Tracing the Shadow

by Sarah Ash

  A drop of Maunoir blood, that was all he needed to undo the binding spell. But it must be taken by stealth.

  There had been roses in a jug on the trunk and they were drooping, starting to shed their petals. And roses had sharp thorns…

  “I thought you were made of stronger stuff.” Kilian stood over Jagu as he packed his kit. “I never took you for the kind of man to run away.”

  “I just asked to be posted overseas again.” Jagu did not even look up, suspecting that Kilian was trying to provoke him. “I’m not running away.”

  Kilian hunkered down beside him. “So she turned you down? The captain’s made you an offer you’d be a fool to reject. And yet here you are, playing the rejected lover.”

  Jagu said nothing.

  “Haven’t you heard? Grand Maistre Donatien has resigned. He’s retired to the Monastery of Saint Bernez. Very suddenly. Very unexpectedly.”

  Jagu raised his head. He had been so wrapped up in his own misery that he had been oblivious to other events going on around him. “Resigned? Is he ill?”

  “There’s all kinds of rumors flying around.” Kilian leaned closer to Jagu and added in an undertone, “Some are even saying he’s betrayed the Commanderie.”

  “Maistre Donatien?” Jagu gazed at Kilian and saw that, for once, his friend was in earnest.

  “A canker eating away at the heart of our brotherhood. It could easily destabilize the Commanderie.”

  “You don’t think that what happened to the regiment in Ondhessar—”

  “All I’m saying is: Be careful. We’re entering uncharted waters. The captain will need our support.”

  “Fresh roses, Henri?” Celestine took the little bouquet of blush-cream blooms from him and sniffed them, inhaling a faint memory of summer from their petals. He must have noticed that the others had died. “Autumn roses have such a delicate scent. Thank you.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I’ll put them in water straightaway.”

  The stems were studded with vicious thorns and, in spite of handling them carefully, she still managed to prick her thumb as she placed them in a vase. “Ow!” She sucked the tiny puncture.

  “You should let the blood flow to flush out any dirt that might infect the cut.” He held out his handkerchief.

  “It’s only a little thorn prick.” But she was touched that he should worry about her, and taking the fine white linen, she pressed it to her injured thumb. “See? The bleeding’s stopped already.”

  The glimmer in the soul-glass flickered, like a candleflame wavering in the breeze. Aethyric crystal had remarkable properties, but it could not sustain a mortal soul for too long once that soul was separated from its body, as Rieuk already knew to his cost.

  “Henri, we’re going out to the drapers’ to choose trimmings and lace,” announced Dame Elmire. “Look at you; you’re a disgrace. You’ve been wearing the same clothes since the day before yesterday and you haven’t even bothered to shave.”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt.” At last the house would be empty and he could complete his mission.

  He waited until he heard the front door close, then made his way upstairs and into Celestine’s chamber, lurching in his haste and almost losing control of the Maistre’s body. He knelt and took the jug of roses off the wooden trunk. Undoing the catch was frustratingly difficult with the Maistre’s long, slender fingers but at last he managed it and flung open the lid.

  “There you are,” he breathed. Celestine, trusting soul that she was, had merely wrapped her father’s grimoire in an old petticoat. He had no doubt that his long search was over, for as his fingers closed around the book’s leather binding and he lifted it from its hiding place, he felt the telltale tingle of aethyrial energy in his fingertips.

  But the image on the front of the book confused him: the title proclaimed in gold letters that it was a Lives of the Holy Saints. The cover showed a pious young woman with hands tight-clasped in prayer, and a modest, downcast gaze. Was he mistaken? Yet even as he puzzled over it, the woman in the picture slowly raised her head and fixed him with large, soulful eyes.

  “You. It is you. Why have you been evading me for so long?” He gazed back at her in wonder. “Don’t you remember me? I set you free.”

  “But you were too weak to bind me.” Each word resounded in his mind like a clear crystal bell.

  “I’m much stronger now. And I know your true name.”

  “I am already bound to Celestine. Bound by blood.”

