Beyond the Shadowed Earth

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  Raiva’s eyes softened, deep sorrow radiating from her face. “Little Empress. Your friend is on her own path now. Just as you are on yours. I understand now, what he did, why he did it, even though I do not agree with how it was done.”

  “What who did? My lady?”

  Raiva put her hands on Eda’s shoulders, her grip light and strong at once. “You met Tuer’s Shadow when you were a child. Now you are grown, and you must seek Tuer himself. He’s calling you, little one. There is no one else who can save him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Raiva smiled, though grief lingered in her eyes. “Seek the god, dear one. Fulfill your oath.”

  “But—”

  “That is your answer. I am sorry it is not the one you wished to hear.”

  And then Eda blinked and she was kneeling beside the pool, her hand still slick with oil and ashes, the blood drying rusty-brown on her palm.

  Ileem turned to look at her, his blood running red down his arm. He looked shaken, as if he had stared into the mouth of a shadow creature and been eaten. “What did you see?” His voice shook. His whole body shook.

  Eda realized she was shaking, too. “Raiva keeps her own council. She won’t help me.”

  He nodded, briefly touching his ear cuff then letting his free hand trace the stream of blood on his arm.

  “What did you see?” she asked him softly.

  “Rudion came to me. He showed me everything. Eda, he showed me how to save Niren.” Ileem’s eyes focused on hers, and he grew steady again. Calmer. “Rescarin is lying about the stone for the temple. It’s already here, in Enduena, in a herder’s village east of the city.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. She forgot how to breathe.

  Ileem grasped her bloodied hand with his. “Let’s go find it. Let’s go save Niren.”

  They rode hard across the desert and into the starry night, dust swirling up from their mounts’ hooves to cling to their skin and choke their breath away. Eda could barely think beyond the words Ileem had spoken to her down in the well. They pulsed through her, hope tangled up with her anger at Raiva’s riddles, at her terror for Niren and the fear they were already too late.

  Ileem had told her the rest as they climbed the endless steps back into the night. Rudion had given him a vision of the stone held hostage by part of the army Rescarin had sworn to Eda he’d cut in half, of mercenaries swelling the ranks of that army, of them drilling on their practice grounds down in Evalla’s capital city of Eron. Of Rescarin’s trap, carefully, painstakingly laid, to take her crown and subdue the other Barons. To make himself Emperor. To destroy the temple she’d tried so hard to build.

  On and on they rode, the night spooling out behind them like threads of darkest blue. She wanted to go faster, faster, to outpace her fears, but the horses needed rest, and Eda herself was aching with weariness. Her guard called an apologetic halt about three in the morning, spreading his cloak out for her over the hard ground. She collapsed onto it, and Ileem sat beside her, gleaming like a god in the moonlight. Eda had never felt so frantic, so vulnerable, and he exuded safety, steadiness. She stared at him, wondering how she’d ever thought someone so beautiful could be her enemy, wondering how beauty suddenly held meaning to her when it never had before. She wanted to sink into him, to kiss him until she could no longer breathe, to forget that such things as gods and vows and empires existed. To run away from this life she’d fought and clawed and killed for. To not look back.

  And yet she also wanted to run on alone into the desert, find the stone, save Niren. She couldn’t stop. There wasn’t time to stop.

  “Get some rest,” Ileem said, giving her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze. “The gods will keep her safe. Rudion promised me.”

  She took a breath, and her eyes shut of their own accord.

  She woke to the rosy glow of dawn to find Ileem curled up a few feet from her, snoring softly. He looked younger when he was sleeping, an innocence about him she hadn’t realized was absent when he was awake. The shadows lengthened in the advent of the sun, golden light spilling over the planes of his face, sharpening their edges. And then he opened his eyes, and the innocence was gone.

  Moments later they were back in their saddles, thundering on across the desert, the sun beating down relentlessly to make up for its all-night absence. Sweat soaked her clothing, grit clung to her skin and her teeth. Her heart roared inside of her, begging the gods for more speed.

  It was maddening to have to stop and rest more and more often as the heat grew increasingly intense. They took a midday rest, sheltering in the insufficient shade of an overgrown bush, its leaves scraggly and sharp.

