Shadow Queen

by Unknown

  I strove for calm. ‘Then might I suggest, General, that the boy’s cousin is an equally obvious choice.’

  ‘Given you want the throne for yourself, and I can’t see you sitting in it again unless you bend your neck to the emperor, I don’t see how we can bargain, lady.’

  ‘What makes you think I can’t bend my neck?’ I said, my mouth dry.

  ‘Lady, as you say: you are your aunt’s niece.’

  Surprise stretched my eyes wide.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ he laughed. ‘She was a matron of impeccable degree, there’s none will dispute it. But her arrival on the southern border was not accidental.’

  ‘It was at the head of an army,’ I said. ‘This army.’ The army that would put her son on the throne and bring my people under the empire’s yoke. Except Helena’s army had been led by her husband, or so I had assumed. Was Sidonius her husband?

  ‘The army was certainly quick on her trail, but we marched to bring the traitorous bitch to heel,’ said Sidonius.

  My heart twisted, images of Helena floating to the surface of my memory: her face, made pale by make-up which couldn’t soften the flash of her eyes; her flagrant red dress, her laughter, her hand limply reaching for her throat and the arrow as she collapsed, the life fading from her.

  The pain of it thickened my voice. ‘Yet you’ll still put her son on the throne?’

  ‘The boy is the one who betrayed her,’ said Sidonius, his eyes hard as flint. ‘He has an Ilthean heart. As do I. And I will do as my emperor bids.’

  Struggling for composure, I wondered why this blow should surprise me. Renatas had turned on me, after all. But betray his mother, and at such a tender age?

  ‘You’ll have a hard time of it,’ I said. ‘Put an Ilthean on the throne and you’ll have to beat every Turasi into submission – individually.’

  He shrugged. ‘The boy has Turasi blood, remember? Svanaten, no less.’

  ‘But an Ilthean heart,’ I countered. ‘And House Svanaten hasn’t enjoyed a great deal of fortune or popularity of late. In fact,’ dazed and stupid with pain, the words slipped out of me, ‘the boy’s probably dead already.’

  Sidonius was before me in a stride, plucking me from the stool with a fist clutching my gown before pulling me close. ‘Who would dare touch him?’

  ‘Dieter, for one. To punish me,’ I said, battling to hide my terror and gritting my teeth against the starbursts of pain from my ribs. ‘Any of the drightens, for another.’ A whimper escaped me, despite my resolve.

  Sidonius collected himself with an effort, uncurling his fingers one at a time.

  My heels dropped to the floor and I took a cautious step back. The stool caught my legs, dropping me onto the floor. Pain exploded up my spine, blurring my vision. When it cleared, Sidonius was pacing the length of the tent wall off to my right.

  He stopped, turned on a heel and looked over my head. ‘Leave us,’ he said.

  The crested officer must have hesitated, for Sidonius switched his gaze to me. ‘I’m sure the lady will stay her powers. Besides, she’s too tired to stand without help, let alone work any more shadows.’

  Behind me the officer clapped a palm to his breastplate and soon the slap of the tent-flap told of his departure.

  ‘So, my lady,’ said Sidonius, ‘you are in my power.’

  ‘True, but you are also in mine.’ The quaver of weariness in my voice, and the way my shoulders hunched around my broken rib, undermined my attempt at bravado.

  ‘And what is the price for lending me that power, instead of turning it against me?’

  ‘My throne, of course.’

  He tilted his head in the beginnings of a refusal.

  ‘I’m not yet of age, you know,’ I forestalled him. ‘Not for another year.’ I swallowed hard after daring the lie. Bargain well, cousin. Iltheans didn’t come of age until twenty, and it had been Iltheans who raised him – from birth, if I was lucky. If he didn’t know the Turasi came of age at seventeen I might have a chance of emerging unscathed.

  ‘You’re a married woman,’ he countered. ‘By Ilthean standards, that qualifies.’

  I chewed on my lower lip, reconsidering. He would not grant me the throne under the auspice of an Ilthean regent, then.

  Which is no misfortune – a serpent with a toehold is a serpent embedded, Grandmother warned.

  Her words were all too true, but I could see no other way out of this with my skin intact, so scraped together my courage, and spoke.

  ‘Very well. What must I do to earn your trust?’

