Shadow Games (The Collector Chronicles Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “That’s because you struggle with Tsatsun.” As soon as she said it, she saw the hurt flaring in Linsay’s eyes, and she knew that she probably shouldn’t have been quite so blunt. It wasn’t that she wanted to anger her friend. Linsay was a good friend and had proven that she had more potential than Carth had initially given her credit for. “You don’t have skill with Tsatsun yet, but that’s not to say—”

  Linsay shook her head. “I think I know what you mean.”

  The lead constable approached. Carth could make him out from the glowing embers of the fire, but even without that, she thought that she would notice him. The more she was exposed to him, the more she was convinced that he had a particular energy. He watched her, as if daring her to look away. Carth met his eyes, refusing to turn away. She had made her choice.

  Much as Talia apparently had.

  “You should go,” Carth said. “I think I understand the game now.”

  Linsay frowned and shook her head. “This isn’t a game, Carth. This is your life!”

  The constable continued to make his way toward her. As she was still connected to the power of S’al, she could feel the presence of several others coming with him. Distantly, she was aware of Talia. Was the woman watching?

  Had the Collector planned for this? It seemed an odd choice for him to make, wanting her to burn up the empty buildings, but it would place her in a defensive mode. Either she would have to disappear or she would have to respond. Which was the right answer?

  Maybe Linsay was right. Maybe viewing it as a game was the wrong way to look at it. She wasn’t a piece on a game board. Her friends weren’t either.

  Yet… they were pieces. She couldn’t shake the surprise she’d felt at finding the piece.

  “You need to go,” Carth said. “I’ll meet you down by the docks.”

  “By the docks? We don’t have a ship, Carth. What do you intend for us to do? Do you think that we’ll steal a ship?”

  That would offend Linsay more than it would Alayna or Jenna. Boiyn likely wouldn’t even mind nearly as much as Linsay. She was a scholar first, and much of what she had experienced had been radically different than anything else that she had encountered prior to meeting up with Carth.

  “We won’t steal a ship. We won’t need to.”

  “But our ship—”

  Carth turned to her. “Please, Linsay. You need to trust me.”

  Linsay looked at her, and a debate warred within her eyes. It lasted for a few moments and then finally ended. Carth wasn’t certain which side had won out. Would she trust Carth and do as she asked, or would she think to act against her, wanting to protect Carth?

  When Linsay nodded, Carth didn’t have the answer.

  She pulled the shadows to her, preparing to use them to jump, to disappear. She could even use them to jump down to the docks. It might be painful, especially after having used as much power as she had throughout the night, but she thought that she could manage.

  Then she saw Boiyn.

  He was held between a pair of constables. His face was contorted, likely from pain as they gripped his injured arm, and his eyes seemed to beg her to run.

  But that wasn’t something Carth could do. It wasn’t in her to run, especially when someone she had brought to Keyall was trapped. It was the same reason she hadn’t been able to leave Jenna. They had been willing to place Jenna in the stocks, even though her infractions had been more minor. If they believed Carth responsible for the fires—and somehow believed Boiyn responsible along with her—what would they do to him?

  Carth couldn’t leave him.

  That realization gave her the necessary energy to tamp back the rest of her connection to the S’al, quashing it entirely. She sighed and stepped toward the constable, nodding to him. “I will go with you.”

  “Yes. You will.”

  Carth realized all too late that someone approached from behind and something heavy and painful slammed into the back of her head.

  4

  Stone surrounded Carth, and not the kind of stone that felt welcoming and warm, the kind that indicated a quiet hearth or a pleasant tavern. This was solid stone, an alcove carved into the rock of the cliffside itself, barely large enough for her to sit within and not high enough for her to stand. She had been lowered into this cell.

  Only the sea provided any sort of distraction. She focused on the sounds of the waves crashing far below. It was a soothing sound normally, but for some reason, right now, it was little more than an increased agitation.

  She heard the creaking of the contraption they’d used to lower her, and a shadow appeared before the mouth of her cell. The constable stepped forward.

  “Do you really believe this will hold me?” Carth asked.

  He shrugged. “I doubt that it will, but it holds your friends.”

  Carth found herself hesitating. “Friends?”

  “When we found your pale-skinned friend making his way on the road toward the docks, there were two others with him. They claim that they don’t know you, but the one is the woman we had previously captured, and the other was the woman we saw you watching her with.”

  “Where are they?”

  The constable shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “And how does it work?”

  “As we have discussed, we respect the law in Keyall. Situated as we are in this part of the world, we must maintain order.”

  Carth grunted and suppressed her laughter. “Order? From what I’ve seen, there is nothing but chaos here. You allowed the Collector to attack because you thought your order would protect you. You allowed Alistan Rhain to bring trouble to Keyall.”

  “Alistan Rhain has done nothing to violate any laws in Keyall.”

