Beyond the Shadowed Earth

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  Her friend regarded her with a quiet smile, but something haunted lingered in her eyes.

  Eda grabbed her hand. “I thought I’d lost you.” Her voice was raw. Cracked.

  Tears dripped down Niren’s cheeks, and she turned her face away.

  “Niren?”

  “You didn’t lose me, Eda,” Niren’s voice was hoarse with disuse. She shuddered and wept.

  Eda sat with her awhile in silence, waiting until Niren was ready to speak.

  “I saw the Circles of the world,” said Niren, still not turning back to Eda. “I saw the spheres and the spaces between, the great void and the spirits trapped there. I saw the realm of the One and the gods and men alike who dwell on those shores. I saw death and time and sorrow. I heard the gods calling my name. And I knew they had a purpose for me. I knew I was destined to serve them there, as I could not do here. As I cannot do now.” At last she met Eda’s eyes; her face was wracked with sorrow. “You ripped me away from all that. I didn’t want to come back. But then it seems to be your purpose in life to take everything that matters to me.”

  Eda blinked, throat constricting. “Niren—”

  “Go away, Eda. I don’t feel like talking to you anymore.”

  “I couldn’t let you die, Niren. It would have been my fault. When I was little, when my parents died, I—”

  “Eda.” A strange gentleness came into Niren’s tone. “Not everything is about you, you know.”

  “But I made a vow, and the gods—”

  “The gods work according to their own designs, and the design of the One who created them. Do you really think a vow made by you or me or any human born on Endahr could alter the gods’ plans? They released me for now, Eda. But they might call me back again. And when they do—when they do, you have to let me go. Do you understand?”

  “I saved you once. I can do it again.”

  Niren sighed and shook her head, but a little smile touched her lips. “You’re not listening. You’ve never listened. Not even when we were children.”

  “I found the stone, Niren. Construction on the temple has started up again and I sealed it with my blood. That’s what saved you.”

  “Oh, Eda. I don’t think my life or death is wrapped up in blood and stone. Perhaps the gods had pity on you. Perhaps they saw you couldn’t do without me just yet.”

  Eda thought of Raiva’s words to her down in the well, and a hard knot of anger pulled tight inside of her. “The gods have never had pity on me.”

  Eda had asked Ileem to sing for the company, to celebrate their formal engagement as he’d told her was tradition in Denlahn. The engagement had happened that morning, up in the Place of Kings during an arduous, drawn-out ceremony. They’d spent the rest of the day listening to outraged petitioners explain in loud, passionate detail why the marriage was a horrible idea. Some objected to Denlahn in general, others to Ileem in particular, and it had taken every ounce of Eda’s willpower not to order them all dragged off to prison.

  Even after that, Ileem had agreed to perform. Seeing him now, standing alone on the dais in the ballroom, took her breath away. He wore midnight-blue robes embroidered in silver, with a matching silver headdress, Enduenan-style sash, and his ever-present ear cuff obscuring the mark of Tuer. He held an ivory-bone lute, which looked small against his tall frame, like a child’s instrument in the hand of a god.

  Stars were just glimmering into being outside the balcony, and a breeze stirred through the ballroom that smelled, faintly, of autumn, of the coming relief from the summer that had lasted more than half the year.

  Eda sat in a carved ebony chair, cushioned with velvet, that faced the dais. Her Barons and other courtiers waited behind her, some standing, some seated on the pillows strewn about the floor. Niren was among them, ruby skirts making a perfect circle around her, a red jewel flashing on her brow. Niren had been strangely quiet when Eda had told her about the engagement. She’d been strangely quiet all week, in fact, like she’d left a part of herself in the realm of the gods and would never again be truly whole.

  But Eda pushed those thoughts from her head and locked eyes with Ileem as his fingers twitched over the lute strings. He gave her a swift fierce smile.

  And then he opened his mouth and began to sing.

