The Shadowed Throne

by K J Taylor

  “Wait—” Saeddryn began, but too late.

  Skandar turned away, and leapt. In midair, he vanished.

  As if that was a catalyst, all of Saeddryn’s emotions began to return. She sat down in the snow, not feeling the cold, and groaned aloud.

  Arddryn was dead. Torc was dead. Aenae was dead. And she was . . . ?

  Suddenly afraid, Saeddryn put a hand to the side of her neck, just under her jaw.

  There was no pulse there. She tried her wrists, and her chest as well, but found nothing. No heartbeat.

  Oh, Night God, it’s true. I’m dead. I’m like him now. Why did I say those things? Why did I say yes?

  But how could anyone look her god in the face and say no?

  Saeddryn wrapped her arms around herself, trying pointlessly to warm her cold flesh. In her mind, she thought she saw the face of the Night God again, frightening but somehow beautiful as well. The direct gaze and commanding voice reminded her of her mother.

  Don’t be a coward, Saeddryn, said the voice from her memory. Don’t be weak. Be a Taranisäii.

  Saeddryn set her jaw and sat up a little straighter. This was how it should be. She had been ready to die, and the Night God had given her a great gift. New strength and powerful gifts and, most of all, the chance to finish what she had started. Kill the half-breeds and put Caedmon on the throne. Her son was the true heir and the only surviving family she had. Realising that made her own pain irrelevant. Caedmon was all that mattered now, and she had to protect him.

  She stood up and brushed herself down. With astonishing self-control, she pushed all her distress away into the back of her mind and made a plan. There was nothing for her in Warwick now; the city must have been overrun. She would return quietly for clothes, weapons, and food, then leave for Fruitsheart. Without Aenae, she would have to walk, but the prospect didn’t bother her.

  “I’m comin’, Caedmon,” she said aloud. “Mother’s comin’. Don’t ye be afraid.”

  Kraeaina kran ae, the Dark Lady, set out.

  26

  The Shadow in the Snow

  Kullervo slept for the rest of the evening and into the night, not seeming to notice the snow or the cold. Senneck woke several times, but never for long. She was just as exhausted as he was—but pain made her sleep shallow and disturbed, full of dreams.

  She rarely dreamed, even these days when she had so many memories tucked away, but that night she dreamed of Erian. He flickered in and out of her sleep, his face and his scent making up a memory. Old ambitions stirred in her, and old anger as well.

  Unconsciously, she moved closer to Kullervo, covering him more completely with her wing.

  Eventually, the ache of her wounds faded as they scabbed over, and she slipped away into a deep, peaceful sleep.

  She opened her eyes, and pale sunlight hit them. Blinking irritably, she lifted her head and shook away the snow that had settled on it. The sun was well up, and the world around her had turned pure white.

  She stood up, hissing softly when her limbs refused to move properly. Her wounds had swelled, and every joint felt as stiff as wood. Gingerly, she lifted a foreleg, flexing it until it loosened. She did the same for the others, and, feeling a little better, she opened her wings. They, at least, weren’t so bad.

  Something stirred, by her back paw. She turned clumsily, but it was only Kullervo. He sat up in the snow, clutching his head. “Oooh . . . I don’t feel very well.”

  “Eat some snow,” she advised. “We shall go back to Malvern soon.”

  Kullervo didn’t seem to hear her. “It’s so cold . . .”

  “Stand, then, and walk,” she said. “It will warm you.”

  He obeyed, wobbling slightly on his legs, and stumbled around the clearing. “Gryphus help me, I’m soaking wet. Did we sleep in the snow all night?”

  “Yes. Come now, walk with me. We must do one more thing before we return to Malvern.”

  “What’s that?” said Kullervo.

  “Find the traitor’s body,” said Senneck. “I left a mark on a tree; it is not far from here.”

  Kullervo walked beside her and had no trouble keeping up—her limp had become even worse overnight.

