The girl’s eyes widened. “You knew?”
“How do you think I’m stopping you from cloaking yourself?”
The girl nodded to Dara. “She’s with you.”
Dara had a soft glow to her now that the others had departed, just enough to push back the shadows a little, but not enough to make it clear that she used the power of the S’al. It wouldn’t defeat a shadow born, and it wouldn’t have been enough to stop even a shadow blessed from sinking too deeply into the shadows.
“She’s with me,” Carth said. “That doesn’t mean she’s attacking you.”
“Then how…” Her eyes widened again. “You really are shadow born?”
Carth decided not to answer. “Bring her with us,” she said to Dara.
“Where?”
“Back to the ship. We need answers, and now we’ve got someone we can ask.” If nothing else, she would sail them back to Odian and force Ras to provide answers.
The girl’s eyes stayed wide as Dara motioned for her to leave the building.
Carth looked around before departing. She had come back to Ih-lash thinking that she would find information about her home, and maybe something about where she’d come from, but all she had discovered were more questions. This time, she didn’t even think the Hjan were involved. In some ways, that made it worse.
13
“Tell me again,” Carth said, sitting across from the young woman, whose name she’d learned was Lindy. She had dark hair and pale skin that was typical for Ih. Carth had bound her wrists, choosing reluctantly to do so when the girl had continued to fight while they’d made the crossing to the Goth Spald. Had she not restrained her, the girl would have kicked so much she’d have ended up falling off the dinghy.
“I’ve answered your questions already.” Lindy thrust her chin out but didn’t look at Carth. Her focus was on Dara.
Every so often, Carth would feel the shifting of shadows and knew that Lindy attempted to pull on them again. Each time she did so, Carth resisted, settling them back to her, forcing them away from Lindy. She doubted the girl would be able to do much more than obscure herself slightly, but she didn’t know with certainty whether she would be able to do anything more.
“You’ve told me you served Andin.”
“You don’t understand. You’re not—”
“Of Ih, I understand that completely,” Carth said, shaking her head. Lindy had made that point over and again. Each time she did, Carth made a point of telling her how she was born of Ih-lash, but brought away at a young age. It didn’t seem to matter to Lindy. Remaining was the only thing that mattered. “Then tell me about the Reshian.”
She needed to understand why Andin had seemed angered when she had mentioned the Reshian. She had thought they were the descendants of Ih, but then she had also thought the A’ras were the descendants of Lashasn, and that wasn’t the case, at least not entirely. Was there a more complicated answer with the Reshian?
When Lindy didn’t answer, Carth let out a long sigh. “I’m just trying to understand. You’re clearly prepared for an attack,” she said. That had to be the reason Andin had so quickly found her. And if they’d found her once, she suspected they would again, though she would be better prepared for whatever they might attempt.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“The first time for what?”
She nodded to Dara. “That her kind attacked us here. There have been more lately.”
“And the Reshian?”
Lindy shook her head. “They abandoned us. They were supposed to be the defenders of Ih, but they abandoned us.”
The door opened and Guya filled the door frame. His gaze darted from Carth to Dara and then to Lindy. “You should release her,” he said.
“We haven’t done anything to her, Guya,” Carth said, keeping her gaze on Lindy.
“Not yet, but they might do something to us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come.”
Carth glanced to Dara. “Watch her.”
Dara nodded. Carth worried a little about anything happening between Lindy and Dara, but prayed that Dara was too smart to let herself get pulled into an attack. Maybe using Dara might intimidate Lindy a little more, at least enough to encourage her to speak.
Back on the deck, Guya led her to the bow and pointed. “What do you see there?”
Carth stared where he pointed, back into the city. Running along the shore, a thick blanket of dark fog began to swirl, filling the streets and stretching toward the ship.
“Ever see fog like that?” he asked.
“That’s not fog,” she said softly.
“Didn’t think so. What did you find in the Isahl?”
“Someone like me.”
“Why would they attack?”
Carth watched the shadows slowly start to ooze across the bay. Much longer and they would reach the ship. The control was impressive. If this was from Andin, she needed to find him again, if only to learn from him. How much could she discover of her abilities from someone who actually knew how to use them?
“I thought the Hjan responsible for what happened to Ih-lash,” she said.
“They were attacked. Rumors out of here were that the cities were destroyed. I never knew if it was the Hjan or something else,” Guya said. “What are you going to do now?”
She would have to decide whether to fight or to run. She could use the shadows to help propel the ship, but it wasn’t something she could rely upon against another shadow born. Had she the same ability as the Hjan, she could simply flicker from place to place. She had to admit, traveling like that would have advantages.
She glanced toward the stairs leading into the belly of the Spald. She could hold on to Lindy and get answers from her, but was that the way she wanted to do it?
Besides, was that even the right move?
