Shadow Lost (The Shadow Accords Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  He shook his head. “Alison… she’s not able to tell us anything, Rel.”

  Carth wondered what had happened to her friend. Alison had talent and skill, but had needed time to develop. With the attack, and with the forced confrontation between the A’ras and the Reshian, she wouldn’t have been given the time she needed.

  The other A’ras looked over at Carth and Samis. Carth didn’t recognize the younger man, surprised that the A’ras would have someone his age standing guard. More had changed than she had realized.

  “I need to see Invar,” she said again.

  “You can’t, Rel.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t know what’s happened since you left. There was almost a war. We have a peace accord now, but it won’t hold. It can’t, not when the Reshian are involved. Not when they’ve been attacking.”

  Dara looked over to Carth.

  Attacking? Was that what the A’ras believed?

  Would the Reshian think the same as the A’ras and believe they were responsible? Did the Reshian mistakenly blame the A’ras for attacks made by the blood priests?

  Could the Hjan not be involved for once?

  “I think I understand more than you realize,” she said.

  “No. We left the city. The A’ras sent hundreds out under the masters’ guidance, with the intent to fight the Reshian. It’s lucky that we didn’t.”

  “Not luck. And I know that you were in Wesjan.”

  “You know?”

  “I was there too.”

  The other A’ras stepped closer, and his gaze flickered to her knife. For someone with any knowledge, they would recognize the knife as one of the Reshian.

  He slipped his sword from his sheath. “She’s with them!” he said, pulling the knife free.

  The power of the A’ras flame poured from him. He might be young, but he was strong as well. She understood why he would be allowed to patrol.

  He raised his sword and readied an attack, slicing toward her without any additional warning.

  Carth pushed Dara back with a surge of shadows and slipped her knife free from her sheath, drawing only on her A’ras magic as she did. If she used the shadows, she would be the very thing that he accused her of being.

  She caught his sword with the flat of her knife and twisted it, forcing it down.

  He pulled on more of the A’ras magic. To her, it was a burning sensation beneath her skin, a familiar sense that she hadn’t detected with quite as much regularity since she’d left here. She knew it when Dara used her magic, but the connection was different. Dara connected to the S’al in a purer sense, nothing like the way the most of the A’ras could reach the flame.

  With a quick twist, he freed his sword and swung around again.

  Carth caught him again, this time sending a surge of S’al through the knife. It wasn’t the same type of blade she would have made were she to have remained here, but there was still power that flowed through it, and it sent a flash as she did.

  The boy took a step back and blinked.

  “You’re A’ras?”

  “Was,” Samis said, looking at Carth with a strange expression. “She was A’ras. Go find if Invar can see her. Tell them Carthenne Rel is here to see Invar.”

  “You know that Invar can’t take visitors—”

  Samis shook his head. “Go.”

  “What of you?”

  “I was always able to stop Rel before.”

  Carth smiled at the memory. At the time, there wouldn’t have been a smile. She had hated the way that Samis had always managed to defeat her, a result of her strange delay with the A’ras magic. Now that she wore her mother’s ring, she suspected the outcome would be different, though she didn’t really want to test it with him.

  When the boy had disappeared, Samis nodded to her knife. “It seems you’ve gotten quicker with your abilities,” he said.

  “My mother,” she started, before cutting herself off. Would he know about Ih and Lashasn? Would he care? Would it matter if he did?

  She decided it didn’t.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “My mother was Lashasn. I have some of her abilities.”

  He frowned. “If you say so. You were there, then?”

  “Wesjan?”

  He nodded. “Invar disappeared, and when he came back to us, he said he’d found an old friend who would help end the war. No one believed him until the treaty was signed. I don’t think anyone wanted to fight the Reshian like that. We’d already faced too much, and had lost too much before then.”

  “That was the Hjan,” she said. “They were trying to coordinate the war. They wanted you to destroy each other.”

  He sighed. “I don’t know if they did or not, but it very nearly worked. You were there when the treaty was signed?”

  “I’m the reason the treaty was signed.”

  Samis just nodded.

  They stood in silence for a while, and Dara didn’t say anything either. Carth wondered how long it would take for Invar to come and if the boy would even be able to find him. If he couldn’t, then it wouldn’t have mattered that Carth had come to the city. Speaking to Samis was nice, but she would learn nothing from Samis; she would only feel the same confusion she had felt when she had been in the A’ras.

  She didn’t know how long passed with them staring at each other when she felt A’ras magic used near her. There was a signature to it, and this one she recognized before it faded.

  The A’ras who had been at the gate came running back. When he reached Samis, he shook his head.

  Samis studied her. “Sorry, Rel. Looks like Invar can’t see you.”

  “That’s it?”

  Samis shrugged. “That’s it. You’re not A’ras. Whatever you are… it’s something else.”

  “Samis—”

  “You shouldn’t have returned, Rel. There’s nothing for you here.”

