Shadow and Thorn
Kenley Davidson
Page Nine Press
Copyright © 2017 Kenley Davidson
All rights reserved.
Published by: Page Nine Press
Editing by: Janie Dullard at Lector’s Books
Cover Design, Layout, & Formatting by: Page Nine Media
This is an original work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and incidents are products of the creative imagination of the author or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), businesses, institutions, places, or events is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner without the written consent of the author, excepting short quotations used for the purposes of review or commentary about the work.
http://KenleyDavidson.com
For Janie. May you someday be willing to forgive my terrible spelling.
Contents
Books by Kenley Davidson
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Thank You
A Special Offer from Kenley
The Series
Also by Kenley Davidson
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Books by Kenley Davidson
Fairy Tale Retellings
THE ANDARI CHRONICLES
Traitor’s Masque
Goldheart
Pirouette
Shadow & Thorn
Romantic Science Fiction
CONCLAVE WORLDS
The Daragh Deception
The Concord Coalition (coming soon)
To hear about new releases and other updates, sign up for Kenley’s newsletter here.
"You are very ungrateful," said the Beast in a terrible voice. "I have saved your life by receiving you into my castle, and, in return, you steal my roses, which I value beyond any thing in the universe, but you shall die for it.”
“La Belle et la Bête”
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, Le Magasin des enfants
Prologue
Darkness was her world. Darkness and silence.
There was nothing and no one to break the silence, for she was alone, and when she was alone, she had neither ears nor voice.
So deep was the darkness, that she had begun to wonder if there had ever been anything else.
From time to time a whisper would find her from outside her formless cocoon, but the whispers could neither break her nor free her, so she slipped further and further into the void, further and further from memory and thought and caring.
At last, she slept, and she forgot that sleep was another word for danger. Even if she had remembered, the memory would have done her no good, for she fell ever deeper into oblivion—so deep that, had she been alive, she might have been said to be dying.
It was the light that woke her. Called to her.
Such a strange, gentle light. Soft, and barely even aware of itself.
She rose through the darkness, barely able even to perceive the light, or to remember why it mattered, but it was important. Before she was even fully awake, it caught her in a snare of fascination and hunger and she could not look away.
It was beautiful. Quick and lithe, graceful and fanciful, a delicate tracery of lavender on the unseen winds of thought. She remembered this. Or something very like it.
She stirred. Or tried. But everything was heavy and slow, and even her thoughts did not obey her as they should. Had she fallen so far?
An irritation began to trouble her, the closer she came to consciousness. Something was not as it should be. She cast about, looking for her bounds, testing the limits of her awareness, and found a crack. A tiny shard of wrongness.
Increasingly roused, she arrowed towards it, faltering now and again, but determined. She had a purpose, and she must not fail. When she found the shard, she circled, pressed and peered into the dark, until the light brightened, and she remembered.
She remembered what the light was for! What she was for!
Light was life, and life was safety. Light was precious, and she must have it for her own.
Reaching out with all the awakening tendrils of her being, she seized it, wrapped those delicate strands of lavender in the unbreakable bounds of herself and exulted, for now she would live.
She almost did not hear the screams, for she was waking faster now, and the wrongness needed to be dealt with. Something had pierced her defenses and it could not be allowed to stay.
Her entire being trembled. The very air bowed to her summons, and with a surge of power and rage, the wrongness was purged, her boundaries were restored, and all could again be at peace.
Except she could still hear the screaming.
She searched, but the wrongness was gone. Her awareness was secure.
She turned inward, and found something she had not anticipated.
The delicate motes of lavender, the lovely and mesmerizing tracery of light was part of her now. And so were the screams.
Chapter 1
“Can’t you make him shut up?”
Alexei Nar Trevelyan cast a startled glance at the man who had spoken and felt his lip begin to curl.
It wasn’t that he disagreed with the sentiment. He’d been considering the same question for the past five days, ever since their party of three left Evenleigh by way of the King’s Road to the north.
But it was the first time his bitter, angry cousin had spoken since the start of their journey and Alexei had no intention of encouraging him. Not to mention he’d be damned before he let Porfiry know that they agreed about something.
Even if that something happened to be Malichai Cherting, the third member of their party, who was currently warbling his way through yet another pathetic ballad of tragic heroism in a resonant baritone that could probably be heard from one side of Andar to the other. If it was anything like the last forty-seven of its kind, the song probably featured twenty-four epic verses and a tear-jerking refrain.
