Shadow and Thorn

by Kenley Davidson

  Zara gripped the ledge by her fingertips and pulled herself up till her chin touched the edge, then lowered her body again. At least it was simple enough to keep herself fit in a sprawling, deserted castle. She’d already run to the top of the eastern tower and back down again, and performed her stretches standing on the balustrade of the grand staircase. Once she’d even done flips down the long hall of the upstairs gallery, but mostly because it seemed to annoy the cat.

  She was filthy and sweaty and her hair was escaping her braid, but it was better than being idle, waiting for something to happen.

  Shadow had seemed agitated the night before and left the kitchen in the middle of the night. They still could not communicate, so Zara would probably never know what had set the animal off, but whatever it was had continued to distract her.

  Letting go of the ledge, Zara dropped lightly to her feet and jogged off in the direction of the entry hall, where she had last seen the cat sitting in the middle of the floor watching the creep of moonlight give way to the gray of dawn. Perhaps while Shadow was feeling distracted she should take advantage of their new relationship to ask for things she needed. It might not be within the scope of Athven’s abilities, but if there was the slightest chance of a bath, Zara would probably beg on her knees. No, not quite. But close.

  She was almost to the hall when a subterranean roar split the air and seemed to cleave her head in two. The walls trembled and the floor grew momentarily soft, throwing her to her knees, but it was over almost as soon as it had begun.

  Zara rose on trembling legs and walked carefully through the arch into the entry hall. In the center of the vast space, Shadow sat, ears pricked, staring intently at the door.

  “Was that you?” Zara asked. “Couldn’t you at least warn me before you do that sort of thing? It is possible for humans to die of fright, you know.”

  The cat was silent. And then, against all probability, defying all expectation, Zara heard something knocking on the main doors.

  A thrill raced from her chest to her fingertips. Her father! He had come back!

  “Athven, please don’t hurt them!” she cried, but the cat ignored her, and continued to stare purposefully at the door.

  Zara moved to stand squarely in front of her. “If it’s my father, please let him in!” she begged. “I want to see him! He will want to know if I’m all right.”

  The cat shifted her gaze briefly to meet Zara’s and the meaning in them was unmistakable. Denial. Scorn. Amusement.

  It was not her father.

  Zara suppressed an overwhelming surge of disappointment. “Do you know who it is? What they want?”

  The cat seemed less certain this time.

  “Well, are you going to keep them out or let them in?” Zara asked coolly. She would not be afraid, even if the visitors proved unfriendly. Athven needed her, and seemed well able to keep her safe, even if whoever was out there wished her ill. “Do I get a chance to live up to my end of our bargain or not?”

  The cat did not indicate one way or another, but suddenly Zara felt very odd. Her hair began to crackle and stand on end, and sparks leapt from her fingertips into the air. Just as it had the day her father was torn away from her, a wind rose up and whirled its way through the hall, and when the next knock sounded, it echoed through the castle like a roll of thunder.

  The sound faded. The wind died. And the door swung open on silent hinges.

  It opened. The door opened and Alexei almost sobbed his relief. Athven was not gone. She was not dead. There was hope! When he laid his hand on the planks and pushed, the door had seemed frozen, but he could feel something small—no more than a whisper—that teased at the back of his mind and buzzed softly under his fingers. So he knocked. It probably looked ridiculous to his companions. They stood on the wide stone terrace at the front of an abandoned castle, and he was knocking.

  But Athven heard him. And when the door opened he closed his eyes and drew a breath, soaking in courage for that step over the threshold into the past. Out of the light, into the shadows and the echoes and the memories. He took a step, and then three more. He felt the smooth stone under his boots. Heard the hiss of his breath reflected off the ceiling floating far above his head.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to close the door behind you?”

  Alexei’s eyes flew open. His surroundings assailed him—the emptiness, the chill, and the darkness. And in the center of the great hall, in the middle of the rose mosaic where Beatra Nar, last queen of Erath, would have stood to greet visitors, was a woman.

