Shadowlands

by Malan, Violette

  Wings stopped suddenly, his brow furrowed, bringing Wolf to a stop with him. “Wait, you will not have heard,” he said. “The Griffin Lord has Faded.”

  Wolf stood blinking for a long moment. Lightborn? Lightborn Faded? “Was it the Hunt?” he said, his voice sounding far away.

  “The Hunt? Why would you think of such things? As if the reality was not difficult enough?”

  Wolf shook his head, momentarily at a loss for words. “It is just—so suddenly? What could have happened?”

  Wings put his hand on Wolf’s arm. “Some of the Basilisk’s Warriors cannot surrender.”

  “There are always fools, in every conflict, but—”

  “No, you misunderstand. Not they will not surrender, they cannot. The High Prince says it is a Chant, similar to the Chant of Binding. Lightborn,” Wings of Cloud exhaled sharply. “Lightborn thought the Rider merely frightened of capture, and did not expect the blow that killed him.”

  Wolf looked down the corridor toward the entrance, then back, in the direction they were headed. This news changed things; there was something else he needed to do now.

  “The Lady Moon,” he said. “Do you know where she might be found?”

  Wings studied his face before finally nodding. “You are in luck, my friend. She is here, in this very pavilion, but this way.” The Wild Rider drew Wolf back to a cross corridor lined in orange silk that they had earlier passed by.

  “You will deal carefully?” Wings said, as they came to a door made of a sliding screen painted with Manticores. “The loss has been greatest for her.”

  “She loved him.” Wolf glanced at the door and back to the Wild Rider. “I know.”

  Wings of Cloud rested his hand on Wolf’s shoulder, squeezed lightly before letting him go. “I like you, my friend. You are quiet, as though you bring some of the stillness of Ma’at with you. I’d rather see more of such as you, and less of those like our friend at the entrance. Have you ever given thought to becoming a Wild Rider?”

  An unfamiliar tightening in his chest stopped any quick answer he might have made. This was tantamount to an invitation to join the fara’ip of the Wild Riders, which meant that others among them must feel the same way, must have spoken of him among themselves. It was the first such gesture of friendship he had received since his Healing.

  No. He was wrong. This was the first such gesture from another Rider. The human girl, Valory. She had offered to be his friend. Wolf shrugged away the image of her warm golden eyes. Like the High Prince, Valory knew and accepted him for what he was, but she was human. He could not expect that many others of his own kind would feel the same.

  “I value your welcome, more than I can say,” he told Wings. “But for now I must think of my duty to the High Prince.” He would have to tell them. He could not become part of a fara’ip unless the truth was known to all. Even if it meant the welcome would be withdrawn. “Perhaps, when my task is discharged…”

  “Of course. We will not forget.” Wings gestured at the door. “When you are ready to see the Prince, Moon will call me.”

  The sliding darkwood-and-silk panel opened into a room full of sunlight, and the smell of rainfall on summer grass. There were several people already in the room, but before he could announce himself, he found his arms full of a Starward Rider dressed in the colors of the High Prince.

  “Wolf, what brings you—” Moon released him and stepped back far enough to see his face. “Oh. The same thing that brings everyone.” It was hard to be certain in this light, but it seemed that Moon’s almond skin had paled to alabaster. Certainly her gray eyes, so like those of her sister, seemed to carry an extra shadow.

  “You smell differently,” he said.

  Now her eyes lightened, and her smile broadened. “That would be the child.” She put her hand on her belly, though so far as Wolf could see, there was yet no swelling there. “I carry a small grifflet, though whether lord or lady, my sister will not say.”

  “But then you…” Wolf let the words trail away as he studied Moon more closely. The slight giddiness in her speech, the way her heart beat faster. “You have more dra’aj,” he said, and his heart grew cold. How is this possible?

  “No, not I.” Moon patted her stomach. “Again, it is the child, and the dra’aj is his.” Lightborn’s she meant, though how that was possible Wolf could not imagine. “But come, we need not be standing here.” She drew him farther into the room. The other two Riders, after being introduced as Singers helping Moon with a search, excused themselves with sympathetic smiles. Moon pulled him down next to her in the wide window seat.