Alexei looked back over his shoulder and marveled once more at the sight of King Hollin’s chosen emissary. Malichai had been solemnly entrusted with the safety of the king’s Erathi guests and with protecting Andari interests once their party crossed the border. Now flushed and exuberant, the leather-clad warrior rode unheeding down the center of the road, head thrown back and arms flung wide as he bellowed the final words of the fourth verse. At least Alexei thought it was the fourth. He could have missed one or two while envisioning his next conversation with the Andari king, who had never once mentioned that his chosen ambassador was of a musical inclination.
“Five days!” Porfiry hissed. “If he keeps this up, I’ll have no choice but to throw myself off this horse and pray that it kills me!”
Alexei’d refused to allow his face to show his feelings. Instead, he reined his mount sharply and dropped back to ride next to the Andari, who paused his song and smiled—the peaceful smile of a satisfied man with nothing more to want in life.
Malichai Cherting was very possibly the biggest man Alexei had ever met. He was at least a head taller than Alexei himself, and twice as wide. His hair and beard were both long and brown, with only a few strands of gray, though Alexei would have sworn the other man was a good bit older than he. One would need far
more than forty-two years to accumulate such a vast knowledge of the worst romantic ballads known to the world.
“I would take it as a personal favor if you would sing the rest of this song as loudly as possible,” Alexei said, with a courteous nod. “Full court version, if you know it.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Malichai answered, his expression deeply serious, almost reverent. “It’s a great pity you cannot experience the intended harmonies. The last seventeen verses represent some of the most beautiful and moving work from the early foundations of Andari epic poetry.”
“I look forward to hearing it.”
Alexei admitted to himself that those who knew him best—which was not to say well—might have been surprised to discover how petty he could be. The thought did not disturb him as much as it probably should have. He had earned his revenge, petty and otherwise.
“Perhaps after the final verse we might find a place to camp?” he continued. Petty he might be, but not dangerously insane. Seventeen more verses was as far as he was prepared to go for retribution’s sake.
Malichai nodded and burst into song once more, while patting the neck of his remarkably impassive mount with spiked leather gauntlets. The enormous piebald mare, who stood several hands taller than Alexei’s own horse and had hooves the size of Alexei’s head, seemed well used to her master’s eccentricities. Or perhaps she approved, considering that she wore her mane in braids and answered to the name of Loraleen.
With the tiniest of smiles, Alexei urged his horse into a trot and returned to the side of his cousin, who shot him a murderous glare from under lowered eyelids before returning to the stoic silence that had marked their journey to that point.
A pale, hunched man who appeared some ten years Alexei’s senior, Porfiry was actually three months younger. He was several inches shorter and a great deal lighter, but, despite their differences, despite the bitter set to Porfiry’s pale, thin lips, the two of them had once known each other well. Other than Alexei’s brother Andrei, they were likely the last two left of a once large, tight-knit family.
Though Alexei had admitted long ago that he had probably not known Porfiry as well as he once thought. His cousin’s bony wrists were tied together in front of him and lashed to the saddle for a reason. For so many reasons.
There were few left now in the world who remembered Erath as it had been before the Caelani invasion. So few who could share Alexei’s memories, his anger, or his grief, thanks to the actions of the wretched excuse for a man riding next to him—a traitor being forcibly returned to his homeland to begin making restitution for his unspeakable crimes. If Porfiry felt any anger or grief, it would be for himself rather than the people he had betrayed so entirely that Alexei was the only one left to bring him to justice.
The queen should have been the one to mete out punishment and restore her people, but the queen was dead. Had been dead for twenty-six years. Her brother and heir, a lazy, congenial man of great talent and little application, had perished, childless, some twenty years past as a slave in Caelan. Which left Alexei—eldest offspring of the fourteenth generation of the House of Nar—to take up the Stone Scepter and protect what remained of his kingdom.
Not that he would ever be fool enough to let anyone call him a king. There was no longer an Erath to be king of. But, for a brief moment, Alexei considered accepting the responsibility of the position, if only for the purpose of declaring war on Andar.
Because Malichai had only just started in on the sixth verse. If there were truly fifteen more remaining, Alexei would have no choice but to initiate hostilities with King Hollin over the blatant insult to their diplomatic relations represented by his emissary’s musical proclivities.
Looking for a distraction, Alexei patted the front of his shirt, checking to see if his talisman was still secure around his neck. Reassured by its rough edges, he held out a hand in front of him and focused. He had not called on his gift since he last left Andar, and wasn’t sure it would respond yet. They might not be close enough to the border.
