The Silver Sorceress (The Raveling Book 2)

by Alec Hutson

“It was a sailor on a Shan ship sailing to Herath, though it looked like a man from the north. When it was questioned, it… changed. It was monstrous, and it slew seven guardsmen before escaping. It… it claimed to know about these demon children, the ones you believe are the Betrayers.”

  “It was coming to Herath?” asked the magister, glancing at the door as if he expected the creature to burst through it.

  “More enemies,” the queen said bitterly. “And this only reinforces that we need to be allies in this, Lady Numil. Lyr and Dymoria must stand together.”

  Willa bowed her head. “I agree, Your Majesty. Petty rivalries must be put aside.”

  “And we must find others we can trust,” the queen said, drawing something from the folds of her dress. It looked to be a small stoppered vial of some dark liquid.

  The magister’s eyes widened. “You are going to attempt it, my queen?”

  Cein stepped closer to the golden basin. “Yes. We must be certain of the intentions of Jan and this Cho Lin.”

  “What is that?” Willa asked as the queen held up the vial so that the light from the mistglobe illuminated its contents.

  “Blood,” she said matter-of-factly. “Taken from the immortal sorcerer while he was in Saltstone.”

  Blood magic! Willa breathed out slowly. Only necromancy was considered a darker shade of sorcery—what was the queen doing?

  The queen seemed to notice her expression. “There is great power in blood, and it can be a useful tool. It is only evil if the exsanguination results in death or undue suffering. This time, it did not.”

  “What will you do with it?” Willa asked, her mouth dry.

  “Spy,” the queen said simply, and tilted the vial so that a few drops fell into the basin. Willa stepped closer, fearful of what she might see, but nothing seemed strange. The blood was—as to be expected—slowly unspooling in the water, like smoke drifting across a winter sky.

  A look of intense concentration passed over Cein’s face. Her cheeks flushed, her lips pulling back in a grimace to show her gritted teeth. The mistglobe hanging above them flickered, as if whatever the queen was doing threatened to destroy it.

  The water shimmered, colors seeping into it. They swirled, coming together to form shapes… trees… mountains. Willa’s heart quickened. It was like they were staring through a window into another place.

  Sorcery. Willa did not have the same compunctions about magic as most others—she had, in fact, even employed a few sorcerers when it benefited her city—but still it made her feel uneasy. Such power in the hands of a young woman who was already the queen of a great kingdom. There might come a time when Cein’s ambitions would put her in opposition to the Council of Black and White. Willa dreaded that day.

  The image in the basin finally finished resolving. There was a horse on an ancient, rutted road, and its rider from behind looked to be a woman. The hood of her cloak was drawn back, and her black hair was bound in a long pony-tail that reached nearly to her saddle. To the left of this woman, in the far distance, a line of mountains reared stark and imposing. The lands she currently rode through looked to be moors, a rolling gray waste pocked by tall clumps of ragged grass.

  “They are almost to the Mire,” said the magister softly.

  “They?” Willa asked, peering into the basin, looking for the second traveler.

  “The Shan girl and the sorcerer,” the queen answered her. “We are seeing through his eyes.”

  Willa drew in her breath. She had never heard of any sorcery like this before.

  The queen touched the water lightly, and the scene dissolved in the ripples. “We must keep watching. I want to know more about this Shan girl… and what she is hunting.”

  The Pale Fields. It was the place where the forgotten dead roamed—the unloved, the lost, the spirits with no ancestors to burn incense and paper wealth in their honor. Her tutors had told her that the fields were not a real, physical location that could be visited, but rather a state of existence for ghosts unlucky enough to pass beyond the veil with no family left behind. But Cho Lin had always imagined it, even in those childhood sessions, as a spectral wasteland stretching into eternity, rolling gray hills pierced by skeletal trees, with a murky sun hidden behind dark clouds.

  And now, deep in the barbarian lands, she had found a place that perfectly matched her imaginings.

