A Tempest of Shadows

by Washington, Jane

  “It’s like your magic,” he said lowly, both of us turning towards the gates to Breakwater Canyon. “The way you pulled us through space—it’s the same.”

  He was right … but that was impossible. The ability to construct places in the mind was a Sinn ability, and the Inquisitor was an Eloi. The mind and spirit energies were vastly different. But there was something real about what I had done with Calder. Our real bodies had been drenched in the water of my imagination, which was also impossible.

  Information, I thought, frustrated. I need information.

  We ventured into Breakwater Canyon, and I pulled my hair free of the Scholar’s tie, slipping it onto my wrist above my rainstone bracelet. I messed with the strands, trying to tease them about my face to hide my marks. My hair was a heavy, curling cascade, and its gold-red colour usually drew the eye, but this time it was different. People were openly staring and talking about me loudly, as though Calder was parading me around for their benefit.

  “That’s her, the Tempest.”

  “Look how the masters have dressed her.”

  “Can you see the mor-svjake?”

  “How dare she show her face.”

  “He won’t be guarding you forever.” The gravelly whisper trickled down my neck as we stepped into one of the tunnels of the canyon.

  I whipped around, but nobody would meet my eyes, and it was hard to tell who had delivered the threat. They were stepping away and whispering amongst themselves or turning their backs and hurrying off. The sectorians of the Citadel and the servants of the Obelisk didn’t seem to know my story as well as the stewards. Perhaps news hadn’t travelled that far yet, or maybe they were better at hiding their gossip and scorn. It was also possible that they just didn’t care. The sectorians weren’t helpless against magical attacks, and magic was involved in most of their dealings—criminal or otherwise. A crime of magic simply may not have been as surprising to them as it was to the stewards.

  “Cover your face.” Calder stopped, and I moved to stand beside him, glancing at the marked door ahead of us. It was the first house on my list.

  The mark was a black square, the four sides slashed thick and angry against the door in oily black paint. A chill raced up my back, my hands tingling. I repositioned my shawl, wrapping the lower half of my face. I watched as Calder flipped his Sentinel’s hood up, the golden eagle’s beak dropping over his forehead, the featherlike armour rippling to his shoulders. He hooked a section of his cowl into the hood and stepped ahead of me, his stance protective as he knocked three times.

  It almost seemed like nobody was home, no sounds coming from within. People were beginning to crowd in the narrow walkway behind us, blocking out most of the light from the end of the tunnel. I squinted, my eyes trying to adjust as a sharp sting of pain cut into my left side, vibrating along my midsection. I slapped a hand against my waist, distracted as the door finally creaked open and a weathered face appeared, a bare hint of candlelight flickering out from behind her, lighting the frizzy strands of her grey hair.

  She stared at Calder without speaking, her eyes wide, her wrinkled mouth slightly open, and then she seemed to find me standing there behind him, and those eyes flashed in fear and hatred.

  Why would the Inquisitor send me, of all people, here to do this?

  “Medicine,” Calder said, handing her one of the vials. “From the Inquisitor.”

  She grabbed it and slammed the door harder than it seemed her frailness should be capable of. I tucked my chin down, fumbling to get the list from my pocket as I held my left hand against the now pulsing pain in my side. I quickly mapped a route out in my mind and set off to the next house, Calder close behind me.

  The next house had another oily black square, and just looking at the paint had my skin crawling. I avoided touching it as I knocked on the door, and I stepped back as it swung open. The woman in the opening was one I recognised. Her hair was lustrous and dark, her eyes a soulful brown. Her belly swelled beneath her hand, a colourful yellow shawl thrown over her arm.

  An arm covered in angry, red-black sores.

  She clutched a handkerchief in her hand, the cloth spotted with blood.

  “Lavenia?” she asked. “Lavenia Lihl?”

  She was toneless, but I could see the array of emotions flitting through her bloodshot eyes. They weren’t so soulful anymore, I realised. She was shocked, and then despairing, and then angry.

  My mother had been her best friend.