  Rieuk had never once imagined that the spirit would defy him. “I’m going to break that bond. I’m going to take you back to Ondhessar.”

  A shudder went through the spirit’s translucent form. “And what if I don’t want to return?”

  “But the Rift is closing. And as it closes, our mage powers are growing weaker.” She seemed not to be listening. Panicking, he tried a more personal appeal. “We’re your children, aren’t we? We need you, Azilis. We need you to keep the Rift between the worlds open.”

  “Children? What children would keep their mother imprisoned against her will?”

  Rieuk had not anticipated this. “But you’re in thrall to Celestine de Joyeuse. You’re still a prisoner.” I’ve searched for you for all these years. How can you reject me in favor of Celestine?

  Fighting the growing sense of desperation, he drew out the handkerchief spotted with Celestine’s blood and dipped it in the rose water, squeezing the stained fabric over the book. The trace of blood would be so diluted that it might not work.

  “Why are you trying to sever the link between us?” The spirit rose up out of the book, towering above him. “Celestine. Celestine!” And that terrible, high keening that he had first heard in Hervé de Maunoir’s study began again.

  Something’s not right. Celestine had been troubled by a faint feeling of unease ever since she left the house. She could not identify the cause, although there was a fitful, cold wind blowing that rattled the shutters and set the shop signs creaking as they swung to and fro above her head. It had rained during the night and there were many puddles to be avoided.

  She had been looking forward to choosing the lace and ribbons to adorn her wedding dress but it was difficult to put her mind to such charming fripperies when she felt so jumpy.

  The Faie’s cry pierced her mind like a sliver of ice.

  The book. Someone is stealing the book!

  “Excuse me, I think I’ve dropped one of my gloves. I’ll just run back…”

  “I’ll wait for you at the draper’s shop,” called Dame Elmire after her.

  “Celestine, help me!” As Celestine ran, she heard the Faie’s desperate cry again. She gathered up handfuls of her skirts so that she could move more swiftly, not caring who saw.

  She pushed open the gates and stumbled up the path, banging on the door with both fists.

  “Henri! Let me in!”

  There was no reply.

  “Celestine!” A high-pitched, unearthly scream came from upstairs, the same sound that had once woken her from sleep, many years before. She rattled the door handle frantically, fumbling for her key. Where was Francinette? Out at the market, perhaps…or scrubbing pots and pans in the basement kitchen, deaf to her cries.

  At last Celestine found her key and with shaking fingers unlocked the door. As she ran up the stairs, the eerie, mind-splitting wail grew louder and more desperate till it blotted out all thoughts but one: Stop the thief.

  She flung open her door. Henri knelt on the floor, her book in his hands. The Faie writhed above him, a pale, twisted shadow.

  “Henri! What are you doing?” How did he know about the book? Had he been set up by the Inquisition to uncover her secret? Was this the reason for his increasingly strange behavior toward her during the past two days?

  Slowly, interminably slowly, Henri turned around to stare at her with the same dull, dead expression that she had seen the night before.

  “This is not Henri de Joyeuse,” the Faie told her.

  “Who—who are you?�
� Celestine took a step back, overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of dread.

  “This aethyrial spirit is not yours, Klervie.” Henri’s mouth framed the words and the voice was Henri’s, but the intelligence behind them must be another’s. Who else could possibly know her true identity?

  “Magus,” whispered Celestine, taking another step back. He is here. She had waited so long to find him and now he—or his consciousness—was here in her bedchamber. “Soul-stealer. Restore Henri to me.”

  “First give me the book and the spirit. And a drop of your blood to break your father’s blood-bond.”

  Henri’s body was moving without his own volition, a grotesque, terrifying puppet. “First restore Henri,” she insisted, trying to control the shaking in her voice.

  “I want to stay with you, Celestine.” The Faie gazed at her beseechingly. “Don’t give me to this magus.”

  “How can you make me choose between you?” Celestine gazed back at the Faie. The Faie had protected her, saved her life, and gifted her. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. Tears started to her eyes. “I love you both so much.”