  “Moon, I am more sorry than I can say.”

  Her faced hardened to a mask so quickly that Wolf cursed himself for speaking. But then she softened again, her eyes half-hooded, and slipped her hand into his.

  “I wished you with me, when the news came.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, as if she could keep the grief away if she were quiet. “You are the only one who has known my heart from the first.” She looked at him, silvery tears welling in her eyes. “At times, it is more than I can bear.”

  “It becomes less sharp,” he told her, covering her hand with his own. “There will come moments, more and more, when you do not think of it. But it will never go completely. You will never lose him completely.”

  She squeezed his hand and drew hers back. Her eyes glittered again as she turned away.

  “Did you come first to me?” she said. “I was not expecting you back so soon.”

  Unsure how much to tell her, Wolf looked down at his clasped hands, then let his eyes wander to examine the room itself. It was a strange hybrid. The walls by the sliding door were the taut silks of the Princes’ pavilion, here flame colored, while the window wall where they sat was paneled, a layer of darkwood covering a wide thickness of stone. As if to emphasize its difference, the window looked out onto a rocky coast, where the tide was only beginning to turn. He glanced sideways at Moon, and the drifting melancholy of her face brought him to a decision. Telling her would be good practice for speaking to the High Prince, and it would serve to distract her as well.

  “I found someone I was not, exactly, looking for.” When Moon turned to lift an eyebrow at him, Wolf began by telling her of finding Nighthawk, and Graycloud at Moonrise.

  “Graycloud has been here himself, with his foster daughter. I spoke with him, though not with her.”

  Wolf drew in his breath. Valory had been here; she had spoken with the High Prince. Did they talk about me? “He came, then? He had hoped that his injury would not worsen.”

  “They came with other news, they spoke of the human Outsiders, and of what they called stable Hounds. I was just now consulting with the Singers, asking them to search for any Song that might tell us of such things.”

  “Then I have something to add to your knowledge. When I was with Graycloud and Valory Martin, we did not know how the Hunt were keeping their Rider shapes.” As he told Moon about his encounter with Swift River Current, she left the window seat, going to pour two cups of wine from a dark clay bottle sitting on a table against the silk wall.

  He took a cup from her gratefully, and only just stopped himself from draining it at once, forcing himself to savor the taste. He waited until Moon had seated herself again to continue.

  “She did not at first realize that I was no longer…that I was not—”

  “That you had been Healed.”

  Wolf nodded. “She thought that I kept my Rider shape because I had fed on humans. She claimed that feeding on human dra’aj could stabilize us—them—somehow, enabling them to control the changes.”

  “Interesting.” Moon clasped her hands in her lap and tapped her thumbs together. “A valuable addition to our knowledge. Is there something more you can tell us from your unique perspective?”

  Wolf gritted his teeth. There it was. Even Moon, who was like a sister to him, knew that it was his “unique perspective” that the High Prince valued. He steeled himself, and co
ntinued. “We all fed on humans from time to time, but very seldom, and only in the absence of other dra’aj. Theirs is,” he shrugged, “unsatisfactory.” He lifted his cup, swirled the ruby-colored liquid. “As if this wine were watered away to nothing.” He lowered the wine again without tasting it.

  “Not many in his court knew it, perhaps even you did not, but the Basilisk would give us Solitaries to feed from, and Naturals, those who displeased or disobeyed him. Even, on occasion, Riders. Only when we were taken to the Shadowlands would we feed from humans. We did not feed on our escorts, the Riders who took us.” Wolf wiped the grin off his face as soon as he felt it forming. “Though we thought of it, of course.”

  “Were there many of you? The Songs speak of single Hounds, though you are called the Hunt.” Moon’s voice was firmer now, more its liquid self. As Wolf had suspected, this distraction was doing her good.

  He considered her question. “We are a Pack, this is true. Until we were taken to find the Exile, there were not many of us taken to the Shadowlands, never more than one or two Fives at a time.”

  Moon shifted to look at him more directly. “Fives?”

  “It is how we are counted. In Fives. When the period of Exile was ending, we were six Fives—”

  “So there are thirty Hounds in the Shadowlands?” Moon seemed to be doing some mental calculation of her own.

