Could she really blame them for that reaction? They must have experienced some horror for them to hide and then attack the way they had. When Carth had appeared with the ability to use the shadows, they must have believed that she was like them. Which meant they weren’t really afraid of those with shadow abilities.
“What happened to the Reshian? Why haven’t you gone with them?”
“The Reshian,” Andin spat. “They abandoned us as we said.”
“Tell me how.”
Lindy nodded to Andin, as if encouraging him to share. “Even after everything else fell, the city was attacked. The attackers grabbed us, pulled us away. We managed to escape, but when we did, the city had been abandoned.”
Carth thought about the way the Hjan had attempted collecting in Nyaesh. This sounded far too similar to be chance.
“What did they look like?”
Andin frowned. “They were all different. They were strong. Not just with their bodies, but they had abilities as well. Magic. There wasn’t anything we could do to get away.”
That also sounded like the Hjan.
“Did they have scars?” she asked, running her hand along the side of her face.
Lindy looked to Andin. “The first attackers did.”
“The first?”
“When we returned, the attack was different.”
Carth sighed. “Those with the scars are called the Hjan. They are the reason Isahl fell.”
Andin shook his head. “Isahl fell because the others abandoned it. The city held after those first attacks, but those who knew the shadows left, abandoning us. They let Lashasn attack us after everyone else was gone.”
That wouldn’t make sense, but wasn’t that what her parents had done? They had ushered her out of the city, wanting to get her away before any attack came. And had they not, they might have been caught in the midst of the Hjan attack.
Had things been different, she might have been here with Andin and Lindy and the others, and she might be the one cowering while strangers appeared with powers that she didn’t understand.
“How did you escape?”
No one answered.
Carth frowned. “I’ve faced the Hjan, and I know how formidable they are. How would you have gotten away? You must have been barely ten years old!”
It was probably younger than that. Carth had been five when they had left Ih-lash, so she suspected they would have been much the same age. That the Hjan would have gone after them at that age… it meant something more coordinated than she had realized. They would have wanted to use them, but in a different way than they would have wanted to use the girls they’d claimed from Odian.
Could they have thought to turn them? Perhaps they’d intended to train them, to make them into Hjan with powers of the shadows as well. That would make for a formidable foe.
“How did you escape?” she asked more gently.
“It was Andin,” Lindy offered.
Andin’s face reddened. Had he been holding the shadows as he had been before, she doubted that she would have seen it. As it was, she barely noticed the slight shade, a hint of color to his cheeks, enough for her to know that he was embarrassed.
“That was when you discovered you were shadow born, wasn’t it?” she asked.
He swallowed and licked his lips before nodding. “I didn’t mean to. I tried to stab one of them in the leg so that he couldn’t run after us when we got away, but it started to rot. At least, that was what I thought at the time.”
Carth smiled grimly. It was hard to feel bad for what had happened to the Hjan, but she understood the feelings Andin must have had after it happened. They were many of the same feelings she’d had after she’d killed Felyn. There was relief, but there was also a sense of regret. A part of her had changed when she had killed. The Nyaesh training had taken other hesitation away from her, but that first one lingered.
“Mine was similar,” she started. Carth closed her eyes, the details of that night coming to her so clearly. “I had followed the man who had killed my mother. He was powerful, but I didn’t care. I had learned I was shadow blessed and thought I could hide if I needed to. When he attacked, I stabbed him with my father’s knife. Darkness poured out of me, and it filled him, going up his arm and into his chest.” She opened her eyes. “The shadows might have been the reason he died that night, but it was my hand that killed.” She took a deep breath. “I know that if I hadn’t done anything, I would have been the one to die that night. And I know that he deserved to die. He had killed others, and I suspect he had been to Ih-lash as well, leading part of the attack here. I don’t regret needing to kill him.”
Andin’s face clouded. “I don’t regret killing the man I did either.”
There was more anger in him than she had realized at first. It filled him, clouding his words, almost casting shadows on him of a different sort.
Rather than pushing him on it, Carth decided to change the topic. “What happened when you escaped?”
“We came back to the city,” Andin said.
“That’s it?”
Lindy looked to her brother before answering. “For a while. There weren’t many who remained, but there were enough. Then we were attacked again. This time…”
Andin’s face hardened. “This time it was Lashasn.”
“When was this?” Carth asked.
“A few months ago.”
“They wouldn’t have attacked. They had agreed to the accords.”
Andin shook his head. “I don’t know anything about any accords, but they attacked. There was fire and pain, and their ships…”
Carth stared at them and realized they truly believed the Lashasn had attacked.
Could they have?
Would Lashasn have attacked? It would have been after the accords, so it would have violated them. But she didn’t think that was likely. It couldn’t be.
“What happened then?” Carth asked.
“We hid, at least those of us who could,” Lindy said. “Not all could, and when the attacks were over…”
“What?” Carth pressed.
