SHADOW WEAVER

by Claire Merle

  Tug waits out of sight at the edge of the track. I am surprised he has not dismounted to talk with Elise. He does not speak as I mount my mare. We turn back along the overgrown path towards the fort.

  I ride behind him, never more uncertain of his motives. Protecting Duchess Elise has always been a priority. But so has staying away from her. Does he chaperone me to the Red City to make sure I do the Duchess’s bidding? Or is it a way to both protect her and escape her at the same time? Yet if he was running away, he would not have suggested delivering my findings to her in person, or returning to Lyndonia to take charge of Kel.

  Jakut believes finding me was the will of the Carucan Gods. He showed his devoted faith and trust through the spiritual cleansing, and I was their answer. But what does Tug believe in? It is not coin. Nor superstition. Nor unrequited love.

  Reaching the pier to the drawbridge, I draw my horse to a stop. Beyond the portcullis lies the front courtyard where in minutes soldiers, the Duke and the Prince will gather, and it will be days before I might find myself alone with Tug again. Tug halts and brings his stallion round to face me.

  “If I die,” I say, “before I find out who ordered the attack on the Prince's escort, I want your word you'll take Kel back to our parents.”

  He straightens in his saddle. His gaze shifts to the distant forest. He breathes deeply. Sunshine falls on the shadows of his tattoos, outshining their darkness so he appears more man than beast.

  “You have my word.”

  I close my eyes for an instant, and feel the warm rays on my eyelids. When I open them, I notice the mist on the lake has lifted, and the sky is a brilliant, spring blue.

  Thirty

  Kel's safety is a candle of hope burning in the window of a dark house—a light in my being that cannot be extinguished. Not by the hard, exhausting pace of our journey south. Not by the Duke and Commander Fror's disapproval of my presence, as though I might endanger the troop at any moment. And not by the Prince's attentive kindness in front of the men and cold dismissal when we are away from watchful eyes.

  For eight days we ride through valleys and huge oak forests, branches vibrant with baby green leaves. We pass rivers and waterfalls, and stop only to sleep and eat. The soldiers erect tents and establish camp within minutes. As though my presence is not awkward enough, I am further singled out by my separate sleeping quarters, which Tug and Brin take turns to guard under the star-bright sky.

  On the nights Tug snores, wrapped in furs outside my tent, Jakut prowls and barely rests. He is determined to understand Tug's hold on me. I imagine he means to catch us doing something that will throw light on our little excursion in Lyndonia. But, by some mutual unspoken agreement, since the morning we left Kel, Tug and I have avoided all but the barest minimum of contact. He plays his role as protector to Lord Tersil's daughter, and I his charge, whose only interest lies in the Prince.

  The days grow warmer, the nights shorter and the need for sleep leaves my body. Soon, the midnight sun will rise and hang in the sky for three moons. I try not to wonder if I will be around to see it fall beneath our world and plunge us into winter again.

  For now, I am too busy tending to aches and sores from hours in a saddle, sketching maps of the Ruby Palace cobbled together from Duke Roarhil's boyhood memories; ruminating on how Jakut and I will convince the Ruby Court of our amorous charade, when he cannot stand to remain within throwing distance of me.

  In front of the soldiers, our greatest challenge is pretending affection. But in the palace, Jakut will be surrounded by people he has lived alongside for years, people who cannot be bluffed as simply as the Duke and his army. He will have to face Lady Calmi, the girl he wished to marry despite his obligations to the Rudeashan princess. And Queen Usas, Tmàn born, raised as a warrior, educated as a battle strategist, will scrutinize his every move.

  On the ninth day we pass through vast flat lands of fields worked by men, women and children. Jakut rides ahead with Commander Fror.

  I use my time alone to mull over what I have gleaned from the Duke's memories concerning the Ruby Court. I also pick at the obscure ocean of the Prince's mind. Smudges of light and color. Echoes of sound. Nothing I can stitch together.