  Ileem seemed as tense as Eda felt. They shared a water skin, passing it back and forth between them, and she liked to imagine she could feel the ghost of his lips on hers when she drank after he did.

  “Did Rudion say anything else?” she asked softly.

  He sat with his knees pulled up to his chin, sweat trickling down his forehead and into his eyes. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Only that I have done well, that everything I’ve longed for will soon come to pass.” He met her eyes, and once more she sensed in him that power, lurking just below his skin.

  “Peace,” she said and flushed, thinking of the bargain they’d made.

  He smiled. “Peace.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THEY RODE ON IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, when the heat of the day began to fade, little by little, and their horses were rested enough for another run. They passed Eddenahr as the sun sank in a fury of red and violet. It hurt to leave the city behind, not knowing if Niren still clung to life or if she had faded wholly into the shadow version of herself.

  They took one last halt in the early evening, stars glimmering to life, the last of the day’s heat pulsing up from the ground. Eda paced while her guard and Ileem shared a meager meal of meat, dates, and cheese. She wasn’t hungry. She didn’t think she could have stomached food even if she was.

  It was deep night when at long, long last they set out on the final leg of their journey. Her mare ate up the miles, hooves pounding into the hard earth. Eda couldn’t help but think that the gods were watching her from their unreachable realms, waiting to see what she would do.

  Waiting to relinquish their hold on Niren’s life.

  She pushed away the horrible niggling feeling that it wouldn’t be enough, that she would find the stone and finish the temple, and Niren would die anyway.

  Ileem’s words chased themselves around in her head: The gods will keep her safe. Rudion promised me. She clung to them, even though she didn’t know if she really believed them.

  Just when she thought they would be riding forever, they were thundering up to their destination. The village was so small it didn’t merit a name. It was only occupied part of the year, when herders brought their horses through to eat the new growth of scrubby desert bushes and train for the annual races. Right now, the village was empty.

  Or it would have been, if not for the mounds and mounds of stone blocks stacked by the central well.

  A fire burned orange in the shadow of the stone, and half a dozen armed soldiers crouched around it, playing dice in the flaring light. The soldiers looked up as Eda, Ileem, and her guard approached, pulling their mounts to a stop. The soldiers jerked to their feet and drew their sabers in one swift, scraping motion.

  For several heartbeats, Eda assessed the situation, calculating the odds of three against six, when she herself had only a dagger. Firelight danced along naked blades, and Eda glanced at Ileem. He nodded almost imperceptibly. It gave her courage.

  She took a breath and swung off Naia, striding up to the six soldiers with her hands palm up in front of her, showing they were empty. The soldiers did not lower their sabers.

  “I believe there has been some mistake about the shipment,” said Eda coolly, stopping a pace away. “This stone was supposed to be delivered to Eddenahr for the new temple.”

  “I’m afraid, Your I
mperial Majesty, that we are under orders to keep the stone here,” said the silver-haired soldier on the end. “It’s not to be moved.”

  “Whose orders?”

  The soldier shifted uneasily, the point of his saber trembling. “Baron Rescarin, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  “And does Baron Rescarin command the Empire?”

  “He commands us.”

  Eda put out one hand, touching his saber, pushing it gently down to his side. The edge sliced her fingers, and blood dripped into the dust. She didn’t even flinch. “The stone goes to Eddenahr. Tonight.”

  The soldier’s face hardened, and he raised the saber again, putting it to her throat. “I’m sorry, Your Imperial Majesty. But the stone stays here.”

  “Did you not hear her?”

  Eda didn’t take her eyes from the soldier’s as Ileem paced up beside her. She sensed that energy in him, that volatile flame.

  The soldier’s glance flicked from Eda to Ileem and back again. “Baron Rescarin has ordered us to arrest anyone who attempts to take the stone. That includes you, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  From the corner of her eye, Eda saw a tall, shadowy form waver into existence beside Ileem. A tremor went through her, while Ileem drew a sharp breath and dropped to his knees. “My lord Rudion.”

  The Shadow stepped passed Ileem, glancing at Eda for the barest instant before stretching out one shadowy arm to touch the soldier’s heart.

  The soldier gasped, his eyes flaring wide, and dropped dead into the dust, his saber clattering at Eda’s feet. The Shadow vanished.