  He snorted. ‘The last Turasi woman I knew betrayed even her marriage vows for her country. My own brother thought nothing of sacrificing me for his gain. I don’t know what bond those marks on your brow signify, but I expect it’s not a slight one. Which you’ve broken.’

  I couldn’t speak of them, not to tell him they were involuntary, nor to tell him they still bound me.

  I wanted to rise, to stretch my legs and pace, hide my desperation behind movement. Or better yet, to flee. Gather Roshi and Sepp in my wake and run, fast as the swirl of snow on winter winds. But it wasn’t winter, there was no wind, and pain and exhaustion pinned me where I sat; besides, we’d be recaptured in moments.

  ‘General.’ I paused, swallowing my hesitation, firming my resolve and voice both. ‘If it means blood will not be spilled, I will lend my power to you. The palace shelters every person left in my world. I would keep them safe.’

  ‘No. It’s not enough. I need your power pledged to me, not on loan. If I thought hostages would do it, I’d have reminded you of the pair sitting outside.’

  It seemed Sidonius was just as determined and headstrong as his brother. But if I didn’t rest soon, I would collapse – and there was no guarantee as to what might happen while I was unconscious.

  I took a breath and closed my eyes, so as not to witness his triumph. ‘Win me back the throne, General, and I will pledge my power to Ilthea’s aid. Now, and in the future.’

  I opened my eyes, seeking his reaction. He was silent, considering.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said at last, noncommittal, though the cautious way he held his shoulders hinted at a decision in my favour.

  ‘But I want you shadow-pledged to it before you rest,’ he added.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I LET MY head hang while I waited. After all I’d been through I had gambled on Sidonius not having a shadow-worker with him. Gambled and lost.

  Grandmother had never allowed the mara residence at her court. She had feared the discovery of my ability. With no others to take my place and carry the name once the mara inevitably claimed me, discovery would have led to the demise of House Svanaten. But Grandmother’s was not the only Turasi court with little or no access to the shadows – only Evard of House Somner had a mara in permanent residence. So it had seemed unlikely a general in the field would be travelling with one.

  Except, reasonable or not, I had been wrong.

  I wished I had Roshi by my side. No doubt she’d tell me the risk I was taking now was tantamount to suicide. But, trapped between Dieter’s clay hunter and the Ilthean army, what other choice did I have?

  Thankfully, Sidonius’s shadow-worker arrived before the delay overwhelmed me. To my surprise, he was not an Ilthean. His whipcord thin body was swathed in what looked like a sheet, and the pits of his eyes were stained with ink dark as plum juice. Braids and tiny chips of glass threaded his hair. I could only suppose his homeland, wherever it lay, had been absorbed by the empire, for surely only a citizen could hold such a position of trust.

  Two steps away from me he stopped, staring at me. I refused to make eye contact. The pain in my midsection was becoming a feverish burn now and sweat ran down my cheeks in runnels.

  ‘Achim,’ said Sidonius. ‘This is the Lady Matilde. She wishes to pledge her aid to Ilthea.’

  ‘I take it a simple vow won’t suffice,’ said Achim, his voice like the rasp of sand over sand. His excellent command of the Turasi tongue hinted
at an expensive education.

  Achim moved closer, his robes whispering. Squatting, he peered up at me, tilting his head back as if for a better view. A tiny circle of gold pierced his septum, and I stared at it, wondering at its significance. Perhaps his people worshipped the bull.

  I raised my head, displaying Dieter’s brands. ‘As you can see, there is the problem of a prior … allegiance, if you will.’

  ‘Where did you come by such markings, my lady?’ he said, before slewing a look over his shoulder. ‘My lord, this woman needs rest before she can undergo a shadow-pledge.’

  ‘She can rest afterwards,’ said Sidonius. ‘When she is safely chained.’

  ‘Look at her colour –’

  ‘After.’

  Achim turned back to me. ‘My lady, I’m afraid this will not be pleasant.’

  ‘Just don’t break any more of my bones,’ I said.

  He put a thumb on my brow and spread his fingers around the back of my head, his hands warm and dry as a snake’s sun-baked hide.

  ‘These runes are your brother’s work?’ he asked of Sidonius, who only shrugged in reply.