  Senneck had told the truth: she pushed through a stand of pine trees and stopped at another, larger tree just beyond them. Sure enough, there were talon marks on its bark. Snow had been piled up over its roots, and after some casting about, the brown griffin scooped it away with her talons. After a few moments she huffed to herself and moved a few steps to the right where she dug again. She tried several different spots, turning over every hump and mound.

  “Where is it?” she hissed.

  Kullervo stood by the tree, rubbing himself to try to keep warm. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  Senneck’s head jerked irritably. “I know the marks of my own talons! Where has it gone? I did not bury it deeply.”

  “Maybe a wolf took it, or a dog,” said Kullervo.

  “No animal would be strong enough to carry it away. They would leave carrion for us to find.”

  “Another griffin, then?”

  Senneck made a horrible grating noise. “No! My revenge shall not be taken from me!”

  “How could that happen?” said Kullervo. “You already killed her.”

  “But without the carcass, there will be no proof!” Senneck almost screamed. “The world must know— Where is it?” Infuriated, she churned up the snow with her talons, spraying it everywhere.

  “Maybe I can help.” Kullervo stepped away from the tree and came closer, peering at the snow. Senneck watched him briefly and wandered off to search the clearing.

  Kullervo crouched low to the ground, looking for marks. He was trembling gently all over from the cold, but he controlled his senses and sniffed the air. It smelt of ice and pine needles and freezing spice-tree leaves, and . . . something else?

  He focused on the ground. After a few moments, moving in an awkward sideways shuffle, he began to walk around the clearing.

  “Senneck,” he called eventually. “I’ve found tracks.”

  She appeared beside him almost instantly. “Show me.”

  He jabbed at the marks with his talons. “See, here? And more, over there. Looks like they started . . .” He began to work his way along the path and stopped not far from the tree, where Senneck’s digging had destroyed the rest. He stayed there for a moment, staring at the footprints. “Senneck . . . are you . . . sure you killed her?”

  She began to hiss. “Her body was nearly torn in two.”

  “Well, someone walked away from here,” said Kullervo. “Someone human.”

  “Then they have stolen it.”

  The shape-shifter was too cold to want to waste any more time. Sighing, he walked away through the clearing, following the tracks. Senneck ran ahead of him, stopping once or twice to let him catch up.

  The tracks took a very direct route, through the trees—whoever made them didn’t seem worried about being followed. They had gone straight back toward the city. Fortunately, no more snow had fallen during the night, so the tracks were clear enough.

  That is until they ended mid-step, right by the trunk of a tree.

  Senneck reared up onto her hind legs, looking into the branches. The leaves were not dense, and the branches were widely spaced. There was no way anybody could be hiding in them.

  The brown griffin ran in a wide circle, searching for the tracks, but they were gone.

  “No!” she hissed.

  Kullervo stood by the tree, examining the last of the tracks. “This doesn’t make any sense! They can’t have gone up the tree, the forest here’s too dense for a griffin to have picked them up—where did they go?”

  Senneck slumped and began to groom herself with quick, tense motions. “This cannot be!” she said, sounding more bewildered than angry now.
/>   Kullervo only half-heard her. He poked at the tree with a talon, right at the spot where their prey had once been. “I don’t understand this,” he said to himself. “It’s like they vanished into thin air . . .”

  Unease prickled the back of his neck.

  Senneck took a few limping steps toward him. “We must plan,” she said.

  Kullervo looked at her and found her watching him expectantly. “What?” he said.

  “Tell me what would be best to do,” she said.

  Kullervo looked blank. “Why me?”

  “You are human,” she said impatiently. “It is your nature to think and plan, and I am tired and wounded. Tell me what we must do about this problem.”

  Kullervo tried to think. The cold was turning his entire body numb. His mouth hurt—talking was a nightmare. He felt close to collapse, and dark memories danced on the edge of his mind, filling him with tension. He wanted to scream at Senneck that he was in as much pain as she was, that he hadn’t eaten in days, and all he wanted to do was go somewhere warm and die there.

  “We have to go back to Laela,” he mumbled. “And I’ll tell her you killed Saeddryn. She trusts me. I’ll even say I saw you do it, and that I saw the body.”