  His voice was soft at first, barely audible over the twangy hum of the lute, but it grew fuller and richer with every note, and its beauty overwhelmed her. Bewitched her. He sang in the ancient Denlahn tongue, and though the words were unfamiliar to her, she still felt their power. She almost imagined she could see them, glinting gold on his lips.

  The song ended abruptly, and Ileem took a breath and started another before anyone had a chance to applaud. This was a rhyme Eda had known from earliest childhood, sung in her own language. She hadn’t thought about it in years, and listening to it now made her grow very cold.

  Seek the god, fulfill your vow

  He’s calling, calling you

  Shut in his mountain far away

  Where chains of sorrow heavy weigh

  He’s calling, calling you

  What need has he for temples?

  What need has he for stone?

  What need has he for gold or jewels

  Trapped in the dark alone?

  The sea will bear you hither

  On wings you’ll travel high

  And past the mountain’s doorway

  The killing knife will lie

  Seek the god, fulfill your vow

  He’s calling, calling you

  Shut in his mountain far away

  Where chains of sorrow heavy weigh

  He’s calling, calling you.

  The song ended with an intricate and haunting countermelody on the lute, and then Ileem shifted into a third piece.

  Eda stared at him. It was just a children’s nonsense song. But she didn’t think those words were nonsense to the mountain priest or Raiva in her well. Shadow Niren wavered into view beside Ileem on the dais, her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs only Eda could hear.

  Real Niren froze where she sat, her eyes locked hard on her shadowy self.

  Horror plunged like a knife deep into Eda’s belly and twisted.

  Eda drew Niren into a corner of the room when Ileem’s performance was over; she wasn’t imagining that Niren’s hand trembled in her own. “Niren, can you see her?” Eda asked bluntly.

  Niren was so cold, a distant, unreachable star. “You haven’t altered the future, you know. Just delayed it a little.”

  “Can you see her?”

  “The shadow who bears my face?” Niren’s jaw tightened. “Eda, I’ve always seen her.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “YOU SEEM VERY FAR AWAY THIS EVENING, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  Eda glanced over at Ileem, her legs dangling from her perch on the rooftop overlooking the garden and the menagerie. It was near midnight—they’d danced for hours after Ileem’s performance. Eda had at last retired for the evening and escaped up onto the roof to find her fiancé waiting for her. She’d come seeking solitude, but it was his company she actually craved, away from the eyes of the court.

  “What made you choose that song? The one about seeking the god and fulfilling a vow?”

  Ileem grimaced. “Did you find fault with my performance? Rudion brought it to mind, whispered it in my ear.”

  Her heart raced. “I didn’t find fault with your performance in the least. Your tongue seems blessed by Raiva herself.” She flushed at the memory of his mouth on hers.

  He took her hands, lacing their fingers together as he leaned close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  And then he was kissing her and she was kissing him back, and he was salty and warm, the sea and the sun. She breathed Ileem, and Ileem breathed her, and for a while, nothing else seemed to matter.

  But at last they drew back to breathe air again, and Ileem sprawled out on the roof tiles. Eda tucked her head into the hollow of his neck, drinking in the scent
of him, drinking in this moment. “Do you know,” she mused, running her finger along his ear cuff, “I think I’m in love with you.”

  He smiled, his own fingers tracing the line of her jaw. “I thank my god every day that he brought me to you. That we’re to be married and our vows forged together into one.” He caressed her neck, and lightning shot down her spine.

  For so long, Eda had told herself she didn’t need anyone, and she’d proved it to herself, over and over. But now that everything was set to rights again—Niren well and whole, her Barons subdued, Rescarin’s threat eliminated—she found she no longer wished to be alone. She didn’t want to have to sleep with a knife under her pillow, waiting for everything she’d fought so hard for to be ripped away from her.

  She realized, all at once, what that meant. “I want to crown you as my Emperor,” she told Ileem, “not just my consort. I want to share power with you. Equally, for everything that’s mine to be yours.” Her fingers curled tight around the material of his silk robe, the heat of his body emanating behind it. She swallowed, trying to quell the raging of her heart.

