brandish my dagger and survey the damage.

  Flames engulf the room. Tables and chairs glow like kindling. I cover my mouth with my scarf as smoke stings my eyes. The front door bursts open. Plumes of smoke escape into the open air. Saengo stands beyond the threshold, shouting muffled words
, arms raised to ward off the heat. Streaks of fire shoot straight for my feet. I run, ducking beneath a table and colliding with Jonyah as the back door and part of the wall explode.

  Flaming wood chips fly through the smoke only to be engulfed again by fire. I’ve confronted this brand of chaos once before, when Kendara tied me up and left me in a hut full of burning thatch. But this fire is different. This fire spreads too quickly, too controlled, raging through the teahouse in seconds.

  Jonyah shoves me away with a curse as we both stand. Flames snake across the floor. Jonyah whips out a dagger twice as large as mine, although I don’t know what good it’ll do. His back hits my elbow as we grip our useless weapons and watch the fire encircle us, trapping us inside a burning ring. Beyond the circle, one of the shamans steps into view.

  Not the firewender. The dancing flames paint highlights across his face, but his eyes glint purple, brighter than any human eye color. His arms lift. A sudden wind gusts around me, tangling my scarf and snagging my braid around my neck. The flames roar higher, twisting into an inferno. I recoil, pulling my limbs in tight to keep from being incinerated.

  Then the tempest falters, and the man shouts, dropping to his knees. Millie, who must have swept in through the open door, flaps madly above his head, raking her claws against the back of his neck.

  I’ve lost track of where the third shaman is, but I leap over the flames that singe my boots, heading toward Saengo, who’s made her way inside. There are too many burning obstacles between us. The fire bounds up the walls, smoke tumbling across the ceiling like a boiling cauldron.

  “Saengo!” I choke out her name, but I can barely hear my own voice. There’s no way through, so I double back toward Jonyah. He’s grappling with the firewender, who wields a short sword. Smoke thrashes around them like something alive. I can tell Jonyah is holding his breath.

  I crouch low, aiming my dagger for the firewender’s unprotected back. Before I can strike, Jonyah’s blade whips the sword from the firewender’s hand and then immediately slashes down his middle. Blood spatters the floor, sizzling in the heat. The firewender stumbles, clutching his chest where blood pours through his fingers. The roaring flames suddenly shiver and dampen.

  Jonyah drags in a wheezing breath and his eyes catch mine. He lunges for me.

  I block, but his strength shoves me back until I collide with the edge of a table. Pain shoots up my spine, echoing in my legs, and it takes all my strength to keep Jonyah’s dagger from piercing my chest. With a ferocious cry, I crush my knee into the vulnerable spot between his legs. His attack instantly falters. He staggers away. It only takes a second for me to leap onto him, my legs trapping Jonyah’s meaty neck as I twist my body and drag him off his feet.

  He lands on his back with the crash of shuddering floorboards. I kick his dagger out of his reach and straddle his chest, pressing my blade to his neck.

  “What are you doing?” I shout, my voice hoarse with smoke.

  “Getting rid of my competition,” he snarls through his teeth, “which you’d do, too, if you had any sense!” His hand snaps up to grab my throat, but I jerk away and his fingers clutch my braid instead.

  Fire explodes between us. My body flies off him. I hit the ground hard. Air rushes from my lungs. I can’t breathe, but I roll across the floorboards, my hands slapping away the flames that lick up my arms. Nearby, the firewender collapses, having delivered his final attack. But the teahouse is already engulfed, and without the shaman’s control, flames tear through the building.

  Jonyah is screaming. Half his body is on fire. His shirt peels off, melting into the skin that bubbles and blisters beneath. My breaths are loud and fast in my ears as something rises in my stomach. I force it down.

  Sisters, protect us. I smack frenetically at the last of the embers crackling through his hair. The smell makes me gag. He’s still struggling and screaming, but I can only grab hold of the waist of his unburned pants and heave him toward the door.

  The sound of squawking and flapping indicates Millie is keeping the windwender busy, but I still don’t see the third one. A dark shape materializes from the fiery haze in front of me, and I almost cry in relief to see Saengo break through the smoke.

  “Help me!” I shout, my voice raw. Together, we manage to haul Jonyah’s considerable bulk out the door, escaping at last into the open air.

  “Are you okay?” Saengo asks, taking in the state of my uniform.

  “Fine,” I wheeze between coughing. Against my flushed skin, the troll-bone talisman Kendara gave me is startlingly cool. Protection against magic. It must be the reason I’m not lying unconscious and half dead beside Jonyah.

