A Tempest of Shadows

by Washington, Jane

  Another shock of dizziness unsettled me, stronger than the last. The images seemed unsteady as I hunched over, pain fissuring up through my chest.

  The waterlogged feeling returned to my heart, that awful sound roaring in my ears.

  Thump. Thump. Thump … Pause.

  I almost tore myself free, but the last set of eyes stopped me. Gold and blue. Calder. He was younger, closer to my own age. His trail of gold only dripped to his chest.

  It ends with us, he whispered as they rested their heads together.

  My Blodsjel, she choked out, blood coating her lips. My brother. We have failed.

  When her silver shadow exploded, the ash turned green and smoked horribly before burning off. The air itself seemed impure. The darkness had reached the surface, and her death seemed the very last barrier against it. It bled through the trees like sap, contouring stone and brick like furry algae. It grew and festered, and I felt it all around me, bursting forth.

  The world had a sickness.

  I fell away from it all, back through layer after layer. Back through time and memory. From the third Fjorn to the second to the first, I broke away from my connection with Calder, and then the atmosphere was dropping away again, faster and more violent than before. It was a flash, a lurch, and then I was back in the Obelisk. The sky had darkened with night.

  I struggled to my feet, falling to one of the wastebaskets in the apothecary, where I began to violently empty the contents of my stomach. Calder’s footsteps sounded behind me, but again, he gave me space. I groaned, leaning over the basket, my pounding head against my arm as my stomach lurched again.

  What was all of that? I tried to voice the words, but my voice was stolen again. I pulled back angrily, forcing myself to my feet, where I wobbled for a moment.

  I spun, staring at Calder, demanding an explanation with my eyes. He seemed detached, but in a strange way. It looked as though he had actually flicked a switch in his brain, turning off emotion itself. I wondered if he had seen what I had seen.

  “How many did you count?” he asked, and I remembered his earlier words.

  I held up three fingers

  His jaw clenched, but he nodded. “There were only supposed to be three of us. Three chances to overthrow the king of Ledenaether. Three Fjorn, each with a Blodsjel to protect her.”

  The information was overloading me. The sensations and memories didn’t make sense, not in the way that I could prove them … but one fact finally took root, flowering to the forefront of my mind.

  Calder was the final Blodsjel.

  “And then you happened,” he continued. “The connection is there, between you and me, as it was between Alina and me. You have the power of the Fjorn. You have their memories, as a Fjorn should. But … something is wrong. You shouldn’t exist. My Fjorn was Alina. She died. We failed. You should have your own Blodsjel. Not me.”

  He snapped out the last part, pulling me up by the arms. I wasn’t inundated by images again. The energy between us was comforting and warm, though his presence was definitely far too overwhelming to feel comfortable around.

  I shook my head, because I obviously had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Something has gone wrong, Lavenia.” His words were drilled into me by the intensity of his eyes. He was rattled. “This shouldn’t be happening.”

  I drew away from him, my attention skittering around the apothecary. I drew the Scholar’s list from the pocket of my dress with shaking fingers, realising as I unfolded the damp paper that we were still wet from the river.

  The river that should have been in my imagination only.

  I slapped the list down on one of the benches, anchoring my hands against it as I closed my eyes and focussed on breathing.

  One breath, and the next.

  I focussed inward, on the struggling tempo of my heartbeat, letting it lull me as it slowly strengthened to a faint echo of what it should have been.

  I tried to sort out the facts from everything else. I was overloaded with memory and sensation, jarred to the edges of my mind with impossibilities. Calder was asking me to believe in a legend, while making it very clear that he didn’t want me to have any part in it.

  I had seen the bond repeated three times, with three women and three men. I had felt the deaths of the women, the despair of their three protectors. I had felt the great big groaning of the world as it turned from one era to the next, fighting off a spreading sickness that grew stronger and swelled further with each death.

  I didn’t know what role I played in it all. I didn’t know if I was special, like those three girls. I didn’t know why Calder’s fate had been tied to mine.

