Shadowborn

by Katie MacAlister

  I nodded, slicing several pieces of bread and cheese and wrapping them along with the fruit in a bit of cloth. “Yes. I don’t have anything but what I’m wearing, and that I got from Red Eva. I’ll fetch Buttercup and Penn if you wish to wash.”

  He nodded, then stopped by the table where Red Eva was sitting, pulling out the small leather bag tied to his belt and giving her a few coins. I studied Deo for a moment where he stood with his hands on his hips, staring out of the open doorway. He was watching the men Hallow had captured as they toiled under the watchful eyes of the villagers, cutting wood, hauling in water to make mud, and removing burnt sections of the fence that protected the village from marauders.

  “What?” Deo asked, obviously having felt my scrutiny but not bothering to turn to look at me. “If you want instructions about the swing, you must look to your arcanist.”

  I made a face at him. For two people who hadn’t spent much time together in the last few months, we had a surprising affinity; our connection went back to the days when we had both been young and filled with dreams. “Curious as I am to know just how a swing can give so much pleasure, I have every confidence Hallow will know what to do with it. Deo, I have doubts about this plan. I may have been favored by Kiriah in the past, but I’m not so certain I hold her blessing now,” I said, moving over to stand beside him so I could speak softly. I didn’t wish for everyone to know just how gravely I doubted my abilities.

  “You said you had your powers back.” After a few moments of moody glaring at the former army, he turned to look at me, his black eyes searching mine. With one finger, he traced the line of dots that circled my head. “It’s too bad Kiriah saw fit to remove the chaos magic from you, but we must assume she knew best.”

  “I did get my light weaving powers back,” I said slowly, reaching for Kiriah even as I spoke. I held out my hand, intending to summon a light fawn, one of the animals I’d delighted in creating when I was a child. I could feel Kiriah’s presence, not just the warmth of the sun, but her being around me, and yet the fawn refused to form on my palm. “But they don’t seem to be very reliable. I’m worried that when we face Nezu, I will not be able to assist. Thorn seems to think—”

  “Thorn is a long-dead arcanist who is just as mad as all the others of his ilk. Well,” he said with a little shrug before turning back to the square outside the house, “Hallow is less mad than the others, but even he isn’t quite sane.”

  “The same can be said about someone not a million miles from me,” I murmured.

  “If you are referring to Goat, he was an excellent companion, and offered much sage advice while I was imprisoned on the Isle of Enoch,” Deo said with obvious ire. “I would have brought him with me to Genora, but my father insisted he would not be able to keep up with the horses. If Jalas has harmed him in any way—”

  “I’m sure Goat is just fine in Abet,” I said soothingly, biting back a giggle at Deo’s defense of a scrawny animal who had evidently been his only friend for the eleven months he’d been banished. Deo seemed more stable these days than when we’d first rescued him, but regarding Goat, he was definitely a bit eccentric. “Do you think we could stop Nezu from summoning the All-Father without banishing him? Nezu, that is?”

  Deo thought about this, taking the bag that Idril carried out and shoved at him before returning to her room. I couldn’t help but notice a bit of plaited rope poking out of the top of the satchel, and wondered if that was the swing. “Possibly. But I don’t see the point of doing half the job.”

  “Half the job?” I frowned a little. “What do you mean? If Nezu is banished—”

  “The Eidolon will still remain. I take it you have angered them, and they no doubt seek vengeance against you, personally. And possibly Hallow. Much though I wish to return to Aryia to stop Jalas, and hopefully to place Idril on his throne—although why she wants to lead that group of near-feral savages is beyond my understanding—I can’t leave this job half-done. Nezu must be banished or destroyed. The Eidolon must be vanquished. Lyl must be removed from my mother’s throne.”

  “And Queen Dasa?” I asked, watching him closely.

  “She will have to be dealt with, too,” he said grimly.