  And she was most decidedly not the ghost of his cousin. Queen Beatra had been short, sturdy and comfortable, with a wide, homely face and an air of uncompromising command.

  This woman was tall and lean, clad in well-fitted but worn leather. Her skin was the color of oak leaves in the fall, her eyes were light, and her hair hung over her shoulder in a thick white braid. Despite the color, she was not old. Past her youth, perhaps, but younger than Alexei by more than a few years.

  She had spoken in Andari, and yet she was looking at him as though he were the intruder. Her chin tilted up in a proud challenge and she stood like a warrior, though she bore no visible weapons.

  Alexei stifled a cry of mingled shock, frustration and apprehension. After everything, after all his hopes and disappointments, the castle wasn’t nearly as empty as he had hoped, and the discovery felt like a betrayal. Athven remained, but she may have been admitting others all along. He might very well be too late to find what he had come for, and he could no longer count on the castle as an ally.

  “She certainly taught me better than to enter someone else’s home without permission,” Alexei heard himself answer. “You are not of Erath. What right do you have to trespass?”

  The woman looked down towards her feet, where Alexei finally noticed a small, scarred gray cat.

  “All these years,” the woman said, “and this is what you decide to let in? Do you want my help or not? Because this is ridiculous.”

  She turned back to Alexei. “I was here first?” she said, and shrugged.

  “What are you? An accursed treasure hunter?” he accused. What other reason could a foreigner have to be sneaking around in an abandoned castle? He itched to throw her from his home and lock the door forever on her and her kind. “If you think I will let you destroy or steal one particle of my people’s past, you are mistaken.”

  “Can we come in?” Wilder’s head appeared in the doorway and Alexei heard a gasp when she saw the inside. “Will the castle hurt us if we come in?”

  The woman strode towards the door and rolled her eyes. “No, the castle won’t hurt you. She can be peevish on occasion, but she’s not destructive. Please, don’t feel like you have to stand outside. There’s not exactly a shortage of room in here.”

  Wilder came first, her head craned impossibly far back as she stepped over the threshold and stared into the distant shadows of the hall’s towering ceiling. Silvay entered after her, but hovered uncertainly in the doorway.

  “What of the mounts? Do you trust them to stay or should we bring them in?”

  The second of the two doors swung wide, revealing Malichai, his bow held at the ready as he peered inside, eyes wide against the gloom. “Turn them loose,” he suggested. “My Loraleen will look after them, and she’ll never stray far from me.”

  Alexei had not intended to allow the horses to set a single hoof inside Athven, but he shut his mouth on the retort. He was busy enough glaring at the interloper as Gulver, Silvay and Malichai retrieved their bags and their saddles and stacked them in a heap on the floor. When the horses had been released, with a quick whisper from Malichai in Loraleen’s ear, the party was finally able to step fully inside and shut the doors behind them.

  In the midst of the process, the gray cat approached Alexei and twined herself about his ankles in a curiously watchful way. He all but ignored her until she reared up, planted her paws on his leg and dug in her claws.

  “Ow�
�” He swallowed an undignified yelp and looked down, into a pair of uncanny green eyes that studied him intently. He heard a chuckle.

  “She takes some getting used to,” the strange woman said. “But I doubt you lot will be as surprised as I was. Allow me to offer you the hospitality of the house, such as it is.”

  “Many thanks.” Malichai beamed at her and bowed deeply. “My name is Malichai Cherting, and I am a warrior of Andar. Whom might I have the honor of addressing?”

  When she laughed, the sound was low and musical. “You are a very courteous warrior,” she told him, bowing in her turn. “More courteous than others of your party. I am Zara. Of nowhere in particular. I am a guest in this fine but empty establishment.”

  “You cannot be a guest unless invited,” Alexei broke in, “which you most certainly were not. I might stop short of throwing you back on the road alone, but you can give up the idea that you will be permitted to continue to roam at will.”