  He brushed his fingertips across her cheek, her eyelids, her lips. She could hardly breathe.

  “I would be honored to rule the Empire beside you, Eda.”

  Peace unfolded in her belly. She wrapped her hands around his jaw, and pulled his mouth once more to hers.

  It was only later, when she slipped back in through her window in the dark hours before dawn, that she allowed herself to think about Niren’s troubling revelation, and the shadow that wouldn’t stop haunting her—the shadow Niren could see.

  But Eda had won, hadn’t she? Niren was alive, the temple was nearing completion, and Eda’s throne was secure. No thanks to the gods, Eda thought, and then immediately chastised herself. After all, where would she be without them?

  Here, Eda told herself. What did the gods even do for me, really? I made myself Empress. I brought Niren back from the brink of death. What have they done?

  There was an attendant waiting by her door, half asleep. She jerked awake at Eda’s arrival, and dropped a wobbly curtsy. “Apologies for the intrusion, Your Imperial Majesty, but there’s a prison guard in the antechamber, waiting to speak with you.”

  Eda smoothed her hair and made an attempt at brushing the dirt from her trousers, then followed the attendant from the room.

  Eda recognized the guard with a jolt as the one she’d ordered to cut off all Rescarin’s fingers. Her stomach flopped over and she wondered that she’d pushed her encounter with Rescarin so far out of her head. “What is it?” she snapped.

  “Your Imperial Majesty, I’ve come to inform you that Rescarin Haena-Ar, former Baron of Evalla, was found dead in his cell this evening.”

  She tried not to let her shock show. “Dead? Of what?”

  “Complications from his wounds, Your Imperial Majesty. They became infected.”

  Eda had hated Rescarin for almost her entire life—now she hated that the news of his death made her feel sick. She waved one hand dismissively. “Send his body back to his family, and don’t bother me with anything like this again.”

  The guard bowed. “My apologies, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  Eda went back to her bedchamber, but she didn’t undress for bed. She sat by her window and stared out into the remnants of the night. She wondered how it had been so beautiful up on the rooftop with Ileem and was so wretched down here.

  She drifted off just before dawn, cramped in the window frame, and dreamed of Niren, the Emperor, and Rescarin, walking together through a shadowy landscape, their ankles heavy with chains. “You did this to us,” said Niren. “You trapped us here.”

  “But you’re not dead,” Eda objected. “I saved you.”

  Niren reached out her shadowy fingers to touch Eda’s forehead. Heat pierced through her, as it had when Raiva touched her down in the well. “Oh Eda,” said Niren sadly. “You haven’t saved anyone.”

  The whole palace—the whole city—had turned into an anthill kicked by a boot. The preparations for Eda’s seizure of the throne and subsequent coronation had taken place slowly and in secret. Wedding preparations, however, were being conducted very much in the open. And with the wedding date fixed for the main feast at the end of the nine-day Festival of Uerc, there were mere weeks left to get everything done.

  Eda’s approval was required on everything from the final selection of musicians to the color of the napkins for the table settings. It was driving her mad. And to make everything even more disagreeable, Ileem had similar demands on his time. She saw him briefly every morning, when they brought their joint oblations to the Place of Kings, but there was hardly a chance for more than a few words before their oblations were ended and their attendants pulled them off in separate directions. Eda began to despise the sight of the Imperial Steward, who seemed to desperately need her five hundred times per day.

  Any time she wasn’t with the Imperial Steward she was riding back and forth to the temple site, overseeing the finer details of construction, telling the artisans where their carvings and curtains and candles should go, instructing three brand new priestesses in their coming duties. It seemed her hands were always covered in dust.

  She saw Niren even less than she saw Ileem. Niren rarely attended council sessions and seemed to prefer taking dinner alone in her room.