  “What do you intend to do with me?” They had planned to brutalize Jenna, holding her until her anger abated, but she couldn’t envision the constable holding her the same way. She was in a cell that was meant to isolate, though she suspected she could get free. What she didn’t know was where they kept the others. Were they held in similar cells?

  Beyond that, Carth couldn’t shake the sense that all of this was the Collector’s plan. She had a growing interest in seeing how he wanted this game to play out. Regardless of what Linsay said, it was a game.

  “You were observed destroying the oldest section of the city,” the constable said.

  “The fires had already started by the time I arrived.”

  “Had they? From what I’ve seen, you have some fire magic. You have shown how little you respect the laws of Keyall. One might even think that you were responsible for starting the fire.”

  “One would be wrong.” She leaned forward. “And I saved Keyall. I saved your ships.” And she had thought she had pushed the Collector out of Keyall, at least for a time. It surprised her that the time she’d managed to keep him out had been so short.

  “There was a witness who saw you starting the fire. She said she heard you talking about getting revenge for what happened to your ship.”

  “Let me guess, this person would be Talia?”

  The constable didn’t blink. “She said you headed straight toward the merchants’ warehouses.”

  Interesting. She didn’t know what part of the city she had been drawn to, other than that it had been older than many of the other parts of the city.

  “If you look into it, you’ll realize that the city would have burned had I done nothing. The fires were spreading, and I only did what I could to extinguish them.”

  “Do you believe this to be an open discussion?”

  “I believe we’re having a dialogue. You shouldn’t believe for one moment that I am unable to escape from here.”

  “And where would you go?” He stepped to the side and motioned for her to look down.

  High above her, she noticed the contraption that had been used to lower her, but it would be difficult to reach. The cliff was sheer rock and completely smooth. Below her, the sea was angry and created a thick froth where i
t crashed into jagged rocks. She could jump, but could she survive the jump? Even her powers had limits.

  “And if I escape?” she asked.

  That was what she feared more than anything. What would they do to her friends?

  “Your escape would require a lesson.”

  Carth had already seen the way the constabulary thought to provide lessons.

  The constable watched her for a moment before turning his back to her, seemingly content.

  “I could attack you here,” Carth said.

  “You could. And if you did, you’d place your friends in danger. If anything happens to me…”

  “You don’t even want to know whether what I’ve told you is true or not?”

  “Whether it’s true? You have been in the city for a short time. In that time, you have already proven yourself willing to violate our customs, attack my men, and basically show a complete disregard for Keyall. I can no longer let that go unpunished.”

  “If you let me work with you, I could be a valued member of the community,” she said.

  “Not from what I’ve heard of you.”

  “My reputation has preceded me, then?”

  He snorted. “What you have are stories of danger that come ahead of you. There are rumors of shadows and flame and rumors of the woman who wields them.”

  “What of rumors about an Elder Stone?” She still didn’t understand why those who had defied the Collector were convinced that he intended to acquire an Elder Stone, but that seemed the only piece that fit with what she had heard.

  “This is nothing more than a childhood story.”

  Carth watched him. “Is it?”

  He turned away and reached outward, either motioning or reaching for something that signaled for the contraption to descend. When it did, he stepped out onto it and turned briefly to Carth.

  “How long do you intend to hold me here?”

  “You will go before the tribunal, and you will face their recommendations.”

  “Without a chance to prove myself.”

  “What proof would there be? We have many witnesses who have testified already.”

  Why would he push her in this way… unless he had made a deal with the Collector?

  She could see why he would. How would he not, especially when he would want nothing more than to ensure that Keyall was safe? That move made sense.

  The constable watched her for a moment, but Carth couldn’t read him. If only she could, then she might be able to guess what he would do. He motioned with his hand and the platform was raised, pulling him out of view.

  Carth stood at the cave opening, listening to the sound of the waves crashing. Night had settled around her, leaving thick blankets of darkness. She focused on the darkness, pulling it toward her and listening.

  The night was silent other than the sound of the water. She heard nothing else, no sounds of gulls circling and nothing that would tell her that they were near the city. How far away from Keyall had they brought her?

  She had been here the better part of the day, though she wasn’t certain whether it had been longer than that. It was tempting to sneak out and scale the rock, but she worried that if she did, her friends would suffer. The constable was not one she was willing to risk challenging, not after what he’d shown with Jenna.

  She couldn’t wait here too much longer. If she did, she ran the risk of the Collector reaching for power in Keyall. Carth had issued a challenge and the Collector had answered.

  Maybe she needed to know whether she even could escape.

  Pulling on her connection to the shadows, she jabbed her hand into the rock next to the cave entrance.

  Shadows strengthened her. Usually, she could turn them into something real, something physical. Carth had expected to puncture the stone and create a handhold, but nothing happened.

  Carth shifted her focus, trying to use the connection to the flame. As before, there was nothing.

  Was she truly trapped?