“We found the city empty,” Lindy said. She had stepped forward as Carth had shared what she had done with Felyn. “We looked for others that we knew, anyone, but we were alone. Weeks later a ship came in, and they used the shadows. They called themselves the Reshian, and they offered to bring us to others with shadow ability.”
“The Reshian are the remnants of Ih-lash,” Carth said. “They would have helped you. Until the accords, they still fought on behalf of Ih-lash.”
“They didn’t want to fight on our behalf,” Lindy said. “They left us to Lashasn.”
“The Reshian would have done everything they could to help you,” Carth told them. “Especially if they had learned that there was a shadow born among you.”
Lindy shook her head. “I overheard them. They were talking to someone about us. They would have offered us to the same ones who attacked the city. We stayed hidden.”
Could the Reshian have betrayed their own people to the Hjan?
She thought of everything she had known about them, which wasn’t much, but the Reshian had fought against the Hjan with the most vigor. For them to have someone who might have betrayed them troubled her.
“What did you hear?”
Lindy started to answer, but Andin set his hand on her arm. “It doesn’t matter, Lindy. None of it was real. It couldn’t have been.”
“Why?” Carth asked.
Andin looked from his sister to Carth. “Because she claims to have heard them talking about putting someone on the ship into…” He looked to his sister for help.
“The see-than,” Lindy said.
Carth’s breath caught. “That’s what you heard? They intended to place someone into the C’than?”
“You’ve heard of it?” Andin asked.
Carth nodded. “I have now.” Could there be some connection?
Lindy nudged him. “See? That is what I heard.”
“I never said it wasn’t, only that I didn’t think it was a word.”
Without meaning to, she started pressing on the shadows and began gathering the strength of the S’al to her.
“Carthenne Rel?” Lindy said.
Carth opened her eyes and released the power she held.
“What is it?”
“A move I hadn’t considered,” Carth said. “One that I need to understand, but more than that, it’s one you need to understand.”
“And that is?”
“You need to join the Reshian.”
Andin glared at her and shook his head. “You don’t understand. The Reshian abandoned us.”
“They wouldn’t have done that, not the Reshian that I’ve met. They want to work with those with shadow gifts.”
“What do you know of the Reshian?” Andin asked.
“I know that I seek them for answers.”
“What kind of answers?” Lindy asked.
“The kind only the Reshian can bring.”
“Why?” Lindy asked. Shadows swirled around her, the cloak she formed thick with them.
“Because my father now leads them.”
15
The Goth Spald was a quick ship, but even a fleet ship could be caught.
They sailed over the sea, making their way west. That was where the children of Isahl claimed they’d seen Reshian sailing. It had been months, so it might be too late for them to find the Reshian, but it was more than Carth had found in her travels so far.
There was a hushed sort of somberness that hung over everything. Even Dara didn’t speak, though Carth wondered whether this was because of the presence of the shadow blessed or whether there was something else to it. Of those they had claimed from Isahl, Andin remained mostly quiet. Carth wanted to go to him, thinking she might be able to learn something from him, and have the opportunity to work with another of the shadow born. He stayed away from her, avoiding every attempt she made to go to him, seemingly wanting nothing to do with her.
Lindy was more open. She caught Carth on the deck of the ship one evening as they were sailing towards Nyaesh. Carth stood at the railing, watching the sea as she so often did, thoughts racing through her mind. Was this something her father would have seen? Had he sailed these waters, going with the others of the Reshian? A part of her wondered if she would ever find him again. She had thought—hoped might be more accurate—that she would find him by going to Ih-lash, but those lands were abandoned. Empty.
When they had traveled away from Ih-lash as a child, they had gone over ground. They had avoided the sea, almost as if it were intentional. Now that she knew her father led the Reshian, she wondered whether he had hidden from them, or whether he had hidden them from it.
Now, she needed to find the Reshian, if only to understand. That had to be the reason Ras had sent her to Isahl—wasn’t it?
More and more, she still felt as if she had been used, but now she was no longer certain that mattered. She knew enough that getting used like this wasn’t the problem. She wanted to know what had happened here. She wanted to understand why Isahl thought Lashasn had attacked, or why the Reshian had seemingly abandoned them.
They were answers she was determined to get.
“What do you see when you look out?” Lindy asked.
Garth glanced over to her, ocean spray moistening her face. She wiped it away from her cheek. “Nothing but the sea.”
“I never expected to sail it myself,” Lindy said. She focused her gaze outward, staring into the growing darkness. “When I was a child, my mother used to talk about coming across the sea. She romanticized it in many ways. This is nothing like what I expected.”
Carth looked over, frowning. “Why would your mother have come across the sea?”
Lindy sighed. “Even in Isahl, we weren’t all from there. There were many immigrants. Those of us who came from there often struggled.”
“It was the same for me. When my parents left Ih-lash, we stopped in dozens of cities, most only for short stays. Nyaesh was place I remained the longest.”
“Then I imagine it was the same for you as it was for my mother.”