  I knew only one thing for certain: there was an evil in this world. It came from an empty hollow before time or space, born from the secret place where all things originated. Three women had stood in its way, separated by centuries. Three battles they had lost, one after the other, resulting in me, a broken legacy, fourth in a line of forgotten three.

  I was the sign of a world run dry of time because the darkness had triumphed.

  And now … it was coming for us all.

  8

  Embers

  For some time, I was unable to do anything more than focus on my breaths; in and out, over and over. I tried to sort the information out into tidy little boxes, and tried to file those tidy little boxes into tidy little cabinets in my mind, like I had heard the Sinn could do.

  But I was kidding myself.

  I couldn’t even make a pile or imagine a single ordered list that I might place in that pile. I was a long way away from boxes and cabinets.

  It was Calder who made the Scholar’s elixir, moving silently around me, adept even after the emotional turmoil I was sure he had just put himself through. I had felt the force of his connection with Alina. He was more than her soul brother, more than her protector, more than family or fate. They were a single breath, and he was strangled without her.

  He mixed lavender oil with the dried leaves of the nott flower, adding coconut oil and pouring it all over black salt to dissolve. He transferred the oil to a small mister, and then gently turned me around, placing the little tube in my palm. It was ice-cold from the black salt. I clutched it, leaning back against the bench.

  “It doesn’t come easily with you,” he admitted, a shadow falling over his face, deepening his scars, narrowing his eyes. “We aren’t bound as the others were. With Alina, it was as easy as breathing. But with you, my body recoils and rebels. Do you feel as though I am the brother of your soul?”

  I frowned, shaking my head. His didn’t feel like a soul birthed beside my own. We were tied closer than that, our fates stitched together in a different way. I pressed a fist to his chest, and a fist to my own chest. I drew them together, placing them side by side. I looked at him and shook my head.

  He stared at my hands, knocking one of them aside.

  We stared at the single fist, and I knew he felt it too. We weren’t separate, like the others had been, like he had been with Alina. We were joined, but not in harmony. Where he and Alina breathed life into each other, he and I would fight each other for the same breath, knowing all the while that if one of us stopped, so would the other.

  The darkness hadn’t just permeated the world—it had permeated this sacred thing between us, the repetition of one girl and her protector over time. It had twisted the natural order and poisoned what could no longer be.

  “She really was the last.” Calder’s words were cold, distant. “You’re just … what happened when we failed. The end result. The death of the Fjorn.”

  The child is destined for death.

  I shoved him away, stalking past him to the cages, snatching up the Scholar’s list on my way past. My pack was on the floor, and I swung it over my shoulder, moving past the man still sitting at his high desk in the entry, closing the cage before Calder could step in after me.

  Blodsjel, I thought, watching his shadowed form appear in the doorway as I began my as
cent to the Scholar’s quarters. Brother of my soul. The harder I tried to make the ancient word mean something, the more foreign it seemed to become, until I was forced to sweep the entire ordeal from my mind.

  I crept into the Scholar’s quarters, avoiding the direction of the lantern light and moving off to the left, into the shadows. I had cleaned the entire floor from top to bottom and was now somewhat confident that I could make it around to his bedroom in the dark. The room was cold, soft sounds travelling from where the Scholar seemed to be working in the next room, light peeking from beneath the door. I followed the steps on his list, preparing his room for sleep by folding down the covers on his bed, drawing the shades over the windows, dimming a lantern by the bedside, and spraying his pillows with the elixir.

  I set aside a separate blanket for myself, and then pulled out the wrapped packages from my pack, sorting through them for something suitable to sleep in. Calder appeared as I was drawing a shift out from a pile of underwear. He glanced at the material in my hands and immediately turned his back, folding his hands in front of him and setting his legs apart, a stiff sentry by the door he had entered through.