  It would present an interesting challenge if so. She had never been trapped with her magic. When she’d been captured before, such as that time in Asador, her magic had been taken from her. This wasn’t anything like that.

  What if she tried the two of them together?

  A controlled explosion could get her a handhold, but she would have to do multiple controlled explosions. Was she capable of that?

  First, she had to decide whether even a single controlled explosion would work.

  She pressed her palm against the stone. It was smooth, almost perfectly so. It felt nothing like she would’ve expected, almost as if the sea had smoothed the rock over the years. Combining her two magics, Carth pressed through her palm.

  The force of the explosion threw her hand back.

  When she looked at the space where her hand had been, she saw no sign of any damage. There was nothing she could use as a handhold.

  The rock was impervious to her magic.

  She tried with more force, thinking that she could draw upon more power and use that to help get her free, but all that did was nearly send her tumbling over the edge from the force of the explosion.

  There had to be some way to get free, didn’t there?

  Maybe the better question was how the rock resisted the effects of her magic.

  She hadn’t found anything that was completely resistant to it before.

  Old warnings from her earliest instructors surfaced in her mind, advising her not to become too reliant upon her magic. What other options did she have?

  She moved to the back of the cell, trying to think through what had happened to her, but the only answer she came up with was that she would somehow have to risk jumping—and the jagged rocks beneath her made it so that was not a foolproof plan—or attack whoever came for her. They would have to bring her food, or eventually, bring her to this tribunal. She could make her escape then.

  In the meantime, she would plan, which meant trying to think through what she knew.

  And what she knew was that she had been placed in a difficult position. The Collector knew much more about her than she knew about him. Somehow, she would have to change that, though she wasn’t entirely sure how she would.

  When the constable returned the next day, Carth was ready.

  She had noticed the creak of the platform as it was lowered. When his shadowed form moved into view, she remained toward the back of the cell. Let him think that she would be cowed by what they had done to her.

  He stepped off and the platform started back up again, disappearing from view. They wouldn’t even leave it in case doing so risked the possibility of her escape.

  “I see that you tested the stone.”

  “You knew that I would.”

  The constable smiled. “I would have expected nothing less. You would have seen that there is nothing you can do to destroy the stone, not even with your magic.”

  “You seem to know quite a bit about my magic. Why is that?”

  The constable pushed a basket toward her. She smelled bread and noticed a jug of water. Should she trust that they wouldn’t poison her? It had been done before, and she now had a healthy skepticism when it came to what she consumed and where it came from.

  “We’ve spoken about the rumors that preceded your arrival.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Before the merchants stopped coming, they used to bring word of a woman who caused trouble in other cities.”

  “I take it from your tone that you don’t care about the fact that other cities were helped by what it did? Would you rather they remain oppressed?”

  He laughed. “Oppressed? You have spent some time in Keyall. Not much, but enough to know that the people of my city are anything but oppressed.”

  “I can’t make any statement about your people. All I know is that you prefer to rule with a strict discipline.”

  “You were warned.”

  Carth smiled. “I was warned.” She nodded at the basket. “Why are you the one to bring supplies t
o me? I imagine others could take on that task equally well.”

  “I wouldn’t risk any others.”

  “Risk them? I seem to recall how none of your men were permanently harmed when I pulled my friend from the stocks.”

  The constable’s face clouded a moment. “You chose restraint. I admit that I was surprised.”

  “Then you wouldn’t fear what I would do to your men. Unless you think you can’t trust them to my questions, but if that were the case, you could send someone who knew nothing. Instead, you come yourself, which places you in danger, especially if I decided to attack you.”

  He reached for his sword. “You believe that you could overpower me unarmed?”

  Carth nodded. “Yes.” She let the word hang in the air. It was time to press him. She needed to know one way or the other. “How long have you been working for him?”

  “I work for the city.”

  “If that is the case, then you not have placed yourself in danger. The only reason I can think of for your presence here is that he asked you to come, perhaps to send a message or perhaps because he wanted me to have certain information about him. Either way, I must admit that I am curious.”

  “You are mistaken.”

  “Am I? Prove it.” She took a step toward him and he tensed. With that movement, she thought she had the right of it. Had the constable made a deal? “He still wants something, though I am not clear what that might be. Rest assured, I will find out.”

  “The tribunal will meet with you in a few days. You should be ready.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You say that you won’t be ready?”

  Carth took another step toward him and he jerked back again. “I don’t think I’ll be here. Whatever he plans will come before then.”

  The constable stepped back and waved for the platform to be lowered. He stepped onto it and disappeared from view without saying another word.

  She sat back and waited.

  When the platform lowered again, Carth was ready.

  She waited near the back of the cave. It was toward the end of the third day of her captivity. She hadn’t eaten or drunk anything and would not until she was free and could choose what she consumed. She would grow weaker, but she believed that she wouldn’t have to wait much longer before managing to get free. Either she would make her escape or she would face the tribunal and escape then.