Shadow Games (The Collector Chronicles Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Carth released the shadows. As she did, she noticed Talia glaring at her. Carth only shrugged.

  “I’m going to see if I can find him,” she said.

  She pushed out with her connection to the flame and to the shadows, but neither allowed her to detect anything. The stone that formed the walls made it difficult for her to pick up anything. She couldn’t push her magic through the walls, not as she was accustomed to doing. It was a good place to hide, especially from someone like her.

  “You shouldn’t be able to detect anything,” Talia said.

  “No, I can’t.” Which meant that she had to search for him another way. If she couldn’t find him by using her magic, she would have to go building by building.

  “Do you know where he likes to search?” she asked Durand.

  “There are many places here that would be of interest to someone searching for actual scholarship.”

  “Is he?”

  Durand shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Carth looked at Talia, wishing the other woman would provide her with some answer, but she simply met her gaze and then looked away.

  Carth grunted to herself and started off. She paused at each of the broken buildings, glancing inside them, before moving on. She could see why this was referred to as the outpost. It was separated by a reasonable distance from the temple and might have been used at one point to provide protection for the temple and the people there. Keyall had grown around it, creating a much larger city, but had left these parts abandoned.

  When she finished her survey through the buildings, she’d come up empty. There was no sign of Alistan Rhain.

  “He’s not here.” She looked at Durand, who frowned.

  “I don’t know where he would have gone. He typically comes to the outpost, and usually when he does, he’s—”

  “He’s searching for artifacts.”

  Carth spun and saw Alistan behind her with five men dressed in the same strange dark robes as the men she’d faced at his home. Were they the same men?

  “You shouldn’t have brought her here,” Alistan said to Durand.

  “She needed to speak with you. She didn’t harm anyone when she—”

  Alistan frowned. “I know what she did. I know how she entered my home, my place of sanctuary, and attacked those in my employ. I don’t expect you to understand, Durand, but this woman was sentenced by the tribunal. She was to be punished.”

  “Sentenced to death,” Carth said.

  “Death? No. There would have been no death. You would have had to serve penance in rebuilding the buildings that were destroyed.”

  Carth looked over at Talia, but the woman had disappeared.

  She almost smiled. Talia had made her believe that she would be sentenced to die here, but maybe that wasn’t true. Could she have been playing Carth, trying to convince her to escape so that she would do as the Collector wanted?

  It had been a long time since Carth had felt as if she were used so often and so easily. It was difficult to know what exactly she needed to do. And maybe there was nothing to do. Maybe she simply had to accept the fact that she was getting played while in Keyall.

  “It seems that I was misled. Regardless, I don’t intend to return to that prison, so you can send your guards away.” Rhain glared at her. “Why do you want the Elder Stone?” Carth asked.

  “I have no need to speak to you about such things. You are going to be returning to your cell.”

  Carth shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You will find that your magic doesn’t work very well on my men.”

  “No. Not on your men.”

  He frowned at her and she simply stood there, letting him think that she was uncertain about her position.

  “Why are you serving him?”

  Alistan frowned. “I think you have me mistaken. You’ve had me mistaken from the moment that we met.”

  “And why is that?” she asked.

  “I’m not this person you think I am.”

  “No. I know that you’re not the Collector, but I also know that you work for him.”

  “I work for no one.”

  Could Alistan have been manipulated the same way that Carth had been?

  She needed to figure out what was happening, and she struggled to know which pieces were which on her board. She struggled to understand what she needed to be doing.

  What did it matter if the Collector or Alistan managed to find an Elder Stone? Other than the fact that they might gain power, what did it matter to her? Why did she need to be the one to try and counter them?

  She didn’t.

  It was time for her to leave Keyall. It was time for her to gather her friends and bring them to safety before they lost anyone else. Linsay would have to remain. There didn’t seem to be anything Carth could do about that, and there seemed to be no way that she could help her, if she even wanted to. But she could help Alayna and Jenna and keep them away from the effect of Linsay and the Collector.

  “I’m sorry that I attacked your home.”

  “You’re not leaving here so easily. You still need to face the tribunal.”

  Carth shook her head. “No. I’m done with the tribunal. I’m done with Keyall.”

  Alistan frowned at her and then motioned to his men.

  Carth sent a combined surge of flame and shadow out, exploding it right in front of each man’s chest. They were thrown back and crashed onto the ground. Even Alistan had been thrown back, and he looked up at her with a dazed expression. “Your magic—”

  “Don’t presume to know the extent of my magic.”

  Carth turned and loped away, disappearing back into the shadows as she headed toward the tavern and her friends.

  18

  When Carth reached the tavern, she felt lighthearted. There was nothing wrong with the idea of abandoning this city. She owed it nothing, not as she felt she owed other places, and the people here either did not want her help or did not need it. Talia continued to choose to serve the Collector despite every attempt Carth made to draw her out and try to help her. She hadn’t found anyone else who might need her help.

