She stepped forward out of the woods, plain for the girl to see her.
The girl looked up, and through the bare link, Ahraia had the most ghostly impression of herself. Pale sprite. Demon. Fiend. Death.
Ahraia pushed the fears down and mirrored her words. “Come on. Get up,” she said, holding her hand out. “I’m going to get you away from here.”
The fear in the link mixed with confusion. It spread first in the girl’s thoughts and then across her dark eyebrows, which flatly turned inward. Hesitantly, the girl lifted her hand.
Just then, Ahraia sensed movement. Losna, there you are, she thought. But she immediately knew it wasn’t her shadow. She turned just as a binding enveloped her, clamping down on her. Gavea stepped from the woods, her face scalded by light, her hand gripping her drain.
“I should have known,” she said with a wicked sneer.
14
Alp and Astra
The enchantment coiled around Ahraia’s mind, constricting like the vines of a serapin tree.
“And your father thought you would be the next Masai.” Gavea smiled wickedly. The light lingered across her previously bleak and flawless skin.
Let me go, Ahraia conveyed, unable to even speak. Losna!
“Where’s your shadow now?” Gavea said scornfully.
The nitesse’s hold was absolute; there was no use trying to break it. Instead, Ahraia formed her own binding, hoping to keep Gavea away. Through it, she sensed the emotions at the tip of the nitesse’s mind: triumph, contempt, disgust. Gavea readied her drain, stepping closer.
Stop, Ahraia ordered ineffectively. She was at a disadvantage; the roots of Gavea’s enchantment snaked deeper than her own. Ahraia felt the cold leeching through her, sapped by her bonding of the human, dulling her wit.
Gavea forced a foot forward. Ahraia resisted, woefully aware of how weak she felt. She clenched her teeth, hanging onto her tenuous hold of Gavea.
“I've been waiting for this for a long time,” Gavea said, inching closer. “You were never—”
A vicious growl erupted a moment before Losna lunged from the woods, taking Gavea completely by surprise. The attack was startling, ferocious and short lived. Losna’s teeth sank deep into Gavea’s neck, throttling her to the ground. Before Ahraia could worry about the binding, her enchantment vanished—replaced by Losna’s violent and deep-rooted need to protect and kill. She jerked back and forth, unyielding with her jaw. She shook again and then stilled, her teeth still wrapped around Gavea’s neck, poised in case she was still alive.
“She’s dead,” Ahraia said, breathing hard. She waited, expecting the pain of the severance, but it didn’t come. Relief flowed through her, even an inkling of justice.
She deserved it, Losna thought.
Ahraia didn’t have time to wonder about it as the human suddenly scrambled away, tripping back weakly, hardly making it a dozen feet before she came to a stop, still drained from her flickering fire.
Losna raised her head, her snout bloodied. Ahraia took a moment to force calm back through her shadow’s mind, blinded by defensive passion. Losna’s growls subsided and Ahraia turned to the girl who braced herself against a fallen tree. She was a pitiful thing, all spun of fire and yet all out of light.
Ahraia offered her hand.
The girl looked up at her with dark, gleamless eyes, too exhausted to resist. In a daze of not understanding, she timidly took it.
Ahraia pulled her to her feet. “Follow me,” she mirrored.
The girl fell in step at her side.
What are we doing? Losna thought, following after them as her thoughts returned to some normalcy.
Getting her away from here, Ahraia conveyed, half dragging, half coaxing the human through the cover of the forest. And taking back the orb.
What about Gavea?
What about her? Looks like she got on the wrong side of a couple of imps, Ahraia conveyed, not about to worry over the body of the nitesse. She felt relief knowing she could be bound to something during a kill. For the first time in her life, she felt like a sprite.
It was nearing midnight when they reached the slope falling to the plains below. Ahraia still held the girl’s hand, having broken all but the barest binding. The rain swept through the woods in great billowing spurts. Trees shook in the tempest, sending leaves spiraling to the ground. Each surge was followed by a still, the woods whispering, waiting for the next swell. The girl struggled with the dark, and Ahraia could feel the tremor of fatigue in her hand. She helped her as best she could, guiding her feet and folding back the forest.
