Broken Web

by Lori M. Lee

  BROKEN WEB

  Lori M. Lee

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  For the ones who dream of home.

  ONE

  The forest is still, the branches streaked in sunset. Weeds and shadows press at my heels.

  The silence is a lie. I don’t need my craft to catch the faint flutter of wings hidden behind broad summer leaves or the shuffle of small paws in the underbrush. But with my craft, every presence is amplified, like a dozen voices shouting at once.

  My teeth clench. The souls are indistinct—I lack the control to separate them into individuals—and my fingers twitch restlessly. Magic burns through my veins, surging against my skin. With a frustrated exhale, I flatten my palms against my stomach and imagine compressing my craft into a burning ember of power at my core. It’s like trying to stuff a storm into a cage. Still, my awareness of the souls dims enough that I can ignore them.

  I draw a throwing knife from my belt, letting my other senses home in on the speckled hare digging for roots to my right. Before the blade leaves my hand, an arrow whizzes past my shoulder, finding my mark first.

  Returning the knife to my belt, I face Saengo, who lowers her bow. “I had it,” I say.

  “You were taking ages, and I’m hungry.” Her boots are silent as she moves past me through the deepening gloom to retrieve the hare. “No luck?”

  “No,” I say quietly. My gaze flicks in the direction she came from, toward camp where some three dozen Nuvali shamans and their familiars await.

  Prince Meilek is there as well, having agreed to accompany us until the falcons he’d sent to Evewyn return. After betraying his sister, the queen, he’s no longer safe in his own kingdom, not until he can confirm he still has allies.

  For the last week, I’ve been trying to use my craft to hunt, as it was originally intended. But my first attempt ended in disaster when I ripped the souls of every creature within twenty paces. Since then, I’ve been trying to focus on individual souls, but it’s been impossible without either physical contact or close proximity.

  Heat flecks the tips of my fingers. It doesn’t help that my magic seemingly wants to be used, straining toward every living thing within reach to loosen the tether between soul and body. It’s disconcerting and keeps me on edge.

  The Nuvali dislike that Saengo and I hunt on our own, but when they invited me to join them in the shaman capital, I made clear that I would keep my freedom to come and go as I wish. Thus far, they’ve tolerated it, but their grudging allowance is another reason to be cautious with my craft. I can’t trust we won’t be followed.

  “You’ll get it, Sirscha. You always do,” Saengo says. Hare in hand, she wipes the arrowhead on some leaves and then returns it to her quiver.

  I’m not so confident. My magic feels different, unruly. Before I fought Ronin at Spinner’s End a fortnight ago, I struggled to even summon my craft. But to defeat him, I’d allowed the Soulless’s power to flow through me and strengthen my magic. Even after the molten presence of his power faded, my craft never quite settled.

  I haven’t told Saengo. Hers is the only soul I can pick out without difficulty. She is always with me, a candle flame burning behind my ribs.

  She hands me the hare and grimaces as I set about cleaning it. For all her training, she’s surprisingly squeamish. I grin and consider flicking entrails at her.

  “Don’t you dare,” she says, eyes narrowing as she backs away from me.

  “What?” I say, laughing.

  “Don’t think I won’t find something even more disgusting to leave in your bedroll.”

  I snort, grinning. “I would never underestimate you.”

  “I don’t know how you can even see what you’re doing.” She indicates the quickening night.

  “It’s not fully dark yet. Besides, I’d make a lousy Shadow if I couldn’t even do this….” My voice trails off. I’d chased that ambition for so long—becoming Shadow to the queen of Evewyn, her royal spy and assassin. Sometimes I forget that, even if I still wanted it, it’s now well beyond my reach.

  Silence lingers for a beat, filled by the dull ache of old dreams. Then Saengo says, “We’ll be to Mirrim soon.”

  I nod, crouched over my work. “Hopefully, we’ll get some answers.”