  22

  Carth led Dara away from the palace and around the wall, avoiding the gates. It made her feel all too much like the uncertain girl who had once attempted to sneak into the palace. That had been before she knew about the A’ras, and before she knew about her shadows, and before she knew about anything. Her life had been so much simpler then.

  “What do you intend to do?” Dara asked.

  Guya remained on the ship, waiting for them. Carth fully expected a need to pull out of the harbor quickly, which meant they would have to set sail as soon as they returned. Andin would help; together they could use the shadows to drive the ship from the harbor and out into the river. From there, they would use the currents and the power of the river to help them make the rest of the journey.

  “I need to see Invar. We need allies against the blood priests.”

  And there was something off about what Samis said, though she couldn’t put her finger on it. Was Invar in trouble?

  “You think they’ll ally with you?”

  Carth sighed. “Maybe not with me, but Invar will see what happened. He’ll understand.” He had to. She had to reach him.

  “How?”

  “First, we have to clear the wall,” she said.

  “You sound like you think that might be difficult.”

  Carth sighed. “Crossing the wall won’t be the most difficult. I can use the shadows for that. But once we’re on the other side of the wall, my shadow ability will be neutralized. The wall has power embedded into it that defeats the shadows.”

  “How? Why?”

  “When I was here, I hadn’t learned enough to ask the questions that you do. I should have, but I hadn’t considered why we wouldn’t be able to use the shadows. Why would the A’ras specifically close out the shadow abilities? It took me too long to realize that there has long been animosity between Lashasn and Ih.”

  “They can stop the Reshian from using their abilities?”

  Carth took a deep breath as she ran her hand along the wall. This section was one of the rebuilt sections from the attack. The stone was
different, and she knew that the ivy on the other side of the wall would be different as well. If she could cross here, she would still be able to hold on to the shadows, maybe enough to do what she needed to do.

  “There was a man who taught me that it was possible.”

  “Do you know how?”

  Carth shook her head. “I know that it’s possible. I suppose that’s enough to know. Once you know something can be done, it becomes easier to do.” She pulled her hand away from the wall. “Are you ready?”

  Dara nodded. “As much as I can be.”

  Carth took her hand and pulled on the shadows, drawing them around her as tightly as she could. She felt them fill her, practically spraying from her. And then she jumped.

  Holding on to Dara made the jump more difficult, but not impossible. It carried her up and over the wall, and she landed on the grass on the other side. Still holding on to the shadows, she shielded them, keeping hidden. It didn’t work for her to flow with the shadows, to move the way she had once been taught to move. She wasn’t strong enough on this side of the wall to do it with more than herself. Even if she only tried doing it with herself, she might not have been strong enough.

  Carth released the shadows, holding her connection to them, not wanting to lose it altogether. She hurried to a copse of trees and looked around.

  “What do you detect?” she asked Dara.

  She didn’t feel the sense of burning, nothing that would indicate that there were A’ras using their abilities nearby, but that didn’t mean they weren’t here. With her holding on to the shadows, she didn’t know if she would detect it well.

  “There’s a faint sense, but it’s out there,” she said, pointing through the trees and toward the spire of the palace, which was only barely visible.

  Of course, that would be where they would detect it. She suspected the palace contained other protections that would prevent her from using the shadows. She could use the A’ras magic, but here everyone she might encounter would be able to do the same.

  “I don’t know if it will be safe for you to come with me,” she told Dara.

  “Safe? When have we ever done anything that’s safe?”

  Carth shook her head. “This isn’t something to joke about. If we’re caught… I know what they’ll do to me,” she started, trying not to think about the violence she might encounter from people who had once been friends, “but with your ability, they might hold you, and would want to use you.”

  Dara clenched her jaw. “I’m bound with you in this, Carth. I know I made a mistake—”

  Carth shook her head. “This isn’t about that at all.”

  “Then let me help. Let’s do this together. Besides, didn’t you say they would teach me?”

  She hoped the A’ras would teach, but without reaching Invar, she wasn’t certain she could trust what they would do. He was the only A’ras she trusted.

  Carth met Dara’s gaze and held it for long moment. She noted the determination behind Dara’s eyes and knew she had to find a way to work with her. This was what she’d wanted for Dara, wasn’t it? A chance for her to learn from the A’ras? If Carth could find a way to understand what had happened, maybe she’d be able to find someone for Dara to work with. Maybe Carth could understand what had happened with her friends.

  Carth slipped her knife from the sheath and started forward. As she did, she held on to her link to the shadows, but that grew more and more difficult the further she went. By the time the palace was fully in view, she had lost her connection altogether.

  Carth breathed out, sending a connection through the ring as she reached for the power of the S’al. It amazed her that the key to the connection had been with her from the moment she had begun studying with the A’ras, and she hadn’t discovered it until she’d run away, thinking to hone the skills she’d developed with the Reshian.

  Now, with her mother’s ring, she was somehow better able to reach for that part of her that could use the S’al, as if it unlocked something inside her so that the delay she’d felt while working with the A’ras, the delay that had limited her and caused her to take so long moving to ashai, was no more. Now she reached it smoothly and quickly, nearly with the same efficiency as when she reached for the shadow magic.