  A fell wind moaned, sweeping over the moors and making the barren branches of the few trees near the road clack together. She shuddered, pulling her cloak tighter. Herath had been cold compared to the warmer lands of Shan, but out here, without walls and buildings to shelter behind, she felt as if she might lose feeling in her limbs. Already her fingers and toes had gone numb.

  “We’ll stop at the next inn we come across for the night,” Jan said loudly over the gusting wind. “We don’t have enough blankets, and we could freeze out here if we make camp and can’t get a fire to catch.”

  Cho Lin glanced at the frozen ground and the dry, dead-looking grass and nodded her agreement. “This place is terrible,” she said bitterly, and Jan chuckled.

  “The moorlands are bleak, I’ll grant you that. But when we truly enter the Mire tomorrow you’ll look back at this part of the journey with fondness.”

  “The Mire?”

  Jan gestured with his arm to encompass the gray wastes. “At least here it’s dry. The Mire is a swamp teeming with snakes that will crawl right into your bedroll and swarmed by insects waiting to feast on your flesh. League upon league of desolation. When last I traveled through it I could use my sorcery to keep me warm and safe. This time we won’t have that luxury.”

  Cho Lin’s heart fell. She had fervently hoped that what was ahead of them would be an improvement over this. Clutching tight to the thought of a fire and a hot drink, she hunkered down in her saddle and silently cursed these forsaken lands, trying by force of will to make an inn materialize farther up the road.

  “We can stay there,” Jan said, nodding in the direction of a dilapidated collection of clay bricks and scarred wooden beams.

  Cho Lin blinked in surprise. She’d thought the building was just another abandoned farm like the many they’d passed along the Way, but Jan had already slid from his horse and was leading it towards a listing barn beside the larger structure. Now that she peered closer she could see smoke rising from the roof, almost obscured by the fog, and light trickling from around the edges of the shuttered windows.

  A roadside inn in Shan—even a small way-stop deep in the wilds—would be bedecked with colorful lanterns welcoming travelers and inviting them inside. This place, by contrast, looked more like a robbers’ hideout than a place to find a comfortable bed and a good meal. Cho Lin glanced once more at the moorlands, and the cold wind chose that moment to rise again, stinging her face and whipping a few stray strands of hair across her eyes. Sighing in grim resignation she slipped from her horse and moved to follow Jan.

  Inside the small stable were a few other horses that looked to have recently been ridden; evidently, the inn was indeed in use. Cho Lin hitched her mount beside Jan’s and then spent a moment gathering hay for the horses from a large pile in the corner. When she was finished she shouldered her travel bag and the long case containing the Sword of Cho, and when she turned again to the entrance she found Jan watching her.

  “For a noble-woman of Shan, you seem comfortable in the stables.”

  Cho Lin pushed past him, heading for the inn’s entrance. “I’ve spent most of my life outside the Jade Court,” she said to him as he followed her. “The other daughters of the mandarins would not recognize me, I think.”

  She lifted the iron knocker and rapped loudly, and a few moments later a heavy thud sounded as something barricading the door was set aside. A woman’s plump face, her cheeks apple red, filled the crack as the door opened slightly. Her eyes brightened when she saw them, and she swung the door wide, smilin
g.

  “Welcome, you weary souls! Come, come!”

  Warmth washed over Cho Lin as she stumbled inside. She had envisioned that what was within the inn would match the dreariness outside, but to her great surprise the common room was homely and inviting. A fire crackled merrily in a hearth of black stone, making the air hazy with the sweet smell of burning wood, and trestle tables filled most of the space. Several travelers in mist-damp cloaks were hunched over steaming bowls or mugs of dark ale, and a few of them turned to stare with interest at the new arrivals.

  “You look like a couple of bog-men, you do,” the matronly woman nattered as she led them to one end of a table and motioned for them to sit. She squinted at Cho Lin, patting her arm after she had slid onto the bench. The familiarity was galling, but Cho Lin restrained herself from jerking back from the touch. “A Shan, the Silver Lady save us. Haven’t had one of you folk come through here in near three years, I would say. And you’re so beautiful! You’ll tell me if any of these louts bother you.” She waved in the direction of the very harmless-looking travelers who had continued gawking at them: a handful of scrawny, pock-faced youths and a fat man with a cleft lip.