  Mirrim, the capital of the Nuvalyn Empire, lies far to the east. Despite the risk, we agreed that going there was our best option. Posing as their soulguide is the best way to gain access to whatever information might be kept there about the Soulless. So long as my true craft stays hidden.

  Besides Saengo, only Prince Meilek knows that I’m a soulrender, because he was present when I learned the truth. But we’ve another reason for venturing so deep into the Empire. Saengo is infected with the rot, and we’ve been promised Mirrim’s best healers for her.

  Part of me suspects, though, that she will never truly be healed until the Soulless is dealt with. His corrupted magic has infected her as surely as it’s infected me, setting flame to my craft so that it burns beneath my skin. Always restless, always eager.

  She fusses with the ends of her red sash, picking at frayed threads. “It’s frightening, isn’t it?” she asks softly.

  “Me?” I fear my own craft, so why wouldn’t Saengo? It was my power that turned her into a familiar. Now, she is bound to me—a spirit restored to shape and form in exchange for channeling my magic. Sometimes, I don’t know how she can even bear to look at me, given what I’ve done to her.

  “No, Sirscha,” she says, exasperated. “Your magic.”

  “Me, my magic. It’s all the same.”

  “Of course it isn’t. You were you before you ever learned you were a soulrender.”

  I sigh. While I understand her meaning, it’s not so simple. My powers are unsettling even to me. Souls are the source of shamanic magic. That a soulrender can grasp souls and destroy them is an attack against magic itself. Fear of what soulrenders can do—fear of what the Soulless did—is what drove the Empire to destroy them.

  Aside from myself and the Soulless, no other soulrenders remain.

  Finished with the hare, I stand and swing the carcass at Saengo, who yelps and dashes out of reach.

  “Get that thing to a cooking fire,” she says, poking the air between us with one finger.

  “At once, my lady.”

  She leads us back to camp, our boots whispering through the weeds. Somewhere overhead comes a sharp birdcall. Saengo looks up, grinning. Millie, her pet falcon, has been following us since we entered the Empire.

  With her back to me, my smile fades. Holding the hare out at my side, I frown down at the faint spatter of blood on my pants. Although we’re both in our old gray uniforms from the Queen’s Company, there’s little chance anyone would mistake us for fourth-years. Had I not discovered that I’m shamanborn, Saengo and I would have graduated from the Company a few weeks ago and been shipped off to some distant post to begin our years of military service. We probably would’ve been separated.

  The person I was feels so far away that it might as well be a diff
erent lifetime.

  Now, our uniforms are thoroughly travel-worn, washed and rewashed since we set out for Mirrim. I keep my hair in a braid for function, but Saengo’s is short enough that the ends curl beneath her ears. She’s a far cry from the reiwyn lady she’s meant to be.

  After the Soulless’s awakening, no one had quite known what to make of the surge of magic that swept from the Dead Wood. With no sign of the Spider King, no one was willing to enter a forest of vengeful souls to find out.

  So the camps sent off their falcons and packed up. There’d been nothing else to do, and I wasn’t about to risk Saengo’s safety by volunteering the truth.

  Sisters, this is hopeless. I draw a deep, slow breath and shake away the thought. The Soulless is just a man, same as Ronin. All shamans need familiars, something that bridges them with their magic. The Soulless can’t be any different.

  If we can find out what’s connecting him to his magic, then we find the key to defeating him.

  Two days later, we arrive in the trade city of Luam. Sitting at the confluence of two major rivers, the city sprawls around and above the water.

  It is the largest city we’ve passed through. The previous towns were no more than a scattering of homes and buildings. I suspect our route was deliberate to keep word of my presence contained. There’s no hiding here, though.

  The sheer number of souls is overwhelming, and it takes several minutes for me to smother the surge of magic burning through my skin. I focus on the warm glow of Saengo’s soul as she rides at my side. Exposing my craft wouldn’t just put me and Saengo in danger. It would endanger Prince Meilek and the other Evewynians in our party. They only came this far at my request.

