Her face turned a lighter shade as she opened her mouth to speak. Then, she looked over her shoulder at the Ofthos, where the other priestesses were gathering. She bit into him with one last, icy glare, then whirled around and left him with a clear conviction that this wouldn’t be the end of it.
He headed for the empty doorway to the hall, where the Faerins had vanished. The Destroyer only shows her face in warning. The devious statement had lodged itself deep. How would Astarae know to say a thing like that? She would had to’ve known that the Destroyer had been tracking Lorth in the form of Setriana since he left Os.
Impossible.
You should not have returned. The cruel thing about that claim was that he couldn’t argue with it. He had based his decision to leave Tarth on the fears of a child. Now, Icaros was dead and the lords of three realms blamed him for the deed. Perhaps, as Eaglin had said, he had crossed the Old One by using her powers for the wrong reasons, and now his rogue wave had found him.
But how? By fighting Barenus? Lorth hadn’t murdered any wizards, or cloaked his identity in the shrouds of the Destroyer. So who had?
He slowed his pace as he passed beneath the doors and into the vestibule between the hall and the main corridor. He ducked into the corner and hovered there like a shadow.
Setriana. When he had looked into her earlier, he had seen nothing but an odd, dark place. Suddenly, he recalled something Icaros had once said to him. He closed his eyes. What was it? Women are the mortal expression of Maern. A woman’s womb is a portal through which the forces of creation flow. When a woman is passing through her cycles, another mind cannot see her. We say she is dark. It is similar to an energy shield, under which anyone might hide thoughts, but this has a distinctive feel, rather like non-existence.
Dark. Sensing the hidden moon, he did some calculations. The moon was dark when he left Tarth—around the time Roarin had died. Dark when he had arrived in Os—around the time Icaros had died. And it was dark now. He stepped from his shelter and looked through the trees at the center of the hall. He could just see the princess, gazing at the dais with the inscrutable eyes of a reptile. Menstruation. That was how she had cloaked the Ravens’ murders. The Destroyer hadn’t been accusing him with his visions, but Setriana!
The hunter settled into himself with practiced ease, calm beneath the rough waters of whisky and wine. Cold wind blew from the night and surrounded him with loving arms. He spoke a string of words that hid him in the drapes of the unseen. If they were going to accuse him of wielding the Old One out of hand, then he might as well live up to the charge. As for the price of using that power? He laughed silently as he stepped back into the hall.
The laws of the lawless are certain.
She had already condemned him.
Chapter 11
Shade of Need: I love in the shadows.
The hunter had learned, under the diffused light of the jungle sun, that he couldn’t cast a shadow when he became one. Light and darkness merged to unholy intention as he padded through the forested hall of Eusiron, circling to the north.
Beautiful and strong, graceful as a hind, the Mistress ascended the dais in the center of the Ofthos. Lorth blended with the trees as the hall fell silent, awaiting her. She raised her face to the sky twinkling with the constellation of Laerstroc, opened her arms and spoke in the Dark Tongue. The words summoned the stars, caressed the heavens and lay like a yielding lover beneath the loins of a hungry god. The hall grew winter-still as the night fell into the darkness of the longest night, the death of light and the silence of a dormant heartbeat. Then her voice changed and suddenly shifted. Gasps, sighs and smiles rippled over the hall as everyone felt the rebirth of the sun. As the Mistress’s voice echoed away, the top of Lorth’s head grew warm, as if light shone on it from the inside.
The hall erupted into cries of celebration. Deep, drumming music shook the floor. The priestesses spun away from their places like clouds of smoke and began to dance. Many of the guests had left their seats and stood mingling, talking, laughing and watching the dancers.
Setriana stood with Barenus near an ash tree on the northwestern corner of the Ofthos. In his altered state, Lorth no longer saw her human features; she wore the face of the Destroyer in full. But she was no match for him, friend to the wolves and child of the mountains. She had made her last mistake by crossing into his territory.