  “And I am Silvay, and this is Wilder.” Silvay pushed past Alexei to offer a hand in greeting to the stranger, who took it with a surprised smile. “And Wilder is a she.”

  Wilder ducked her head and grinned.

  “We are thankful to be sleeping indoors tonight,” Silvay added, “whatever shape those doors may take.”

  “Well, you may change your mind when you discover the many unusual characteristics of these particular doors,” Zara replied dryly. “It’s taken me some months to come to terms with them myself.”

  “You’ve been here for months?” Alexei echoed, stunned.

  “Oh, some three or four I expect,” she answered, shrugging nonchalantly.

  “And have you not yet determined to your satisfaction that there is nothing here to steal?” he barked harshly.

  “Believe me, Erathi,” the woman snapped, her temper finally rising to meet his challenge, “had I been given a choice I would not have been here to welcome you.”

  “There’s your choice!” Alexei pointed at the door. “If you are so anxious to leave, I can’t imagine why you are still standing here.”

  She sighed, crossed her arms, and sauntered past him. “This is your fault,” she muttered, looking down at the cat, who still lingered at Alexei’s heels. “When his poor head explodes, I am not going to clean it up.”

  Why did she continue to address comments to the cat?

  Casting a pointed glance over her shoulder, the woman stepped up to the left door, leaned her full weight against it and pushed. Nothing happened.

  Malichai’s face scrunched up with confusion and he walked over to join her. He set his shoulder to the right door and heaved until his face flushed darkly beneath his beard.

  “It’s not her, Trevelyan. It doesn’t even tremble.” The warrior began to look troubled. “Are we trapped, then?”

  Alexei shifted his weight and unclenched his hands slowly. It didn’t make sense. Why would Athven let them in, only to ignore them afterwards? He reached out with his gift and felt for the stir and spark of magic in the stones. At first they seemed quiescent, but gradually he was able to discern the same faint hum he had observed from outside the door. He stretched farther, noting the signatures of Silvay, Wilder and Gulver, and then encountered another. No, two more. One the merest wisp of lavender, almost no more than a fragrance, a memory of beauty and longing. And the other… Alexei’s eyes flew open and his magic slammed back into his body so hard that he jerked.

  “What,” he asked, his voice shaking as he pointed at the source of his disquiet, “is that?”

  Zara laughed. “Oh, you mean Shadow? Well, in my land, we would call it a cat. But I don’t know the Erathi word.”

  “Whatever else it might be, it is most certainly not a cat,” he insisted.

  “Well, I’m sure if she wants you to know what she is, she’ll find a way to tell you.” Zara shrugged as though the matter was of supreme indifference to her, but Alexei heard the truth behind her avoidance.

  “You know,” he said flatly, stalking over to stand in front of her, arms folded with indignation. Now that he stood so close, he could sense that she was the source of that wisp of lavender. “You know what she is. And you are not as mundane as you pretend to be. Where are you really from? And what do you want?”

  She was tall enough to look him directly in the eye, and she did so, the pale, icy blue of her gaze flaring with anger. “You have been impossibly rude since you stepped through that door, so I have no urge to share any personal details with you. I already told you what I want. I want to leave. And if anyone else calls me mundane, I will lock the lot of you out of the kitchens and leave you to fend for yourselves.”

  Zara strode away, seething with anger, humiliation, and a tiny undercurrent of fear. She’d wanted not to be alone. She hadn’t anticipated the possibility that whoever joined her exile might resent her very existence.

  They’d all been speaking Andari, but she guessed from their proprietary attitude that more than one of the new arrivals were Erathi. Particularly the one who’d been so irritated by everything and everyone. The one who hadn’t bothered to introduce himself.

  He’d appeared frightening at first. About her height, with dark brown hair gone slightly gray and a confident, self-contained bearing, he’d clearly come out the worse in a confrontation at some point in the past. Scars marred the right side of his face, from his hairline to below his collar. They were old, but pulled and twisted the skin into a grim parody of the alert and regal appearance of the left side. Even his right eye appeared to have gone white.