  ‘Lady,’ asked Achim, ‘do you know their meaning?’

  Having learned the hard way what happened when I tried to speak of Dieter’s runes, I didn’t answer, reluctant to risk confessing embarrassing half-truths in front of an Ilthean general.

  ‘You can speak of them without fear,’ said Achim, gentle but urging.

  My heart raced at the prospect of what would happen if he were wrong, and I shook my head. Hope quickened my breath – the shadow-worker spoke so bluntly of the runes. Did he know how to release me?

  ‘Answer him,’ Sidonius commanded, his tone brooking no dissent. ‘If he says you can speak, you can speak.’

  ‘Emet,’ I answered, the word slipping out without obstacle. ‘Truth. To kill me, Dieter can erase a single rune and turn the phrase to Meit: Death.’

  Achim frowned and gave the circlet of gold piercing his nose a sharp tug. It must have stung, for he blinked fast and furiously afterwards.

  ‘If you were a creature of clay and anima, yes,’ he said. ‘But a human woman? No. Although …’ Again the quick tug at his piercing. ‘Oh, he is a sharp one, this brother. Canny. He uses the mind against itself.’

  Anger gave me strength as I untangled his meaning. ‘You’re saying this was a trick?’

  Achim’s smile revealed orange-stained teeth and gums. ‘Yes. A simple spell, to bind you from speaking of what he’s wrought. Chicanery, or another spell, to bind you into believing him. Then he tells you he’s bound you to the clay, yes? Erasing a rune will kill you. If you were Amaer, lady, you’d know this is not possible, for a human is born with the mechaiah’s spark bestowed in heart and mind. But instead, you believed him. And thus, you obeyed him.’

  I scrubbed at my forehead, my hands shaking so hard I couldn’t still them.

  ‘Rub them out!’ I begged, too unsteady to worry about my pride.

  Achim laid his hands in the lap of his strange robe and said, ‘But the spell is already broken.’

  I lowered my hands, nauseated by all I had suffered and all I had fought through because of a meaningless scribble on my brow.

  ‘It relies on ignorance,’ he added. ‘Now you know the truth, you can stand before him with impunity. His witching eyes and conqueror’s smirk cannot sway you anymore.’

  As I turned away from him, Achim muttered something in a tongue I didn’t recognise.

  ‘Enough,’ said Sidonius. ‘If Dieter has no hold over her, you can work a pledge. See to it this one will hold her.’

  Achim lifted his hands from his lap, fingers splayed and palms cupped.

  I stared at the space between them, mesmerised. Was that a glimpse of sun-scorched sand? Of rock sere beneath the sky? If so, it vanished in a blink. The fancies of a mind wracked by pain.

  When Achim’s gaze met mine, I thought I could see that land in his eyes, like a reflection off the surface of onyx. A great wash of sunlight and the staggering power it brought, a power too great for tender, water-lush creatures to withstand. The inhabitants of Achim’s land were sparse and spare, water-starved muscle and tendon beneath stretched skin. Their bones knew the heat of day, the cold snap of night. The plants were thorny and rigid, the birds wheeling in the sky in a ceaseless hunt for death. Emet, meit.

  The air around us shimmered, a whisper of parched desert heat curling the wisps of hair about my face, drying the sweat from my cheeks and brow. Sidonius watched Achim, impatient for an action already being wrought.

  The Amaer man released whatever insubstantial item he’d been holding and a great rush of power skittered through the tent. My skin tingled as it passed through me, the strands of it scribbling along my every fibre. Any words I uttered now would cling to those filaments of power, invading every strand of my being.

  Any words I uttered now would bind me, irrevocably.

  Achim lifted a hand and pressed the warm pad of his thumb over the centre of my brow.

  ‘Speak now your vow,’ he intoned, his voice holding the echo of aeons in which nothing shifted but sand.

  I glanced at Sidonius. What would he accept? What would he demand?

  ‘It is not wise to keep a shadow-pledge waiting, lady,’ Sidonius said.

  Everything seemed to be vibrating, a thrum building in the ground, rising through the soles of my feet and tickling every fragment in my body, until it made my lips tingle on the edge of numbness.

  ‘I, Matilde of House Svanaten, rightful Duethin of the Turasi, do pledge my aid to the empire of Ilthea, now and when I am returned to my throne.’

