by Rachel Aaron
“What is it?” Josef called behind him.
“The forest is silent,” Eli called back, breaking into a jog.
The Awakened Wood was never silent. Ever. In all the times Eli had been here, he’d never heard all the trees fall quiet at once. Something was wrong. He could actually see it as he came closer. Despite the stiff breeze blowing down from the mountains, every one of the narrow trunks was perfectly still, their branches frozen in place.
Even the leaves were motionless, their narrow, golden shapes as still and sharp as knives against the pale blue sky. Frowning, Eli reached out to touch the closest trunk. The wood was tense beneath his fingers, taut as a drawn bowstring just before it snapped. Eli snatched his hand away, but before he could think of what to say, the silence shattered.
It broke like glass, and the trees surged together as one word echoed through the forest.
“Gone!”
The trees screamed in a single ragged voice so loud that Eli clapped his hands over his ears on instinct, even though he knew it would do no good. Nothing physical could stop that raw terror, that crippling, hopeless despair.
“Gone!” they roared again. “Gone, gone, gone!”
With each repetition, the unified voice began to splinter. The tremendous roar sent Eli stumbling back, putting several feet of distance between himself and the trees that were now thrashing furiously, transforming the graceful, golden Awakened Wood into a storm-wracked sea.
“Eli!” Josef shouted. Eli turned to see the swordsman sheltering Nico with his body, staring at the rocking trees in confusion. “What is going on?”
Eli had no answer for him. He could only cringe in horror as, with a final, sobbing wail, the trees tore their roots from the ground and began to rip each other apart.
CHAPTER
13
Alric, Deputy Commander of the League of Storms, sat at his desk behind a mountain of reports, rubbing his temples in a futile attempt to forestall the massive headache that was building at the front of his skull. There had been many, many times in his long career with the League when the Lord of Storms had demanded the impossible, and every time, Alric had delivered. That used to make him proud, but as the years rolled by, he’d come to realize that the problem with always doing the impossible was that people came to expect it. You had to keep performing miracles over and over again until you finally hit a task that was truly impossible and were forced, at last, to fail. He glanced up again at the stack of waiting reports. Had his time come at last?
As though in answer, a cluster of thin, white lines opened in the air above his desk and another half-dozen reports fell onto the pile below, sending the rest of the papers sliding. Alric closed his eyes and wondered if he should just retire now, while he still could.
On the surface, the task was a simple one: find and kill the Daughter of the Dead Mountain. Alric still shuddered at the name, remembering what he’d seen a few years ago at the Shaper Mountain, and then again recently in the forest on the outskirts of Den’s bandit city. Alric had seen her clearly both times, but even for him, a longstanding League member, fear made his memories hazy. He could recall only glimpses: the endless black shadows, the wings, the millions of mouths…
Even these few details were enough to make him shake. The Daughter was the largest demonseed he’d ever personally encountered, perhaps the largest in the League’s history, but strangely, it wasn’t the killing part that had him worried. Even the Daughter of the Dead Mountain couldn’t stand against the unified efforts of the League of Storms now that the Shepherdess had withdrawn her favor from the man who had harbored her, Eli Monpress. No, it was the finding part of the mission that was giving Alric fits, and the Lord of Storms was swiftly growing impatient, even more so than usual.
And it was all Alric’s fault, too. That was the worst bit to swallow.
Alric had, of course, been keeping an eye on the girl on behalf of the League from the moment Monpress and his companions had left the bandit’s camp. Her thrice-cursed coat made it impossible to actually watch her through the network of spirits who reported to the League, but keeping track of her companions had been almost laughably easy.
Josef Liechten in particular had been making quite the name for himself, and if the events at Izo’s had taught Alric anything, it was that wherever Liechten was, the Daughter of the Dead Mountain wasn’t far behind. So when the Lord of Storms had called them all together to announce the hunt, the first thing Alric had done was check Liechten’s location. And, he recalled with a deep sigh, the second thing he’d done was convince the Lord of Storms to wait.