  Eda swallowed a scream while Ileem rose from his knees and folded his arm in hers. Together, they turned to the remaining five soldiers. Eda forced her voice not to shake: “The stone goes to Eddenahr, tonight, and if you will not help us, our god does not have need of you, either.” She gestured at the dead man on the ground.

  The soldiers sheathed their sabers and bowed, very low.

  The night seemed to spin on with a silvery strangeness, like a half-remembered dream. The wagons used to transport the stone from the seaport were gathering dust just outside the tiny village, the horses that pulled them safe in the herders’ stable. It seemed Rescarin was ready to move the stone with a word, or he would have left neither.

  It took hours to load the stone, the five soldiers and Eda’s guard sweating and straining in the moonlight. Eda and Ileem paced between the wagons, overseeing the work. She tried not to see the body that lay where it had fallen; she gave no orders for its removal. But its presence gnawed at her, shook her to her core.

  “Why did Rudion kill him?” she asked Ileem quietly as the last of the blocks were being hauled onto the wagons.

  Ileem set his jaw, every inch of him burning with power and certainty. “Because Rudion takes care of his own.”

  Eda swallowed. “Did you call him?”

  Ileem lifted his left palm into her view, and the fresh red mark slashed across his web of scars was her answer.

  They started back to Eddenahr just before dawn, Eda and Ileem at the head of the stone-laden wagons. Every mile was agony, Niren’s uncertain fate eating Eda up from the inside. Over and over she sent a prayer to the gods, to Tuer: Let us be in time. Let us be in time. She tried not to think of the soldier, toppling dead to the ground at the barest brush of Tuer’s shadowy hand.

  It was nearly noon before Eddenahr came into view, its white walls and silver-spired towers hard to look at in the glaring light of the relentless sun. Sweat crawled along the back of Eda’s shoulders, dust and grime ground into every ounce of skin.

  As they drew nearer the city, Eda sent the wagons to the temple site, a fierce hope going through her at the thought of her temple being completed. Of Niren growing well and whole again.

  She and Ileem and her guard thundered on to Eddenahr, pulling up at the gates in a cloud of choking dust.

  To her surprise, they had a welcome party.

  Rescarin was waiting there, the other Barons behind him, all dressed in their formal robes, heavy chains of office weighing around their necks. The envoy from Denlahn was present, too: Liahstorion, in a cloud-pink gown that hugged her slim form and accentuated the muscles in her arms and legs; Ambassador Oadem wearing his ever-present frown; a dozen Denlahn guards.

  The entire space between the open gates was filled with Rescarin’s soldiers, the Evallan crest emblazoned on their crimson sashes: a rising blue wave, a silver star.

  Rescarin strode toward her, his stance assured, his expression beyond smug. “Eda Mairin-Draive, you are under arrest for the murder of our late Emperor and the unlawful seizing of his crown.”

  Rescarin’s soldiers swept forward and surrounded her.

  One of the soldiers dragged her from her horse and put his saber to her throat, forcing her onto her knees before Rescarin.

  Chapter Twelve

  EDA’S FAITHFUL GUARD DREW HIS OWN SABER, and Ileem dismounted, his form solid and still an arm’s length away. Her eyes sought his and he gave her an assuring nod, which helped to quell the panic roiling inside of her. She stared up at Rescarin with as much indifference as she could affect and held her body rigid as a spear shaft.

  “Baron Rescarin,” she said coolly, around the point of the saber, “you understand that threatening the Empress of Enduena is treason.”

  He laughed. “You’re the Empress of nothing. You’re just a bastard who thought she could fool us into letting her parade about in pretty dresses and a crown. But you’ve been found out. Your ruse is at an end.”

  A hot wind stirred through the company at the gate, drying the sweat on Eda’s neck, rustling through the dirty silk of her loose riding trousers. Ileem stood silent, his fingers twitching to the dagger on his belt.

  Eda swallowed, carefully, the saber scratching her throat. Would Ileem call Rudion again? Did she want him to?

  Rescarin crouched in front of Eda in the dust. He grasped her chin with one smooth, ring-covered hand, his nails digging in, pulling her face toward the saber.

  She fought him, straining hard, but he forced her throat into the blade. Panic crawled behind her eyes. Pain bit hot.

  “Baron Rescarin!”

