Rook and Shadow (Salarian Chronicles Book 1)

by A. G. Marshall

  “You’re a monster,” I said.

  My voice trembled.

  “You’re getting worked up over nothing. You want me to be a King? Fine, I’ll be a King. I’ve just executed a criminal who was plaguing the land. You can’t have it both ways, Princess.”

  “You’re just a selfish, spoiled-”

  He grabbed a loose rope and jumped. I stepped sideways to dodge him, and my foot went down instead of up. I had reached the top. Each step now would bring me lower.

  “Obsessed, traitorous-”

  Below, Shadow did not move.

  The Dragon climbed higher, cutting ropes and swinging nearer. Seda scampered after him, clawing the dangling ropes.

  The invisible platform buckled under my feet. Of all the times for the bracelets to fail! I grabbed the nearest rope, swung to the mast, and held tight. Below me, the Stella Rossa swayed in the waves. The motion felt gentle from the deck, but on the mast it seemed strong enough to shake me into the sea.

  Sir Gilbert swung from rope to rope, getting closer and closer.

  My heart pounded, but I still felt cold. Emotions churned through me in a-

  Well, in a loop.

  Moonlight complexion, pearly reflection

  By every standard, you are perfection.

  This was no time to think of poetry! I climbed up the mast to another rope and swung out of Sir Gilbert’s reach.

  How much magic would it take to change my appearance? To make me perfect by every standard? How did such a spell work?

  Lady Alma’s voice ran through my head.

  “You’re fairy blessed, dear. You can’t easily escape that. Being a princess is tied to the deepest part of your soul.”

  Divinia’s enchantment was a soul loop! Just like Seda’s youth and Sir Gilbert’s hair. That must be why I couldn’t work magic! The soul loop absorbed power from my charms just like the ship.

  Sir Gilbert swung towards me. I gripped a rope, jumped, and kicked him as we passed each other. He spun out of control. I stepped, landed on an invisible platform, and stood in midair, watching him.

  Estrella had said my soul was strong, but what if it wasn’t just my soul? If my soul was tied up in Divinia’s spell, it would mean I had been absorbing magic to power it.

  Magic I might be able to use.

  I needed a way to focus my emotions. To control the loop.

  I took a deep breath and sang my aria from the opera.

  My enchanted voice connected to the spell Divinia had cast on me. I felt it now. Something foreign lodged in the deepest part of me. The song focused it.

  “You won’t distract me with that again,” Sir Gilbert said.

  He cut a rope loose and swung towards me. I stood my ground and focused all my energy on him. At the last moment, I jumped and swung towards him, still singing.

  Power swelled up around me. Immense power. A silver mist swirled around me. My wig charm shattered into blue dust, and I felt a weight on my head as my hair grew. The Stella Rossa flickered through its disguises. My heart went cold. My foot hit Sir Gilbert’s chest. Something in my ankle popped.

  Sir Gilbert flew backwards and hit the mast. Silver light radiated from the point of impact, blinding me. I lost my grip on the rope and fell onto the invisible platform. Below, the Stella Rossa shuddered. The golden deck flickered, and the entire ship glowed red. It flashed so brightly I had to close my eyes.

  When I opened them, the blaze had faded and Sir Gilbert was gone. I sat up and examined the ship. The mast was charred and black where he had hit it. The sail hung in tatters. Bits of rope, still burning at the ends, swung in the breeze.

  What had I done?

  There was no time to think about that now. I moved the opera bracelets to my right arm, climbed down the ship’s rigging, and ran across the deck. I knelt over Shadow’s body.

  “Please,” I whispered. “Please.”

  His eyes did not open. He did not move.

  I leaned over him and felt a tiny puff of warm air. I held my hand above his mouth.

  He was still breathing!

  But blood gushed from the stab wound.

  He was still alive.

  He could be healed.

  If only I knew how.

  Gently, I put my hands on his chest. I focused on the movement in my soul and hummed a song.

  Something deep inside me snapped. A cold, sharp pain pierced my heart. It traveled down my hand, and silver wisps of magic covered Shadow.