  “And when she asks where it is now?” Senneck pressed.

  Kullervo rubbed his head. “I don’t know . . . we’ll say you dropped it over the river, and we couldn’t find it.”

  “No! I did not fail, understand?”

  “All right, then it was my fault somehow. I’ll think of something.” Kullervo’s strained patience wore even thinner. “Can we go now? We need help. I just want to get out of this place. It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Very well,” said Senneck. “Come to me now. You are right; we must return before our wounds fester.”

  Kullervo moved gratefully toward her. She moved, too, lowering herself to the ground so he could reach her back. An instant later, without any warning, she reeled away from him with a cry.

  Kullervo stopped, raising his talons instinctively. “Senneck—!”

  Senneck didn’t seem to hear him. She darted about on the snow, turning this way and that, lifting her wings and lashing out at nothing with her beak.

  “What . . . ?” Kullervo stayed where he was, not knowing what to make of this.

  Senneck reared up, flailing at the air with her talons. But she couldn’t sustain the posture for long; she dropped back again a moment later. Her wounded forepaw hit the ground and collapsed, and she fell forward into the snow.

  Kullervo moved toward her. “Senneck, are you all right—?”

  She dragged herself up at once, hissing, and resumed her mad dance—fighting, Kullervo realised, against an invisible enemy.

  An invisible enemy that was hurting her.

  Wounds had appeared on her face and neck, dripping blood onto her feathers.

  Kullervo stood there, faltering in indecision. This was madness, and what could he do? How could he help Senneck fight an enemy neither of them could see? How was this even possible?

  Senneck had begun to slow and falter. She was losing. This thing, whatever it was, was too strong for her in this state.

  “Kullervo,” she croaked. “Help me. Help me!”

  “How?” he asked helplessly. “What should I do? What is this?”

  She bowed her head toward her chest, protecting her throat. “I do not know. Defend me! You are my human, Kullervo!”

  Kullervo gaped, and stared. He squinted. “What . . . ?”

  Something wavered in his line of vision, flickering in and out of existence. A shadow.

  It moved about near Senneck’s head, taunting her, hurting her, rippling over the snow in complete silence.

  A smell found its way into Kullervo’s nostrils; a smell of blood and steel and ice, a smell so vile it made his throat burn. It awoke something in him that he had never felt before.

  “Don’t you dare touch her!” he roared, and charged, limping, slipping and stumbling on the snow. He reached Senneck, and thrust his hands into thin air with a roar of fury. They emerged dragging something dark and ragged, and he threw it onto the snow.

  Senneck got up, pulling herself away. Kullervo went to her side, backing away with her and staring at the thing he had caught.

  Crouched among the whiteness, Saeddryn gave a low, cold laugh. She got up. Her dark gown was wet, and her hair had twisted into a series of sodden whips around her face, clinging to the ugly scar of her eye. Her lined face was pale as death, distorted by long, livid red slashes that disappeared under her clothes.

  Her voice was low and full of ice. “This was far too easy. Less than a day after I set out, I find two of ye here—wounded and unprepared an’ all ready for me.”

  “Saeddryn?” Kullervo faltered.

  She snarled. “I know who ye are now, ye twisted little freak. All my dear cousin ever fathered were half-breeds an’ vermin. The drunken pervert didn’t even give ye his handsome looks, did he? No, ye look like yer ugly bitch of a mother.”

  Kullervo bared his broken teeth. “I would rather be her son than yours, you hag. No wonder my father never wanted you.”

  Saeddryn spat. “I’m killin’ ye second, freak. Before ye, it’s her turn.” Her one eye turned on the wounded Senneck, and she held up her sickle. It was bloodied, and she waved it tauntingly from side to side. “Oh Night God, this is gonna taste sweet.” She leapt into midair, and disappeared.

  Senneck rose, trying vainly to protect herself. “No—”

  Kullervo squinted until Saeddryn’s wavering shape came back into view. “Senneck!” he shouted. “Get away! Fly away! Now!” He leapt.

  Senneck needed no further encouragement. She turned and shambled off. Her wings opened and began to beat stiffly.

