Taking the knife and little else, Carth left her room and made her way into the yard. None of the other students risked coming this close to the wall, giving Carth a measure of peace. Out here, she thought it would take only a brief climb up the wall and she could kick over, reaching the other side, where she could… what? Search for the Hjan on her own? Try to find the shadow born that Invar had brought to the grounds? She’d already proven herself incapable of the latter, and she feared attempting the former.
Carth walked along the perimeter of the wall. For most of it, the ivy grew stout, the long, occasionally thick vines rising along the wall, clinging to it and leaving a dappled shadow upon it. As she reached the area where the Hjan had recently attacked, the ivy simply ended. No shadows curled along the wall created by the shade from the plant. Strangely, here, her connection to the shadows increased.
The replaced stones looked too bright, and the magic used in laying them burned too strongly within her, almost as if the masters had wanted to make up for the fact that the wall had fallen in the first place.
Carth touched the stone with the hand that had been burned. It pulsed softly, making her aware of the magic within the wall as much as of the injury to her hand. She’d taken to wearing a glove on the hand, wanting to shield herself from the annoyance of the way even the gentlest of breezes irritated her skin.
The shadows pulled on her here, more than they had before. The wall that had done little to slow the Hjan had limited her ability with the shadows, but now that it was repaired, there was less of an influence, much less than had been there before.
Touching a hand to the hilt of her knife, she pulled on the shadows.
“You’re doing it again.”
Carth turned and saw Samis near a row of shrubs, watching her. Those that had been damaged in the attack had been replaced already, the loose soil around them the only sign that there had been any damage.
“Are you following me?”
“Not following. Watching. Thought you might be interesting to keep an eye on.”
Carth turned away, releasing the shadows. Instead, she started reaching for the connection to the A’ras magic, letting it slowly flow through her. What if Invar was right and the fact that she used this knife as focus was the reason she wasn’t able to pull on the magic easily?
“Listen,” Samis said as he ran up to her, jogging backward so that he could see her as he did, “I’m not blaming you for what you did. Sounds like if you hadn’t done anything, the attack would have been much worse. The other A’ras there think the masters pressed back the attack, but I saw Master Lyanna’s face when she overheard one of them talking. The masters didn’t keep the Hjan back, did they?”
“You and Invar are the only ones who know what happened.”
“You didn’t tell Alison?”
Carth squeezed her eyes shut. As much as she wanted to share with her friend, telling Alison felt dangerous. What would she be able to do to help her? And knowing might only put her at more risk and force her to lie on Carth’s behalf. Carth wasn’t interested in putting her friend in danger.
“You didn’t. I’m not going to say anything,” Samis said. He looked at the wall and then back at her. “You know that some of the masters blame the Reshian for the attack?”
“It wasn’t the Reshian.”
Samis shrugged. “Maybe not. Harrison seems to think it was.”
Carth wondered why. What was it that made Harrison believe the Reshian would be capable of what they described? Why would he fear them enough to blame them for this?
“Can you feel them now?” Samis asked.
She nodded. “It’s like the first attack. The wall made it impossible to reach the shadows, but now that it’s been damaged, I can reach them again.”
“Weird that it doesn’t keep out the Hjan but does keep out the shadows, isn’t it?”
Carth pulled on the sense of the shadows, wrapping the knife in it before releasing it. The effort required to reach the shadows was much greater than on the other side of the wall, but not like what it had been before. Then, she hadn’t been able to reach the shadows at all.
Samis looked past her and his eyes widened. “Looks like someone else wants to speak with you.”
Carth followed the direction of his gaze. Standing near the wall, where the ivy started to grow, was Invar. He wore his light gray cloak with a sash wrapped around his waist.
“Good luck, Rel.”
Samis hurried off, and Carth watched him go. How had she thought that he was such a… a pain… for all these years? He had been mostly decent to her here. Alison would hate that she was spending as much time with Samis as she was. If it were up to Alison, she would have been married to Samis a year ago.
Carth approached Invar slowly but remained near the section of the wall without the ivy. At least here, she could still feel the pull of the shadows and could use them if needed.
“Are you ready?” Invar asked.
“For what?”
“We need to continue working on your training, I think.”
“Aren’t you more concerned about the Hjan?”
“Concerned—yes. But there is little I can do about them other than prepare, and you are a part of those preparations now, Ms. Rel. Now, if you would prefer to remain behind the walls—or maybe you would rather return to the other lessons?”
Neither appealed to her, and she suspected he knew it. “Where are we going today?”
Invar shrugged. “Wandering, I think.”
With a surge of power, he leaped over the wall.
Any other time, Carth would have laughed, but the suddenness of what Invar had done wasn’t so much amusing as startling.
The only way she would escape the yard would be with the shadows. Using the knife as a focus, she climbed the edge of the ivy and jumped over the wall, kicking through the remaining barrier that held her out.