  My vision blurred. I heard laughter. A boy with dark hair and peasant clothes stood in the courtyard at the palace. He was small and blended in with the crowd. No one noticed him as he walked towards the brightest lights. A smiling blond girl stood on a dais filled with people in brightly colored clothes. She knelt and offered him her hand. The boy took it, and she pulled him up. He wandered around with her, watching everything.

  And then he saw her. She sat on a throne, elevated above everyone, the brightest light of all. Her pink dress and pale skin shimmered. Her hair was the night sky with strands of stars diffused in it.

  He stood watching her. Hours passed. The crowd swept the blond girl away. A painter pushed him aside to set up his easel. The boy watched the painting for a moment, then turned to go. As he left, he searched for evidence of this shining world. Something to bring back to the shadows.

  He passed the food table and grabbed a painted egg.

  My vision cleared with a jolt. I gasped for air as if surfacing from under water. Shadow’s eyes opened and darted from my face to the strands of magic. He continued to bleed.

  I focused on the loop again. It was less of a loop now and more of a stream, trickling towards Shadow’s wounds. The bruises on my arm grew darker. My tears left traces of salt on his tunic.

  It wasn’t enough. I needed more power.

  There had to be a weak point in the loop somewhere. I closed my eyes, searching.

  My ankle twinged. I kicked my foot against the ground. The pain grew sharper.

  Something still held the magic back. I focused on the magic and searched for the thing blocking it. There, on my wrist.

  I pulled off the bracelets and threw them across the deck.

  Pain roared through my ankle. Something deeper than bone shattered, and magic rushed towards Shadow in a current as swift as the Ghone.

  His eyes opened wider. He stared at me. I glowed silver in his dark pupils. My hair floated around me in an unfelt breeze. Pain traveled up my leg into my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I was submerged in magic.

  Beneath my hands, the wound in Shadow’s chest closed. His breath grew stronger.

  Something else fractured inside me. I gasped. Shadow sank beneath me as I began to float above the deck.

  I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t try.

  The magic pulled me high above the Stella Rossa. The ship drifted towards Salaria. I felt the emptiness on the mainland, where life had drained from the earth itself. I felt that life inside me. Without realizing, I had absorbed it as I walked through fields and under mountains.

  Now that my soul loop had broken, the magic flowed towards Salaria. As it returned, the grass on the edge of the shore turned green. I smiled. A breeze caught the ship’s sails, and the Stella Rossa rushed towards the mainland. Green spread across the ground. Flowers bloomed, and trees grew new leaves.

  There was no loop now. No distinction between my soul and the magic. Estrella had said that could kill me.

  That didn’t matter.

  Fields of crops regrew in striped rows.

  I felt the land.

  A broken arm and bruised ribs.

  I gasped as I recognized Estrella. She lay on the shore. A wave of silver light washed over her, and she sat up.

  “Rook, what are you doing?”

  She was too far away for me to hear her voice, but our souls were linked. I understood her thoughts.

  “Help me.”

  I directed a stream of magic towards Estrella. She gasped and poured the power into the peopl
e, land, and homes we both sensed.

  I found Roslynn. She and William stood outside the mines. Her eyes pulsed beneath her blindfold, desperate to absorb too much light. Estrella flicked her wrist, and the dim light Roslynn saw behind her blindfold faded to darkness. She pulled the blindfold off and smiled at William. He picked her up and spun her around.

  Those I had healed became portals I could channel magic through. As if she understood my intent, Estrella used these people to push the magic further into Salaria. I gasped as something deep down tugged at my core, then resumed.

  I found Gerta’s farm and healed the soil. Bits of green rose from the ground. A silver rain began to fall. All of Salaria glowed. Crops regrew to twice their normal size. Charmed candles became beacons, shining to the sky. Under the magic, the land looked as if silver snow had fallen.

  I had become connected to everything in Salaria. To the country herself. I felt every hurt. Every injustice my people had suffered.

