Forest of Souls

by Lori M. Lee

  I have to believe that Kendara might yet be here—she wouldn’t share her intent to commit treason with the prince, after all. But since she isn’t here at this very moment to reveal what she knows of Ronin and the Dead Wood, Prince Meilek will have to do.

  “Well, maybe you can help me instead?”

  He gestures for me to continue. I tell him about the task Ronin has given me to cull the Dead Wood and bring it back under control. “Ronin wants me to practice my craft, but I think the best way to handle the trees is to find out what’s keeping them there.”

  With a heavy sigh, he rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I don’t know more than what we discussed when Ronin summoned you. He can be a bit of a recluse.”

  I grind my teeth together. “My best friend is sick. She’s dying, in fact. I can’t save her unless I know why and how the trees are cursed.”

  “Why would her life depend on the Dead Wood?”

  “It’s a long story, and it’s not important right now. What’s important is that I succeed.”

  His gaze is steady as he says, “I wish I knew more. Truly. Kendara would certainly be of more help, but I don’t think she’s here. She’s been missing for days.”

  “What do you mean ‘missing’? She does tend to come and go a lot.”

  “But only on my sister’s orders. Speaking of which, I never got the chance to apologize about the apprenticeship. Mei and I were both convinced she’d choose you.”

  His words sting, but only briefly and not as badly as I expect. Sometime over the last several days, my concerns have grown far beyond me becoming Kendara’s apprentice.

  I lift my chin. “That doesn’t prove she’s not here.”

  He reaches into a hidden pocket and withdraws a folded slip of paper. “She left a note. For you, in fact. I meant to send it by falcon as soon as I deciphered it, but seeing as you’re here …”

  He holds it out. The longer I stare at it, the larger that pit inside me grows. But I will my hand to reach out and take it from him.

  My name is scrawled along the back in Kendara’s handwriting. Slowly, so that my hands don’t shake, I unfold the message. The paper slides across my fingertips with a dry hiss.

  Inside, she’s written:

  Death and rebirth. Aisle 15. Case 34. Bottom right corner. My brows crash together.

  “Judging by your expression, I gather you’ve no idea what it means,” Prince Meilek says. “We’ve checked all the storerooms in Vos Talwyn, and I’m working through the warehouses in our port cities that might fit the description. We’ve turned up nothing of significance yet.”

  Case 34. Perhaps it’s only because I’ve spent the last several days cooped up in a library that I wonder if perhaps she means a bookcase. Prince Meilek might have considered that already, but he’ll have disregarded it because Vos Talwyn doesn’t have a library that large.

  But Spinner’s End does.

  My pulse drums beneath my skin, but when I speak, my words are mild. “Since you’ve shared this with me, I should inform you of something as well. I found the shaman from the attack at the teahouse.”

  He frowns. “And where is he now?”

  “Dead of an arrow. Couldn’t be helped. I’m just as frustrated. But before he died, he did say something rather confusing.”

  It might be foolish to tell him, but I want to see his reaction. As the queen’s brother, he might be the one person who knows her best.

  “He implied that the person who sent him to attack the queen’s Shadow at the teahouse was the queen herself.”

  Prince Meilek’s eyes flicker with something I can’t quite name. It only lasts half a second before his gaze hardens, not long enough to draw any conclusions but long enough to make the connection between the shaman’s claim and Kendara’s sudden disappearance.

  “That’s not possible,” he says firmly. “Kendara is too vital.”

  “She also knows all of Evewyn’s secrets,” I point out.

  His jaw tightens. “What you’re suggesting is impossible. Mei wouldn’t have sent shamans to attack Kendara, because she knew that Kendara wouldn’t be there. Kendara had planned to send her chosen apprentice instead, and she doesn’t do anything without Mei’s approval. My sister hasn’t always made the best choices, but—”

  “Like deciding I’m a Nuvali spy?” I ask before I can leash my tongue.

  His lips compress. His tone, when he speaks, is harsher than I’ve heard it before. “I will hear no more of this. You will be held with the other shamanborn while I write to Ronin to have you escorted back to Spinner’s End.”

