The Shadow Accords Box Set: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  What could she admit to that wouldn’t risk the others with her? Was there a way to tell most of the truth so that they would get word of what happened to her, and so they could come looking for her? Jhon would need to know, even if there was nothing he could do to save her.

  Another concern warred with that one. She didn’t want the others sacrificing themselves on her behalf. If they knew she was here, she suspected that Jhon would try to save her, even if it meant coming up against a man who seemed more skilled than any of the Hjan they had faced.

  “I’m here alone,” she said.

  Ras’s face never changed, but the temperature of the room dropped, the cold suddenly overwhelming, and the light permeated everything, burning away her vision and any thought she might have of reaching for the shadows.

  “Perhaps I should start again with you, child of Ih-lash. We will have a few ground rules for this exercise. You will tell me the truth, and I will tell you the truth. The answers, of course, depend on the questions, but they will be honest.” He leaned toward her, the hard edge to his eyes barely visible through the bright glow lying over everything. “Would you like to continue?”

  Carth suppressed the shiver that burned through her, trying to keep her teeth from chattering and hold her arms wrapped around her legs, if only for warmth. That was the only way that she knew where she was as well.

  “Yes,” she managed to spit out.

  The glow around him started to fade, and the temperature warmed, though only a bit.

  As it did, Carth knew a growing desperation. Since discovering her ability with the shadows and learning that she could use the A’ras magic as well, she had never felt truly helpless, not like this. Even while she was with the A’ras, her ability to reach the shadows impeded by the magic embedded in the palace wall, she had always known that she would be able to access them once more if she managed to reach the other side of the wall. And she had been able to use the A’ras magic, which might have been challenging and frustrating at times, but it never left her with the same impotence she now felt.

  It made her feel like a child once gain.

  This was the way her father had often made her feel. Not hopeless, but certainly helpless as he tried teaching her through the games they played, as he guided her in the apparent first steps toward understanding the Ih-lash shadow blessing. Those games had always concluded with his smile and a hug at the end, so that even when she failed, Carth never felt like she was in any real danger.

  She didn’t know if she even had been in any danger while her parents lived. Her father had made certain that she was protected and safe, and they had apparently intended to see her study with the A’ras.

  Ras never spoke, but the slight movement to his eyes—now visible with the glow receding from everything around her—told her that he watched her closely. It was that intensity to his gaze that worried her. He wanted honesty from her, and seemed to be waiting on her to say something more, but if she told him about Jhon and the others, she would place them in danger.

  Enough had died. She had seen that during her final days in Nyaesh. Too many, and for no good reason. She would not be the reason that more people suffered.

  But… could she satisfy his requirements without putting anyone else at risk?

  “I came on a ship with others who wanted to keep me safe,” she finally said. It was an answer, and it was truthful, but she would not go out of her way to risk them.

  “There aren’t many ships capable of making the crossing from Ih-lash. Fewer still who would know how to find those lands.”

  He fell silent again and watched her.

  “I didn’t come from Ih-lash.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  This was an easy answer, and one which wouldn’t require her to be deceptive. “I come from many places. Ih-lash. Chonah. Bhavs. Althin.” She listed off cities she had visited, all that she had spent some time in, but none that she had ever called home. There weren’t many places like that anyway, but she still didn’t want to risk him discovering too much about her. In some ways, she had to treat this like a game, only one with a different set of stakes.

  “A child of Ih-lash has traveled widely,” he commented.

  “My parents brought me from Ih-lash.” That much was also true, and didn’t risk her sharing anything that would put her in any more danger.

  “Did they use the shadows as well?”

  That was a harder question to answer. What had her parents known about the shadows? From the games they’d played, she suspected her father had known about the shadows, but he had never demonstrated any abilities with her, at least not openly.

  “I don’t know.” Carth shifted, trying to see Ras, but the glow he cast made it difficult. If only she could call on the shadows and use them to assist her, but if she tried, she suspected he would only attack her again the way he had before. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “I have told you the answer, child of shadows.”

  “You want to study me?”

  He nodded.

  “Why? Why not kill me?” She tried to sound defiant as she asked, but thought it came out more petulant than anything. Somehow, she would have to find a way to remain in control of herself, even if she had control over nothing else. Somehow, she would have to find a way to think through what he did to her, the same way she’d once thought through the games her father played with her.

  “I still might,” he said. There was a cool confidence in his voice, one that spoke of his capability. Carth had little doubt that, were she to anger him, he might simply end her.

  Wouldn’t that be better than the torment she experienced now? Wouldn’t it be easier to know her fate, rather than suffer and wonder?

  That was the easy way. Not only would she lose, but she would be giving up. That was something her parents never accepted. Failure and loss were fine, but she had to learn from it, and she had to prove she would try.

  “Where am I?” Ras hadn’t continued asking questions, and she wondered if maybe he expected her to do the asking. Was that part of this game that he played with her now? There was little doubt he played with her, though she didn’t know why or what he hoped to achieve.