  The words burned like bile as my mouth formed them, then hung in the air. I felt the binding tasting and absorbing them, like spider silk swelling in the dew-filled morning.

  ‘More,’ Sidonius said. ‘In return for your throne, you will pledge whatever aid the emperor, or any of his representatives or ambassadors, deems necessary.’

  I eyed him warily, but Achim still had his thumb pressed to my forehead. Already the binding was tightening.

  ‘So be it,’ I whispered.

  A triumphant smile lit Sidonius’s face. Then Achim released me, and the binding took hold. All the power he’d summoned – the power of sun and sand, of the rocky bones of the earth and the dark corners they provided for hiding many-legged creatures and thorny plants – snapped back into me.

  An agony like venom lit my every nerve to screaming as Sidonius barked a laugh, the sound of his triumph merging with my pain before chasing me down into blackness.

  ACT FOUR

  A GAZE BLANK AND PITILESS

  THIRTY-FOUR

  A HUM OF VOICES nearby tugged at me through layers of grey sleep until I jolted awake.

  Remembering what had happened, I lay still, gradually gaining a sense of where I was and if anyone was near. I was lying not on a bedroll spread on the ground, but on a tick stuffed with wool and laid atop a low wooden frame. A travelling bed! An unlit brazier and a single lamp squatted in the centre of an otherwise empty floor, casting a weak, orange gloom over the small tent.

  The door-flap hung slightly ajar, revealing a slant of afternoon sunlight and no tree shadows. How long had I been asleep? Were we already approaching the Turholm?

  The tent-flap twitched aside and I jerked upright – and froze, hunching over the sharp pain of my ribs. When it receded, I saw that it was Roshi and stood up. Carefully. Her smile was bright as the light framing her, when she saw that I could stand. ‘Welcome back.’

  ‘How long have I been asleep?’ I asked, brushing unwashed hair from my face.

  ‘Three days – we’re back near the Turholm. Achim says you would’ve woken sooner, but he had to dose you up because the travelling would have pained you too much.’

  The mention of Achim brought the memory of my last waking moment ramming into me with the speed and force of a kick to the stomach: You will pledge whatever aid the emperor, or any of his representatives or
ambassadors, deems necessary.

  I’d found the Amaeri who could dissolve Dieter’s binding – and then I’d turned around and sworn my aid to Ilthea. What had I done but exchange one collar for another? I sank back onto the cot, burying my face in my hands with a groan. Need seemed a weak justification now.

  Roshi came forward and knelt by me, lightly touching my knee.

  ‘He’ll put me back on the throne. That was our bargain. He’ll unseat Dieter and put me back on the throne. Then, ravens take my eyes, I’ll owe my throne to Ilthea,’ I said, speaking through my fingers.

  And ravens take my eyes if it wouldn’t give rise to an endless round of requests, and eventually demands, from the empire.

  I shook my head. ‘Everything I’ve done has been so I could live, but that doesn’t excuse any of it. I sold my throne to the man who murdered my family, and now I’ve sold my people to the Iltheans. None of it’s excusable.’

  ‘You listen to me,’ Roshi said, gripping my knee hard. ‘The blood of the Skythes runs in you. We are not a people who lie down and die. I’ll not hear you rail against your fierceness like some limp Turasi cowering beneath a stone roof.’

  I didn’t answer and she chose to interpret my silence as acquiescence. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now let’s wash that bird’s nest on your head. Then I think you should talk with Achim. He’s a most interesting man.’

  Within moments she’d organised for a basin to be fetched, along with buckets of water and fresh clothes. She’d obviously settled into life with a travelling army.

  ‘Cold, I’m afraid,’ she said with offensive cheer, combing the chill water through my hair then scrubbing the soap into it, her fingers working some of the tension from my scalp.

  I fell to wondering about Clay and whether he’d been destroyed. If he hadn’t, he would still come seeking me. Thought of the golem sparked an idea. As everyone kept reminding me, taking a throne was never bloodless. Sidonius’s campaign would be no exception. There would be a battle. Clay might come hunting again. Even if he didn’t, there were uncountable ways in which a general might find himself an inadvertent casualty of his own campaign. A dead general couldn’t carry word of my pledge back to his emperor.