  We lower him onto the dirt. He is a scorched mess, and he’s neither screaming nor moving now. I kneel beside him, uncertain where to even touch him without stripping away more of his flesh. Steam rises from his chest, face, and arms. Gently tilting his head, I find an unburned spot beneath his chin and press my fingers there. His pulse flutters weakly.

  “He’s alive.” I breathe, and then, “He’s lucky I don’t finish the shaman’s job. Bastard.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Saengo says. Her voice doesn’t even waver. How she can sound so calm when everything has gone so terribly wrong?

  Why would Nuvali shamans attack a teahouse in Evewyn? Saengo has told me of skirmishes between Evewynian and Nuvali patrols in the northern grasslands near her family’s home, but the threat of the Spider King’s wrath always kept the skirmishes from escalating into something else.

  Something like this. Ronin’s influence over the kingdoms should have prevented this from even happening.

  Millie shoots out the front door, now spitting black smoke, and she swoops up into the night sky. The windwender stumbles out after her, shouting curses, his hands and neck a bloodied mess of raw skin. I grip Saengo’s wrist, pulling her with me as we back away. With a glance at the stables, which have yet to catch fire, I gauge how quickly we can reach our drakes.

  We can’t leave Jonyah behind, though. Cursing, I lift my dagger again just as the third shaman spills out from the teahouse.

  “Which one is it?” he shouts, voice ragged. He tries to spit the bitter taste of smoke from his mouth.

  The windwender grimaces with pain as he says, “Who cares? It’s got to be one of them. Just kill them all.”

  “Works for me,” the other shaman says. Then it strikes me what he’s wearing. His clothes are singed and darkened by smoke, but the light from the burning teahouse illuminates the brooch pinned at the collar of his tunic. Two crossed swords.

  Kendara’s informant. But that would mean this isn’t a random attack. This was a trap. They came here looking for the Shadow. For Kendara.

  I nudge Saengo behind me and set aside my confusion. Even amid the heat pouring from the teahouse, a cold stillness spreads through my arms, my legs. Every bruise and abrasion fades. The chill of battle, Kendara calls it, when the mind and the heart go quiet and the body’s instincts take over. I hadn’t understood what she meant until now. My heartbeat stops trying to shatter my ribs. Everything becomes very simple.

  Us or them.

  I hurl my dagger. It strikes the third shaman in the throat. The windwender startles as his companion’s blood spatters his face. With a gurgle, the shaman crumples. Before he even hits the ground, the windwender wrenches the dagger free and flings it back. I duck the blade easily, diving for his legs. With a cry, he topples over, his cheek hitting the ground with a crack.

  I climb onto his back, trying to get a grip around his neck to snap it. His skin and hair are too slippery with blood from Millie’s attack. He bucks and rolls, his fist glancing off my jaw before I can dodge. I shake away the pain, but then I’m suddenly weightless. Wind hurls me through the air. I shield my head as my body slams into the dirt. I curl onto my side, stiff and hurting.

  Through the hair that’s come loose from my braid, I see him heading for the stables. My nails claw through the dirt as I pull myself up.


  “Saengo,” I shout, struggling to my feet. “He’s getting away.”

  When she doesn’t respond, I look for her. She’s lying on the ground. The dagger hilt juts grotesquely from the center of her chest.

  I open my mouth, but my lungs are unable to draw air. She’d been standing behind me when the windwender flung the dagger.

  “S—Saengo,” I gasp as my body trembles with a sudden horror that cleaves through me like a storm. I forget everything: the pain, Jonyah, the shamans, becoming Shadow. There is only Saengo as I scrabble through the dirt and collapse at her side. My fingers search for a pulse, but there’s nothing.

  The pain in my chest sharpens into a smoldering rock. It scorches through my ribs and then bursts outward, stealing what breath I have left and forcing it out of my mouth into a scream that echoes down the stretch of Keistra’s Flight until there is nothing but blinding white and agony and grief, and then blessedly, nothing at all.

  FOUR

  “Sirscha?”

  Her voice sounds in the dark. I reach for it, sinking into the blackness where I might still find her, but her voice flits away. When I give chase, hands emerge from the abyss. They grasp my arms, my hair, my neck. Clammy fingers wrench open my mouth, worming inside, choking me. Jagged nails tear at my lips and my cheeks and gouge my eyes. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t—

  “Sirscha.”

  I shoot upright, gulping in air. Light spears my eyes, and I flinch at the remembered pain of fingers digging behind my lids.

  Several things register at once. First, I’m outside. Grass prickles my palms and the scratchy wool of my blanket covers my legs. Second, it’s morning. Sunlight streams through the branches above my head, bright and bold.