  I quickly changed, hanging my dress and shawl over the back of a chair to dry properly, and then I sat on the bed. The list didn’t specify that I needed to wait for the Scholar before I slept, but I was too afraid of him to let my guard down, so I sat like that, contemplating Calder’s stiff back as the smell of the Scholar’s elixir slowly drifted up to me.

  When I woke in the morning, a blanket had been pulled over me, but the Scholar’s side of the bed was entirely untouched. Calder was standing by the door again. I wasn’t sure that he had slept at all.

  I stumbled groggily from the bed, moving to the door on the other side of the room and cracking it open just enough to peer through. The lanterns were extinguished, the Scholar nowhere to be found. There was a steward woman pushing a cleaning cart over to one of the desks.

  I closed the door, leaning back against it. I had escaped sleeping next to the Scholar, but this was only the first day in an endless cycle of servitude. I briefly contemplated running away again, but even as I finished shaking off my sleep, a few things became alarmingly clear.

  I had been so caught up in the details the day before, I had neglected to make the most obvious connection of all. Whatever was happening to me, whatever I was, the five great masters knew.

  The Inquisitor had pried his way into my core, witnessing my energy at its centre … but he had lied to the small council and everyone gathered there. He had told them that my allegiance was to the Vold sector, and he had done it with a smile on his face. They were fighting over me because they thought I was one of the Fjorn—their final chance to overthrow the king of Ledenaether.

  I didn’t know for certain, but it seemed to go without saying that if the Fjorn were to overthrow the king of the afterworld, she would then be in a position of immense power. That was why the five great masters all planned to wed me on the day I came of age. I was their path to greater power.

  My head was swimming with the realisation as I quickly changed, packing everything up and approaching Calder. I tapped his shoulder. He opened the door without looking at me, leading us back through the Scholar’s quarters to the cages. We travelled down in silence, and he didn’t speak until we had passed through the tunnel and were on the arched dam wall heading back to the Citadel.

  “You’re with the Inquisitor today.” He glanced over to me. “Be careful. It’s impossible to tell when the Eloi magic is at work.”

  I can tell. I shook my head.

  He raised a brow, pulling at a hooked scar on the right of his temple. “Or not?” he asked.

  I smiled a little, but the movement felt foreign. He stared at me, and I realised we had stopped walking.

  “Alina’s Eloi energy wasn’t very strong.” His voice was barely audible over the sound of the waterfall, forcing me to edge closer. “The Fjorn power dwindled each time it surfaced. By the time it got to her, she was actually weaker than most sectorians. It was like she had a sample of each sector, but hadn’t specialised in any of them.”

  He shook his head, turning away from me, walking faster than before. I hurried to catch up with him, wondering how a girl weaker than most sectorians could be expected to overthrow the king of Ledenaether—a man so powerful he wasn’t even thought of as a man. He was a fount of power. He was Ledenaether itself. A place of legend, an entire world eclipsing our own, full of darkness or light or nothing or everything.

  We reached the Citadel and entered the marketplace, where I was surprised to find the Scholar surrounded by a scattering of Obelisk servants, their conversation a low, frenzied hum. His cold violet eyes locked onto me, and he raised a hand, the wide sleeve of his gown slipping down to reveal a thick, tanned forearm. He seemed as far from the bookish Sinn stereotype as possible. He flicked his fingers, and the crowd around him rapidly dispersed. He turned his fingers, beckoning me forward. Calder’s entire demeanour changed abruptly, and he stepped back, allowing me to pass by. When I turned to glance back at him, he was casually glancing into one of the marketplace stalls, picking up a small thread of herbs.

  “You’re late,” the Scholar snapped before reaching out, his hand near my hair.

  I hastened a few steps back, and his eyes narrowed, his hand dropping to my shoulder and dragging me forward before raising to my hair again. His energy was cold, like the Weaver’s, though where the Weaver’s crept over my skin like mist, the Scholar’s was a dry sort of cold, like the smoke from black salt, which would cause a horrible frozen burn if it ever touched the skin. His fingers dipped into the strands of my hair, pulling half of it up and securing it behind my head with a tie. The strands were pulled off my face, my mor-svjake on full, glaring display. He smiled a horrible, sharp smile, his eyes a deep glimmer. He looked almost manic beneath the glaring morning sun.

