The Shadow's Heir

by K J Taylor

  Laela began to struggle violently. “No! Stop! I ain’t done nothin’ wrong! Let me go!”

  The only reply was a blow so powerful it snapped her head sideways and slammed her teeth together with an audible thump.

  Dazed, with blood dripping from her nose, she staggered on in the direction her guards chose. Her ears were ringing so badly, she only just heard the brief conversation with another guard they met along the way. A barred door opened, and they passed into another passage so narrow they had to walk along it in single file. There, the guard in front of her unlocked a door and pushed it inward. His comrade shoved Laela through it, and she stumbled forward and collapsed onto a hard stone floor as the door slammed behind her.

  She lay on her stomach, her blood dripping softly onto the stone beneath her. Her face hurt so badly, she thought she was going to pass out, but her mind was clear enough to know what was going on, and she didn’t have to look up to know that she was in a cell.

  What happened? What did I do?

  It would be a long time before she would find out.

  She spent the rest of the day in her cell—a tiny, cold, stone-lined thing whose only furniture was a narrow wooden bench bolted to the floor and an oversized jar in one corner meant to serve as a lavatory. A guard eventually brought her a jug of water but ignored all her questions.

  She drank some of the water and used it to wash the crusted blood off her face and bathe her swollen eye. Her jaw still hurt badly—she was fairly sure she had at least one broken tooth, and another one was threatening to fall out. And her eye was swollen so much it was almost completely impossible to see out of. The guard must have had a very strong arm.

  She was too frightened to spend much time feeling sorry for herself. Lacking anything else to do, she paced back and forth in her cell and agonised. Had the King got bored with her? Was this some cruel game he was playing with her before he disposed of her? Was she going to be executed—or tortured? Would they break her fingers, too?

  But why would he do this to her? He’d made her one of his subjects, she’d started learning so many things on his orders—why would he suddenly change his mind?

  Yorath.

  That was why. It had to be. He must have found out that she’d shared her bed with him, and that must have made him angry with her. Maybe he was jealous . . . Maybe he didn’t want a half-breed dallying with one of his people . . . Maybe she’d broken some Northerner rule she didn’t know about. But how had he found out? Had he been watching her? People said he could make himself invisible . . . hide in the darkness . . .

  Or had Yorath told him? Gods forbid, had he betrayed her?

  Laela slumped onto the bench, face in her hands. Oh, help me.

  She lifted her head. “Help me,” she said aloud. “Please, help. Help me get out of this, please . . .”

  Silence answered her, and she stared into the darkness. Who had she been pleading with? Who was she praying to—Gryphus, or the Night God?

  Her eyes gleamed.

  “Night God,” she said aloud. “Scathach. Can yeh hear me? I’m Laela. Laela Redguard. I dunno if yeh know about me. I’m a half-breed. My father, he was a Northerner. They told me that means I’m a Northerner, too. Yesterday I saw visions in the water, an’ they say that means I’m one of your people, too. I ain’t never prayed to yeh before. I always prayed to Gryphus. But he never did answer any of my prayers. Maybe that was because I’m a darkwoman. Didn’t want t’think of myself that way. But maybe I should. I’d like a god of my own. Just t’know who was watchin’ over me, if anyone really was. I prayed to Gryphus, but he never helped me. So I’ll tell yeh this—Night God—I’ll believe in yeh. I’ll pray to yeh. Just help me. Protect me like they say yeh do. Stop them from hurtin’ me—get me outta here, an’ I’m yours. That’s a promise, like.”

  She nodded to the invisible presence and lay down to try and get some rest.

  Maybe she slept—she was never sure about that—but it felt like almost no time later when her cell door opened and a guard came in. He was carrying something, which he put on the bench before backing out of the cell and closing the door again.

  Laela sat up and reached for the thing he’d left—it was a small loaf of bread, and she bit into it immediately.

  “Eat that fast an’ smarten yerself up,” the guard said brusquely. “Lord Torc is comin’ here to see ye.”

  Laela swallowed quickly. “Who’s that?”