Calculating the distance between every face, hand, cloak, goblet and tree, he descended into the darkness of his heart, through the sinuous movements of women, fire, smoke and the rush and cry of music and voices. He went deeper, until he wept Leaf back to life, Setriana into a muddy grave and Barenus to his sword; he cast the Faerins from Os and the Tarth-Anglorean war into a steel-slime wreckage of blood and dirt; he descended until he forgot Leda, her ivory breast and hollow eyes until finally, he settled like frost on Icaros, his hands clutched over the rastric bite on his heart.
He stopped with a breath. The Princess of Tarth appeared through a gap in the trees, her arms folded over her belly. Her wolfish face seemed to grin, causing Lorth’s rastric scar to burn. She paused and turned, slowly, and met the hunter’s gaze.
Lorth’s heart hesitated on the edge, like a drop of water creeping, swelling, then moving to its fall. Take great care when stirring the waters of Maern, for you may not understand the consequences. Darkness flowed through his hand and into the knife in his boot.
Barenus looked up. So did Eaglin, his expression impenetrable.
In a flash as swift as a bat, Lorth threw the blade. Barenus deflected it with his sword, but he was not fast enough to stop the blade from clipping his lover in the arm. Setriana screamed and fell to her knees, holding her shoulder.
The hall erupted into a surge of blades and cries as the High Guard took up arms.
The Raven of Eusiron towered to the heights like a storm casting living shadows.
If you are under attack by a wizard, think nothing.
Absurd advice. Icy wind cut through the hall, and the stars swirled like water. As Lorth attempted to gather himself in the darkness, he discovered he was not alone there. He collapsed to the floor as it joined the stars and consumed him.
~ * ~
Lorth awoke to light and green. Squinting, he rolled over in a soft, fragrant bed, weak and breathing heavily. His body felt too light, almost insubstantial, and his vision had too many layers in it, rendering what he saw confusing. Beneath the covers, he wore nothing but a loincloth.
Plants grew all around him: bushes, tall leafy things with huge leaves, flowers and thick carpets of groundcover. Tarthian foliage. Tree bark lined the walls and gave homes to orchids and ivies; beautiful patterns of river stones paved the floor and wound between earthen areas of growing things. A babargon tree grew near the end of the bed, arching over it. Glass covered one wall and half of the ceiling, allowing the sun to bathe the jungle. Water trickled nearby, and a frog croaked.
He pushed himself up on one elbow. The room didn’t appear to have a door. Wherever this was, it had to be high up, given the snow-draped mountain panoramas through the windows. Wind buffeted the glass. He lay back down and released his breath.
Something moved beside him. A blackbird landed on the bed, made a squeaking sound, and then cocked its head with an expressionless yellow eye. Lorth held out his hand. The blackbird hopped once and fluttered onto his fingers. Tiny claws tickled his flesh. He brought the bird closer to his face to study it, smelling roses. It left his hand, flew through the foliage and vanished around a corner.
The frog croaked again.
So much for getting out of here. Surely, if he did live, it wouldn’t be long before the Lords of Eusiron put him down. What was he doing naked in a conservatory?
The tide brings light, the Shade of Moon sang.
“Good morning,” said a familiar voice. The Mistress emerged from the jungle in the direction the blackbird had flown, carrying a tray. She set it down on a small table, and poured a cup of tea. She wore a plain red
dress trimmed with black knotwork. Her thick hair was pinned up lazily on her head. She brought the cup, sat on the edge of the bed and held it out. “This will help bring you back.”
Lorth took the cup and looked inside. Murky, purplish green, it didn’t smell good. “Where am I? I thought I had died.”
“So did our guests.” She leaned on her arm and regarded him with the sunrise in her eyes. “When you invoked the Old One, you broke my deception spell. You came in there as you are—fortunately, it appeared that you came from nowhere, so no one made the connection. As far as Tarth and Faerin are concerned, you’re not only out of the picture, but we were able to prove our intentions by ‘killing’ you.” She smiled. “Maern most beautifully crafted this one.”