  “Much better, Tempest. Follow me.”

  He strode off, and I followed without a glance for Calder, knowing that he hadn’t actually taken his attention off me for a second, despite it seeming as though he did. We climbed to one of the Citadel rooms guarded by a set of Sentinels who stood aside at the sight of the Scholar. The room was a sprawling, open space, like the open level of the Citadel where my trial had been held, though the sides of this room were enclosed in the dark, jagged stone of the mountain the Citadel had been carved from. There were two wide balconies, blue silk curtains blowing inwards, creased with beams of sunlight. The room was empty but for rows of glass-topped, deep oak cases. Almost too many to count. I stopped at the first as the Scholar strode ahead of me. I peered through the glass lid and was hit with an immediate wave of energy that sent me stumbling back. Calder’s hand hit my spine, pushing me forward, and we both stared down into the case. There were several seemingly innocuous objects. A locket, a pin, a book, a pair of socks. The energy attacked me again, but Calder’s hand braced me, and I was able to withstand it enough for the sensation to gradually split into several discernible sources of magic. They climbed and clawed over each other, trying to reach me, urging me to break the glass and pick one of them up, to bathe in the dark energy of one or crack open the light of another, to secure them to my skin and mutter words above their surfaces.

  To unlock them.

  To set them free.

  “Tempest.”

  The word was spoken in a soft murmur, breaking through the spell that had captured me. I jerked away from the case, realising that Calder had already backed away from me. I could no longer see him, but he had probably disappeared to one of his stiff posts by the exit.

  I blinked at the chest before my face, trying to take in all of the man before me without backing away. The Inquisitor wore boots with armoured pieces sewn into the leather, thick brown pants, and a short tunic split along the front and sides, with a light grey layer beneath and a thicker, darker layer over the top. Belts and straps hugged his hips and crossed over his chest, securing a dark grey cape that
slid off his shoulders, topped by thin brown fur. The sleeves of his tunic were also armoured, ending at his wrapped wrists. Once again, I was struck by the fact that he was dressed as a warrior and not a politician. More specifically, as one of the Reken warriors who sometimes teased our shores with longships and crossbows.

  “She likes to touch things that don’t belong to her,” the Scholar explained, drawing my attention up and over the Inquisitor’s shoulder.

  Suddenly, the little book that I had stolen from the Obelisk was burning a hole through my pack. The Inquisitor twisted his lips in a wry, humourless way, and I found myself touching my throat. His dark, velvety eyes followed the movement, and I pinched my fingers together, ringing an invisible bell between us.

  “Ah,” he said. “Yes, I do believe there is something to be done about your voice. Follow me.”

  He and the Scholar turned as one, sweeping away from me, both seeming too large even for this sprawling, open space. Nervously, I sought out Calder by the door, noting that he was facing me.

  Because the danger was on the inside.

  He left his station, moving toward me, and I swallowed, turning to follow the masters. They stopped at one of the cases, the Inquisitor lifting the glass lid away as the Scholar leaned back against the neighbouring case, one of his legs tucked behind the other, his arms folded over his chest. His face immediately changed, the tension dropping away from the sides of his mouth, the fury draining from his eyes. He became a beautiful but cold statue, still as stone. Alarmed, I almost started toward him, but the Inquisitor grabbed my arm to stop me.

  “Leave him be. He doesn’t like people watching him while he’s dissecting their every movement.” He positioned me before the case. “Take the bell. I have altered the magic source enough that its allegiance will turn to the next person who touches it. You will be its new master. To undo the enchantment stealing your voice, you need only speak the command. Pratek. Obviously … you can’t speak, so you’re going to have to skip the incantation. If you can.”