  Boats pack the river from end to end. Some drift lazily along the banks and bridges, carrying goods to sell or trade. Others cut swiftly through the waves, a golden Nuvali sun painted along their sides and a uniformed waterwender at the helm. Broad bridges arch over the water. Buildings stand on thick stilts, crammed side to side, connected by wooden walkways.

  Our procession is hard to miss as we enter the city, stalling foot traffic. At our lead is a lightwender priestess named Mia who met us on the road yesterday morning with a small party of lightwender guards. As everyone believes I’m a soulguide, the first to appear since the founding of the Empire, the Emperor had deemed it necessary to send an escort from the Temple of Light to ensure I reach Mirrim safely.

  With the threat of war between the kingdoms, the Nuvali want me somewhere “safe.” But I wouldn’t have come if it didn’t also serve my own purposes, and I’m only safe so long as they think I’m a soulguide.

  After taking control of our group, Priestess Mia sent the Nuvali lord we’d been traveling with ahead to report to the Emperor. Aside from an awkward introduction, I’ve been doing my best to avoid them. I’m wary of questions I might not be able to answer.

  Priestess Mia glances over her shoulder and gestures with one slick fingernail for me to join her at the head of our procession.

  I smother my annoyance at being beckoned and nudge Yandor ahead. Yandor is a common drake with a sleek head and dark green scales. But Priestess Mia rides a snowy white dragokin, a species native to the Empire, with liquid black eyes and shining white horns swirled with gold paint. Like drakes, dragokins stand on two powerful legs but with shorter arms and claws, making them vicious companions in battle. Everything about Priestess Mia screams her status at the Temple of Light, where young lightwenders go to study and master their light crafts.

  Priestess Mia herself is a petite woman with long black hair and warm copper skin. Her eyes are a luminous amber, the mark of a lightwender, and framed by sparse lashes accented with kohl. Gold dust streaks her lids. According to the murmurs in our party, she’s a lightgiver. Lightgivers can transfer the light, or life, of one person to another—a power rarely used except in times of dire need.

  White robes drape from her shoulders, the hem embroidered with golden sunbursts. A sheer golden sash cinches her waist, knotted elaborately to denote her rank.

  “Priestess,” I murmur as I join her and nod politely.

  She returns the gesture. Her gaze passes over the two swords at my back and then to Yandor’s saddle, where a third sword is wrapped within a long strip of cloth. She doesn’t remark on why I’m carrying so many weapons.

  Around us, people pause to watch as we pass. I fight the impulse to hide, to shrink into the shadows. Nearly everyone possesses the pointed ears and jewel-bright eyes of a shaman, although I’ve learned that even among the same Calling, the range of hues can vary. After two weeks on the road and numerous towns, I’ve seen lightwenders with every shade from the palest gold to vivid amber, and, in a trade city of this size, even some gray-eyed shamans who’ve never bonded with a familiar.

  Familiars in the form of all manner of beasts accompany them. Birds flit from shoulders to rooftops, snakes and other smaller creatures curl around necks or ride tucked into satchels, their furred heads peering out from the openings. Lizards perch atop the brims of hats or burrow into the hoods of cloaks. Larger familiars—silver wolves, black foxes, and even a fire salamander—trot alongside their shamans. It’s breathtaking to see so many creatures living naturally alongside people.

  Among the boats that crowd the riverways, I glimpse the white hair and gray skin of the shadowblessed. I even spot brown-eyed humans with rounded ears like Saengo’s. Like mine. To hide the truth of my parentage, whoever abandoned me to an orphanage cut my ears when I was a child.

  “The governor of Luam is away on business, but he offered us the use of his home for the night,” Priestess Mia says. Although her lips curve into a pleasant smile, there’s a hardness in the way she observes me. Her luminous eyes lack warmth.

  She must question the veracity of who I claim to be, and I don’t blame her. I expect there will be others who feel the same in Mirrim.