  A part of her wondered if she did know what he wanted. It was possible he wanted to break her. The cold and the torment he used on her would fit with that. Maybe he wanted to use her. Convince her that he would stop the torment if she did his bidding.

  The hint of a smile on his face seemed to tell her that she was right. Worse, that he knew what she was thinking.

  “You are with me. This is a place of study, child of Ih-lash.”

  “How long do you intend to keep me here?” she asked, putting words to the question that mattered. If he intended to kill her, then it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t want to die, and she wasn’t ready to die, and maybe that wasn’t what he intended for her.

  “As long as it takes.”

  “As long as what takes?”

  Ras merely smiled. He stood and stepped away from her, fading into the light the same way she would often fade into the shadows, cloaking himself in it no differently than she once would have managed.

  He held her easily, and there was nothing she could do to overcome the strange light that held her, or overwhelm the cold that confined her. She was trapped, and at the mercy of a man she did not understand, but knew to fear.

  She tucked her legs under her a bit more and wrapped her arms around them as she shivered, only this time, it had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

  6

  Carth had no idea how much time passed. Possibly days. Maybe longer. Certainly far longer than hours. She was left alone, with nothing but the constant bright white glow that hung over everything and the cold that had begun to permeate her body, sinking through her all the way to her bones. The sense was unpleasant, though she had grown accustomed to it and no longer suffered as she had in the beginning.

  Had she eaten? The rumbling in her sto
mach made her think she hadn’t, but hadn’t Ras brought her trays of food and water? Carth looked around the cell, searching for evidence that he had had fed her, but found nothing. Maybe he had not, leaving her to suffer, to grow weaker through hunger and thirst, hoping to make her more pliable.

  It would work. Carth had no illusions about how strong she would be when tormented. She would break and she would likely tell him whatever he wanted to hear, though what might that be? She knew about the A’ras, and about the training required to rise within them, but he countered her A’ras magic easily, using the awful cold to overwhelm her. She didn’t know anything about Ih-lash, so there wouldn’t be any secrets there that she could share.

  And Jhon claimed he would bring her to the Reshian, but so far they had reached Odian and no farther. How would she ever understand the shadows without someone to teach her?

  Yet… Jhon had only taught her what he thought she needed to know, never anything more. In that way, was he really that different than Ras? He might have approached her differently, making it seem as if she had a choice, but did she really? If there was a choice, why did it feel as if she had to go with him, as if she had to learn from him?

  “Stupid,” she said to herself, touching her mother’s ring, which she still wore on her necklace.

  She deserved to have someone else chastise her, but as there was no one there, she would have to do. Jhon had only ever tried to help. There had been no question about that. He might not have provided her with as much information as she would have liked, but she could never question the fact that he had helped her.

  Carth paced as she had during the time when she had been kept in the cell. There didn’t appear to be any door, and the walls seemed to be made of light and cold rather than anything tangible. The closer she came to the barriers that were there, the more the cold pressed on her, and the more she became aware of the light burning through her.

  The few times she had tried reaching for her abilities—first the shadows and then the A’ras magic—she had felt a surge of the cold and light, almost as if Ras sat outside the cell, waiting for her to try it. Each time she attempted it, she released it quickly, afraid to hold on to the pain for longer than necessary. As soon as she released the connection to either, the torment retreated.

  At least she knew her abilities remained. Losing them would be a worse fate, though knowing that she could reach them, but that there was nothing that her connection to her powers could do, was almost worse.

  This time as she paced, she tried feeling for something substantial. There had to be something more than simply light and cold. Whatever held her was magically maintained, and that meant it would have weaknesses.

  All magic had weaknesses. She hadn’t realized the extent of the weakness in her magic before her capture, but now she did. The A’ras magic had always been difficult for her to reach. She had to have frustration and anger coursing through her to be able to reach it effectively. The cold suppressed that the way water stopped fire. Her shadows, once the greatest and strongest magic she’d possessed, had nothing when it came to the light. Being shadow born did not help when there were no shadows to use.

  The light was like a solid wall around her. As far as she had discovered, there was no weakness to it. And the cold was a pressure upon her, a constant thing she could not avoid.

  There appeared no weakness to the light or the cold, though she believed there must be some. If Ras held them, it was possible that there would be no way of escaping unless she managed to stop him.

  And how would she manage that if he was never there for her to try?

  She moved back to the center of the room and stood. Here, where the light didn’t seem quite as bright, and the cold didn’t seem quite as terrible, was where she had tried to reach for her magics before. Carth closed her eyes and grabbed for both, surging toward shadows and A’ras magic at the same time. If she was to escape, it would take all of her abilities.

  Once again, cold surged, this time more brutal than before. The light shone like the sun, burning through her eyes.