  They would leave. She hadn’t decided whether she was willing to steal a ship, but if it came to that, she decided, she might need to. She would do whatever it took to get away from Keyall and get her and her people to safety.

  The tavern was filled with the soft sound of music but Carth hurried through, wanting only to get to her friends so that she could share the plan with them.

  When she reached the room where Boiyn would be with Linsay, she hesitated. Where were Jenna and Alayna? Had they been drawn inside? If they had, she worried what might have happened to them. What would Linsay do with them? Would she try to draw them over to her side, try to convince them that Carth had it wrong about her?

  She knocked on the door and pushed it open.

  It was empty.

  Not empty—not entirely.

  A figure slumped in a corner, and Carth hurried over to it, grabbing for her connection to the shadows and the flame, readying for whatever attack might come for her.

  It was Boiyn.

  His wrist had been cut and blood dripped across the floor. He slumped forward and Carth grabbed him, propping him up and leaning him back.

  “Boiyn,” she said.

  His eyes fluttered and he looked up at her. “Carthenne?”

  “What happened?” she asked, ripping off a strip of fabric from her shirt and using that to stop the bleeding. It did little other than slow it.

  “What happened?” she asked again.

  Boiyn took a shallow breath. It was barely anything, and as he tried to speak, she could tell that he wouldn’t have the strength necessary to get the words out.

  “Carthenne?”

  She lifted him and brought him to the bed, where she laid him down. She looked for other signs of injury, her time and training in Asador and other places having taught her how to search for the most critical of injuries, but found not
hing other than what had happened to his wrist. It continued to bleed, soaking through the tourniquet.

  He wouldn’t make it. There was no way to survive bleeding this heavily.

  What had happened here?

  She looked around but saw no signs of a fight. The Tsatsun board rested on the table, a game partially played. There were no signs of Jenna and Alayna, and Linsay was missing.

  Neither Jenna nor Alayna would have done anything to Boiyn, so whatever had happened here must have been Linsay.

  Carth couldn’t believe that Linsay would attack Boiyn like this. She might work for the Collector, but she would never believe that Linsay would harm him. He had done nothing other than try to help and had included her when the other two had treated her differently because she wasn’t a fighter.

  Then again, neither was Boiyn. Had he been willing to fight—had he been able to fight—would he have been able to pull through this?

  Boiyn’s breathing continued to slow. Each breath raised his chest, and then it lowered, each time slower than the one before.

  He would pass, and she wouldn’t know what had happened to him.

  She wouldn’t know who to blame. She wouldn’t know who to get vengeance on.

  Had they only gone days before, none of this would’ve happened. They could’ve escaped, and they could have all been safe.

  Except, Linsay would still have been serving the Collector.

  Would they ever have been safe? Had the Collector somehow tracked her to this location and attacked Boiyn? That made so little sense that Carth couldn’t even piece it together. Why Boiyn?

  Where did that fit in the game of Tsatsun?

  She stared at the game board, hating that it was there, reminded only of what had been taken from her.

  She held Boiyn’s hand and felt it as he grew cooler and cooler, his life seeping from him. She felt helpless. At least with poisons, there seemed to be something that could be given, an antidote. With a wound like this, especially one that didn’t seem to be responding to the tourniquet she had placed, what could she do?

  Nothing.

  And that angered her.

  She breathed out, letting a heavy sigh, and when Boiyn took his last breath, she sobbed.

  This was not a man who had deserved to die. She had brought him with her for his mind, but he had deserved better than this. He had helped, willingly coming with her and trying to come up with different concoctions that would help create the necessary enhancements that the others could use. He had worked with them, doing nothing but offering himself.

  Carth lost track of how long she sat there, tears streaming from her eyes. She had lost many people over the years, and some were closer to her than Boiyn, but this hurt in a different way. Boiyn had been unwilling to fight for himself. She had been there for him, and she had fought on his behalf.

  After a while, she released her hold on his hand and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the room, feeling emptiness within her.

  The Tsatsun game that was half-played drew her attention.

  She frowned, studying the board. There were a few moves remaining before it could be ended, but that wasn’t what drew her attention. Rather, it was the fact that Boiyn’s side appeared to be winning. That wasn’t terribly surprising, but what was surprising was the fact that it didn’t seem like they were playing a simple game. The plays that Carth could see were complex, and there was a certain amount of finesse that she could tell from the remaining pieces.

  Had Boiyn developed that quickly?

  She looked down at her fallen friend, frowning. She knew that he had a strong mind and he had been improving, but this was impressive.

  The other side of the game board involved movements that she hadn’t seen before. Carth studied the pattern and realized that it would have been difficult for Boiyn to have won, but she could see how victory wasn’t far off for him.