  The morning before the first day of the festival—ten days before the wedding—the Imperial hairdresser came to Eda’s chambers to discuss Eda’s wishes for the ceremony. Eda sat down in front of her dressing table while Niren leaned against the wall, playing with the clasp of a sapphire necklace Eda had given her for her birthday. Eda had commanded Niren’s presence like she was a wayward attendant, and to her surprise, Niren had actually come. She looked thin, tired. Her eyes wandered often to the corner of the room, where her shadow self watched them in ghostly silence.

  “What do you think, Your Imperial Majesty?” said the hairdresser, laying down a comb and stepping back from the dressing table.

  Eda inspected herself in the mirror. For her wedding, she planned to emulate the wind goddess, Ahdairon, in a nod to the ancient belief that Ahdairon blessed marriages because she was so content with her own marriage to the wind god Mahl. Part of Eda’s hair was done up in elaborate braids woven with blue and gold silk ribbons. On the actual day, there would be sapphires and diamonds sewn in, as well as tiny wings crafted out of real gold. The ensemble would be completed with a gauzy gold veil. Eda turned to her friend, who had barely looked up during the entire process. “Niren, what is your opinion?”

  Niren flicked her eyes to Eda’s hair.

  “Whatever Your Imperial Majesty wishes.” Her voice sounded as washed out as she looked.

  Eda jerked up from the stool and went over to Niren, grabbing her arm and hauling her into Eda’s private sitting room. Tea was waiting on a low table, steam curling up from glass and metal cups accompanied by pots of honey and a heaping plate of candied dates. Eda pushed Niren into one chair and sat down across from her in the other.

  “I’m tired of this,” Eda snapped. “I refuse to apologize for not letting you die. Talk to me. Please, Niren.”

  Niren looked at her, really looked at her, and Eda was taken aback by her pity. “I know you mean well, Eda. But when the gods call me again, don’t pull me back. I will be perfectly fine.”

  Something clawed its way up Eda’s throat, and she found herself fighting tears. “But what about me? I won’t be all right.”

  Niren smiled. “You’ve never needed me, not really. You have your Empire, and soon your husband. I’m just a crutch, Eda. A remnant of your childhood that you wanted to dress up to atone for some imagined sin.”

  “But—”

  “Eda.” Niren grasped Eda’s arm. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. But you have to let me go. You have an Empire to run. I have the gods to serve.”

  “So serve in the temple. Be a priestess for the Empire.”

  “The g
ods don’t want temples. They never did. They want truth. They want sincerity.”

  Eda’s whole body sagged. “I don’t know how to give that to them.”

  Niren pulled her into a brief, tight hug. “Then perhaps that’s what you should be searching for.”

  And then Niren slipped from the room, leaving Eda alone with tea that was no longer steaming. She felt hollow and broken and cold. She knew Niren was right, and she didn’t want her to be.

  She canceled the rest of her appointments for the day and rode out to the temple site. It really was nearly finished now, the last roof tiles being fitted into place, the interior carvings and furnishings being brought in.

  The temple was beautiful, but it didn’t fill Eda’s emptiness. She shut her eyes in the scorching wind, and sent a plea up to the gods. Is this really not what you wanted?

  The wind spat dust into her face. She wondered if that was their answer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “EDA?”

  She looked up from her writing desk to find Niren standing in the doorway, her blue-green silk trousers pooling around her ankles, her dark hair for once combed neat and straight. She was hugging a cloth-wrapped, rectangular object against her chest. Lantern light cast haunted shadows on Niren’s thin face.

  It was late, past midnight—Eda had been caught up in her work, reviewing tax reports from her Barons. She laid down her pen, ink dripping black on her paper. “Niren, are you well?”

  Her friend paced toward her, and without a word laid the rectangular object in Eda’s lap.

  Eda unfolded the cloth to reveal a heavy book. It had gold-edged pages and a red leather cover stamped with the three Stars and the one Tree.

  “A wedding present,” said Niren. “I was going to save it for your wedding day, but I wanted you to have it now.”

  Eda opened the book, and a page she recognized stared out at her: a petitioner, kneeling before the god Tuer, his throne a mountain, his crown made of stars. She looked at Niren with a troubled frown. “The manuscript you were copying?”