  I nodded, grabbing the vial from Calder’s hand and holding it out to her. She stared at it, and Calder’s voice rumbled against the side of my head. Had he moved closer?

  “Medicine,” he explained again.

  Hildi lurched for me, her shawl fluttering to the ground, rage burning in her eyes, her other hand curling even more protectively around her stomach. I jumped away, and her fingers caught the vial instead, flicking it into the door. She jumped back as it shattered, the contents splattering, thick and dark, like a stain to treat the wood, crawling into the cracks to be absorbed. Calder pushed me to the side, reaching in to slam the door before Hildi could reach for me again. She hit the door and then struggled against it, but Calder leaned some of his weight into it, and it remained shut.

  I stared at the wood, my eyes narrowing, my senses buffeted. The hairs along my arms spiked up, a prickle itching over the back of my neck. Saliva built up in my mouth, and my heartbeat tripled. I touched Calder’s arm, drawing his eyes to mine. He read the horror there and grabbed my arms, checking me over as though I might have sprouted red-black sores. I shook my head, placing my hand an inch away from Hildi’s door, my fingers shaking so badly that I had to clench them into a fist and unclench them again.

  The Darkness.

  It’s here.

  It was seeping into the wood of the door, heavy and dark with the smell of rotting poultice. It was slowly soaking it, and I could almost feel it seeping through to the other side.

  The medicine was infected.

  I ripped the pack out of Calder’s hold, digging out another of the vials and unstoppering the lid. It was cloying and sweet, like cloves baked in honey. Rich and innocent, invigorated with a light, magical energy.

  Not infected.

  I dropped to my knees, tearing them out one at a time, checking each of them.

  “There was something wrong with it?” Calder asked, staring at the closed door as I returned the pack. All was quiet within.

  I nodded, pointing to the oily black square on the door. His jaw ticked. He moved to knock on the door, but I jumped up, my nails digging into his skin, pulling him away.

  Don’t touch.

  He looked down, prying my left hand off his arm. A bloody handprint remained. I glance down to my side, where the pain still pulsed, and he followed my gaze. Blood was seeping through the side of my dress, blossoming out from a single point. The side of my dress was open, the fashionable sectorian bodysuit visible. I couldn’t see any rips or tears, but a closer inspection revealed a very small, very precise hole in the fabric.

  A hole that led to a very small, very precise puncture.

  Calder grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the watchful eyes still peering out at us from the ends of the corridor. He pulled me down a familiar route until we were once again standing outside the door to my home. Several steward workmen were inside, the doorway bare, materials scattered around. At a barked word from Calder, they scattered, leaving behind their workstation in the kitchen. Calder propped up a freshly constructed door over the opening, sitting me down at one of the workmen’s chairs. My mother’s furniture had been cleared out. No hint of our lives remained.

  Calder extracted a small cloth case from one of the leather pouches attached to his belt, and I pulled at the material of my bodysuit as he emptied the case. I widened the hole, examining the skin around the puncture wound.

  “Let me see.” Calder shifted my hands away, crouching beside me, his hands burning against my skin. “It’s thin, but deep. You’re lucky
it didn’t get any of the organs—only magic can heal internal wounds.”

  I reached over to the next chair, where a pen rested against a measuring cord. I set the quilled tip against Calder’s arm. He stopped moving, allowing me to scribble a word.

  How?

  “How can magic heal?” he guessed, his golden eye as hot as his touch, making me slightly uncomfortable.

  I nodded. A quick, stiff gesture.

  He pulled his cowl away from his mouth, and I found myself able to count the individual scars on his face, the freckle on his upper lip, the darker, stormy blue around the edge of his right iris. “The Vold magic is entirely physical.” His deep voice shook my attention back to his words. “Some people seem to think that in the ancient times, it could heal as easily as it could kill. Whether that’s true or not, you do occasionally come across a Vold who can alter the physical body in small ways. Most stewards don’t know about them. They’re too rare. The Warmaster is rumoured to be one of them.”