“I don’t suppose you managed to convince Eaglin and Morfaen of that.” Lorth sipped his tea, and then coughed on a gag. It tasted like something dredged from the bottom of a swamp. He lowered the cup to rest by his thigh.
She pointed to it. “Do drink that.”
He wrinkled his nose. “It’s bloody horrible.”
“So are you. Drink it.”
He steeled himself and took another sip, and then another, catching his breath as the bitter brew clung to his throat and chest. When he had finished, he handed the cup to her and said, “Not that horrible.”
She lowered the cup into her lap and gazed into the empty depths as if to read his fortune in the slime. Lorth came to attention as he felt a shift in her mood.
“We know you didn’t kill Icaros or Roarin,” she said softly.
He cleared his throat. “Since when?”
“Since you were under the Om Tree. Eaglin pushed you to get its reaction.”
“I thought the tree didn’t like my attitude.”
“No,” she assured him. “It was reacting to Eaglin’s accusations, not to your defiance.” As Lorth began to realize what she was saying, she put her hand on his leg, as if to calm him. “Eaglin let you think your life was at stake so you would help us. He didn’t believe you would, otherwise.” She leaned back and let out a tired breath. “If he had consulted with me beforehand, I’d have told him what a bad idea that was.”
Lorth released the hard set to his jaw. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“If I had told you that Eaglin deliberately deceived you into thinking you could be executed for the Ravens’ deaths, you’d have left this hall. You are a part of this, and we needed your help. But in good conscience, I couldn’t have asked you for it, once you knew that. I had to make a choice.”
“You tossed me at Eaglin’s feet like—” he cut that off as he realized he had just revealed his feelings to her. Something you were done with. It bothered him more that she had abandoned him than it did to be deceived.
“I believed you would figure something out, in the presence of our guests. And you did.”
“Did you know that Setriana killed Icaros?”
“Not until you went after her.” She set his cup aside on the table. “But she doesn’t know that. We sent her back to Os with her brother.”
“What?” he gasped.
“I can’t touch her, right now. She is dark.” When a woman is passing through her cycles, another mind cannot see her. We say she is dark. “It’s bound up with Icaros, somehow. It has to unfold; we must wait until the opportunity arrives to move. This is why you missed her with your pretty knife.” A faint smile. “The only reason.”
“I won’t miss next time.”
“Perhaps not. But don’t assume you know how the threads in this run, Lorth. You don’t.”
Lorth gazed afar as the magnitude of this settled into his heart. The tea moved through his veins like an army of tiny spiders, knitting the unseen. “Why am I here?”
“You are in my personal living space,” she replied. “I had Regin and Cael bring you up. I don’t want anyone to know where you are.”
Lorth coughed up a laugh. “You’re hiding me?”
“Aye.” She looked him over. “Eaglin hit you with an Underrift, a command in the Dark Tongue that scattered your structural connections to the time-space matrix. He could have killed you with it; he almost did. Maern protected you. I brought you here so you can heal without interference.”
“You mean Eaglin doesn’t know?” he asked in astonishment. “Morfaen?”
“They don’t know.”
Lorth sat there, his body weak and his heart spun around with confusion. He recalled lying in the Tarthian swamp dying from a rastric bite. “Why would you help me?” he asked, as if to address the old woman herself. “Protect me, after what I’ve done?”
Her smile felt like the sun emerging from a cloud. “What you did was brilliant.”
“But I had no—”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I was planning to leave this place, using the feast as a diversion.”
She nodded. “I suspected as much. I told Eaglin if you did, I’d put the blame at his feet. After being deceived, what reason would you have to work for us? You are wild.” Her eyes softened. “I prefer to use a gentler hand, to gain your trust.”
“I’m not a horse,” he shot back. “I won’t be used.”
Her gaze slid away, as if the comment hurt her. “You feel I abandoned you to trial and execution, tricked you, and now I’m protecting you and you don’t understand. Is that it?”
She had seen right through his anger to the source of his confusion. He couldn’t deny it, though he considered trying. After some moments, he confessed, “That is the way of it.”