  Carth took a staggering step back and released her connection. The pain subsided, but slowly. Painfully slowly.

  She sat. There was nothing else she could do. No way to escape.

  She would despair, but she’d lost hope long before now.

  The light shifted. It came strangely, almost like a shadow, but nothing that she could use. As the light seemed to flicker, she sat up. Her head and neck ached from where she’d been lying on the floor, and her stomach throbbed, but it was an emptiness, one of hunger that had lingered too long, leaving her with nothing other than the memory of food.

  Ras stood in front of her, bathed in light. He held a wide square board and set it down next to her. “Have you played Tsatsun?” he asked.

  Carth shook her head. “No.”

  “A shame that there are so few who know how to play these days.”

  “What is it?” she asked, studying the board. There were different squares all along it in a pattern of repeating colors: black, white, and red. There were nearly a hundred different spaces on the board.

  “A game of skill. I thought we would play.”

  “Play without me.”

  She started to turn away, but he began setting pieces for the game out in front of her. Most of the pieces were simple: there were several horses, a few soldiers brandishing swords, even a few carved to look something like the ancient gods. Then there were other shapes, some that she didn’t understand. Most of these other shapes were different geometric patterns, like stars, or joined rings, and a few were shaped like pyramids.

  He began setting the pieces into place, making a pattern. Each side had the same pieces, like mirrors of each other, except for one. In the middle of the board, he set a tall piece shaped something like an obelisk. Carved into its sides were four windows, as if whoever sat in the peak of that tower would be able to look down on the world, or in this case, on the board.

  “What is that piece?” she asked. As she did, she caught herself and started to turn away.

  Ras’s eyes gleamed. “A piece that must be pushed by the others. It is called the Stone, and it cannot move on its own. One of your pieces must push it, but you must be careful as you do, because playing the Stone can put you in danger, expose you.”

  Carth watched as he continued to set the pieces in front of him, but then she turned away. She wouldn’t be drawn into his games. What would it do for her, other than force her to sit with Ras longer? And she was tired of him, tired of everything he’d put her through.

  Could she use his distraction and attack him now?

  She watched him, wondering whether he would see her if she began inching toward him. She could pretend to play, could even listen to him ramble, but all the while she would be trying to get close enough that she could strike.

  He didn’t seem to be paying enough attention to her to notice. Carth pretended to watch him and feigned listening as he explained the way the pieces could move. Each piece had its own set of rules. If she ignored the rules, they were removed from the board, leaving the other side with the majority of the pieces. The player who pushed the Stone to the other side of their opponent’s board won.

  Ras began playing, and Carth let him play by himself. He’d move a piece, and then rotate the board, studying his options before spinning it back and playing the other side. As he played, each move took a little longer, until he sat, pondering what he would do next. The pieces piled up next to him, and Ras continued.

  Carth lost herself to watching. She intended to attack him, but the longer she watched the game, the more intrigued she became. There was one point where one side seemed like Ras would be able to move the Stone, but the other team managed to push back, delaying the end.

  “Why do you play by yourself?”

  Ras studied the board, his eyes locked on the Stone near the center of the playing space. “Because you would not. It doesn’t matter. I don’t play with many anymo
re. Most don’t want to play against me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I win.”

  Carth turned away and looked over her shoulder, catching enough of the remaining game to see how he intended to use the pieces. As she watched, the pattern to the board became clearer. She could see the way one side moved against the other, and then he would turn the board and begin playing the other side. When he moved, he made it harder and harder on himself.

  Pushing the Stone to the other end of the board was difficult when the opponent had enough pieces, but it became easier when there were none. As he lost more of his game pieces, he became more creative with the way he placed the remaining ones, apparently not wanting to sacrifice too many.

  He turned the board and started to move. Carth could see what he would do on the other side, and then how he would react, and then the next move, but if he did something different…

  She took the piece from his hand, barely noticing that it was one of the horses. They were unique in this game in that they could move in any direction, including forward and back. Most could move in a single direction only, and all were limited in how many moves the player would be allowed to make in a turn. That limited the gameplay somewhat and added to the challenge, especially when it came to keeping track of what would move next, and how all the different pieces moved.

  Ras watched as she placed the piece. Where he had intended to put it would create a trap for the Stone and would force the other side to resist. They would counter, and then this side would counter, but neither would commit to what was needed to see that the game finished.

  Ras turned the board and played the other side. This time, he didn’t spin it, leaving it for Carth to play.

  Now that she’d deviated from what he’d been doing, the board shifted, and the style he used, one of attack and counters, changed. No longer did Ras try to keep the Stone in the middle of the board. Now he tried to push it against her end of the board. She studied the pieces, trying to think through the consequences of each move, and decided that she would have to sacrifice her remaining pyramids—pieces that were meant as defenses once the Stone started getting pushed to the other side of the board. If she didn’t push them and risk losing them, they would be lost anyway and she wouldn’t be able to finish.