  “Thank you,” Cho Lin murmured, surprised by the solicitousness. Perhaps it was the custom here.

  “Some food and drink?” the woman asked cheerily.

  “Anything to eat that’s hot, with a cup of your strongest ale,” Jan said, running his hand through his sandy hair.

  “We’ve a nice chicken soup on the fire and a fine Leskan stout. But perhaps you’d like to try a bit of marsh juice? That’ll fill your belly with fire and get your blood hot for other things too.” She winked at Jan and then glanced at her; when Cho Lin realized what the woman was alluding to she had to fight back a startled gasp at the impropriety of the suggestion.

  “The stout will be fine,” Jan said, unable to restrain a slight smile when he saw Cho Lin’s horrified expression.

  “And you?” she said, turning to Cho Lin.

  Ignoring the flush she felt in her cheeks, Cho Lin held her head high and met the woman’s eyes with cool composure. “Soup. And a hot drink. You have tea?” she asked hopefully.

  “Tea?” the woman repeated, chuckling. “No tea in these parts. How about some mulled mead?”

  Cho Lin glanced at Jan. “Mead?”

  “Northern tea,” Jan said quickly.

  “If the drink is hot, yes, I want.”

  “Be back soon,” the woman promised, and then vanished in a swirl of her tent-like dress. Cho Lin felt dizzy from the exchange, but that might have been the heat from the fire after so long riding in the freezing wind.

  “Relax and enjoy this,” Jan said, unclasping his cloak and setting it beside him. “We have a few hard days of travel ahead of us. There are no inns like this in the depths of the Mire.”

  “You said we might freeze if we camp outside.”

  Jan nodded, rubbing at his wrists, which were still chafed red from the manacles he’d been wearing when she had found him. “More than a few travelers must need supplies before attempting the Mire. They’ll sell some heavy travel blankets and furs here, I’m sure.”

  She caught one of the pocked youths staring at the metal collar around Jan’s neck, which was visible now he had removed his cloak. “You should be careful,” she whispered, leaning closer. “Maybe they think you are an escaped slave.”

  Jan’s fingers found the iron torc, and he gave it a little tug, as if in some vain hope that it might spring open. “They won’t. There’s no slavery in the north. They are more likely to assume that this is some strange city-folk fashion. Ah, here we are.”

  The bustling serving woman returned with a tray laden with two bowls of steaming soup and a pair of tall wooden mugs. She set everything on the trestle table and waited as Cho Lin dug out a few coins from her pouch. “Will you two be needing a cove for the night?”

  Cho Lin looked at Jan blankly. “A cove?”

  “An alcove.” Jan pointed along the far wall, which was divided into a half-dozen small spaces, each separated from the common room by their own curtains. “For sleeping. It’s common in these smaller inns.”

  “Two coves,” Cho Lin said quickly, pulling out a few more coins.

  The woman plucked a silver from her outstretched hand, grinning at Cho Lin’s obvious discomfort. “Enjoy the meal, then. Holler if you need anything else.”

  After the woman had flounced away again, Cho Lin frowned at Jan. “No rooms? We sleep just in there?”

  “You’ll be safe,” Jan said after taking a long swig from his ale and wiping the froth from his lips.

  “Of course I’ll be safe,” Cho Lin hissed. “I will break the neck of anyone who comes through my curtain at the night time. But men and women sleeping almost side by side, in the same big room, just a cloth between us…” She shook her head. “Weiguan.”

  “What’s that?”

  Cho Lin thought for a moment, trying to summon forth the correct Menekarian word. “Barbarians. You are all barbarians.” She dipped her ladle in the soup and slurped the hot broth: it was rich and hearty, with chunks of carrots and potatoes mixed in with the shredded chicken. It was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. She felt the chill leave her bones as the soup settled in her stomach.

  Jan chuckled, watching her reaction. “Try the mead. You’ll like it.”