It had been a while since she’d thought about her actions in terms of Tsatsun, but it still applied. Everything she’d learned from Ras had value, especially as she worked to discover why Ih and Lashasn fought once more. If it was because of the Hjan, then the accords should have solved it, but if there was something else, she needed to understand so she would know how to position herself.
“Watch them,” she said to Guya.
He grunted. “Are you sure this is what you should do? Is this your move?”
She smiled. They’d played Tsatsun a few times while traveling together. Guya had a mind for it, but wasn’t at her level. Eventually, she thought he could be quite skilled. “I don’t know what the right move is. I need more information. Then I’ll decide.”
“Don’t sacrifice the wrong piece.”
“I’ll keep you safe.”
“That’s not the piece I was concerned about,” he told her.
Carth smiled, pulling on the shadows, already beginning to feel some resistance from the shadows on the edge of the bay. “I’ll be fine, too.”
She wrapped herself in darkness.
As she did, she jumped.
Holding on to the shadows in this way gave her the advantage of strength, which she used now, and the ability to turn the shadows into something real, almost physical. With her connection to them, she was able to draw upon the shadows, pull them to her, and slide along them like they were solid.
She reached the shore faster than were she to take the dinghy.
As she did, she pressed out, drawing upon the S’al through the ring she’d taken from her mother. Using this, she was able to disperse the fog, and it shattered in front of her.
Carth stood on the shore, looking for Andin.
He would be here somewhere.
“I know you’re here, Andin,” Carth called. She used the shadows to amplify her voice, the same way she often had used them to mute her passing.
A moment passed, and he emerged from between a pair of buildings. As before, shadows swirled around him. There was no effort to hide the rage on his face. “You’re one of them.”
“I am Carthenne Rel of Ih-lash,” she said.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?”
Carth stepped toward him. “I am descended from both Ih and Lashasn. Think of that what you will.”
Andin pushed on the shadows, but using the power of the S’al, Carth was able to resist. She held on to this connection, maintaining it as she approached him. With it, she added her connection to the shadows, holding both. There was always more power for her when she used both, and this time was no different. When she did, she was able to detect the edge of the shadows as well as form them. While holding both, she could press upon the light, drawing heat and fire from within her, the flame she had learned to use while in the A’ras.
Magic poured from her.
“Are you here to conquer?” Andin asked. “You will find we do not fall easily. Others have tried and failed. You might be powerful, Carthenne Rel of Ih-lash, but you are still only one person.”
Carth took a deep breath and released most of her hold on her powers.
The shadows snapped back into place, essentially consuming Andin. She stood, connected to only a thread of her powers, wanting to demonstrate that she had no intent to harm them.
“I am not here to conquer.”
Andin stepped forward, shedding the shadows around him as he did. They pooled at his feet, leaving him standing with enough power that she suspected he could attack her quickly. It was possible what he held would be enough for him to disappear, much the same way the other man had disappeared. That was a trick she wanted to learn. Then again, she would like to learn how Andin managed to generate a fog. She had power but no control, nothing like what she had seen.
“Why have you come, Carthenne Rel?”
What answer would satisfy him? What could she tell him that would make it so he didn’t think she wanted to attack him? She suspected he would always question her. His posture made it clear that he doubted what she might say, and his hand hovering near the knife made her wary that he might still attack. She had proven herself strong—a credible threat—and that might make him dangerous.
But if she opposed him, and if she made it clear that she would fight back, she wouldn’t learn what she wanted. She needed to understand the Reshian. She needed to find her father. She needed to learn more about the attacks. And she needed to understand the shadows. If she didn’t, would she ever understand herself?
“I came to know the place of my birth. I intended to come home.”
Andin watched her for a moment with an unreadable expression. Carth half-expected him to reach for the shadows again, and to unsheathe his knife and attack. If he did, she would have no choice but to fight back, but she didn’t want to do so. Andin was shadow born. And though she had met others with her ability with the A’ras magic, she had never yet met anyone else with the same ability with the shadows.
“Ih-lash is no more, Carthenne Rel.”
“Then help me understand what happened.”
He glanced past her, his gaze traveling out to the ship before he turned his attention back to Carth. “If you release my sister, I will share what I can.”
Carth nodded. “Lindy will be released.”
Andin nodded. “Then we can talk.”
14
Andin led Carth and Lindy to the same building where she had found him the first time. She’d asked Dara to remain on the ship, not wanting to force another confrontation, and Dara had grudgingly agreed. Lindy had gone with Carth willingly, though she had been quieter than when she was first captured. Had Dara said anything to her to quiet her? She almost expected it from Dara—especially with how she had behaved on the Tempar—but hoped that she could trust Dara to restrain herself.
“Why here?” Carth asked as the door closed behind them.
Andin used the shadows in a way that Carth hadn’t considered, sealing them around the walls and filling the cracks, practically enclosing them in the room together so nothing would escape.