  “Hervé’s book and the spirit, in exchange for Henri de Joyeuse’s soul,” said the magus quietly.

  “Faie; help me.”

  The Faie, just as she had in Bel’Esstar, gathered herself and in a dazzling swirl of pale light, melted into her. Celestine felt the Faie’s power seeping through her, infusing her with strength until her veins pulsed with a clear energy.

  The thing that was and was not Henri flung up one hand to shield his eyes from the brightness. “Attack me, and you attack Henri de Joyeuse. Damage this body, and you damage the one you love.” The magus clutched the book to Henri’s breast like a shield.

  He had outmaneuvered her. Celestine let out a cry of frustration.

  “If we render him unconscious, then the spirit bird possessing his body will be forced out.”

  “But we mustn’t harm him.” Celestine wavered, caught in an agony of indecision.

  “His vital signs are failing. If you don’t act now, it will be too late.”

  Too late?

  “If body and soul are kept apart for too long, they can never be reunited. He will die anyway.”

  That decided her. Celestine’s hand shot out, pointing at Henri’s fair head. She felt the Faie’s clear, bright energy surge through her, passing down her arm and through her extended fingers.

  Henri’s head jerked back and he crumpled to the floor, the book slipping from his fingers.

  And as she watched in horrified amazement, a shadow began to slide out of his slack mouth, slowly taking a recognizable shape: first the sharp beak, then bright amber eyes, smoke-speckled wings, the feathery tips serrated…

  “A bird. A…hawk?”

  Suddenly a terrible rage flared up in Celestine; the magus had betrayed her father and now he had struck at the one she loved. As the shadow bird darted toward the window, she flung out her hand again, loosing another dart of translucent energy.

  A shudder went through the hawk’s body and it let out a piercing cry. She had wounded it! For a moment it veered off course, flapping raggedly, as though it could no longer see where it was going. Tatters of shadow flew into the air, falling like flakes of sooty snow.

  Celestine, eyes dazzled by the brightness of the Faie’s attack, saw the hawk recover—and fly straight through the windowpane, out into the daylight.

  She stumbled after it, flinging open the window, gripping the high sill, as she leaned out to see where it was going. It was heading toward the backs of the main street, a trail of smoke against the cloudy sky. So he had been in hiding nearby, that damned magus. Why had she not sensed his presence? In her rage, her first instinct was to pursue the familiar and destroy it, once and for all.

  But then she remembered Henri.

  A shaft of whitefire pierced Ormas’s skull. Searing pain knocked Rieuk to the floor as the injured hawk hurtled through the pane and melded with him.

  My eye. My eye’s on fire. I’m blind.

  A terrible madness gripped him. He writhed on the floor, moaning, unable to gain control of his own body, living Ormas’s agony as well as his own. When your Emissary is hurt, you hurt, too.

  “Maistre?” Celestine threw herself on her knees beside him, trying to lift his head and shoulders. “Speak to me.” But unconscious, he was so heavy that she could do no more than lift his head onto her lap.

  “Faie, what shall I do?” she cried, desperate. “Why doesn’t he respond? That cursed shadow creature has left his body.” She clutched his wrist tight, feeling in vain for a pulse. “Henri, dear Henri, please come back.” She kissed his face, his lids, his chill lips. “Come back to me!”

  Azilis. Rieuk pressed one hand to the agony of fire that burned where his right eye had been, rocking to and fro. Gouts of seared blood and tissue dripped onto the boards through his clenched fingers.

  For a moment, she had been within his grasp, dazzlingly luminous in her pure, aethyrial beauty. Then she had melted into Celestine’s body, merging with her, rejecting him.

  Why had he hesitated? Why, when he was so close to possessing her, had he held back? For in that momentary hesitation when, hurt and confused, he had not known what to do, she had struck, attacking Ormas, forcing him from the eidolon’s body.

  He opened his mouth and howled aloud his pain and frustration.

  Ruaud stopped at the flower stall on the corner of the avenue.

  “A bouquet, please.”