“We were in Nyaesh for several months before my parents were killed. My mother, at least,” she corrected. “My father survived, though I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know much about the city, I didn’t know much about the people. I was scared. Was that what it was like for you in Isahl?”
“For me, I was born and raised there. My mother talked about how it was difficult for her coming across the sea, although she did it when she was very young and didn’t remember those days. They settled in Isahl and she never moved again. She met my father when she was eighteen and they were married two years later. They had a good life. My father ran a carpenter shop, making furniture and other beautiful items out of ash and oak.”
She stopped, a smile spreading across her face. Carth imagined she thought of things her father had made, envisioning what it would have been like.
“Sometimes he was hired for better jobs. He took all who offered, never really caring. He loved the work. I remember him telling me often how much he loved the smell of sawdust, and that of the oils they used, what he called the cleanliness of the shop.”
“What of your mother?” Carth asked. She’d never known what her father had done before leaving for Nyaesh, but her mother had cared as much about herbs as about anything else. She must have had an ability with the S’al to have passed it on to Carth, but Carth had never suspected her of using it.
“My mother was a cook and served in one of the local taverns. She rose to head cook and took as much pride in that as if she owned the place.”
Lindy fell silent and they stood side by side. Carth listened to the sound of the waves against the hull, and the sound of the groaning of the wood as it carried them through the sea. What did Lindy listen to?
“A woman named Vera was the one who took me in,” Carth said, breaking the silence. “I worked in the tavern, collecting scraps and cleaning up after customers left.” She smiled to herself. At the time, that had seemed like the worst work she could do, but now… now a part of her longed for the ease of such tasks. It had been a simpler time, one when she had known only the stress of finding coin and sleeping. She sighed before going on. “I still think about her cooking. There’s something different about tavern cooking than the cooking anywhere else.”
Lindy laughed. “My mother wouldn’t cook for us the same way as she would for the tavern. She said there was no need. Occasionally Andin and I would sneak into the tavern so that we could eat, she would always know and chase us away. One of the other women working there would sneak us out some scraps.” She closed her eyes, her face taking on a wistful appearance. “So much has changed in that time. Everything we know was destroyed, taken away in a battle that we couldn’t even see.”
The battle. That was what she needed to understand. What had happened to Ih-lash?
She had blamed the Hjan, but she had no proof of what had happened, only stories. Guya had heard some of them, but even he didn’t know what had really happened.
“Tell me about the battle,” Carth said.
“What’s to say? Our father was shadow blessed, and he was called to serve when the attack came, forced to leave his shop. He never… he never saw it again.” She swallowed, tears moistening his eyes. “Most of the shadow blessed were. None were trained to fight. Those who were part of the Reshian were informants. That was all.”
“What of the Reshian?” They hadn’t spoken of it, but there was anger in those who remained from Isahl about the Reshian. Carth needed to understand why.
“They were the soldiers of Ih-lash. They protected us, but eventually even they abandoned us.”
“What of the shadow born? They can fight.”
Lindy nodded. “Maybe they can fight, but should they?”
“What do you mean?”
“It only draws attention. When Andin discovered his ability, when
he discovered the extent of what he could do, he wanted to fight. Father told him no, told him to keep me safe. There was only so much he could do. Then even Father disappeared.”
“I haven’t heard much about what happened during the battle.”
Lindy turned away. “What is there to say? People died.”
“I’d like to know what happened. My parents left the city, took me away from my homeland before I was old enough to even know why. Anything that can help me understand the reason…”
Lindy turned to her. “Your father was Reshian, wasn’t he?”
Carth nodded. “I don’t know if he was always Reshian or if he came to them after they discovered him. I thought that he wasn’t, but when I found him alive, I realized there was more to him that I understood.” That had been the part that had bothered her the most. How could he have hidden that from her? For that matter, how could he not have explained the rationale behind the games he always wanted to play with her?
“When the first attack came, the city turned on itself. There were those who were descendants of the Ih and those who are descendants of Lashasn, and both sides turned on each other.”
“There was peace in Ih-lash,” Carth said.
Lindy shook her head. “Maybe there once had been peace, but anything that existed has long been gone. Whatever else happened, the city destroyed itself before any further attacks came.”
Carth imagined the descendants of Lashasn facing those of Ih, a battle much like that of the Reshian against the A’ras. She had thought that fight a newer battle, but what if it hadn’t been? What if it was only an extension of the brutality that had existed in Ih-lash?
“Other attackers came after you escaped,” Carth prompted when Lindy fell silent.
She nodded, her eyes going closed. “They came. They were… awful. There is no other way to describe it. So many had already suffered before those attacks reached our shores, so many were already lost. We didn’t need another attack.”
“What happened?” Carth asked.
“I… I don’t know. We were shielded from most of it. Not all—there was no way to be protected from everything—but enough that we weren’t aware of what happened. When additional attacks did come, they were violent and bloody, and the men who carried them out wore dark maroon robes. They were Lashasn.”
Shadow Lost (The Shadow Accords Book 4) Page 11