  And I knew exactly which I had caused.

  I screamed and pushed more of my soul magic towards the country. I had to heal everything before my power faded. I could not stop it now. Bits of my soul chipped off and swept away towards Salaria. I looked at my arm. My skin was translucent, and whole patches were gone. I felt myself fading into the magic stream. Salaria’s feelings became stronger than my own.

  I found the wells that had gone salty and purified the water.

  Estrella tried to stop me, but it was like reversing the current of the Ghone. Impossible.

  The flow of power ripped me apart from the inside out. Silver mist swirled around me in a storm, getting thicker and thicker. The wind carried off bits of me as it blew past. I screamed, but no sound came out. My voice was already gone. My body rippled like water. I was losing my form, reduced to a reflection of myself. My hair swept around me like a dark cocoon.

  In my last moments, I searched for Shadow. He was still weak, but he was breathing and the bleeding had stopped. He would live.

  The stream of magic had slowed now. I aimed it at him. His eyes shifted as I healed the owl eyes curse. My own vision darkened, and I faded into his memories.

  A small boy knelt over a man, crying in the darkness. The man pressed something into his hand, and the boy could see. His father was dying.

  “Run,” he choked. “Hide in the mines.”

  The memory faded into red light. The sunset transformed the ocean into fire. I drifted higher and higher. I had no weight to hold me to the earth. The last of my magic trickled towards Salaria.

  I felt cold.

  Could you die without a soul? Or did you simply fade into nothing?

  I inhaled one last time and closed my eyes.

  Pain shot through my ankle. Something strong clasped it, holding tight. I floated higher and higher, and the weight grew and dragged me down. Caught between heaven and earth, my country and my body, I opened my mouth and screamed.

  At first, there was no sound. Just a silent expression of agony.

  Then, like the sun grows gradually stronger each morning, my voice returned. The sound took form. I grew more solid.

  I looked down. Shadow held my ankle. Bits of magic flowed from him. His pupils grew larger and larger.

  “Stop!” I said, kicking my leg to shake him loose. “I healed you! I made things right!”

  More magic hit me as Estrella pushed energy land towards me. I sank lower as my body reformed.

  But I still floated above the ship. I was not whole yet.

  Wham!

  Something strong and gold slammed into my chest. I crashed to the deck as I absorbed it. I felt enough pain to know I was solid again.

  Shadow knelt over me. Behind him, two women appeared on the ship.

  Lady Alma glowed with silver sparkles. She directed them at me, and the agony eased.

  I had met the woman beside her only once, on the day I was born, but I recognized her instantly. I had seen her in paintings all my life

  She stood tall with skin illuminated from within as if she were a lamp. Golden wings peeked out from under her long, flowing hair. She wore a green dress that rippled as if made of the ocean itself. Her hands glowed with golden magic

  The Fairy Divinia.

  I sat up to get a better look and fainted.

  Chapter 30

  A scream rang through my head after I passed out. I think it was mine. It faded to music as magic knit me back together. The Fairy Divinia’s power filled me with a golden light and warmth, but bits of my soul were still tied to Salaria. As they returned, grass shriveled and wounds opened. I sat up to stop it.

  “Stay still.”

  The same force that had crashed into my chest pressed down on me. I stood in a completely silent white room. The walls glowed with golden light. Divinia stood next to me, sewing lace onto my gown.

  “What is happening?”

  “Lady Alma and I are patching your soul back together. There will be less damage if you hold still.”

  I stopped moving.

  The golden light faded into silver, and a gentle tension pressed in my hand. The music faded into the sounds of the ocean.

  I opened my eyes.

  Moonlight and stars filled my gaze. I lay on the deck of the Stella Rossa. Shadow held my hand and smiled.

  “She will live,” the Fairy Divinia said.

  “Don’t sound so pleased about it,” Lady Alma said. “This whole mess is your fault.”

  I propped myself up on my elbows. Shadow helped me sit up.

  “Don’t be unreasonable, Alma. This is hardly a mess.”

  We turned.