  “The other shamanborn? The ones who escaped from the Valley of Cranes? Are they to be executed?”

  Although I think he means to ignore the question, after a moment of indecision, he does answer. “I’m escorting the shamanborn back to the Valley of Cranes, but I won’t allow them to be executed. Unfortunately, that’s the most I can do at the moment.”

  He sounds unhappy, but I’m unable to summon any sympathy. In fact, his tone annoys me.

  “You’re the prince of Evewyn. You’re the only one who can do something.” I don’t know what’s gotten hold of my tongue, but the shamanborn don’t deserve any of this. Prince Meilek is the queen’s brother, and yet he claims to be powerless?

  “It would mean breaking laws that I swore an oath to uphold,” he says.

  I clench my teeth to try to keep from spitting out, “Laws that are wrong.”

  “Mei is my queen. Do you think she’d suffer my interference just because I’m her brother? Any power I have to help them would be taken from me.”

  I’ve always admired Prince Meilek’s sense of honor. He values his duty to his queen and sister. But what about his duty to his people? To the shamanborn cast into the Valley of Cranes? What about their honor? Their dignity? They respect him because he eases their time in the camp, but what is he doing to release them?

  His fingers flex against the tabletop before he straightens again, hands falling to his sides with the faint rustle of silk. “You are changed since I saw you last. You haven’t lowered your eyes once.”

  My shoulders tense, and I look away. Then I infuse my spine with steel and lift my gaze again to meet his brown eyes. “Spinner’s End doesn’t hold to such customs.”

  He nods faintly. “They’re silly customs, anyway. I prefer to see a person’s eyes when they’re speaking to me. Tell me, Sirscha, have your loyalties shifted?”

  “Of course not. I am Evewynian.”

  “Good. One of my guards will see you to your cell.”

  Not only does his guard see me to my cell, but Prince Meilek instructs her on exactly where to find my hairpins. Evidently, he’d also gotten that particular lesson from Kendara.

  I guess I’ll be finding another way to escape. In the cell adjacent to mine, four shamanborn huddle on a bench in the corner. I’m surprised by how few there are. I’d been expecting more. But then I recall Ronin saying the queen’s soldiers would use any means necessary to subdue the shamanborn, and my anger rekindles.

  My thoughts tumble back to that day with the monks when they’d forced us to watch the execution of two shamanborn. If the queen can commit such atrocities against her own people, I can easily imagine she’d send shamans after her Shadow. Except if Prince Meilek spoke the truth, then she hadn’t sent them after Kendara. She’d sent them after Kendara’s apprentice. Which doesn’t make any sense.

  Unless … those assassins were meant for me? Prince Meilek said it himself—they’d been convinced that Kendara would select me, and his sister had known Kendara would send her chosen pupil on that mission. Only it hadn’t been me. Kendara had inadvertently spared me from walking into a trap, and I’d walked right into it anyway.

  But why in the Sisters would the queen send assassins after me? The only reason I can fathom is if she’d known I’m shamanborn.

  It’s … improbable. But, I grudgingly allow, not impossible.

  So assuming she knows about me, what
would she gain from having me attacked? She’s made me into a traitor and a spy, and she’s all but set to go to war with the Empire.

  But there has to be more to it than that. There are better ways to start a war than to target one lowly wyvern in the Queen’s Company. And the fact I’ve learned all this since leaving Spinner’s End makes me realize Ronin is either keeping the information from me—highly likely—or he isn’t doing as much as he can to investigate the matter.

  Four pairs of eyes watch as I lean against the wall, and I realize I’ll have to figure this out later. Right now, my focus needs to be on the shamanborn.

  Their appraising looks take in my general state. Although I’m tired from the journey south and I’ve barely slept in days, I’m obviously not a former prisoner. I’m lean, but that’s from rigorous training, not malnutrition. My clothes are wrinkled and dusty but not threadbare. These four wear clean but ill-fitting clothes, either stolen during their escape or provided after their capture.

  “Hello.” I pitch my voice low so that the guards down the hall won’t hear us.