  “That was generous of him, “I say awkwardly. I loathe making small talk and nearly glance back at Saengo for guidance. As the heir to House Phang, she is well versed in socializing with other reiwyn.

  We cross a series of bridges, heading into the eastern part of the city. Beyond the bank of the river, built atop a rise half-covered in wild sunflowers, is a whitewashed mansion. It’ll be a nice change from tents.

  Priestess Mia runs her pale fingers along the reins of her dragokin. “There is one thing, however, about the Evewynian prince and his soldiers.”

  Her words steal my attention from the bustle around us. Prince Meilek and his small group of Eveywnians ride near the rear of our procession. A few days after setting out from the north, several of his Blades and servants caught up to our party, declaring their intent to remain with their prince. I recognized two of them from when Saengo and I were imprisoned at the Valley of Cranes.

  After Prince Meilek warned the Nuvali and Kazan about his sister’s attack in the north, no one objected to his presence. But while Prince Meilek agreed to remain with me until he’s heard from his allies, I know he’s restless. This deep into the Empire, the Evewynians have clung together, uncertain of their welcome and wary of a people their queen has fashioned into enemies.

  “What about them?” I ask stiffly.

  Priestess Mia speaks with a clipped matter-of-factness. “He and his soldiers are, of course, welcome in Luam. However, housing a fugitive prince within a government-issued home could be misconstrued. The Emperor has not decided how to respond to Evewyn’s attack, and such a move might be seen as an escalation.”

  I was prepared to argue with whatever she said, but this is unexpected. It irks me that she has a point.

  Still, Prince Meilek saved lives in the north. There’s little doubt the Empire won’t retaliate for Evewyn breaking the peace treaty long enforced by Ronin. But until the Emperor decides what that retaliation will be, they’ll want to avoid anything that might imply the Emperor’s approval.

  Allowing Prince Meilek safe passage through the Empire seems a clear enough stance to me, but wh
at do I know of politics?

  “Then I will find other accommodations with them,” I say. Being able to speak with Prince Meilek away from the constant presence of our Nuvali escort will be welcome. There’s too much we haven’t discussed.

  “You cannot,” she says simply. “I have been entrusted with your safety.”

  “Not by me.”

  Her lips pinch, just the slightest. “By the High Priestess of the Temple of Light and the Emperor. Look at the manner of our arrival—within hours, everyone will know you’re here. Luam is a city open to people from all over Thiy, including those historically at odds with the Empire.”

  I nearly snort. It’s a delicate way of alluding to the ongoing hostility between the Nuvalyn Empire and Kazahyn.

  “The governor’s home is well protected. It’s the safest place for you and your friend. But if you insist on remaining with the Evewynian prince, then my guards and I will have no choice but to join you,” she says, her tone suggesting she’d rather dive into the river.

  Saengo and I can take care of ourselves. As much as it would amuse me to inconvenience her, I wouldn’t be able to speak freely with Prince Meilek, knowing she and her Light Temple guards are under the same roof. I can’t trust them. But there might still be a way.

  “I’ll speak with Prince Meilek,” I say, and excuse myself with another bow.

  Saengo lifts one eyebrow in question as I pass her. “Later,” I mouth and make my way to Prince Meilek and the other Evewynians at the back of our party.

  Prince Meilek rides flanked by two of his Blades, Evewyn’s warrior elite and former members of the Queen’s Guard. The rest of his group follow at his back, clustered together in this foreign city.

  He has abandoned his pristine captain’s look these last couple weeks. While the upper half of his hair is swept back into a ponytail at the crown of his head, the dark strands are mussed from a long day’s ride, and a fine layer of dust coats his clothes. After the heat of the day, he’s rolled back his sleeves and loosened the collar of his tunic. To blend in with the others, he’s removed the golden hairpin that announces his royal blood, and the green sash at his waist is tied in a humble knot.