  The Fairy Divinia smiled at us.

  “It’s you,” I said. “You-”

  “I have come,” she said. “And I’m glad to see there’s no harm done.”

  “You have a strange definition of harm,” Lady Alma replied.

  “You saved me,” I said, looking at Shadow.

  “Are you alright?”

  I looked into his eyes, and my heart sank. His pupils were just as wide as before.

  “I healed you,” I said. “And now it’s gone.”

  “I’m still alive.”

  “I can fix owl eyes, no problem,” the Fairy Divinia said. “Just let me-”

  “No!”

  Shadow, Lady Alma, and I spoke in unison.

  “Divinia, be a dear and set a course for the palace,” Lady Alma said. “And pick up Estrella when we sail past her.”

  “I don’t know what you’re upset about,” Divinia said. “Everything turned out beautifully!”

  “No thanks to you,” I said. “You’re my fairy godmother! You’re supposed to give me help and guidance. Instead you gave me a soul loop as a baby and left!”

  “You really think I didn’t help?”

  Divinia snapped her fingers. The glow of her skin faded, and she shrank. Her back hunched, and her face became a familiar mass of wrinkles.

  “You’re Madame Delilah?” I said.

  She nodded.

  “And you think that makes it better? You tricked me into cutting my hair! You-”

  “Your hair took a lot of magic to sustain. It isn’t easy, making hair shine like the Ghone. Or making a wig that keeps the enchantment going when separated from the source of power, but I managed. I also arranged for Elsie to impersonate you in the palace so you could keep gallivanting about the countryside.”

  She hobbled across the deck as she spoke, waving her hands. The Stella Rossa glowed golden and sailed towards Castlemont.

  “I’ve been working with Lady Alma for years to help sustain the loop so it wouldn’t drain you. Do you think all that salt crystal jewelry was really about symbolism? It was a power source, of my own design, to keep your loop spell running without taxing your soul.”

  “Quite a bit of my design went into that,” Lady Alma said.

  “You knew about this?” I asked Lady Alma. “You knew Madame Delilah was Divinia, and I had a soul loop? You helped her?”

  She no
dded.

  “Don’t be angry, dear. There wasn’t a way to break the loop, so telling you wouldn’t have done any good. Don’t forget to pick up Estrella, Divinia.”

  Madame Delilah snapped her fingers and transformed back into a fairy.

  “Why did you stay hidden?” Shadow asked.

  “Oh, I wanted to give Salara a chance find her own way. Relying too much on fairy magic doesn’t do anyone any good.”

  “My name is Rook,” I said.

  “Oh, you’re not planning to keep that are you? I named you Salara. That’s so much nicer.”

  “You just named her after the country because you couldn’t think of anything else,” Lady Alma said.

  “Besides, she isn’t Salara anymore,” Shadow said. “The spell is broken. Salara is gone.”

  I gripped his hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was going to mention that later,” Lady Alma said. “The Princess has been through a lot today.”

  She glared at Shadow.

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  I stared at my arms. They were dirty, but looked about the same. I felt my face.

  “Nothing is wrong with you,” Shadow said.

  “What happened?”

  I felt differences when I tried. My fingers were shorter. My teeth weren’t as straight. I ran my hands through my hair, trying to stay calm. It had grown again. Past my shoulders. I pulled a strand of it forward, looking for differences. It was still black.

  “Oh, Salara preserve us!” Lady Alma said.

  She snapped her fingers, and a full length mirror appeared on the deck.

  Shadow helped me stand. I walked towards it, one tiny step at a time.

  The edges of my dress were charred from the explosion. My reflection swam and blurred. Standing too quickly had made me dizzy. I leaned on Shadow’s shoulder and stared.

  A strange combination of Father and Mother stared back at me. I touched the mirror, searching for a trick. The stranger behind the glass met my hand with her own pale skin. Pale, but not luminescent. The tangled black hair showed no trace of a dark rainbow when it caught the light.

  I had Father’s clear brown eyes. Mother’s heart shaped face and upturned nose.