  The keys to the cells currently hang on the other side of the barred door separating the offices from the cell area. I have no idea how I’m going to get them. It’s a pity Phaut isn’t here. Her craft could bend these locks easily enough.

  “You’re not from the Valley,” one says, a woman with brown skin and sapphire eyes.

  I explain in hushed words why I’ve allowed myself to be captured. They look increasingly skeptical, bordering on pitying. They probably think I’ve lost my mind, and I can’t blame them. Prince Meilek has already put a dent in my plans by taking my pins, and if even he can’t help them, what good will a random stranger possibly be?

  “I’m Kudera,” the waterwender says. She nods at another shaman with light skin and black curls that tangle around her shoulders. Her eyes are purple amethysts. “This is Maiya. The little one is Morun, my brother.” She touches the shoulder of the boy, who doesn’t look much older than eight. His eyes are still gray.

  “I’m Nong,” says an older man with graying hair. Deep lines bracket his mouth and carve the skin around his eyes. “How have you avoided being imprisoned in the labor camp?”

  Their trust has been broken enough without me lying to them as well. But the truth isn’t yet something I want to reveal. “I’m sort of new to all this.”

  Kudera’s head tilts, and she gets that look on her face, the same one the earthwender wore back at the Valley of Cranes, like she suspects who I might be but doesn’t quite accept the possibility. Just because these shamanborn escaped during the prison break doesn’t mean they believe in anything about a soulguide.

  Footsteps approach the door to the cell area. Keys jangle, and the door swings open. A guard enters with our meals. I’m surprised by the hearty fare—warm rice porridge and a boiled chicken-leg quarter, fragrant with lemongrass. Prince Meilek is to thank for this.

  I eat quickly, mostly to keep my strength. But the other shamanborn eat as if ravenous, licking their bowls and fingers clean.

  “Which of you can fight?” I hate to ask, given that they’ve faced so much already. But I have to take stock of all possible assets.

  Kudera regards me with a thoughtful tilt of her head. She must be their leader.

  “We’re not soldiers,” she says cautiously. “But I have my craft. My familiar can fly, so I’ve ordered him far from the Dead Wood.”

  I blink, surprised. “What about the others?”

  “We only came across the one spirit. Spirits are drawn to the use of magic. There used to be more in Evewyn, before we were all put in the Valley.”

  I nod and pretend like I already knew that. Still, a waterwender might be useful, and it’s more than I thought we had a moment ago. “Did no one try to bond with a familiar to escape the camp?”

  “Some.” She looks down. “It always ended in the familiar dying of the rot or being killed by soldiers. We eventually stopped trying. It seemed cruel to risk subjecting them to a painful death just for our sake.”

  “Familiars are sacred to us,” Nong says, cutting in. “Souls are the source of all our magic, and only they can access them. Without them, we would be magicless. To harm another shaman’s familiar is unforgiveable.”

  As the day passes, they gradually open up about their former lives. Before her imprisonment, Maiya had been a teacher, preparing children with the skills they’d need for the Prince’s Company when they turned eleven. I marvel that shamanborn had once attended the Prince’s Company and even the Queen’s—then called the King’s Company, under Prince Meilek’s father. Apparently, the Royal Army once had a battalion comprised solely of shamanborn.

  Even if war between the kingdoms can be prevented, what of the war within Evewyn against its own people? The shamanborn will remember this injustice for generations to come.

  Nong, being a medium, had helped young shamans bond with their first familiars. His ability to communicate directly with spirits isn’t a craft reliant upon a familiar. It’s simply a gift some shamans are born with, regardless of their Calling.

  Kudera had been in the Prince’s Company when the edict against shamanborn went out. All shamanborn students were taken into custody without explanation and imprisoned in the dungeons of the Grand Palace until the mountain prison was established. Later, she’d found her brother in the labor camp through sheer chance. Their father had died years before, but the camp had taken their mother. Morun hasn’t spoken since.