  I gripped the pen tightly, anger rippling through me. Of course the sectorians wouldn’t want to share something so valuable with the stewards.

  Calder cut off a half-inch of suture tape, pressing it over the puncture. He didn’t fuss over me, and I was grateful as he stood and pulled the door away from the opening, stuffing his little case away.

  “Walk in front of me,” he demanded. “These people are angry about your mother. They want to punish you for it, and they’ll take any chance they can get.”

  I warded off the volcano of emotion threatening to bubble up at the thought of my mother and stepped out ahead of him. Instead of going to the third house, I went back to the second. I could sense the Darkness as soon as I entered the walkway. It had the sickening stench of mould, and I wrapped my shawl around my face a second time. Calder couldn’t seem to sense it, but he did the same as me.

  The door had changed completely—it was no longer a pale, worn wood, battered by the whipping wind at the end of the tunnel. It was blackened, warped, with dark olive moss prying open the planks to reveal gaping green wounds. I could peer inside the house through some of those wounds, glimpsing the interior through furry, wriggling growth.

  That was how I saw her. The woman on the ground. Her soulful brown eyes rimmed in red, her bright blue shawl tangled in one arm, the other curved protectively around her stomach. The red-black sores had spread all over her, widening to red-black wounds, eating away at her flesh, leaving her blackened and warped like her front door.

  I didn’t pause to think about the consequences as horror propelled me through the door, my shawl protecting my arm as I shouldered the splintered wood apart. I jumped over the fallen splinters on the floor, rushing to Hildi’s side. She wasn’t breathing.

  With a panicked sob, I glanced back to the door. Calder had covered his arm like mine, and was trying to push enough of the wood away to fit through, but it was a slow process for someone his size.

  “Don’t touch her, Lavenia,” he snapped out. He was frustrated at being separated from me, I could see it in his face, could feel it in the nervous, crackling energy that swept into the room. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

  I glanced around the small sitting room, grabbing a linen cushion tucked against the back of a faded armchair. I tore the cover off and set it in my lap, ready to wrap my hands if needed. Calder finally managed to make it into the room, tossing his cloak into the kitchen basin. I quickly shrugged off my shawl, realising that the Darkness could have clung to the material. I tossed it atop Calder’s cloak. He had one of the Inquisitor’s vials in his hand, but he was staring at Hildi, realising the same thing as me.

  She was already dead.

  I shoved my hands into the cushion cover, tearing open the front of her dress, revealing her swollen belly. It was covered in red-black spots, but they weren’t yet sores or wounds. I dropped the cover and took the vial off Calder, using the attached stopper to drop some of the thick liquid onto my palms. I rubbed them together, setting them against her stomach. Calder made a move to stop me, but I cut him a sideways look.

  This is my fault, my eyes screamed, fury dancing in fear.

  I had been branded a mor-svjake, a killer of the weak. Hildi was a kynmaiden. She was pregnant. And I had brought the infected vial to her door. I had walked away long enough to kill her. It didn’t even matter that Hildi was already lost—that I would likely not survive a second trial for killing another kynmaiden. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow another life to slip away from me. That was all that mattered.

  I closed my eyes, having to force my hands in place as a slimy, awful energy tickled at my skin. I drew on my slumbering magic, pushing it past the hint of Darkness, past Hildi’s skin, past the dying cells and the choking sense of decay. I didn’t know how to reach for the baby, or if it was even possible to sense it, but I pushed and pushed until something finally, hesitantly, pushed back.

  A tickle of terror, the tiny hammering of drums.

  A living, beating thing.

  A Vold child.

  I pulled back, tears running down my face, as I rushed to the basin, pumping water through the tap to scrub away the oily feeling from my hands.

  I pulled the pen from my pocket, my wet fingers slipping as I spun around, almost running into Calder. He pulled his arm up, something sparking in the sharp depths of his blue eye.

  Baby, I scrawled, my hand shaking, water running into the ink. Alive. Hurry.