  Kullervo saw Saeddryn go in pursuit, impossibly fast, almost flowing over the ground. With a scream, he ran after her, overtook her, and threw himself in the way. Something unseen hit him, directly in the chest, and he fell. But he twisted his body, grabbing at the shadow. His hands, vanishing again, caught Saeddryn by the ankles and dragged her back into view. She fell forward, screaming in rage as Senneck escaped into the air.

  Kullervo pulled on her leg, dragging himself on top of her, and stabbed his talons into her throat. She punched him in the face, unbelievably hard. One of his remaining teeth came loose and began to bleed. He spat it away onto the snow and twisted his talons, ripping into her flesh.

  “Die!” he screamed into her face. “Just die, will you?”

  Saeddryn gurgled a groan and pushed him away. She struggled to her feet, upper chest oozing blood, and snatched up her sickle from the ground. “I’ll make ye suffer for that, freak.”

  Kullervo rose to his knees. “You already made me suffer, Saeddryn. You didn’t have the sense to just kill me.”

  “Trust me,” she growled. “I’ve seen sense now.”

  With a supreme effort, Kullervo managed to get up. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you dead?”

  Saeddryn’s eye burned. Not only with hatred, he realised—but also with terrible fear. “I am dead.”

  The sickle struck.

  Instinctively, Kullervo shielded himself with his hands, hooking the sickle blade with his talons. He pushed it away from himself, feeling the edge catch and cut. With a yell of frustration, Saeddryn twisted the weapon sideways and out of his grip.

  With a speed he never would have thought he could muster, Kullervo struggled to his feet and ran away. Not knowing what to do, he made for the city wall, limping and tripping in the snow. He could feel Saeddryn just behind him, and knew that if he fell, he would die. If he had been alone, that would have almost certainly been what happened. But Senneck was still there, and it was she who saved him.

  As Kullervo left the shelter of the trees, she dropped out of the sky and scooped him up in her talons—liftin
g him up and out of Saeddryn’s reach. Then, without even stopping to let him get onto her back, she turned south and flew away as fast as she could.

  Left below, Saeddryn screamed at the sky. “Damn ye!”

  They were gone.

  She sat down by a tree, swearing. If only she had planned her attack better. She should have killed the man-griffin first, but the very sight of Senneck had filled her with so much rage that she had put her duty aside. Besides, she had thought the griffin would be much more dangerous and harder to kill. With her out of the way, Kullervo would be an easy target.

  But he wasn’t.

  Teeth gritted with pure hatred, Saeddryn thought of how he had attacked her and the question rose in her mind. How had he seen her? How had he been able to do what he did, and pull her out of the shadows that hid her? She had discovered how to disappear the way Arenadd once had, and the ability had come easily. Nobody in the city had been able to see or hear her as she stole fresh clothes and a sickle from one of Malvern’s soldiers. She had walked brazenly down the main street, and as long as she didn’t touch anyone, she was invisible.

  But Kullervo had seen her—he must have seen her. And he had reached into the dark realm that she had thought was hers and pulled her back. How?

  Surely, he didn’t have any powers of his own.

  Doubt spiralled around her. She didn’t know anything about what this hybrid creature could do. She had seen him change his shape. For all she knew, he had other gifts as well. Gifts that could make her vulnerable to him.

  “Blasphemy!” she muttered to herself. Nobody but a pure-bred Northerner, a Taranisäii chosen by the Night God, should be able to touch the shadows! That this thing might be able to do the same was repulsive.

  Saeddryn’s determination to kill him doubled.

  She stood up and put the sickle back into her belt. Kullervo wouldn’t escape her for long. Now that this opportunity had passed her by, she had to go back to her original plan. Fruitsheart and Caedmon. The half-breeds weren’t going to go anywhere; she could have her revenge at her leisure.

  But the brown griffin, Senneck—Saeddryn vowed that she would have the most painful death of all. The other two could die quickly; they were duty. Senneck’s death would be for Saeddryn alone, and she would enjoy it most of all.