  The guard had already gone. But his message had given her some hope, and she ate the rest of the bread and did what she could to neaten her hair and clothes. If the person coming to see her was a lord, then she’d have to look as tidy as possible to make a good impression on him. It couldn’t hurt.

  She’d retied her boot-laces and used some of the leftover water to flatten her hair when she heard the jangle of keys outside her cell and looked up as a guard called to her.

  “Get away from the door, half-breed—sit at the end of the bench an’ stay there.”

  She did it straightaway, and waited tensely while the door was unlocked and opened to let someone through. The someone stood by while the guard came in with a torch and put it in a holder on the wall. It lit the cell quite well, and the guard bowed to the visitor, and then left.

  Laela looked at the man she could only assume was Lord Torc, trying to get the measure of him. He was in his thirties and not very tall, but he had a wiry look to him. He had a neat beard, and his clothes were fine but plain.

  “Ye’re Laela?”

  She debated whether to stand up and decided to stay where she was. “Yeah, that’s me. My lord.”

  He looked her up and down, unreadable. “I’m Lord Torc,” he told her. “Master of Law. Do ye know why ye’re in here?”

  “No,” said Laela. “Look—my lord—just talk to the King. He can tell yeh I’m allowed t’be in the Eyrie an’ that—he gave me a home here. We’re . . . well, he trusts me. Just tell him I ain’t done nothin’—let me talk to him, I can tell him . . .”

  “Ye won’t be talking to the King,” Lord Torc said coldly. “And he won’t be talking to ye, either.”

  “But look, I ain’t done nothin’!” said Laela. “Please, just tell him—”

  “Can ye tell me where ye were last night, Laela?” he said, cutting across her.

  “What? I was in my room,” said Laela. “Where else would I have been?”

  “I’ll ask the questions, thanks,” said Torc. “Can anyone confirm where ye were?”

  “I—” Laela hesitated. Her instincts told her that bringing Yorath into this wouldn’t help her. “I dunno,” she said lamely.

  “I see. Ye didn’t see the King, then?”

  “Just once, in the morning, real quick,” said Laela.

  “Ye didn’t see him any later in the day?”

  “No.”

  “Are ye sure?”

  “Yeah, of course I am!” said Laela. “The King ain’t someone yeh just forget about. Why does it matter, anyway?”

  “Considering ye’re his mistress, I would’ve expected ye to be with him last night,” said Torc.

  “Well, I wasn’t,” said Laela.

  “Can ye prove that?”

  “I dunno. Wouldn’t someone’ve seen me go in his room?”

  He didn’t react to that. “Had ye seen anything in the Eyrie that was odd? Strangers? Anyone acting differently?”

  “I’ve only been here a week or so,” Laela countered. “I dunno much’ve what goes on around here. What looks odd t’me might be totally normal to you.”

  “No strangers, then?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Ye haven’t been talking to anyone different?” Torc persisted. “Anyone who wasn’t one of yer tutors, or one of the servants?”

  “No,” said Laela.

  “So I take it ye don’t know anything about what happened last night?”

  “I doubt it, because I got no damn idea what that was,” Laela said flatly.

  He leant clos
er. “Last night, the King vanished out of his bedroom. No-one has seen him since. Every guard and griffin in the city has been looking for him, but so far none of them have found a thing. And so far we don’t know of anyone in the Eyrie who could have had something to do with it. After all—who here would want to harm the King?” He paused. “But the thing is, there is someone in the Eyrie who might want that. Someone who came from the South, where everyone hates our ruler. Someone with every reason to resent us and want revenge. Someone who just so happened to be in the Eyrie last night, with no way of proving she wasn’t anywhere near the King when he went missing.”

  Laela’s mouth had fallen open. “I—”

  Torc straightened up. “I suggest ye think hard, half-breed. Because unless ye can come up with some way of proving ye were in yer room all last night, then I’ll have no choice but to assume ye know more than ye’re saying, and then ye’ll face the same thing all traitors face.”

  “Death?” Laela managed.