“Suffering from the pangs of self-doubt, cousin?” Porfiry muttered snidely, eyeing him sidelong with an expression of satisfaction. “Wondering if everyone will still stand in awe of your mighty works?”
“I only hope to find someone still standing,” was his measured reply. “I don’t care if they remember my works or not. My gift means nothing to me if our people have been destroyed.”
But that was not as true as it should have been. He did care about his magic. He cared very much indeed.
It had been so many years since he’d truly used it. Alexei had spent more than half his life in Andar, where magic simply did not exist. During his visit to Caelan, the vast eastern empire where magic was both acknowledged and reviled, he had been able to feel his gift once more, and to use it in small ways, but it was not the same. He, like all Erathi, had always been tied to his land. The wonders his people had wrought there would have staggered the imagination of outsiders had they been able to perceive them, but once away from the blood and bones of their home, even the strongest Erathi could do little more than parlor tricks in comparison.
“Can you feel it?” he asked suddenly, unable to help himself. “Does it still sing to you?”
Porfiry did not answer. He seemed to curl back in on himself, and resumed the stubborn silence he had clung to for the last five days. It was just as well. Even if Porfiry were the last Erathi left alive, Alexei could never bring himself to share his memories, or his insecurities, with the man who had betrayed everything he ever knew.
And it could be that Porfiry simply didn’t have any magic to feel. Alexei had seen little of Porfiry since they were boys together, so he had no way to estimate his skills. He knew the younger man to be marginally competent with small blades, considering that Porfiry had been responsible for the injuries that left Alexei’s face permanently scarred. But magically? When they were young, Porfiry had been shunned by some of their people for his lack of power. If he had any gift at all, he had never shared it openly, and it was understood that his magic was too weak to be of use, even amongst a creative and peaceful people.
But now that he was an adult, who knew what Porfiry’s gift could have matured into? There was a chance he might possess magic that could aid him in an escape attempt, and Alexei would do almost anything to prevent such an attempt from succeeding.
Almost. His Andari friends had suggested that Alexei capitalize on his knowledge of Caelani mage slavery and use silver to neutralize Porfiry’s magic before it became an issue. But he’d be damned before he resorted to the ugly and inhumane practices of the empire that had destroyed his kingdom and dragged his people away in chains. He would never stoop so low—not even for the man who had cost him an eye—though he would probably sleep with his remaining eye open until they reached their destination. Especially once they reached the edge of Erath, wherever that proved to be.
The border between Erath and Andar had long been a matter of contention in the field of cartography. Most maps placed it somewhere in the middle of the Vorsh mountain range, but its precise location seemed to wander about by miles in either direction, much like most would-be visitors to the isolated kingdom of Alexei’s birth. Travelers inevitably lost their way between the foothills and the peaks, and would end up back in one of the tiny mountain communities of Andar, wondering why they’d come.
At least, that had been the case when Alexei was a boy. The magical barrier that made it possible, the powerful protection once enjoyed by his peaceful people, was no more. Now, the only way to know where the border lay was the growing sense of his magic unfurling deep within him, calling him home.
Alexei’s horse shifted under him without warning and stopped to stare, ears forward, into the trees off the side of the road nearest Porfiry. Alexei had deliberately given his cousin the slowest, least excitable animal he could find that was still sound and capable of travel, so it was little surprise that the aging gelding had not responded as Alexei’s mo
unt had. The pack horse tied behind Porfiry merely shook his head to dislodge flies and looked bored.
Beckoning Malichai forward, Alexei was about to ride closer to investigate when a cloaked form stepped out of the trees and approached at a sedate walk.
Loraleen, clearly far more agile than her appearance suggested, arrived only a moment later at a dead run and came to a sliding stop by Alexei’s side. Malichai placed a hand on his staff and eyed the newcomer with suspicion.
“Good evening.”
The low-pitched voice that issued from the lowered hood caused Alexei to look sharply at its owner. It was clearly a woman’s voice, and, by its accent, an Erathi one, though they were still a full two days from the general vicinity of the border.
Alexei folded his hands over the pommel of his saddle and suppressed the urge to hide his own face. The scars that marked and twisted its right side were not going anywhere, and he may as well prepare himself for the probable reactions of strangers.
“I have been waiting for your party for several days,” the woman continued, speaking Andari with ease and fluency, despite her accent. “Might I travel with you the rest of the way?”
Malichai shifted the bow on his back.
Alexei spoke up before the warrior had a chance to issue any unnecessary threats. “Will you not remove your hood, madam, that we might know whom we are addressing? I swear to you, we pose no threat unless you mean us harm.”
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