  We gallop for two hours, pushing the horses harder than ever. I am beginning to wonder about this shift in our habitual riding pattern when the Duke slows to a trot and confers with Jakut and Fror. The Prince and Commander step their horses to the side of the troop, wait for us to pass, and rejoin at the rear. I glance back at Jakut and see two scouts break off to scan the horizon in our wake.

  Tug draws his stallion up to my mare. Brin closes in on the other side. I send out my mind, searching for the reason for this palpable electric charge in the atmosphere. Skimming across the field workers, I sense nothing unusual until I try to enter one of their minds. My spine turns to ice. I raise the hood of my cloak and fold the velvety material around my upper body. It is late afternoon and the sun is warm on my side, but I am chilled through.

  “Mirra?” Tug says.

  “What is this place?”

  “Lord Strik's castle lies twenty or thirty miles from here. These are his lands.”

  “There's something wrong with the field workers,” I whisper.

  “Wrong?”

  “Their minds are like houses made from paper, like a mirage.” We have been riding through similar fields since lunch, and I realize I haven't once seen a worker’s memory surface in the mind-world. Nor have we passed through any villages. As though their ghost minds live in ghost bodies. Where do they all sleep?

  The skin beneath Tug's tattoos turns an unnatural shade of gray. He takes off his gloves, slips out the long-knife from his waistband, and tucks it beneath a leather flap at the side of his saddle. If Tug is worried, we are in trouble.

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “My knives,” I say.

  “They are safe.”

  “I think it's time you returned them.”

  “We are fifty men strong. And Lord Strik must be an old man now.”

  “And yet you and Duke Roarhil do not seem reassured.” I scan ahead, eyes falling on the Duke. He sits stiff as wood in his saddle, two guards trotting tight at his sides. I suddenly remember why Lord Strik's name sounds familiar. When the Duke and his brother, King Alixter, were boys he was their father's chief adviser. The young princes feared and despised the lord, blaming him for the death of their mother.

  I lean closer to Tug. “What do you know of this lord?”

  “Enough to realize it is better if we do not cross his path.”

  “Then why are we riding straight through his lands?”

  On my other side, Brin grips the crystals beneath his shirt, gaze sweeping the dirt road ahead.

  “Commander Fror and the Duke discussed ways around it,” Tug says. “It seems I have been in the north a long time. Lord Strik's fiefdom has not ceased to grow. Now it is near impossible to reach the Red City from Lyndonia without travelling through his territory.”

  “If King Alixter blamed this lord for his mother's death, why give him control of more land?”

  Hoods draw up around Tug's wolfish eyes, concealing something monstrous. My flesh crawls. He loses no sleep over the blood, gore and horrors littering his past. And yet this lord...

  “Strik takes whatever he desires,” Tug answers, venom lining his words. “Not even King Alixter could stop him.”

  Nothing throws Beast-face off balance. Who is this lord? And why did no one warn Jakut or me of the threat before we set out this morning? Or perhaps the Duke did discuss matters with his nephew, and I am the only one who was not informed, being a sensitive member of the feebler sex. They would not have wanted to throw me into a bilious panic.

  We trot onwards in silence, the cavalry on high alert and uncannily quiet. And then the peasants in the field stir, as though a light in the sky draws their attention upwards.

  I stretch my mind far into the distance. What I meet out there is unlike anything I thought possible.
The reins slacken in my fingers. As if punched, I double over the saddle, hands shaking, breath a stabbing pain in my chest. It is just shock. Just shock, but terror sparks from the tips of my head down to my toes.

  The mind of the approaching horseman is like a huge shimmering hole. A void, dragging everything into blackness.

  “Mirra?”

  I fight to straighten up. I must not draw attention to myself. “Keep me away from him,” I hiss.

  “Who? Mirra, what's the matter?”

  “The man who comes. You will see him soon on the road.” My voice is breathless, my head spinning. Up ahead, the Duke orders our troop to a halt. The horses stop, restless, whinnying.

  “Listen,” I whisper, leaning towards Tug, still hunched over. “I don't know how you do it, but you can bury the things you value most. This protection you have on your mind, raise it as much as you can now. And do not let him talk to me.”