Invar waited on the other side and seemed unsurprised when she landed next to him. “I admit I was surprised to learn that you could get past the barrier, Ms. Rel. Now that the wall is even more damaged, I don’t think it will keep you out of the city anymore, which means the protections offered by the wall are no longer. You must learn to defend yourself.”
“I’ve sparred plenty of times.”
“This will be different than sparring. You have shown yourself capable with the Hjan, perhaps more so than masters can claim. But the Hjan are nothing if not adept at changing, so you must be ready. You must prepare.”
“I only did what I had to do.”
“And you have been lucky that you’ve survived to this point. I would have you skilled rather than lucky.”
“You know the magic doesn’t come for me as well as it does for others.”
Invar paused as he strode through the street and dipped his hand into his pocket, pulling out a knife. He handed it to her, hilt first.
It was similar to the one she’d carried for the last five years, but there were differences as well. The metal of the blade had a brighter sheen, almost a purple rather than a deep, silvery gray. The tip curved slightly, and serrations lined the outer edge of the blade. The weighting was the same, and the hilt felt much the same.
“What is this?”
“A knife, Ms. Rel.”
She glared at him. “I see that. I have a knife.”
“I thought the same, and thought that your difficulty with pulling the power of the flame came from within you, but I am no longer certain. This knife can be your focus. It is A’ras-made, and done so by a skilled artisan.”
“Who?”
He flashed a brief smile. “Me.”
Her breath caught as she studied the blade. The masters were skilled with A’ras magic, and they used that to create their swords and knives, making them incredible tools, and incredibly dangerous. Few other than the masters possessed such a weapon.
“I considered a sword, but seeing as you are partial to knives, I thought it made the most sense to create something
you are familiar with. The blade is shaped the way it is by necessity, but the hilt and the weighting were designed to feel… familiar.”
“It’s amazing. I don’t think I’m deserving of it.”
Invar’s face turned serious. “You saved my life, Ms. Rel. Probably twice, considering I doubt I would have made it away from the last attack alive if not for whatever you did. For that, I owe you more than a simple knife can repay. Take it as a token of my appreciation. More than that, take it and see if you can use your potential more effectively through it.”
She squeezed the hilt of the knife more firmly and used it as she did to focus her magic. Holding her breath, she reached for the A’ras magic and let it slowly flow through her.
Carth had a flicker of hope that a different knife would make it easier to reach the A’ras magic, that by using Invar’s knife, she would somehow find an easier way—one that didn’t require the same pain as she currently experienced.
That wasn’t the case.
Using this knife for her focus allowed her to reach her magic, but it didn’t come any more quickly than it had when using the knife that might or might not have been her father’s.
She lowered it, disappointment filling her.
“It doesn’t seem to matter. The knife doesn’t help any more than the other one did.”
Invar rubbed his hands together. “That is… disappointing.”
She handed the knife to him, but he shook his head.
“You keep it, Ms. Rel. Even if it does nothing to help you reach your potential any faster, you may still keep it.”
He continued along the street while Carth debated what to do with the knife. It was a nice blade, and if made by Invar, it would be valuable as well, but there was something familiar about using the one she’d found those years before. Carth tucked the gift carefully into her belt.
The streetscape changed slowly, and Carth began to recognize where Invar led her. It was the same direction she’d gone with Samis a few nights ago.
“What do you want to do in this part of the city?” she asked.
“You found one of the Hjan where you lived, the last time. I thought it made sense to see if you find something similar in the other places you used to frequent.”
They reached the River Road, coming at it from a different direction than she was accustomed. This part of the street had a line of low warehouses. It was where Carth had thought that the A’ras attacked Jhon, and where she had helped protect him. That had been the beginning of her learning about her abilities, the first time he had shared with her that she was more than what she realized.
Invar saw her staring at the warehouses and frowned. “You lived here?” he asked.
Carth nodded. “The tavern down there. The Wounded Lyre. They took me in when my parents were killed.”
“What did they ask of you?”
“Nothing. Vera asked that I help sell some of her food and crafts, but there was never any real expectation that I sell a certain amount. She was more motherly than anything.”
Invar paused near the tavern. Carth feared that he would want to enter, and that he would reveal her to Vera and Hal, but he didn’t, continuing along the street as well. Others on the street parted for them, giving Invar a wide berth. They wouldn’t have done the same for her, but she often failed to wear her sash.
He stopped along the shore of the river. Water rushed past, flowing with so much force that spray splashed up and splattered her even where she stood. Firsthand experience told her how fast the current could be, and she had foolishly swum it twice. Had she not spent two summers along the coast of Poi, she doubted she would have been such a good swimmer. Even the children there managed to swim through choppy water, needing to learn so that they could fish.
“Do you sense anything, Ms. Rel?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
The answer seemed to placate him. “Avera tells me there was a place near here that Felyn used.”
Carth pointed along the road, where it wound along the river before eventually stopping. From there, they would have to climb over the rocks to get any farther. After seeing the way the Hjan flickered, she wondered if they would have the same difficulty.