  Something about Deo had changed since he’d been imprisoned and tortured on Eris. Before that time, he’d been a warrior, bent on fighting whatever battle came his way, laying his plans with deliberate detail. But now—now I got the same sense from him as I did from Hallow. Deo had gone from being a warrior who lived for battle to a man determined to protect those who needed it. That thought warmed my heart, causing me to stand on tip-toe and press a kiss to his cheek.

  “No,” he said with as much surprise as I felt at my action. “I will not show you how to use the swing, so do not try to seduce me.”

  I poked him in the arm. “As if I want any man swinging me but Hallow. That was simply a kiss of approval. You’ve become almost as heroic as Hallow.”

  “Almost!” he said with an indignant gasp.

  “Yes, almost. Hallow doesn’t have to care about helping other people, but he does. He gives everything he has to make Alba a better place. You were born to do that—he wasn’t.”

  Deo grimaced. “My parents would be the first to tell you just how inaccurate were the prophecies concerning my birth.”

  “And yet, you’ve gone a long way toward fulfilling them,” I pointed out.

  “Not far enough,” he answered.

  “Will you please confine your lips to your husband, and leave mine alone?” Idril asked with a sharp edge to her voice that gave me much guilty pleasure. She returned with yet another satchel that she gave to Deo while raking me with a look that by rights should have stripped all the hair from my head.

  “Husband?” I asked, deciding the opportunity was too good to miss. I’d heard all about how Idril had married another man at her father’s behest, and although I knew it was beneath me to tease her, I couldn’t help myself. “I thought that was one of the Northmen?”

  Idril’s pointed look could have skewered a wild pig. “That is an unfortunate circumstance that can’t be rectified until we return to Aryia, which we will do as soon as you do your job and dispense with Nezu.” She spun on her heel, and marched back into the room she’d used.

  “She’s a mite testy on the subject, isn’t she?” I asked Deo. He had a martyred expression that I knew well. “Are you really going to wed her?”

  “I will if I can catch her between husbands,” he said, then took me by the wrist and pulled me out of the house. “Let us get the horses. Where’s the captain and his harem?”

  “Dexia is in the form of a child, so let me stop you from ever using that word in connection with her.” I followed when he wove his way around the Starborn who had been put to work. “Quinn and Ella were…er…occupied a short while ago. Hopefully they will be quick about it so that we can leave, although Deo, I truly am worried—”

  “And that’s where you are at fault.” He went to the area where the horses were tethered, thumping his stallion on the shoulder when the horse lifted a rear hoof at him. “If Kiriah has removed her blessing from you, worry won’t restore it. If she has not, then it’s a waste of time. Therefore, you must stop fussing about that which is beyond your control, and focus instead on achieving our goal.”

  “I withdraw my label of heroic, and replace it with annoying,” I told him, and quickly gave both Penn and Buttercup their breakfast before hurrying off to make my own ablutions.

  Chapter 14

  “Where did Mayam go?”

  Allegria, who rode next to Hallow, glanced up at him with an odd expression: part chagrin, part annoyance. “I’m not sure. We parted ways before we got to Nether Wallop. She said I was running around in circles, and that the Askia would get us sooner or later, and she wouldn’t remain to be slaughtered by them when Nezu needed her.” Her lips thinned for a moment. “I know it’s wro
ng of me to be glad she went off on her own—Sandor would never let me hear the end of such callousness when I should show only compassion to others—but by Kiriah’s ten tiny toenails, Mayam was beyond irksome. Why do you ask?”

  “I was just curious as to what happened to her.” He was silent for a few minutes while they rode. The sun was now past prime. For the last six hours, conversation had been desultory, as each member of the company became lost in his or her own thoughts. Hallow certainly had been consumed with his. He’d considered and discarded many plans to draw Nezu out into the mortal world; he had no patience to sit around and wait for the god to emerge. He said more to himself than to Allegria, “I wish I had Aarav at my side for what is to come, but he was much too badly wounded to accompany us.”

  “You were far more grievously wounded, and yet you don’t seem to have a problem riding,” Allegria pointed out, running yet another assessing eye over him.