  Tug's face sharpens. I thought the day I saw fear in those dark eyes would be cause for celebration. Instead it compounds the dread.

  “Try to sit up,” he murmurs. “Pull back your hood.”

  I do as he says, tucking my hands into my mare's sweaty mane to hide the shaking.

  From our position in the middle of the troop, I cannot see the road. I glance back through the men and glimpse Jakut's blue tunic, two rows from the rear. The soldiers have moved their horses closer to form a wall around him.

  Hooves thunder towards us. At least five other riders accompany the dark mind, but their presence in the mind-world is smothered by the great drag of the black hole.

  I set my eyes ahead. In the fields the peasants work as though their lives depend on it. A thought hits me. If Lord Strik is Uru Ana, he will sense the Prince's secret at once. I want to warn Jakut, but the cantering horses stomp closer, almost upon us. It is too late.

  “Good afternoon,” a voice says, carrying across the soldiers. It sounds neither young nor old. The mind is so big it swamps the first three rows of men as though they have just blinked out and vanished. A great noise and energy floods my perceptions, making it hard to concentrate, hard to think of anything but getting away. “Is that you, Roary?” the voice continues. “Well, I haven't seen you since you were small enough to sit on my knee!”

  The Duke's voice rumbles in reply, but the wind carries his words in the opposite direction.

  “I have always said war with the Eteans was a mistake,” Strik answers. “Your brother was too proud to listen to an old man's advice. What news from the north of Prince Jakut?”

  I hear no answer from the Duke. But suddenly the dark mind is closing in. Instinct makes me want to jump to the ground, curl up small and put my hands over my ears. Lord Strik trots up the outskirts of the cavalry, beady eyes skimming the faces of the men. He stops level with Tug and me.

  “You travel with a lady?” The light mockery used to address the Duke has been replaced by sinister amusement. I keep my gaze down. Tug's hands rest over the concealed hilt of his knife.

  “And who is she?” Strik asks. The casualness of his question thinly disguises a twisted curiosity.

  “She is my wife's niece,” the Duke says, joining us. The momentary distraction allows me to glance at the lord. Deep lines mark a handsome face. Strands of silver are woven through his thick black hair. The eyes are soulless.

  “Duchess Elise's niece,” Strik echoes. “I had been told her brother, the Baron of Keylore was dead.”

  “He left behind a daughter.”

  I stare at my hands, amazement warring with terror. The Duchess found safety and shelter with Tug and his father when she was a child. If Tug's father raised Elise as his daughter to hide her Uru Ana bloodline, then she is Tug's adopted sister, and Tug is the dead Baron of Keylore!

  “I remember Tye and Elise,” Strik muses aloud. “I knew their father—your grandfather Baroness,” he says, addressing me. My eyes flutter to his in a desperate effort not to show the depth of my fear. “We have not been introduced.” His words hang in the air, waiting for me to offer my name. Any longer in his company, and I will collapse. The utter darkness of the mind-world is dizzying.

  “This,” Tug says, in a voice colder than death, “is the man who stole your father's lands.” Tug's defiance is like a blast of sunlight, allowing me to catch my breath.

  Strik turns his full attention on Tug. “I am at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I do not know you.”

  “I am the lady's guardian.”

  My clammy hands grip tighter on the horse’s mane.

  “My men are here to give the Duke of Rathesyde escort through my lands. You and the young Baroness of Keylore will ride ahead with me. I am very interested to hear where you have been hiding her these many years.”

  His words hold a strange power. I'm not sure how I will manage another second in his presence, but I am helpless to refuse. The Duke's men fan out around us. A struggle lights Tug's features as he tries to defy the order, then kicks his stallion to follow. Behind us, a horse gallops down the flank of men.

  “What is going on here?” the Prince bellows.

  Strik halts as Jakut rears up behind him. The force of dark energy surges.

  “Your Royal Highness,” Strik says with a deep bow of his head. “I was not aware you were with Duke Roarhil. We have had no news of you for six full moons.”

  “Your services here, Sir, are unnecessary. As you can see we are well manned and the five men riding with you will not be required.”