  Wolf shook his head; this was what he’d been trying to work out himself, with limited success. “No. Some returned with me, and were killed here. Some remained in the Shadowlands, and were killed there…” He stopped, and risked a glance at her.

  “How do you know this?” Again that quiet, gentle tone.

  Wolf watched Moon’s face. This was something he had not told her—not the only thing, but still something she might find difficult to forgive. “I was Pack Leader.” Wolf waited.

  “You were?” Moon shut her eyes and Wolf thought he had lost her. Then the corners of her mouth turned down, and she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Are we not a wonderful pair, you and I? Tools of the Basilisk. At least you were compelled, while I—”

  “Were compelled in your own way. As was Lightborn, also, in his own way.” It was part of what drew them together, Wolf knew. “But we are not his tools now, and we act to save those who were.” He stood and put his wine cup down where he had been sitting. He and Moon had gone down this path many times, and he saw no profit in treading it again.

  Moon tilted her head back, staring up at him, her gray eyes speculative. “That is what you were doing now, in the Shadowlands, isn’t it? Not just your mission, but trying to save them. Your old Pack.”

  He shrugged, unwilling to put it into words, but equally unwilling to lie to his only friend, especially in the face of her loss. Her smile was a small thing, but a true one.

  He smiled back. “I must go to the High Prince now and give her my news.”

  Moon shot to her feet, gripping his arm in both hands.

  “Wait? You did come to me first? Then tell me, do you wish to return to the Shadowlands? To help your old Pack mates? Then you must not go to her!”

  “What do you mean?” Wolf felt as if he had been turned to stone. Would the Prince take his task from him, withdraw her favor? It burned him like acid that he could only serve the High Prince with what remained to him of his Hound self, but to not have even those skills of value to her—he now found that much worse. He had done everything she asked. He did not deserve to be turned away, useless and alone.

  What would become of his brother if this task was given to another? He could not fail Fox again. The pressure of Moon’s hands on his arm brought him back.

  “Wolf, when she sent you to the Shadowlands, my sister did not know the Hunt was there, that she would be putting you in the path of your old Pack.” Moon shook him. “Do you not see? She thinks it too much to ask of you, too difficult for you to bear.”

  “What of the missing People?” He heard his voice as though it came from far away.

  “She plans to ask Graycloud if he will undertake the task. Nighthawk can assist him. Both have a great knowledge of the Shadowlands. And both bear gra’if,” she added.

  “You say ‘plans,’ so she is already resolved?” Fear gave Wolf a strange courage, and he found he was shaking his head. “Graycloud at Moonrise can find only the People he already knows of,” he said. “What of those in hiding even from him? He will not be able to track down these unknowns. And what, then, of the Hunt?”

  “Surely even this one encounter has shown you that it is too difficult for you—oh!” Moon released his arm, and sank slowly into the window seat. “It was there before me and I did not see it. ‘Some remained in the Shadowlands,’ you said. She did not know, my sister did not know, but you did. Even before you went, you knew the Hunt was there.”

  “Moon, listen to me.” Wolf flung himself down before her, his hands on her knees. “Do you not see? I did not fear to meet with them, I hoped that I would. I hope that when they see me, they will see what their own futures might hold—futures they could never have imagined possible. If others are sent, the Hunt will only be killed.” He rested his head in his hands. “And the dra’aj they carry would be lost forever.” He looked up again. Moon’s gray eyes were worried in her Starward-pale face. “Valory Martin told me that the dra’aj I took was restored to the Lands when your sister Healed me. The same would be true of others. Is this not worth the risk?”

  “You believe that others would come to be cured?”

  “I believe they must be given the chance,” he said. “I am proof that a cure is possible.”

  “A way to undo the evil you have done.” It was not a question, but Wolf nodded just the same. He knew Moon would understand. She was nodding, and her mouth became firm as she gave a final, decisive nod.

  “Then you must not go to my sister.” Moon stood and began pacing, as if activity somehow lent weight to her words. “She would forbid you to return.”