She still held on to the connection to the shadows and held a trickle of the S’al as well, just enough to keep herself focused. With that connection, she was able to feel the edge of the shadows. It was the same as Jhon had instructed her long ago, the guidance enough for her to gain more than a passing understanding of how to sink into the shadows, and how to cloak herself with them.
“Here is where we’re the safest,” he said. He stood with his back to the far wall, and Lindy stood next to him, her hands stuffed into her pockets. She looked at the floor rather than meeting Carth’s eyes. Andin stared defiantly at her.
It was then Carth recognized the pull on the shadows.
It was subtle, no less so than what she had experienced before, and this pull tugged enough, a sagging within the shadows, that she suspected it came from someone who was shadow blessed.
With the way that she felt the shadows, she suspected it was more than one person here who was shadow blessed.
Lindy didn’t use them, she didn’t think, but there had been the other boy she’d seen. He was barely old enough to have been considered a man. Were there others like him?
Carth turned slowly, probing gently with the S’al power rather than using the shadows. Here, with whatever it was that Andin was able to do with the shadows, she doubted she would be able to control them with as much delicacy as would be needed.
As she probed, she noted at least three other shadow blessed.
Carth tipped her head. There was something off about all of this, but she couldn’t quite place it. Andin watched her, and she wondered what he saw. Did he notice a soft glowing, the same way that she noticed it around Dara when she pulled on the connection to the S’al? Did he see nothing? With the power she’d detected from him, Carth doubted it was nothing. He would have picked up on something from her.
As she looked at them, she realized what it was that bothered her.
They were all young.
Andin couldn’t have been but a year or two older than her. Lindy was younger, at least five years younger than Carth, and Andin had claimed her as his sister. The other boy she’d seen was young as well. Were the others hiding in shadows equally young?
Her mind raced through what she’d seen.
The city was essentially empty. It had to be for them to move openly and use their abilities like they did. There had been the attack, presumably from the Hjan—or from Lashasn, as they claimed. There was a small group of shadow blessed and a single shadow born. There was no one else.
And the Reshian had left them.
That seemed the strangest to her.
If she knew anything about the Reshian, it was that they had prized the connection they shared, the bond to the shadows. They wouldn’t have left others with the same ability behind in Isahl, not when they would be able to use them.
There was something she missed, but what was it?
In her mind, she formed the parts of a Tsatsun board, and arranged the pieces as she knew. She still didn’t have an answer.
“How long have you been here alone?” she asked.
Andin frowned. “We’re not alone.”
The confidence she’d seen from him at first took on a different meaning. What she had assumed to be bravado, and a kind of arrogance about his abilities, might be something else.
She tipped her head, seeing him—really seeing him—for the first time.
“How old are you?” she asked.
Andin pulled on the shadows. As he did, she realized why. The effect gave him a sense of age that he didn’t have otherwise.
She focused her attention on the shadows at his feet, the ones that pooled around him. With those, she used the gentlest of touches with the S’al, sending them skittering away. She wondered if he would even be aware of what she did. Likely, especially given the strength she’d seen he possessed, but she risked it to know.
The shadows slowly separated from him.
For the first time, she realized that the appearance he’d worn had been something other than what she’d expected,
almost as if he had used the shadows to create lines in his face that weren’t there, and add age that he had not yet earned. A glamour, and one of incredible skill.
He couldn’t even be her age.
They were all young. Which was likely why the shadows remained near them. They had figured out a way to make themselves seem older. She could think of many reasons for them to do it, but only a few that made any real sense.
“You’re the only ones in the city, aren’t you?” she asked.
Lindy looked over to Andin, her eyes wide. They hadn’t expected her to work it out, or they hadn’t expected her to discover it.
Andin’s face contorted, twisting in a mask of anger. “You’re in Isahl. There is an entire city—”
Carth took a step toward him. She pulsed on the shadows, sending a pulse of the S’al power as well. Combining them like that, she was able to sense the neighboring buildings. There was nothing. They were empty.
That might mean nothing, but then, it could mean everything, especially if the city was truly empty.
“Why are you here alone?”
“We’re not alone—”
Carth pulsed on the shadows and the S’al again, this time with more force. It dispersed the effect of what his shadow-born magic did, leaving them standing face-to-face, neither holding much in the way of power.
This close, she noted that he was still pretty, but there had been something about the shadow glamour that had made him even more so. His eyes betrayed the fear he felt, and his hand darting to his knife betrayed his nerves.
“You’re afraid of what I might do to you?”
Andin glared at her. The anger he’d displayed when she’d first appeared had returned in full force. It was almost enough to make her laugh, if it weren’t for the fact that it was sad that he felt the need to be so independent.
“You aren’t the first person to come to Isahl and try to claim those of us who are left.”
“I’m not trying to claim you.”
“You come to our shores, and you speak of the Reshian, and you bring a child of Lashasn with you. And then you demonstrate powers that should not have been combined. What are we supposed to think but that you would do harm to us?”
Shadow Lost (The Shadow Accords Book 4) Page 10