  He pulled away before I was even finished writing, the quill tip dragging across his arm. He raced to the door, and I heard him ordering people to stay clear of it. I hadn’t realised before, but there was a gathering of stewards huddled right outside Hildi’s residence, far more than had been in the corridor earlier. They steered clear of the rotting door, eying it with confusion and terror.

  “The Tempest has brought us the plague.” It wasn’t a single whisper. It was repeated, from one mouth to the next, panic increasing with each new utterance.

  I ignored them, crouching by Hildi again, my eyes on her stomach as the black spots grew. They swelled slowly, trying to get around the thick medicine from my hands. I dropped some more of it on her skin, my heartbeat hammering.

  When Calder returned, he was holding a threadbare scarf, another wrapped around his face. He dropped it into my lap, and I used it to cover my own face, some of the horrible sliminess in the air losing its awful grip on me. A medicine man followed Calder into the room, steering clear of the wood that now rotted in a pile against the ground. Two steward boys followed him, hauling bags, cases, and baskets of supplies.

  “You’re sure it’s still alive?” the medicine man grunted out, his shrewd grey eyes on me.

  There was no hatred or fear there, only focussed urgency. I quickly nodded, and he turned away, beginning to bark out instructions to the boys. Calder picked up my discarded cushion cover, using it to shield his hands as he gathered pieces of the rotting wood, carrying them to the kitchen basin and dumping them in atop our clothing. When he was finished, he held the cushion cover over the basin, muttering a word beneath his breath.

  “Braen.”

  The cushion cover began to smoke, and then to burn. Flames licked up towards his hand, and he dropped the flaming square of fabric into the basin, where it spread to the wood. The medicine man turned briefly, as the boys were held captive by the crackling of the fire. For the first time since learning his true name, I was seeing the Captain again. A Vold warrior, fierce and stern, his burning, electric power turning to actual flame right before our eyes.

  Plumes of red-black smoke began to curl up from the basin. Calder quickly grabbed Hildi’s tin kettle, using it to shatter the salt-frosted window above the basin. The smoke escaped up and out through the window, and the medicine man began ordering the boys back to their tasks.

  Two golden-cloaked Sentinels stepped into the room, taking stock of the scene before facing Calder. I recognised them immediately.

  “Captain,” Ingrid greeted. “We got your m
essage.”

  She was with Avrid again, the man with the split pupils. He was wrapping the lower half of his face in his cowl.

  “Look after this mess,” Calder said. “The body must be burnt. You can’t make contact with her skin. Isolate everybody with the sickness and block off access to the corridors outside their homes. Move the healthy to the higher levels. Are there empty houses on the lower levels that can be assigned to the infected?”

  “There should be,” Ingrid returned. “We’ll ride to Hearthhenge and make the arrangements.”

  “Do it today. Pull back the scouting parties; send out word to bring the ships home. We’re going to need all our strength here.”

  “What is it? A plague?” Avrid asked, his eyes on the medicine man’s gloved hands and the blade burning in the flame of a lantern.

  He was going to cut the baby free.

  “Worse than a plague,” the medicine man said, his tone hinting at surprise. “It lives. Grows. It doesn’t stop until it has consumed whatever object it has infected.” He waved a gloved hand behind him, and I spotted a strange marking on his arm—drawn in silver, like the markings on my face, it depicted a small line of spiders curving around his forearm. “That door. This woman.” He drew my attention back to his face. “Once it has taken the entirety of a thing, it seems content to exist and no longer grow, but if it’s separated from its host, it will attack whatever it comes into contact with.”

  That explained how it had been contained within the vial, but as soon as the contents of the vial shattered against the door, it had begun to spread again. It also hadn’t spread beyond the door or from Hildi to the floor she lay upon.

  “How did this happen?” Ingrid asked, pointing to the woman, a hint of sorrow in her eyes as the medicine man began the messy process of cutting into Hildi’s stomach. “The others only developed a rash. The stewards are spreading rumours that it’s her. The Tempest.” She didn’t even look at me as she spoke, her attention stuck on Calder.