  Wolf got to his feet. “Wings of Cloud has seen me.” He remembered the supercilious Starward Rider at the entrance to the pavilion. “And others.”

  Moon waved this away. “I will account for it, so leave it to me. But go, now, before someone mentions to the High Prince that you are here.”

  “Wolf?” The note of worry in her voice stopped him at the door. “What if they will not accept the chance, the hope that you will offer them?”

  Wolf knew what she was really asking him. Which was his true Pack? The Hunt, that he had been a part of for so long? Or the Riders? He remembered the chase, and the glorious hot rush of stolen dra’aj as it filled him until he thought he would burst. But he also remembered the hollowness, the starvation, when there was no more dra’aj to be had. The constant awareness of the void, of the itch that the flickering could not scratch, of the cold and of how alone he was, always, even in the middle of the Pack, in the midst of his brothers who at any moment could become his killers, if the temptation of his dra’aj became too much for them.

  Here, now, he was part of the Lands once more, aware of all its spaces and places. A Rider, relieved of the terrible hunger. And more, part of a fara’ip, not a Pack. Even if he was still asked to chase, to Hunt, it was without that terrible hunger, that need to feed.

  He raised his eyes to Moon’s.

  “You did not choose to free yourself of the Hunt, Wolf,” Moon said. “My sister forced that freedom on you.” I cannot lose you, too, were the unspoken words that lay under her questions.

  “But I am grateful for it.” If ever he had doubted, Wolf knew now that this was true. “I would not have it undone, not for anything.”

  “And if the others do not choose what you now embrace?”

  Wolf considered. River had turned away from him, would the others do the same?

  And if they did?

  “I would give them the chance, but they are the Hunt,” he said at last, surprised at how steady his voice was. “If they will not be cured, they must be d
ealt with as we deal with Those Who Hunt.”

  Moon took a deep breath, and her throat moved as she swallowed. She came to him, and held him firmly by the shoulders, a wrinkle of concern between her flaxen brows.

  “If they must be killed, you do not need to be the one. Let my sister send others to do it. Only take care. I would not lose you.” Her voice trembled as she said the words aloud.

  “You will not.”

  Moon’s smile twisted a bit as she stroked his cheek, but it was genuine. Her expression changed as she glanced at the door, and she retained her hold on his arm. “You have already been seen by so many…” She smiled again, and this time it was an unalloyed expression of delight. “The window,” she said, turning toward it. “Go through it, and Move from there.”

  Wolf stood for a moment in the surf, letting the cold water soak the cuffs of his trousers. He thought about Moon’s concern, and her championing of him. Then he thought of the offer Wings of Cloud had made him, and realized that he would have to reject it. If he could not even tell Moon about his brother, and the debt that he owed him, how could he dream of one day telling others exactly what he had been?

  He scrubbed at his face with his hands. He could still feel the comfort of Moon’s presence, the warmth of her affection—and the proof of it she had given him by warning him of the High Prince’s intentions. How much stronger those would have been, if she had known that the new Pack Leader of the Hunt was Wolf’s own brother. If Truthsheart already questioned whether he could survive an encounter with the Hunt, she would be sure a meeting with his brother would be too much for him.

  Wolf could only hope she was not right.

  Max Ravenhill Moved into the clearing that Trere’if left free just outside the pavilions and tents of the High Prince’s court. He didn’t Move directly into the pavilion itself, precisely because it was her court. It might be his home as well, but protocol was protocol.

  Trere’if filled the whole Vale where the Basilisk Prince had created his citadel and capital. The Tree Natural’s restoration to his own place had been Cassandra’s very first action as High Prince. If anyone, including Trere’if, had asked him where he was coming from, he’d have said the Jade Ring, though that wasn’t exactly true. He was Guardian of the Talismans. The Sword, the Spear, the Cauldron and the Stone, symbols of the Lands, and the dra’aj that formed it. There were very few people who knew that the Guardian Prince was the only person who could Move to Ma’at, the Stone of Virtue, that it was impossible for anyone else, even if they had visited there, to hold the place firmly enough in their minds to Move. Cassandra, as High Prince, could fly there, in her Dragonform, but not even she could simply Move there.