  “What would you like, officer?” asked the flower girl. “I’ve autumn roses, lilies…”

  Ruaud knew nothing about flowers. “I leave the selection to you,” he said, handing over his money.

  He had just turned into the narrow ruelle that led to Maistre de Joyeuse’s mansion when a streak of darkness passed overhead. He stopped, gripped by a vivid, chilling memory. That birdlike shadow…It was so like the magus’s familiar that had attacked him in Saint Argantel’s that for a moment he could not move.

  But why would it be here? The magus had destroyed Argantel’s Angelstones years ago in Kemper. What possible reason could he have for returning now? Unless he had come for Lord Galizur’s stone, which Maistre Donatien wore?

  He shook his head, dismissing the thought. I must be hallucinating.

  The front door to the Joyeuse mansion was ajar.

  “Anyone at home?” Ruaud called. When there was no reply, he went in. The sound of smothered sobbing was coming from the upper landing.

  “Celestine?” He hurried up the stairs and saw Henri de Joyeuse lying on the floor, with Celestine supporting his head in her lap. The Maistre’s face was deathly pale and his eyes were closed.

  “What’s happened?” The bouquet dropped from Ruaud’s hand. He knelt beside her and felt for a pulse in the Maistre’s throat. “Did he faint?”

  “That magus.” She looked up and he saw the tears streaking her face. “He was here. He—he said—”

  “Here?” But there was no time for questions; Henri de Joyeuse’s pulse was so faint that he would soon slip from unconsciousness into death. “This is the work of a soul-stealer,” said Ruaud as he straightened up. “I feared as much when I saw his shadow creature just now. I just could not believe—”

  “Is there any hope for Henri, Captain?” Celestine broke in, her blue eyes blazing through the tears. “If there’s anything I can do to bring him back, I’ll do it. Just tell me what it is.” He realized that, in spite of her tears, she was ready to fight for her lover’s life.

  “The magus must have his soul imprisoned in a soul-glass.” He was remembering Paol de Lannion. “That’s how they do it; they charm out the living soul and replace it with their familiar. If we hurry, there may still be a chance. Did you see where it went?”

  She pointed toward the window. “The familiar flew toward the avenue. Several of the houses back onto the ruelle.”

  As he ran down the stairs he heard her calling after him, “Please hurry!”
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  A line of black crows had gathered on the rooftop of one of the houses. As Ruaud hurried up the steps, he half expected them to rise up and attack him, as they had in Kemper.

  He was only too aware that with every minute that passed, Henri de Joyeuse was slipping further and further away from life, and soon it would be too late to bring him back. Now that there was no vital spirit to animate his body, death would soon claim him.

  “Commanderie!” he shouted as he pounded on the door. “Open up immediately!”

  After what seemed an age, an elderly concierge opened the door and peered at him.

  He charged past her up the stairs.

  Soul-stealing was a coward’s magic, an underhanded, devious piece of trickery. The magus could skulk out of sight, undetected, while using his victim’s body to achieve his goal.

  Ruaud could smell magic close by, a dark-spiced, feral odor. Before Kemper, he had not been able to detect it. But ever since his duel with the magus, he had developed a stronger instinct for the Forbidden Arts.

  On the sixth and uppermost floor of the narrow building, the stink of magic grew stronger. He was confronted by a single door. “Open up!” he cried. When there was no reply, he kicked the door open.

  He halted on the threshold. It was a tawdry, poky little room, half-lit by a grubby-paned window set in the eaves that afforded a good view of the Maistre’s house below.

  Spots of blood stained the bare boards; freshly spilled, Ruaud reckoned, from the look of it. If the magus had been here, he was injured and could not have got far…

  He tugged the thin mattress off the bed, flinging it on the floor, frantically searching beneath for the soul-glass. The magus would have little use for it now.

  And then he stopped, hearing the crunch of glass beneath his foot.

  “Oh no.” He knelt down and felt with careful fingers on the dusty boards. Soon they closed on sharp shards: the fragments of a delicate lotus glass with its priceless contents all leaked away.