“Where are you taking me?” the girl asked at last, her voice tremulous.
“To the plains,” Ahraia mirrored. “You’ll be safer there.” At least from sprites. Ahraia doubted even the dae-wards would bother venturing onto the plains. She could feel the unasked question forming at the tip of the human’s mind: Why?
She ignored it and focused on the task at hand. Together, they struggled down the hillside, slipping over rain-slickened logs and between dripping fern leaves until they reached the plains.
When they finally stumbled into a grove of aspens at the edge of the plain, Ahraia worried the human would be too exhausted to keep going. The wind and rain were colder now, and the girl was shivering violently.
“Can you make it a little farther?”
The human nodded, too tired to answer, mouth hanging agape and eyebrows lifting in an attempt to overcome her sagging eyelids.
With Losna’s help, Ahraia guided the girl out to Plain Dark. She made a closure and led the human inside of it, where it was dark but dry.
“Why are you doing this?” the human asked finally, as Ahraia helped lower her to the ground, settling her into the same nook where Tev and Shim had rested.
Ahraia mirrored her words. “The orb you had—the light—do you still have it?”
The human’s face fell. “It’s broken.” She pulled the orb from her sopping cloak.
Ahraia flinched, expecting light to spill unchecked from the girl’s hand. But she saw at once what the human meant. The orb wasn’t just devoid of light; its pods had burst—it was ruined.
Ahraia felt as though her heart had burst along with it. The girl held the orb out, as though her offering it could undo its breaking. Ahraia took it, feeling the sinuous, leathery shell against her light-scarred fingertips. The seeds inside were shriveled and spent, no longer warm.
The human looked at her with worried eyes. “I didn’t mean to break it.”
Ahraia nodded, placing the orb in her cloak. Morning wasn’t far off, and they still needed to find out if her father had a hand in her brothers’ deaths.
“Tomorrow, once the Dae-Mon’s risen, make for your lightwalker’s realm. Stay to the light and no sprite will bother you.”
The human pressed her lips together in thanks.
Ahraia took the broken orb, and headed back out of the underdae, with Losna close at her heel.
What happens to the nit now? Losna wondered, leading Ahraia up a steep embankment, back into the deep and dripping woods.
Ahraia didn’t answer at first. She bound the hanging roots of a hemlock, using them to pull herself up the steep hill they were climbing. She had been thinking about Gavea—about the trouble that would come when the nitesse’s death was discovered. For some reason, the kill itself had no effect on her. She felt nothing at all. No guilt and definitely no pain, though she had been bound firmly. If anything, she was glad. It frightened her, weighing on her mind.
But the orb weighed on her mind as well, just as it weighed in her pocket—a dead and lifeless reminder of her nit’s trouble—a portent of things to come.
Losna was waiting for her at the top of the rise, her eyes piercing and worried.
“Without the orb,” Ahraia said, trying to wipe mud from her hands, “the nit’s dead.”
What about the spritelings? What about Kyah?
Ahraia clenched her teeth at the thought. Nothing good.
&nb
sp; She was soaked through to the bone. The cold and wet numbed her, both body and mind. Her troubles stacked one on top of one another: the orb, her brothers, the wraith, the trouble with the Masai, the Astra and her father, and most of all, her shadow test. They all melded together in a living nightmare. If her eyes weren’t open, she would swear a mara was sitting right in the middle of her chest, sinking its wispy claws into her heart and demonizing her thoughts.
Will they die? Losna let out a low whine, brushing against Ahraia’s raw emotions.
Ahraia nodded. Without the nurturing of the nit tree, the shade trees would eventually wither too, and Kyah and the spritelings would be put out of the darkening. The spritelings likely wouldn’t last a day, and Kyah wouldn’t manage much longer.
Ahraia pulled her hood closer, trying not to think of all that had happened—or all that was soon enough to come. Hayvon would be condemned in two nights, and then her shadow test would begin . . .
Eventually, they found the path they had been following before. Ahraia waited under the deepest shadows, hiding from the rain while Losna sniffed about for signs of her father, but his scent had washed away, and soon enough they turned back towards Daispar.