He’d done it with the best of intentions. Liechten had been in Zarin at the time. Alric was not squeamish about the spilling of innocent blood if it got the job done, but this was simply too much. Any fight between the Lord of Storms and the Daughter of the Dead Mountain was sure to destroy anything it was near, and Zarin was the largest city on this half of the world. If the League had gone after her there, it would have been a massacre of unimaginable proportions.
So, using every trick he’d learned in the several lifetimes he’d spent as the Lord of Storms’ second, Alric had convinced his commander to wait. They knew where the demonseed was, he’d argued, and she still reckoned herself safe. They just had to draw her out to somewhere less populated, an easy task requiring little more than a duel challenge from the Lord of Storms to Josef Liechten. The swordsman would never turn down a duel against a superior opponent. Liechten would go, the demonseed would follow, and then it would simply be a matter of closing the trap.
Such a good, simple plan. But then, between one hour and the next, everything had changed. Without so much as a warning, the rivers had gone mad, and in the confusion that followed, Alric’s agents had lost both Josef Liechten and the Daughter of the Dead Mountain. That was almost eighteen hours ago, and since then, nothing. It was like the girl and her swordsman had just vanished into thin air, which, considering she was a demonseed, wasn’t actually impossible. As the night wore on, Alric had expanded his search to the entire continent, but the answer was always the same: no sign of the girl or her swordsman.
Alric leaned back in his chair with a long sigh. He was working up the will to go through the newest batch of reports that had just landed on his desk when his body froze. As always, he smelled the Lord of Storms the second before he appeared. The sharp tang of burning ozone brought the Deputy Commander to his feet, and Alric fell into a low bow just in time as the white portal winked into existence.
The Commander was shouting before his boots hit the floor, his voice thundering with a fury that still made Alric cringe even after so many years.
“Have you found her?”
“Not yet, my Lord,” Alric said. “I have every agent looking as we speak.”
The Lord of Storms gave him an accusing look. “You told me she’d fully awakened in the mountains while I was away. I don’t care what she did to cram herself back down after, her damn coat can’t have kept up completely. How have you not found her yet?”
“I don’t know,” Alric said truthfully. “Even stretched beyond its limits, Heinricht Slorn’s craftsmanship remains superb.”
The Lord of Storms bared his teeth. “I’m going to skin that bear man.”
“That wouldn’t help matters,” Alric said. “The coat is no longer her only cover. She’s learned to dampen herself somehow, to clamp down on her own demonic nature. I have reason to believe she used her powers quite heavily in Osera, and yet there was little more than a blip so far as the spirits were concerned, though any panic might have been lost in the chaos caused by a war between stars.”
The Lord of Storms settled his long fingers on the hilt of his sword. “I’m hearing a lot of excuses, Alric. That’s not like you.”
Alric closed his eyes. “I apologize, my lord. But, if I may speak plainly, even if the girl’s coat was off completely, I don’t think we could find her given the present situation.”
“What do you mean?” the Lord of Storms grow
led.
Alric cleared his throat, searching for the most politic way to phrase their current predicament. “Our network relies on responding to spirit fear, but over the last day we’ve had a great deal of… interference.”
“What?” the Lord of Storms said. “Are we not hearing the panics?”
“We’re hearing them too well,” Alric said, pointing at the pile of papers on his desk. “Every time the Lady calls in a star, we have a massive influx. I can’t even keep up with the reports, much less decide which ones should be investigated. The Daughter has always been a quiet demon. Looking for her under these circumstances is like trying to separate the whispering voice out of a choir of screaming maniacs.”
“Oh,” the Lord of Storms looked considerably relieved. “Is that all?”
“That’s more than enough,” Alric said, not quite managing to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “With all due respect, sir, the Shepherdess asks the impossible. Telling us to hunt the Daughter of the Dead Mountain at the same time she decides to call in her stars without warning is practically inviting us to fail. How are we supposed to—”
“If we’d acted when she called the hunt, this would not have been a problem,” the Lord of Storms said, his voice cold.