She leaned forward. “Do you know why the Old One creates gods and men? Why she spins?”
Lorth gazed at the sunlight glinting on the leaves of a f’tar bush, which grew in the Great Reson Fen as far northeast as Leamora. He shook his head, not understanding her.
“She is alone,” she said. “As she gives life, she takes life. She is the only thing that remains unchanged, since change is what she is. She creates to fill the Void.” She touched his hand. “You came to me caught in your own web. It’s my nature to heal you, to nourish you. But I couldn’t interfere with your path, even if it meant sending you into the darkness to bleed.”
Lorth lowered his head. “You let me believe I was facing execution by the Eye just to keep me here so I’d figure out your mysteries. You call that honoring my path? I call it politics.”
She lifted her chin. “If I had revealed Eaglin’s ploy to you and let you leave, where would you’ve gone? There’s an impressive price on your head the land over. You trust in your own resourcefulness to the point of undoing.”
The hunter had to admit, she had a point. Any place he went to find the truth would have put him directly in the nets of his enemies. For all that, he could have left during the solstice feast, but had chosen to go after Setriana instead. And it hadn’t worked out too badly, aside from Barenus having fouled his knife throw. Believed dead, he could move unseen, now.
Even so, he had done something he rarely did by giving this woman his trust, and now it had a wound in it. “Where I’d have gone isn’t the point. Whatever I decided, it would have been my choice, not yours.”
Her laughter startled him. “How many times have you withheld truth and employed deception in the practice of your arts? Don’t act righteous with me, Lorth. I am not all mother and maid. The Destroyer lives in me too, just as she does in you.”
Lorth felt like a bird that had been swiped by a cat in midair. Absurdly, his cock began to stiffen. “Fair enough,” he conceded quietly. “Would you keep me now?”
“I wouldn’t. A hawk is beautiful because he is free. But...” She blushed and squirmed a little, causing Lorth’s heart to trip into a different beat. “I ask that you stay a bit longer.”
He studied the blood pulsing in the hollow of her neck, the pale pink warmth that spread into her breast and the way her fingers closed around the fabric of the dress in her lap. His desire had become obvious beneath the covers. “Why?”
“Because you’ve stolen my
heart, you fearsome man.”
I love in the shadows.
Lorth held out his hand. She took it, fumbling with the ties of her dress with her other hand, her eyes as dark as a root. Lorth rolled her in a tangle into bed, moving his lips and hands over her soft and scented curves, his loins aching, rough and insane with need. She parted her thighs to him, drawing him down.
The earth keeps secrets.
As the hunter lost himself inside, he spoke the priestess’s name for the first time.
~ * ~
Ostarin sank into the grip of winter as Lorth regained his strength from the Underrift spell Eaglin had laid on him at the solstice feast. Leda had released the hunter from her care shortly before the Wolf Moon moved upon the skies. It brought with it ferocious winds that howled and clawed at the palace and air so piercingly cold that even the hunting parties stayed in.
Lorth had returned to the Hall of Thorns like a feral cat. He had expected to be questioned by Eaglin or Morfaen as to his whereabouts since the feast, but the Lords of Eusiron kept to their towers and war councils and left him alone. He could scarcely imagine what Leda had said to them. Perhaps they were simply waiting for him to leave. This he would do, in pursuit of his dark business, but for now, the warmth of Leda’s arms made it more likely to happen in spring.
With no one watching him or telling him not to use magic, Lorth had discovered a good use for it: to visit Leda. He moved through the palace cloaked in shields of stone, leaves and frost; he passed others unseen, including priestesses, none of whom noticed his presence in the halls of their Mistress’s haunts. When she wished for him, Leda would send her blackbird Erskin to fetch him. He became fond of the bird and often noticed it in the training yard, perched on a post or fluttering over a doorway. Scrat kept Erskin from visiting his room that often, though Lorth had slipped into the refectory once or twice to pocket grains and seeds, which he left on his windowsill whenever the blackbird arrived.
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