  Here, within the palace yard, there was no restriction on the A’ras magic. It filled her now in ways that it never had when she had studied here. She let it wash over her and wondered if she glowed the way that Dara seemed to glow when she used her abilities.

  Wrapped in the A’ras magic as she was, she felt the subtle use of it within the palace. There were several places where she detected it, some stronger than others. One was the strongest of all. That was where they had to go.

  Carth nodded to Dara. “Follow closely. Maintain your connection to the power. I think that if you don’t, we could be separated from it.”

  Dara’s eyes widened slightly, and she nodded.

  Carth reached a side door and noted the two A’ras standing guard.

  She flashed forward, attacking with the flat of her knife before either of them could even react. Both fell, dropping wordlessly to the ground.

  “Help me drag them inside.”

  Dara grabbed the smaller of the two, and they pushed the door open, carrying the A’ras. They didn’t see anyone else, but Carth hadn’t expected to see anyone else here. Each time she’d come before, she had found the hall empty.

  “Where now?” Dara asked.

  Carth focused on what she felt of the A’ras magic. It flared all around her, but there wasn’t anything that she could detect.

  Would she be able to detect the shadows now that she was this far into the A’ras compound?

  She felt their pull, but it was fainter than it had been near the wall, and Carth didn’t know if she would even be able to use it for so much as a shadow cloak, let alone anything more substantial.

  There was a noise in the hall that told her they weren’t going to be alone for much longer. Stranger still was the steady pulsing of A’ras magic against her, a tapping that she thought had something like a pattern, one that was familiar for some reason, as if she had sensed it before.

  Because she had.

  “Invar,” she whispered.

  Carth started down the hall, searching for Invar, but knowing where she would be likely to find him. Why would he signal her this way? She wasn’t surprised that he’d detected her. He had the same connection to the S’al that she did, the same connection that allowed her the ability to detect when others used it. Invar could detect it just as well. Better, she suspected. He’d been using the A’ras magic for far longer than her.

  She reached the end of a hall that she had last visited the day she had left Nyaesh. As she did, footsteps stormed up behind her. Carth spun and found Samis approaching.

  “Rel. You shouldn’t have breached the wall.”

  “I only need to see Invar.”

  “I told you the answer.”

  “Yes. You did. He didn’t.”

  “If you think to challenge me, Rel, you’ll find I’m better equipped than the last time.”

  “Not challenge. I intend to speak to Invar.”

  “You don’t get to make that choice—”

  He cut off as the door opened, and Invar stood watching, his gaze bouncing from her to Samis, then settling on Dara.

  Invar had always been powerful. From the very first time she’d met him, and then from when she’d worked with him, she had known him to have exquisite control. It was the kind of control she had wished she could learn with the A’ras magic, and the kind of control Dara would need to learn. Carth had managed only a fraction of what he’d demonstrated, and though she had attempted to continue her practice, the power and knowledge she possessed was nothing compared to what Invar was capable of.

  His magic pulsed, and she knew it to be something of a demonstration for her, a way for her to know that he was here.

  Carth pulsed back.

  The effect was sl
ight, barely a touch of the power, but with Invar, it was enough for him to know what she did.

  “Ms. Rel,” he said. “You have gained a subtler control, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve tried to learn what I can,” she said.

  “And you seem to have learned quite a bit.” His eyes noted her mother’s ring and widened slightly. Had Invar recognized it? Had she only worn it during her time with the A’ras, she would have managed to reach that power more easily. It had been a mistake not even trying it, but how was she to know that her mother must have possessed the power of the Lashasn?

  “I haven’t learned anything,” she said. “But that’s why I’m here.”

  Invar tipped his head and shot a warning gaze toward Samis before settling once more on Carth. “Why are you here, Ms. Rel? You were sent from the city, I seem to recall.”

  He pulsed his power again.

  “I came to remove her, Invar,” Samis said.

  Carth realized what troubled her. Samis continued to refer to him as Invar, not Master Invar.

  What had happened here?

  “I can manage well enough,” Invar said, sending a subtle pulse.

  This was even lighter than before, and he did it in such a way that Carth had to think it a warning. Why would Invar need to warn her? What was there that he would need to warn against?

  “I…” She hesitated as she tried to think of why she would have come here, trying to think of a good reason and one that, if Invar’s warning was real, she would be able to downplay. Could it be about Samis? That didn’t seem right. That meant there was another reason.

  What would she be able to tell him that would justify her return to the city without exposing those she’d found in Isahl?

  The answer was with her.

  Carth hoped Dara understood.

  “I brought someone with A’ras ability to learn,” she said.

  Invar glanced beyond Carth and looked to Dara. Carth nodded to her friend and hoped that she would understand. They could have Dara pretend, and then they would get her free. She wouldn’t have to stay.

  “Such a thing is unconventional,” Invar said.

  “So was I.”

  “That is my concern.”