Alric snapped his mouth shut. A fair point. But still. “If the Lady had warned us about the incoming panics, I would never have suggested the delay,” he said quietly. “That is no excuse, I know, but I cannot change the past. The truth of our current situation is that the Daughter of the Dead Mountain is missing, and there is simply too much fear for the League to find her. For pity’s sake, sir, I’ve got our agents combing Zarin like common guardsmen. If the Lady would consent to hold off calling her stars for a few hours, it would be enough to—”
“The Shepherdess tends her flock,” the Lord of Storms’ voice said, rolling over him. “That’s her job. Killing demonseeds is ours.”
Alric clenched his teeth. “And how are we to do that when—”
“I have spoken!” the Lord of Storms roared.
Alric stepped back, his face pale. “Yes, sir.”
The Lord of Storms nodded. “Forget Zarin,” he said. “The Daughter of the Dead Mountain cannot be trusted to stay in one place. Check every panic. I don’t care how many there are, have the men investigate every single one. If the demon is not there, they move on, no matter how upset the spirits are. Our only priority is the hunt.”
“Yes, sir,” Alric said, lowering his head. “What will you do?”
“I’ll hunt as well,” the Lord of Storms said. “She can’t hide forever. Now get to work. We’re running out of time.”
“Yes, sir,” Alric said again, but the Lord of Storms was already gone, his enormous black form vanishing in a crack of lightning.
Alric fell back into his chair with a sigh. He hadn’t expected the Lord of Storms to shut down his suggestion quite that quickly, but looking back, he wasn’t surprised. It was times like this that he had to remind himself that the Lord of Storms was not human. His body was an illusion created by the Shepherdess for her own amusement and to make it easier for him to interact with his human followers, but his mind was that of a spirit, one shaped from its very beginning to have a single purpose: to be the Shepherdess’s sword against the demons.
No matter how much the Commander railed against the Lady in private, unless her actions directly impeded his work, he would not question her. So what if the Shepherdess was sending the whole world into a panic, picking out stars like she was picking flowers? To the Commander’s mind, that just meant they had to look harder. He had balked against her order to leave Eli Monpress alone because it had put a wall between him and his purpose, but now that she had given him the freedom to hunt the Daughter of the Dead Mountain despite the thief, the Lord of Storms didn’t care how difficult the Shepherdess’s actions made things. So long as he got to hunt, to serve his purpose, the Lord of Storms wouldn’t care if the Lady ordered him to do it without hands. He’d just take it as a challenge to rip the creature’s throat out with his teeth.
Alric shook his head. It had taken him many years to understand the Lord of Storms’ nature, but no amount of understanding could make him like it. Still, there was little he could do. The Commander had given his orders, and Alric would obey. That was how the world worked.
He allowed himself a full thirty seconds of sulking before turning back to his desk and the impossible task the Lord of Storms had set before him. He grabbed the latest report and ripped it open, reading it quickly before laying it down on the bottom of what would become a stack of dead ends. Alric read the reports one by one, scratching off replies, sending his men after every panic, just as he had been ordered. They would go without question, do their duty to their utmost just like always, just like him.
“The Shepherdess’s will be done,” he muttered, laying another dead end on the pile.
An hour of furious work later, Alric had almost caught up to the current reports when a bright white light flashed in the paved yard below his window. A minute later, a brisk knock sounded at his door.
“Enter.”
A man in the League’s long black coat opened the door and stepped into the room without a sound. He was dark skinned and tall, and the sword at his hip shone as red as the setting sun. Alric smiled. Chejo was one of the League’s oldest and most trusted members. An efficient man who didn’t waste his time. If he was here, it was important, and Alric put everything else aside to hear his report.
“Deputy Commander,” Chejo said. “Eli Monpress has escaped from the Council.”