  “Of course not,” said the Master of Law. “If ye are guilty, then ye know where the King is, and we must find out, and soon. By any means necessary.”

  “I didn’t do nothin’!” Laela burst out. “I swear, I ain’t done nothin’! I didn’t know the King was missin’ at all until yeh told me—I swear!”

  Torc clutched his throat as if it were hurting him. “I was a slave until the King set me free,” he said quietly. “I owe him everything. And I don’t care what I have to do to ye to find out where he is now. I will find him. And ye’ll help me, or die. Think about that.”

  Then he was gone.

  13

  Back at the Blue Moon

  Laela didn’t sleep that night, even briefly. She didn’t want to sleep, even if it would mean an escape from her fear and hunger.

  Whatever happened from here on, she knew her life in the Eyrie was over. She’d already decided that when they came for her in the morning she’d tell them about Yorath. Whether they’d believe her was another question. The memory of Torc’s hostile face gave her the grim feeling that they wouldn’t believe her and would probably torture her regardless. And . . . what then? What would she tell them?

  Nothing, that was it. She’d tell them nothing, because that was what she knew. And if they had nothing to torture out of her, then they’d have no reason to stop.

  She knew what happened to people who were tortured. Her father had told her. It didn’t matter whether they talked or not; they always cracked in the end. After that, they died. If not by execution, then from infected wounds, or insanity.

  She spent that night pacing again, her mind in a whirl. Thoughts of the fate ahead of her mixed with thoughts of Yorath and his sweet smile, and she felt sick to think she’d have to betray him to get out of this situation. He’d asked her over and over again to keep it a secret; he’d been so frightened that he might make the King angry, even now.

  But the King was gone, and Laela knew that betrayal was her only chance.

  To her surprise, she realised that, mixed in with her fear for herself, was worry about the King. Arenadd.

  What could have happened to him? Was he hurt—had he been kidnapped?

  Maybe he had run away.

  She remembered the bitter way he’d talked about his Kingship—how depressed he’d seemed. Maybe he’d killed himself.

  But she remembered seeing him the morning before he’d vanished, and noticing how energetic he seemed all of a sudden. Cheerful, even. That wasn’t the look of a man planning to kill himself that night. It had been closer to the look of a man who had something completely different on his mind.

  He’d looked like someone who had something planned—something important and special.

  He’s run away, she thought. Must have done. He decided to do it yesterday or the night before, an’ he did it that night, after he’d talked about Amoran to throw me off.

  But where could he have gone? And would he really run away from his responsibilities like that? He hadn’t struck Laela as the sort to abandon something as important as an entire Kingdom. But maybe she’d judged him wrong.

  It was too much for her to figure out, and she sighed and drank the last of the water.

  • • •

  Morning saw her sitting hunched on her bench, staring at the floor with blank, dead eyes. She had no idea what time of day it was, but it felt like morning. It had to be.

  The by-now-familiar jingling of keys made her look up, her tiredness vanishing as her heart leapt into her mouth and started pounding furiously.

  A solitary guard came in, leaving his friend outside to watch the door. “Get up.”

  She did. He stepped forward and shoved her toward the door, and she went meekly enough though her mind was racing as much as her heartbeat. She desperately wanted to speak up and tell them about Yorath, but something held her back. Part of it was her final reluctance to expose him, but it was also a more practical thought—that the guards were just guards and wouldn’t want to hear anything she had to say. They had no power to set her free anyway. If she told anyone, it would have to be whoever interrogated her.

  The guards took her along the same narrow passage as before—she was befuddled by her lack of sleep and couldn’t remember which direction they had been going in when they’d arrived and whether they were following it now.

  They reached a door at the end, and once the guard in front had identified himself to his comrade on the other side, it was unlocked, and they went through. Not, as Laela had expected, into a torture chamber, but into a small space that looked like a guardroom. Numerous guards were in it, relaxing at a table and sharing gossip and a game of some sort. Most of them barely glanced up.