“Do you know that when the masters came to see it, the building was destroyed?” he asked.
“I never went back.”
“And you shouldn’t have. Strange that Felyn would have died, yet the building fell as well. Who would have known how to bring it down?”
“Avera,” she started. Jhon as well, though Carth didn’t know enough about what he wanted to know, or whether he would have cared about the building remaining standing. He had helped her, and had helped Avera, but had that been for his benefit or for hers?
“Hmm.”
“What do you expect to find down here?” she asked him.
Invar stared over the water. “I don’t think that I will find anything, Ms. Rel. I am pleased to know that you don’t detect anything either. That tells me the Hjan are gone, for now.”
“Or that they don’t flicker,” she said.
Invar turned back to her, the frown deepening. “What?”
“I don’t know if I detect the Hjan, or if I detect the flickering.”
Invar’s eyes widened slightly. “You raise an interesting question.” He turned back to the river, staring out at it.
With the rushing of water, Carth felt a strange sense of peace, in spite of knowing that there was a dangerous threat roaming the city and that she might be the only one able to detect it. She still didn’t know if that had anything to do with the shadow blessing, or if there was something else different about her. A part of her wished she could jump into the river, let it carry her downstream and away from the city, but she could not. Her responsibility was to this place now.
“Ms. Rel,” Invar said without turning back to her, “I think it is time that you begin patrolling with others.”
“Patrols?” she asked dumbly.
“Your ability allows you to detect things that others cannot.”
“But I’m still so slow at reaching my potential.”
“Perhaps slow, but not weak. You have shown that you have much talent. Besides, you are not reliant only upon your A’ras potential.”
“What does that mean?”
Invar turned to her and his gaze drifted to the knife at her waist before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sash wider than the one she wore, but narrower than Invar’s. “It means, Ms. Rel, that I am raising you to sai.”
18
The change came immediately.
As Carth wore the sash onto the palace grounds, whispering followed her. This time, the whispers were for different reasons from what she’d ever experienced. She heard her name, and the word sai, mixed with the occasional mention of Master Invar.
She hurried to her room in the cosak, only to find Alison already waiting for her.
She looked at the sash tied around Carth’s arm. It felt strange wearing one so wide, and she was tempted to fold it up—going so far as to actually have folded it up initially, only to have Invar tell her that she should not.
“So it’s true,” Alison said.
Carth glanced at her arm, still uncertain what to make of it. She didn’t feel she deserved the promotion—she certainly hadn’t done anything to earn it—but since one of the masters had given it to her, who was she to decline?
“I guess,” Carth said.
Alison snorted and dropped onto Carth’s bed. “You guess. You could at least act happy about it. You’re nearly A’ras now!” Alison looked around her room, turning her nose up slightly. “What was your test?”
“Test?”
She bobbed her head. “Yes, test. There’s always a test to get past ashai. What did you have to do?”
Carth thought about what Invar had asked of her while they had made their way through the city, but couldn’t come up with anything. He had given her the knife and asked her to try to summon power usin
g it as a focus, but she hadn’t managed that any better than she normally did. And he hadn’t asked her to hold on to the magic as they made their way through the street, not as he had the first time they’d left the palace.
“There wasn’t a test,” she said.
Alison arched a brow at her. “There’s always a test, Carthenne Rel.”
She shook her head. “I think he only raised me so that I could get out on patrols. He wants me in the city so that I can detect if the Hjan return.”
“That’s no reason for him to raise you. He could take you himself like he did before.”
“He’s only taken me out of the city twice since working with me.”
“That’s twice more than I’ve been out,” Alison said. “At least you’ve been out in the actual city twice.”
“More than that,” Carth admitted. When Alison shot her a look, she explained how she’d chased the man from Ih-lash. Carth hated keeping things from her closest friend.
“Maybe that’s why he raised you. If the wall doesn’t create any barrier for you, better to have you controlled when you leave.”
Carth looked away. It stung having Alison think the same things. In some ways, it was fine for her to have thoughts about herself and believe that she shouldn’t be raised to the sai. It was another for her closest friend to have the same thoughts.
“I don’t know. As I said, I don’t know why he raised me.”
“At least this way you get out from these walls, even if you still can’t reach your magic that well.”
Carth squeezed her eyes closed. “I only stopped back here for something. I have to get back—”
Alison hopped off her bed. “I’m glad for you, Carthenne. It tells me that if you can do it, I can do it, too!”
Carth only nodded. “I… I’m going to change. Why don’t I find you later?”
Alison smiled, somehow completely seeming to miss the fact that her words hurt—that it would be Alison who would do that cut Carth more than if anyone else had.
After Alison left, Carth closed the door and leaned on it. She reached for the sash and considered tearing it off. What had she done to deserve to wear it? Nothing. Even the newest of the ashai could reach their potential faster than her. Was the only reason Invar had raised her because she managed to wound the Hjan? Was that reason enough to elevated her above so many others?
Shadow Cursed (The Shadow Accords Book 2) Page 13