  Maiya tells me that when they fled south, they were a group of twenty-three. They’d split once they hit the coast, most choosing to try their luck among the scatter of fishing villages. Stealing a small boat would be far easier than stowing aboard a ship. But Kudera’s group of ten hadn’t wanted to risk a small vessel on the open water.

  They regretted it now, of course. The density of Vos Gillis’s population hadn’t concealed them as they’d hoped. Now they’d never know what became of the others.

  After our evening meal, I grow restless with anticipation. As the hours stretch on, I worry that something has gone wrong with Phaut.

  I glower at the darkness beyond the window slit just as the door to the guardhouse bursts open, slamming into the wall with a bang. I jolt upright.

  “Fire!” a voice shouts. “The Queen’s Wharf is on fire!”

  EIGHTEEN

  There’s a confusion of sounds: the heavy clomping of hurried feet, the shuffling of hands snatching up coats and weapons, and then another slam of the door, followed by a ringing silence.

  I wait, breath held, listening. Before long, I hear the scrape of chair legs as a seat is pulled out and then the low grumble of the guard left behind to keep watch over the prisoners.

  The Queen’s Wharf is a section of the coast restricted to the queen’s ships and visiting dignitaries. It’s rarely used. The queen’s most impressive vessels are docked south of Vos Talwyn within a series of royal berths in Needle Bay. Though she does keep several ships here. I spotted them this morning from the rooftops. Huge, majestic ghosts well separated from the bustling docks.

  Phaut is a genius. I didn’t know what she had planned, but she’d seemed confident. Now I see why. It’s the perfect spot to set a fire and avoid causing serious injury, especially in a city as cramped and overcrowded as this one.

  I turn to the shamanborn, who watch me with pale, expectant faces. I hiss at Nong, “Faint!”

  His wrinkles crease in puzzlement.

  “Pretend to faint.”

  His mouth forms a quick “Oh!” and then he enacts an impressive swoon.

  “Help!” I shout. “Please, we need help!”

  Despite the urgency in my voice, the guard takes his time coming to check on us. My fingers tighten around the bars, imagining his neck.

  “What is it?” he grumbles when he at last comes into view.

  “Please.” I gesture to where Nong lies on the floor. Kudera and Morun fuss over him. I wince a little at Kudera’s dramatics and hope t
he guard doesn’t notice. “He needs water. Fresh air. Something.”

  The guard scowls and turns away. I shout after him, but he does return a moment later with a cup of water. He takes the keys from the wall and unlocks the door leading into the cells. As he passes, my arm darts out. I seize the collar of his uniform and slam him headfirst into the bars of my cell. He cries out, dazed, so I do it again before he can recover.

  Groaning, he slumps to the floor. To my frustration, the keys fall just out of reach. I strain against the bars, nails scraping over stone, but I can’t reach them.

  “Sisters,” I mutter. I search the guard for a weapon, a dagger, anything that will extend my reach by a few finger lengths.

  All he has is a belt. With a grunt, I heave his dead weight closer so I can reach the buckle. The shamanborn watch in taut silence, hands wringing and eyes shining with uncertain hope.

  I glance at the window, where the wild energy of the distant fire rises on the wind. I curse loudly. I’m wasting so much time.

  At last, my fingers grasp the belt buckle. I begin to work it free when the pool of spilled water suddenly wobbles and lifts. I gasp, startling back. Kudera has her hands braced against the bars. She’s focused intently on the water, which transforms into a long, thin stream. The liquid glides through the air and loops around the fallen keys like a length of rope. I release my breath as the water carries the keys the short distance into Kudera’s waiting hand.

  The grin she gives me is magnificent. Quickly she opens first her door and then mine. I shove the unconscious guard into my cell and lock him inside.

  “Where to?” Kudera asks, Maiya at her elbow. Nong lifts Morun onto his back, and all four await my instructions.

  “We’re to meet a friend at the docks,” I say as we head into the front of the guardhouse. Off to the side there’s a mini armory, where I locate a set of dual swords. They’re plain and unadorned, soldier’s weapons.

  “Do you know how to use those?” Kudera asks. She selects a short dagger for herself and shoves it into the waist of her pants.