Alric frowned. “I wasn’t aware he’d been captured.”
“They got him yesterday morning,” Chejo said. “Whitefall’s good at keeping secrets.”
“Though not as good at keeping prisoners, it seems,” Alric said, tapping the paper in front of him. “But to be fair, this is Monpress we’re talking about. When did he escape?”
“Yesterday evening,” Chejo said. “Right after the incident with the rivers.”
Alric’s mouth pressed to a thin line. The timing lined up far too well for his liking. “Well, that explains the sudden disappearance of Liechten and the demonseed quite nicely, doesn’t it?”
“That’s why I thought you’d like to hear it in person,” Chejo said, his frown deepening. “Sir, does the thief’s presence change the mission?”
“No,” Alric said without hesitation. “The orders stand, but this does make things more complicated. Monpress always was the cunning one of their little group. If the demonseed is wrapped up in whatever scam he’s running, finding her could prove more difficult than we thought.”
“Don’t see how, considering it’s already nigh impossible,” Chejo said with a sneer. “The whole world’s in a panic these days.”
Alric sighed. “I know, just do your best.”
He motioned that the League man was dismissed, but Chejo didn’t leave. He stayed put, his eyes as sharp as the sword at his side. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Alric could guess what the man wanted to say, but he nodded anyway.
“We’re pledged to protect the world from the demons,” Chejo said, gripping his sword hard. “But what the Shepherdess does now with her stars is worse than any demon fear I’ve seen in all my years with the League. I serve the Lord of Storms and his Lady without hesitation, but I have to wonder if we aren’t landing on the wrong side of the problem this time around.”
Alric looked down at his desk. Chejo’s words were dangerously close to insubordination. It was also a fair point, one that occurred to him every time he opened a report of a new panic.
“The Shepherdess has guided our world since its beginning,” he said calmly, locking his eyes on Chejo’s dark glare. “We must trust that she knows what she’s doing. Spirits are panicky by nature. Most of them are little smarter than animals, but even the big ones are prone to attacks of irrational fear. It’s only natural; spirits are prey. They are helpless, weak sheep, while de
mons are predators. The sheep must go where the Shepherdess leads, and we as her dogs must protect the flock and ensure it follows. That is why we are here, Chejo, to protect and corral. Not to question.”
“It is human to question,” Chejo said, crossing his arms.
“An urge we must suppress on occasion if we are to serve the spirits,” Alric answered tiredly. “Is that understood?”
Chejo’s glare grew icy, but he lowered his head. “Aye, sir.”
Alric nodded. “Have you anything else to report?”
“Yes,” Chejo said. “There’s a woman here to see you.”
Alric’s eyebrows shot up. “A woman?”
Chejo smiled. “Pretty little Spiritualist with a ghosthound. She arrived a few seconds after I did. Asked for you by name. I left her arguing with the quartermaster, but I thought you would like to know.”
Alric leaned back and resumed rubbing his temples. It did little good. “I would, thank you, Chejo. I’d like you to return to Zarin and see if you can’t learn more about where the thief might have gone. Could you send the Spiritualist up before you leave?”
“Of course, sir,” Chejo said, turning on his heel. “Good luck, sir.”
Alric waved him off and stood up, carefully moving the remaining unopened reports to a side table. There was only one Spiritualist with a ghosthound he knew of, and if he was going to deal with her without losing his temper, he needed to remove all other sources of frustration. When his desk was bare, he sat down, folded his arms, and waited for the knock.
Miranda stood in the courtyard where the League man had left her, leaning on Gin and trying not to look as wobbly as she felt. Though she’d never admit it, she was vaguely disappointed. She’d always thought flying would be more freeing, or at least more fun. But after a night and a morning spent hurtling through the air, she’d never been happier to be on solid ground. From the way Gin had pressed himself into the stone the second they touched down, she knew he felt the same. Her stomach certainly did, though this particular stretch of ground wasn’t helping much on that account.