  Laela’s own guards escorted her to the other side of the guardroom and through another door. That took them to a set of stairs that led them straight upward, and as Laela reached the top, she squinted as light hit her eyes. This wasn’t right . . .

  At the top of the stairs, the guards pushed her out and into a much more ordinary corridor, where a man was waiting for them. He wore armour like the guards, but carried himself with more authority than they did, and her two escorts bowed their heads to him.

  “Who are yeh?” Laela demanded. “What’s goin’ on?”

  The man looked distastefully at her. “I’ve been ordered t’pass this onto ye by Lord Torc.”

  Her heart quickened. “What?”

  “Yer tutor came forward this mornin’ and told the Master of Law he was with ye all last night an’ there’s no chance ye could have gone anywhere else without him seein’. Since there’s no proof he’s lyin’, the law says ye must be set free.”

  Laela felt warm all over. “They’re lettin’ me go?”

  A nod. “However, the Lady Saeddryn, as actin’ ruler of the Eyrie, has ordered that ye cannot stay here. Ye’re t’leave the Eyrie immediately, an’ if ye come back, ye’ll be thrown back into the dungeons for trespassin’. Is that clear?”

  She nodded dumbly.

  “Good. Now get goin’.”

  Laela walked past him with as much dignity as she could muster, and followed the corridor around until she reached the door leading out into the city.

  Where Yorath was waiting for her.

  Laela stared at him for an instant, then threw herself into his arms. “Yorath!”

  He returned the embrace. “Laela, thank the Night God ye’re safe! They didn’t hurt ye, did they?”

  She realised she was on the verge of tears. “No. They were goin’ to, but they didn’t. Yorath, yeh saved me. They was gonna torture me in there—if yeh hadn’t . . .” She hugged him more tightly.

  “Well, I couldn’t just sit by an’ do nothing!” said Yorath. “I knew ye hadn’t done anythin’ wrong. An’ besides . . .”

  Laela pulled away to look him in the face. “Yeah?”

  He hesitated. “Never mind. Laela . . . look, I’m sorry. I did what I could for ye, but Lady Saeddryn’s in charge now since she’s the King’s oldest blood relative. I
can’t go against what she says.”

  “I know,” said Laela. “It’s all right; I ain’t blamin’ yeh. I don’t wanna stay here anyway. Not with the King gone. Gods, Yorath—what happened to him? Where did he go?”

  Yorath shrugged helplessly. “No-one knows. He just vanished out of his room, an’ no-one saw him go in or out. The whole city’s in an uproar. Skandar’s half-mad.”

  “Wait—Skandar?”

  “Yeah. Well, of course he’s gone bats. He’s lost his human—do ye know how shameful that is for a griffin? If the King doesn’t come back soon, he could lose everything. The other griffins won’t respect him any more if he hasn’t got a human.”

  Laela barely heard him. The King vanished, but Skandar didn’t. Why in the gods’ names would he run away an’ leave his griffin behind?

  “Listen,” Yorath interrupted. “I’m so sorry about this, but I can’t let ye stay any longer. Here.” He pressed her sword into her hands. “I got this back for ye. An’ this.”

  Laela took her bag of money and tied it to her belt. “Thanks, Yorath. This sword was Dad’s, y’know. He left it to me.”

  “I know; ye told me. Now, go. Get out of here, Laela—an’ good luck.”

  She smiled to hide her real feelings, and tapped the sword-hilt. “I don’t need luck when I got this.”

  Yorath darted forward and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Go, Laela. An’ may the Night God watch over ye.”

  She kissed him back. “I think she does,” she said, and walked out of the Eyrie.

  • • •

  Arenadd. Arenadd . . .

  The voice drifted toward him through the currents, and he struggled to reach it. His own voice felt weak, but he tried his hardest to call out to her. “Master . . . help . . .”

  Arenadd.

  “Help,” he whispered. “Help me . . . please, Master . . .”

  My help . . . is no help, she said.

  He tried to speak, again, but his throat was full of something he couldn’t cough up. His mind was full of vague memories of a scarred and horrible face looking down at him with terrible malice and pain.