The rain gradually lessened, but the forest dripped and shuddered incessantly. They were just reaching the creek leading towards Daispar when Losna stopped, sensing something.
What is that? she thought.
Ahraia followed her gaze. For a moment, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. A dim glow shone through the woods, dimmer than even the night lit only by the Dark Moon. But none of the moons or the stars broke through the thick clouds. Ahraia stepped from the path, moving towards the faint light, and froze as she heard a soft noise. She turned an ear, listening.
Voices, Losna thought.
Maybe it’s my father? Ahraia conveyed. The light immediately dispelled the notion, but she moved towards it nonetheless, too curious to be hindered by Losna’s string of warnings.
The light was too pale to be a fire and too diffuse to be an orb—too faint to even burn, like starlight.
The voices were growing louder. Ahraia crept closer and stopped abruptly, seeing a group of half-hidden figures gathered in a glade ahead, vaguely illuminated. Losna raised her nose to the air, sniffing silently.
Alps! she thought suddenly, her ears perking up. And more than one.
Ahraia’s ears tucked back tightly and she pulled off her hood to listen. She peeked around the tree.
In the middle of the glade, a whole gathering of alps stood together, illuminated vaguely by the light. She saw bows and bright weapons, and immediately wondered what such a large group of alps was doing so near to Daispar. With the Astra’s leave or not, it was unusual. The light’s source wasn’t apparent, but it emanated from behind a shielded veil, as though it was both intentional and yet intentionally diminished as well.
There is no way the Astra allowed for—Ahraia stopped her conveyance short, realizing there were sprites gathered with the alps. She leaned out farther and saw a dozen different wards gathered close.
“Dae-mon above, what is happening here?” she whispered under her breath. That’s the Astra, she conveyed, seeing only the back of her hood but recognizing the weave of her eaves-web.
And your father, Losna thought. Ahraia crouched down, binding and peeling back a fern leaf to get a better view. Her father was indeed standing among the sprites, with a group of wards behind him. Ahraia froze in inaction, having never seen anything so strange.
She stared at the alps. A few had their hoods back. Their ears were sharp, without the absurd roundness of a human’s, but not half as long as a sprite’s. And their skin was scarred by the Dae-Mon, but not truly dark.
There’s the one with the golden hair, Losna thought. Ahraia leaned forward and saw the same alp they had seen with the Astra before.
The alp stood just ahead of the others. Her hood was up, fur lining the edges while her hair streamed out, the color of moonlit grasses upon a midwinter night—but colder still. She had a narrow face, with dark lips and small, icy eyes, like a human’s eyes, without any gleam. Even as she spoke, those eyes shifted. She paused, almost as though listening, and then her head turned right towards where Ahraia and Losna were hidden.
“Something is over there—watching us,” the alp said, in a sprite-like tongue that Ahraia had no difficulty understanding.
Ahraia let the fern branch drop, flush with fear as she ducked further behind cover. We’ve got to get out of here, she conveyed to Losna.
She took two steps through the woods when an enchantment settled over her like a heavy net, rooting her where she stood with Losna next to her. A flourish of movement filled the woods, and a moment later, her father suddenly emerged around the tree with his drain drawn, followed by an alp with an arrow nocked to its bow. Ahraia’s father held out a hand in restraint.
“It’s all right,” he called out, “It’s one of ours.”
The alp eyed Ahraia distrustfully but lowered its bow. The air quivered with conveyance as her father took her roughly by her arm, dragging her away from the group.
“You weren’t supposed to leave Daispar,” he said. “What are you doing?”
What is happening here? Ahraia had a fleeting glance of the golden-haired alp, leaning forward with a long neck to see what was going on. The binding holding her felt horribly familiar, menacing and absolute. The Astra was watching too, looking cross, and Ahraia was surprised to see the Masai stood next to her. She felt the brief and paralyzing enchantment disintegrate.
Her father shook her again, his ears perking inside his hood. I asked what you’re doing here.
Ahraia looked back at him, still surprised by the gathering of alps and sprites, but even more rattled by the brief paralysis.