  He smiled to himself, feeling both cherished and loved. “That is no doubt due to your ministrations, my heart. I couldn’t fail to heal simply from your nearness.”

  “Mmhmm.” She didn’t give him the scathing look that such blatant flattery deserved, indicating she was deep in thought. The others appeared to be likewise occupied; only Quinn and Ella chatted quietly ahead of them. Deo rode at the head of the line, with Idril close behind him and Dexia behind her.

  “Is something worrying you?” he couldn’t help but ask his wife. He hated to see her looking as if she’d lost her best friend. He liked it much more when she was teasing him, her eyes sparkling with humor and desire. “If you are still worried that Kiriah has forsaken you—”

  “No, I think that concern, at least, has been struck from my list of things to fuss about, as Deo so insensitively put it.” Allegria held up an arm. Not just her hands, but both her arms now glowed with a golden light that dazzled the eyes. As they moved south, drawing closer to the Altar of Day and Night, she’d started to glow, the intensity growing with each passing mile. She hesitated a few seconds, casting him an unreadable glance. “Hallow, doesn’t it bother you that Thorn has left us?”

  “Bother me?” He shook his head. “He’s always been volatile, emotionally speaking. You must surely realize that by now if he’s been chattering in your head for the last few days.”

  “It’s not the scene he threw…it’s what he said.” She fell silent again.

  Hallow considered what Allegria had told him regarding Thorn’s tantrum. “His form had been destroyed when we faced Nezu on Eris, therefore, he had no idea of what happened. It could simply be that he knows Nezu as a god, and can’t conceive of us defeating him, while we know that it is possible, so long as Deo’s boon can be invoked.”

  “I think it’s more than that,” she answered reluctantly.

  “Do you believe he has knowledge that he’s keeping from us?” he asked gently, not wishing to distress her further.

  “Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead, and he noted signs of weariness on her face. He sorely wished he could erase that tension and return her expression to one of happiness and enjoyment of life, but he didn’t know how to do that.

  Short of banishing Nezu.

  “You said Mayam told you a tale about Nezu and the goddesses. I have not heard that account—Master Wix mentioned Nezu only in passing as the god who was responsible for the shadows—and I would be interested to hear what she had to say.”

  Allegria recounted a tale that was fascinating in its implications and made Hallow wish he could call a halt so that he could write down the details, but as the road swung to the east toward the coast the air took on the tang of the sea. Given Allegria’s description of her journey north, he guessed they were only a handful of hours away from the altar.

  What would they find once they arrived?

  “This is not what I imagined,” he said several hours later when Deo held up his hand for them to halt. “But I’m pleased nonetheless.”

  “Two ships?” Allegria, who, like Hallow, had been leading her mount, gave Buttercup a gimlet glance when the latter attempted to nip her arm, and moved ahead a few feet to gaze down the white chalky cliffs to where a ramshackle stone pier staggered drunkenly into the sea. “He must have convinced the queen and her army to come with him after all.”

  “Perhaps, although I doubt if much of her army remains after the Banes got through with them.” Hallow’s gaze moved from the ships to the few bits of broken stone that served as the pier. That the town was abandoned was quite evident from the crumbling remains of a few wooden structures. Idly, he wondered who had lived there, and what had happened to the occupants even as he lifted his hand in greeting when a man in a white and gold tunic called out. Israel led his company up a twisting, narrow path to the clifftop, but there were not nearly as many men following him as Hallow expected. “I count only two score.”

  “Then why two ships?” Allegria asked, disappointment in her voice. Like him, she’d noted that the queen did not ride with Israel.

  “I suspect we shall find out soon enough. How close are we to the altar?”