  Interesting, she thought, that he didn’t bother with an eye patch, but wore his scars proudly. He might even have been handsome, before, but his arrogant and dismissive manners made it difficult for her to care.

  “Wait, please!”

  Zara turned to see the woman named Silvay hastening after her. She paused for the older woman to catch up.

  “How can I help you?” she asked, polite but distant.

  “Accept my apologies, and I hope you will ignore Alexei,” Silvay answered, with a rueful smile. “He’s…” She shrugged helplessly. “He’s had a difficult thirty years.”

  Zara’s brows shot up. “Unlike the rest of you? He seems old enough to have figured out how to control his temper.” So his name was Alexei. Not that she intended to use it.

  “In general, he is the most controlled man I have ever met,” Silvay answered, surprising her. “Possibly to his detriment. But again, I do apologize. It has been a most trying morning.”

  Zara waited pointedly, but Silvay shook her head.

  “No, not something that is mine to share. Perhaps in time he will tell you himself. But, as we are here, perhaps you can tell me more of what brought you to Athven Nar? And what we can expect from our, ah… stay?”

  Zara barked a laugh. “If you would know what to expect, you should ask her.” She pointed towards the ceiling. “I am as much a prisoner here as you. I came with…” Zara cast a sideways glance at Silvay, but the older woman did not appear to be judging her. She thought it might be safe to ask what she’d been longing to know since the moment they invaded her solitude.

  “Did you by any chance meet any others, while you were finding your way here? A party of three men, perhaps? One would have been older, with gray hair and a beard. Two younger, dark.” She could not bring herself to admit that one of those men had been her father.

  Silvay looked regretful. “We did not. Alexei confirmed there was no one else in the valley. No one except possibly one man, who does not match that description. Your friends?”

  “My companions, at least.” Zara tried to sound flippant, but it hurt too much. They had not stayed. Her father had simply left her, trapped and alone in a strange land. She wasn’t sure she should blame him, but she did.

  “As your friend Alexei supposed, we are treasure hunters. We understood the castle was abandoned and thought to try our luck, despite rumors that no one could get inside.”

  “The rumors were wrong?”
<
br />   “Not exactly.” Zara didn’t know how much of the truth the other woman might be able to accept. “We were allowed in, but then my… the men were forced out. I cannot quite explain how. I have been unable to escape since then.”

  “Athven,” Silvay said quietly.

  Zara’s mouth fell open. “You know, then? You know what Athven is?”

  “Not entirely,” Silvay responded with a smile. “I know of her, and have heard many tales. But your story indicates that she is awake and aware of you and chose to keep you for a reason, just as she chose to allow us entry for a reason.”

  Zara could feel herself turning red. She didn’t think she had the courage to explain what she knew of Athven’s reasons. It was still too humiliating to contemplate, so she changed the subject.

  “You’ll be pleased to know that there is wood and sufficient food supplies to last for a time,” she announced. “Apparently we were expected. I have been keeping to the kitchen to preserve fuel, but your party may find it cramped and hesitate to share the space with an intruder.”

  “Don’t you mean a prisoner?” Silvay asked wryly. She laughed at Zara’s expression. “I do not resent you, my dear. This adventure has many twists and turns yet to come, and I will be glad to share them with you. Besides, if Athven approves of you, then we are more the guests here than you are, wouldn’t you say?”

  Zara found herself smiling reluctantly, then a little more naturally as she felt relief sink into her bones. Perhaps it would not be as bad as she feared. As least she was not alone any longer, and a few of her new companions might even prove to be friends. She could worry about how to handle the antagonistic ones later.

  Running feet sounded behind them as they continued on towards the kitchen.

  “Wait for me!” the girl named Wilder called as she raced towards them down the passage. “I want to see everything! And I’m hungry.” She caught up and took Silvay’s hand as they walked. “You know, I’ve never seen a building with an aura before,” she confided artlessly.