  Had Linsay allowed herself to finally reveal the extent of her Tsatsun ability?

  Those were questions for another time. Right now, she had to find out what had happened to Jenna and Alayna and see if they knew anything about what might have occurred here.

  Maybe they had gone down to the tavern, though she had seen no sign of them when she had been there before.

  Carth pulled the door closed when she left, locking it using the shadows, and hurried down to the tavern. Once there, she looked around, searching for signs of either of her friends, but there were none. Neither of them was here. The tavern was not busy, certainly not as busy as it had been during other times, or even when she’d last come through.

  Carth looked around, searching for signs of her friends, and noticed a waitress making her way through the tavern. She carried a tray laden with mugs of ale, and Carth waited for her to stop at a few tables before interrupting her.

  “Did you see two women come through here?” she asked. “Or maybe even three?”

  “People come in and out all the time,” the woman said. She surveyed the tables, seemingly looking for anyone who might need her attention.

  “This would be different. These would be outsiders. We are staying—”

  “I know where you’re staying,” she said.

  Carth considered the woman for a moment. Could it be that she was working for the Collector?

  It was possible that anyone was working for the Collector.

  If Linsay was working for him, it only made sense that others would be as well. They had chosen this tavern as a place that seemed likely to give them a measure of privacy, but maybe they had made a mistake. It had been at the edge of the city, far enough away from the constables and the merchants that she didn’t think that she would draw unnecessary attention, but maybe her presence here could do nothing other than draw attention.

  “I’m just trying to find my friends,” she said.

  The woman considered Carth for a moment. “I haven’t seen them come through here.”

  Carth sighed. “If you see them, tell them I’ve come through.”

  “And who are you?”

  “My name is Carthenne Rel.”

  She hurried into the night. Already too much time had passed and she had a sinking sensation that she would not be able to find Jenna or Alayna. Even if she did, what would they be able to tell her? Was there anything that they could share that might explain what had happened to Boiyn?

  She hurried along the street, pushing out with her connection to the flame and the shadows, searching for her friends.

  There was no sign of them.

  When she reached the edge of the city, a prominence that overlooked the sea with nothing but the steady sound of waves crashing along the shore far beneath her, Carth stared out, feeling trapped. She had become powerless here. She had lost her ship. She had lost one of the people she had vowed to protect. And she had been outmaneuvered by someone she didn’t even know.

  And now she had lost a friend who had needed her.

  All she had wanted to do was depart Keyall, but now that was not even possible. She couldn’t leave, not without finding answers.

  The Collector had forced her hand—probably as he had intended.

  Carth would find Linsay, and she would find Jenna and Alayna, and she would drag the Collector free of Keyall, but not before exacting her revenge.

  If the Collector wanted to play a game with her, he would have one.

  19

  She focused on the rock in the temple. It was strange to her senses. The connection to the flame did nothing to it, no matter how much she poured into it. The rock even seemed to resist the connection to the shadows, and as she tried pushing through it, she could do nothing—that is, until she searched on top of it and found a cleavage plane. When she was able to do so, she could shatter the rock, stripping it away in long, narrow strips.

  Some of the section of the wall that had once been the temple had what appeared to be mortar smoothed over top of it. Likely this was done to prevent someone else from doing what Carth did now and peeling it
away, shearing sections of the wall off. The rock had an innate resistance to her magic. From what she could tell of it, there was nothing mystical about it. There was just something about the rock that resisted shadow and flame.

  Carth searched through the temple, trying to use her connection to magic to find something that might be here, but she picked up on nothing.

  She heard movement and enshrouded herself in the shadows.

  “You don’t need to hide from me,” a voice said.

  Carth recognized the voice and removed her cloaking, turning to face Alistan. How had he crept up on her?

  “Are you sure? It seems that you are interested in turning me in to the constables and forcing me to meet whatever justice the tribunal would see fit to exact.”

  “Had you only been patient with the tribunal, you would not have suffered any consequences.”

  “Talia told me that the tribunal had made a decision.”

  “She is not of the tribunal.”

  “And you don’t want me to think that the tribunal would have wanted some sort of vengeance?”

  Alistan shrugged. His dark eyes seemed to glitter, catching the light from the moon.

  She thought about what she knew of him. The people who worked with him didn’t love him, but they didn’t fear him either. They didn’t want him to find the Elder Stone, but other than that, they didn’t mind serving him. That was telling.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “The same reason as you, I suppose.”

  The man looked around and the edge to his eyes softened a little. “There was once a place of worship here, though I suppose you know that, Carthenne Rel.”

  “I’ve heard from others about their temple, if that’s what you mean.”

  “The temple. Founded at a time before men knew how to easily navigate the seas. It rose high above the rock, looking down at the water, so that the god could cast his judgment upon the people who would make this their home.”