  He released her, and she stumbled backward in the sudden absence of his pressuring hand.

  She stared up at Ileem, who had drawn his dagger and raised his left hand, showing the cut that was just beginning to scab. Sunlight gilded him in gold, and it almost hurt to look at him. “Do not make me call my god, unless you wish to be struck down like your soldier in the desert, to be a feast for jackals, for worms.”

  Eda picked herself up, wiping the smear of blood from her neck.

  Danger blazed in Rescarin’s eyes. He snapped his fingers at the soldiers who had relieved Eda of her horse. “Take her away and throw her in the dungeon. We’ll figure out what to do with her later.”

  They seized her arms, jerked her toward the gates, but she dug in her heels, resisting. Her eyes found Ileem’s. She gave him a swift nod, hoping he understood her meaning: Call him. Call Rudion.

  “Your graces, wait!”

  Domin ran through the gate, kicking up a cloud of dust. He clutched a sheaf of papers that made Eda’s heart stutter. They were affixed with the Imperial seal. “I have proof that Her Imperial Majesty is who she says she is,” Domin panted. “I have proof that Rescarin is lying.”

  The soldiers relaxed their grip on her arms, and Eda shrugged them off. She approached the Barons, trying to remember to breathe, just breathe, forcing her face into an impenetrable mask. “Baron Domin,” she said. “Show your proof.”

  Domin flicked his eyes to her, anxious as a rabbit, and nodded. He handed the sheaf of papers to Baron Dyar and Baron Lohnin, who immediately began to look them over.

  Rescarin tried to snatch the papers away, but Lohnin held up one hand. “Is there something you’d rather we not see, Rescarin?”

  That silenced him.

  Eda waited, the hot wind curling round her ankles, while Dyar and Lohnin read. She kn
ew what they were reading: she’d commissioned the forgeries herself, months ago.

  After an agonizing few moments, Lohnin looked up with a frown. “What are you playing at, Rescarin? These are official documents: they chronicle the Empress’s birth, with a statement signed by the late Emperor himself asserting his paternity. According to this, the Emperor planned on announcing her as his daughter the moment she was brought to Eddenahr as a child. Rescarin, you forestalled him, claiming it was better for her if she didn’t know. Safer, to have a hidden heir, in case anything were to happen to his son. Which, as we all know, it did. Perhaps that was no accident?”

  Every line of Rescarin’s body evinced his rage. “Surely you can see those documents are fakes.”

  Domin turned on him, dark eyes flashing. “Then why did you steal them from the Empress? Why were they in your chambers?

  What were you going to do—burn them? Erase all proof of the Empress’s claims?”

  Rescarin faced him square on. “I was going to prove they were forgeries, as more than a cursory glance would show.”

  “Except that isn’t all that was found in your chambers.”

  Eda looked at Ileem with surprise. He swept past her, his face a study of controlled, righteous anger. “You were also hiding this.” He drew something from an inner pocket in his robe, and held it up for all to see: a small glass vial that flashed in the sun.

  Eda’s heart seized. She knew that vial: knew its shape and its emptiness, knew what it had once contained. She should have smashed it and buried the shards. She should have gotten rid of it long ago, but she hadn’t. She had kept it, in a little jewel case under her bed, a constant reminder of what she had done. How had Ileem found it? She hadn’t even told him about the poison until their ride to the well. She hadn’t even really admitted to using it herself.

  And yet there it was, small and dark in his hand.

  Ileem paced toward Rescarin. “The late Emperor was slowly poisoned for the duration of the last year of his life. You administered that poison, drop by drop, in his food, his wine. Didn’t you, Rescarin? And when an unexpected usurper surfaced, imposter heir Talia Dahl-Saida, you gave the Emperor the final, lethal dose, planning to put yourself forward as a replacement. But because the gods are just, Her Imperial Majesty was there before you. Your every action over the last year has been purposefully designed to undermine her: making a peace treaty with my people without her knowledge or consent; halting construction on the temple to make her look weak and foolish; sowing mistrust among your fellow Barons. But you made one vital mistake.” Ileem stopped so close to Rescarin their noses nearly touched. “You didn’t realize the god-marked servant of Rudion was coming.” Ileem jabbed the empty poison vial into Rescarin’s chest and let it fall to the dust. He ground it under his heel.