  She gripped the battered tin handle and brought the cup to her lips, though she did not yet taste the amber liquid inside. Cho Lin breathed deep, enjoying the feel of the steam on her face. “Something sweet?”

  “That’s honey.”

  Honey. She liked honey in her tea. Cho Lin took a tentative sip; she tasted sweetness, yes, but also something spicy, and cutting through it all the sharp tang of rice wine. For a moment she considered spitting out what was in her mouth… but she did not want to look like a barbarian in front of these barbarians. She swallowed.

  “It is like hot wine,” she said reproachfully. “You did not tell me.”

  Jan shrugged and held out his cup to her. “Let us share a drink, yes? A few days ago, I was in chains in a tower. You freed me, and I thank you.”

  Cho Lin tapped his cup with hers and then took another quick drink. It really was quite good. “I freed you for a reason.”

  “To find the demon children.”

  “Yes.”

  He set down his drink carefully, the curiosity clear in his face. “Tell me—why are you the hunter who was sent? Why not one of the warlocks? Or a soldier? Why not –”

  “A man?” she finished for him.

  Jan offered her a rueful smile. “That’s a bit blunt… but yes. And I mean no disrespect. You said you trained at Red Fang, so clearly you can fight. But you’re not more than twenty years old. Surely there was someone older… someone more experienced for a task such as this.”

  With her fingernail Cho Lin traced a whorl in the grain of the table’s wood. “I am from the Cho family. We are legendary in Shan as demon hunters.”

  “But you have no brothers? No father?”

  “My father died only a few months ago,” Cho Lin said, fingering the edges of this still-fresh sadness. “He died in these lands—in the north, even—hunting the Betrayers. The demons of the chest. My brother… he was poisoned when I was a young girl. He lived, but his body was broken. He can no longer lift a sword or ride a horse.” She glanced away, remembering the Cho estate during those terrible months when her brother had hovered on the border between life and death. Her father had been beside himself. Lord Cho’s presence had always loomed over her life, as distant and immutable as the mountains, even though his attention had been focused on the machinations of the Court and the training of her brother. She had been an afterthought to him during her own childhood, valuable only when she would grow older and could be used as a tool to forge an alliance with another of the great h
ouses. But then…

  “After it was clear that my brother could never become what my father wanted, he turned to me. He could have recruited one of his nephews, perhaps, but there was an old hate between him and his brothers. And I was his blood, even if that blood flowed through a girl’s weak body.

  “So he came, one day, to the garden as I played with my friends. I was nine years old. He led me away from the game we were playing and brought me down twisting paths to a dark glade where a man waited with two training swords in his hands. My father told me my childhood was finished. That I must now carry the family’s honor.”

  “A heavy burden,” Jan said quietly.

  “Yes. But I was strong. The man who taught me, he was a Tainted Sword. Once of Red Fang, but he had left the temple in disgrace. I learned much from him. And when I had reached the limit of his skill, I left for Gold Leaf Temple to continue my training. I passed the abbot’s tests. I joined the order. Even my father had never done that.”

  “He must have been very proud.”

  Cho Lin allowed herself a small smile. “Perhaps. He never said such things. I was always a tool for the family, ever since I was born. Only my purpose changed.”

  She brought her drink to her lips and was surprised to find it empty. Jan saw this and motioned for the serving woman to bring them another round.

  During her long months in seclusion at Red Fang, Cho Lin had tried her best to maintain her focus on pushing deeper and deeper into the Nothing. But unwanted thoughts had inevitably encroached while she was alone in the darkness. Some had sprung from what her brother had told her on her last night in the family’s estates, just before she had departed for the temple. He had informed her that their father—still a fairly young man—had taken a third wife in the hopes of siring another son. His first wife—their mother—had killed herself when Cho Lin was an infant. His second wife had turned out to be barren. But this new wife was not much older than Cho Lin herself, and the woman’s sister had already given birth to five healthy boys. Perhaps, her brother had said with a sly smile, she would never need to take up their father’s mantle.