  “Less than an hour. I remember seeing that broken pier when we were running from the Askia. I thought briefly of going down to the shore, but Mayam dashed into the trees and I had to go after her,” Allegria answered, sidestepping when Buttercup swung her head around, clearly intent on showing her annoyance at being kept standing. “I will admit I had hoped Lord Israel would come with a larger company. Not that they can do much with Nezu, but if the Eidolon are at the altar…”

  They mounted and rode after Deo and the others to a fork that met the path climbing the cliffside. “Worry not, wife. We have something that even the Eidolon dare not face,” he said, smiling to himself. Despite his own concerns, despite the grave situation that faced them, despite even the discomfort of his wounds, which he had to admit were healing at a tremendous rate, he was inexplicably filled with joy. Allegria was once again safely at his side, hale, hearty, and extremely delicious.

  The chaos magic inside him stirred. He’d been grateful for its slumber, no doubt brought about by the gravity of his wounds, but now it seemed to realize that he was healing, and in the presence of the woman who made his libido sing songs of lust, fulfillment, and love. Still… “None of that, now,” he murmured softly to himself, pulling arcany from the sky so that it filled him with its glittering white light. After a moment’s struggle, the chaos subsided again, but he had a nagging feeling that should it rally to its full strength, he would lose the battle to control it.

  Lord Israel’s expression was dark when they met at the fork.

  “You come without the queen’s blessing?” Deo asked, forthright as ever.

  Hallow gave Lord Israel a sympathetic look. The latter appeared to have aged since Hallow had last seen him, no doubt due to the strife with the Banes, as well as the trouble with the queen. “We’ve heard that the queen has lost her interest in combatting Nezu,” Hallow said, hoping to smooth over the rough greeting Deo had offered his father. “We are pleased to have you and your company nonetheless. The battle ahead of us will be a hard one, and every eager heart will be welcome.”

  Israel acknowledged Hallow’s diplomatic words before he eyed his son, the look of dislike quickly fading to one of annoyance. “Your mother, as ever, will not be led. She has chosen to remain with her kin. I managed to rally a few of the water talkers who were not under the sway of the priest, as well as the refugees who sought me out.”

  “Refugees?” Deo asked, glancing past his father to the two ships. “What refugees?”

  “Ours,” Israel answered before pressing his heels to his horse, causing Deo to step back lest he be trampled. “They will remain on the ship, however. They are tired, and many were wounded as they escaped Jalas’s Tribe. They must have rest and time to recover.”

  “That is unfortunate,” was all Deo said.

  �
��I take it that, as usual, you have no company with you?” Israel asked, his gaze moving quickly over each of them. He paused for a moment on Allegria, who was now almost completely bathed in the glowing light of Kiriah. “Not that any company can do what you three together are capable of doing, but still. It seems to me that you never seem to have an army around you.”

  Deo rolled his eyes and mounted his horse, his runes glittering in a way that had Hallow glancing down at his own. They were quiet…at least for the moment.

  “Why would I waste time with a company? Such things are for you and my mother. Allegria and Hallow and I travel much more speedily without a complement of men.”

  “Ahem,” Idril said in an uncharacteristically forceful tone of voice.

  “You do not bear powers to protect yourself as the others do, my dove,” Deo told her, his voice softening as he spoke. “I would not have you battle Nezu, lest you take harm where we would not.”

  “Hallow was most decidedly harmed just yesterday, and yet today he is fine,” Idril pointed out, but Deo ignored her protestations, urging his horse forward until he rode at the head next to his father.

  Hallow exchanged a glance with Allegria.

  “It’s going to be a very long ride with Deo posturing, and his father antagonizing him,” she told him. “Not to mention Idril trying to convince everyone that she’s perfectly able to take care of herself in battle.”

  “I am perfectly able to take care of myself!” Idril yelled back, twisting in the saddle to send Allegria a glare.

  Hallow sighed heavily at the same time that Allegria did the same, causing him to chuckle. “At least you can’t say our lives are boring.”

  “Not even slightly, and remind me, in case I forget again, just how good Idril’s hearing is.”

  Luckily for Hallow’s control over his various magics, they were too far back to hear the obvious argument that Deo and Israel conducted while riding to the altar.