We were just passing through the woods, she conveyed, too quickly. Her guilt for leaving the darkening mingled with thoughts of Gavea and the human, tainting her conveyance. She didn’t care. She couldn’t shake the sensation of the enchantment—the sudden and absolute way that it had enveloped her, taking full control of her movement and mind.
Did you feel that? she conveyed to Losna, shaken. That was just like the Stone Tree. Her skin erupted in chills.
It was the Astra, Losna thought, glancing back through the woods.
But Ahraia wasn’t sure—had it come from the Astra or the alp? Maybe even the Masai or her father?
Her father’s fingers crushed into her arm. “You know damned well you weren’t just passing,” he whispered.
I needed to talk to you, Ahraia conveyed, remembering why they had initially been looking for him and dropping her pretense of innocence.
And it couldn’t wait?
No. It couldn’t wait, Ahraia conveyed, ears flattening as she met his eye. You knew what was going to happen, didn’t you? You knew Kaval and Altah were going to be killed. This was the Astra’s plan all along, wasn’t it? To trade me for darkness. You sent them to the Stone Tree, for her to kill them.
Her father hesitated, a blank look in his eyes before anger swelled across his face, but in that moment, Ahraia was sure of his guilt.
“What is your obsession with them?” he whispered. No. This wasn’t the Astra’s plan. She’s making darkness out of loss, and you’re going to be the next Masai. How could you be so oblivious? His conveyance felt sincere, but Ahraia wrenched her arm free from his grip.
She killed them. And I know you helped her.
The Astra was in the darkening—dozens of wards and sprites could tell you that.
Ahraia pressed on, unhindered, her thoughts giving way to her voice. “Well, then it was the Masai. Or you. Or that alp she’s meeting with,” she said. A flicker of fear belied his anger.
Are you trying to get yourself condemned? “That’s absurd,” he said aloud. Now you're accusing the Masai? And myself? Or an alp? As though an alp is capable of some enchantment.
His guilt simmered on his mind just beneath his thoughts. Ahraia was reeli
ng, her suspicions all but confirmed. The Astra had been in the darkening, and the Masai and her company had been away in Deep Brook along with Ahraia’s father and a dozen other sprites but the alp wasn’t—and they had seen her with the Astra that very night.
“So it wasn’t the Astra,” Ahraia said, “It was the alp,” Suddenly remembered the alps hood, wreathed in fur. “But the Astra set it up, and you knew—you sent them to the Stone Tree.”
His ears snapped three times for silence. You’re not making any sense, he conveyed. But his thoughts and eyes betrayed the truth. Ahraia’s heart quickened.
“I know what this is about—it’s about her darkness—the two of you figured if the Masai was coming here, you could tempt her with me. You knew that Kaval and Altah were in the way—just as Hayvon was. Well, their blood is on your hands.”
Ahraia! Stop!
An enchantment spread like heavy snow over her, blanketing and muffling her. Ahraia shook it away, trembling with anger.
“I should have known!” You betrayed mother, why wouldn’t you kill your sons?
Losna growled as Ahraia’s emotions swelled across their bond. Her father shook his head but Ahraia was beside herself with anger.
“Well, guess what?” she said. “You did this for darkness? I’m not going to play along. You think you can use me for some twisted plan of yours? I’ll leave the darkening before I help you.”
“Is that so?” a voice behind her said. Losna whirled about, her hackles raised. The Astra swooped towards Ahraia, a hardened gleam in her eyes.
“I warned you to stay out of this, Ahraia,” the Astra said.
Ahraia met the Astra’s eye, ears sharp and head up, refusing to show deference. “I should have known it was you, killing shades for darkness,” she said, not bothering with conveyance.
The Astra actually laughed, a mirthful laugh full of spite and ridicule.
“Me? You think I killed your brothers?” Her eyes were hard and cold, and the smile turned to a sneer. You’re more naïve than I thought. She stared Ahraia right in her eyes, a firm bonding letting Ahraia feel the sincerity in her thoughts. I didn’t kill your brothers—or have them killed—I gain nothing by having you enter your test so young. You’re not ready, you lack the will to pass your test, and you’re no good to me dead.
Between the Shade and the Shadow Page 19