  Strik stares at the Prince until the blood in my veins congeals. If this strange power he has allows him to enter minds like the Uru Ana, we are doomed. Jakut regards him with haughty self-assurance. After a strange pause, Strik bows his head.

  “If it is your wish, Your Royal Highness.”

  Tug glances at me, his expression reflecting my own relief and incomprehension. Lord Strik retreats.

  Within minutes he and his men are specks on the empty skyline. The pressure in my head abates, allowing me to think again. And what I think is Lord Strik and the Prince are favourably acquainted. If Jakut aligned himself with his father's enemy before leaving for the north, the situation is deadlier and more complex than we have anticipated.

  The troop slowly gathers their wits and we move on. But I cannot shake the foreboding sentiment that if Jakut was in league with Lord Strik, we are all doomed.

  Thirty-One

  An hour later, the troop fords a river and we stop on the other side, allowing the horses and men to drink and rest.

  “I did not realize you and Lord Strik were on good terms,” the Duke says, dismounting beside his nephew.

  Jakut accepts a loaf of bread from one of the soldiers while another takes charge of his horse. “I like the man no more than you do, Uncle. We will continue riding until we reach the Vales where we may set camp as agreed. The sooner we are away from these lands, the better.”

  The Duke hovers, on the verge of saying more, but then bows his head and returns to Commander Fror. Once he is back in the throes of the men, Tug, Brin, and I walk our horses to the river bank.

  “What did Lord Strik want with you and Mirra?” Jakut asks, joining us.

  “A lady travelling with soldiers is bound to raise interest,” Brin says. “Even the Duke and his commander do not understand why Mirra is with us when we have no idea what kind of welcome awaits us in the Red City.”

  Jakut turns to me. “What did you make of this lord?”

  “He seemed to know you,” I say.

  “I gathered that. What else?”

  “There is something odd about his mind.”

  The Prince's eyes pinch together. “Odd?”

  “It overwhelms and makes him hard to disobey.”

  “He seemed willing enough to comply with my orders.”

  “Yes,” I say. “He also seemed to have been waiting for your return to the Red City.”

  The Prince swallows and pulls the collar of his tunic. Fine droplets of sweat moisten his hairline. “Could
he have known you were Uru Ana?”

  “I'm not sure,” I say. “It was more as though he smothered other minds than travelled through them.”

  “Then we have nothing to worry about. We need only to get away from these lands before nightfall.” His words do not match his unease. He strides back to his stallion, takes the reins and mounts. A soldier hurries over to him with a skin water flask. Jakut sips, splashes his face, then returns it. Seeing the Prince mounted, the men prepare to leave.

  I kneel down by the river's edge to fill my flask with fresh water. Brin and Tug do the same, Tug catching my eye.

  Ironic that Duke Roarhil should try to pass me off as the Duchess’s niece, making me Beast-face's long-lost daughter. Though of course the Duke doesn't realize the man who once went by the name of Tye Keylore, and who they all believe dead, travels with our troop.

  I wonder how Tug's father, Baron Keylore, convinced the world a stray three- or four-year-old girl was his daughter. How did they hide Elise until her eyes settled? And what did Tug do when Lord Strik stole the lands he should have inherited from his father?

  My anxiety over our encounter with Lord Strik stays until we enter The Vales, rolling lands that will take us to the Red City. It is late evening, the sun low on the horizon, when we stop for supper. We have travelled over fifty miles today and both men and horses are exhausted.

  I watch the men set camp. I would offer to help, but from experience I know not to bother—they will refuse. There has not been time to send out hunters, which means the cook prepares leftover grain mixed with a heavy dose of herbs. He will not accept my help either. Restless, I wander the valley collecting firewood. Tug and Brin's lasso eyes keep track of me as they hammer tent poles and drape canvases. I am returning with an armful of kindle when the Duke heads me off.

  “You made a strong impression on my wife,” he says. “I can see she is right. You are a resourceful girl. Are all the ladies of the Delladean court as willing to participate in the work of laborers?”