Shadowcry

by Jenna Burtenshaw

  Silas had learned to endure that suffering over time but the rituals in Wintercraft had bound him to Da’ru, letting her cruelty and hate drip into him day after day. He could sense her spirit inside him, even when she was not there. He could feel her anger and taste the venom of her thoughts, as if an echo was traveling through the veil, feeding directly from her spirit into what was left of his.

  This connection had become Da’ru’s greatest power over him. She had made Silas believe that to turn against her would condemn him to even greater suffering than he already faced. She had used his early ignorance of the veil to deceive him. He had no reason to doubt her threats, but Kate knew now that there was no truth behind them. That bond had been Silas’s greatest torment. Da’ru had infected his life, forcing him to endure years in the service of his torturer, and that was something he could not bear.

  Kate might not be able to send Silas into death as he had asked, but Da’ru’s link with him had been created by the circle and that circle was under Kate’s control now. If there was even a chance she could break it, it had to be worth a try.

  Kate lowered her hands and held one of them against Silas’s palm-scar. Now that she was looking for it, she could see a silver thread of light trailing out of it like a spider’s web, binding what was left of his spirit to Da’ru. All she had to do was sever it. But how?

  The circle answered.

  Blue light from one of the inner symbols struck out like a bolt of lightning, infusing the thread with blinding light. The shades stayed well back as the entire hall began to shudder and shake, and faint cracks spread across the listening circle, crumbling many of its carvings into dust. Kate did not know what was happening. The energy spreading up through her feet was too powerful. She couldn’t stop it. Light burst through her hand, the silver thread ignited in pure white fire and the flames leaped into Silas’s palm, making his body buckle as the fire spread through his blood.

  Kate closed her eyes—all she could do was let it happen—then the thread snapped in two and the two halves crumbled to the floor like fallen ash, returning its energy to the circle that had created it. The white fire bled out through Silas’s boots and down into the floor. The light faded, the mist cleared, and with one last scream of anguish the souls within the circle disappeared to be seen no more.

  Kate looked around, confused. She had not meant for that to happen.

  She snatched her hand quickly out of Silas’s grip and he glared at her, exhausted, very angry and still very much alive.

  “What . . . did you do?” he asked.

  Moonlight bled in through the museum’s windows. Night had fallen over Fume. They must have been in the circle for hours, but it felt like only a few minutes. Sweat covered every pore of Silas’s skin, his breath coming in gasps as his body tried to recover.

  “What did you do?” he asked again.

  Kate dared to meet his eyes. “You wanted my help. I helped you,” she said. “What Da’ru did to you can’t just be undone. Maybe there is a way, but the book didn’t tell me how. I did the only thing I could do. There was a link binding her to you. I broke it. You are free of her now.”

  Silas looked at her with suspicion, then touched the old scar on his palm. The heat that had smoldered within it was gone and the wound was already beginning to heal. Kate could not tell if he was pleased about that or not.

  “Da’ru shouldn’t have tried to bind your soul,” continued Kate. “She knew she wouldn’t be able to fix it. The book warned her not to do it. She is your enemy, not I.”

  “I know what she is,” growled Silas.

  “What Da’ru told you about the link between you . . . it wasn’t true,” said Kate. She was not sure if it was a good idea to tell Silas the truth, but decided that he deserved to hear it anyway. “If she had died, you would have lived on. You would have been free of her. She had to lie to you. She had to protect herself. She knew you would kill her if you knew the truth.”

  Silas’s jaw twitched and he turned on Edgar, who was still staring up at the ceiling, shocked by what he had just seen.

  “Give me my sword, boy.” His voice was cold and black with hidden anger.

  Edgar did not dare to disobey, and he scrambled quickly over to where the blue sword lay. It was a lot heavier than he expected, and he needed both hands to pick it up. “What are you going to do with it?” he asked.

  “Nothing that you need care about.” Silas took his sword before Edgar even realized he had moved. “Now get out of my sight. Both of you. Go.”

  Silas grabbed his coat and pulled it on, heading past the unconscious wardens and out of the museum’s front door. “That’s it?” said Edgar, gladly watching him leave.

  “No,” said Kate. “It’s not.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  Kate ran across the hall, following Silas, and Edgar raced after her, not wanting to be left alone. But he was not on his own.

  Hundreds of shades filled the rooms and corridors of the old museum. Attracted by the energy of an active listening circle, they had drifted in from the streets of Fume and witnessed what Kate had done in that place. Severing a bond created by the knowledge written in Wintercraft required a level of Skill not seen since the book was first written, so when Edgar left the museum’s hall he had more company than he could have imagined. The shades were with him, hidden safely within the thinnest level of the half-life. Hundreds of souls all moving as one, following Edgar and Kate out into the night.

  Chapter 19

  The Night of Souls

  Edgar caught up with Silas and Kate on the front steps and the three of them stood there together, looking out across a city that was completely transformed.

  Celebrations for the Night of Souls had begun.

  Hundreds of people filled the streets, singing, dancing, and celebrating the lives of their ancestors, unaware of what had just taken place inside the old museum. Carriages hung with long colored ribbons trundled through the streets, winding between groups of women in fine dresses and men in hats and brightly striped cloaks.

  There were storytellers on horseback, walking proudly along, with troops of listeners trailing behind them like a living cloak. Dancers weaved expertly through the crowd, and blue banners had been hung from the towers high above them, reflecting the light of the moon and imbuing the city with a strange, eerie glow. Some of the banners had been painted with large black eyes, as people wanted to believe that their ancestors were watching over them. Kate doubted any of them would really be ready to know the truth.

  At ground level the streets flickered with moving candlelight. Many people were carrying candles to remember the lives of the dead, and they all wore feathered masks over their eyes, decorated with tiny crystals that sparkled in the flames. They moved together in one long procession, snaking their way toward the center of the city, where small bonfires were casting smoke and heat across the cold night sky.

  Bright music filled the air and Kate spotted a group of musicians at the base of the museum steps, playing fiddles and flutes and thumping out a beat on a huge, deep drum. Three of them had painted their faces deathly white, were wearing tattered clothes, and had blackened their teeth; and other people in the crowd had dressed the same way to represent the dead rising up from their graves to join in the celebration.

  Kate had always respected the Night of Souls, but standing there in a graveyard city overtaken by the rich and their slaves, it felt gruesome and ghoulish. The sound of other instruments echoed loudly from the towers and she could not help staring at the spectacle below her as the color and noise brought the ancient city to life.

  Silas kept to the shadows and looked up at the rooftops, vainly searching for his lost crow. “I said you could go,” he said absently. “Why are you still here?”

  “You’re going after Da’ru, aren’t you?” said Kate.

  “I have a promise to keep.” Silas clenched his fists. “Da’ru will pay for what she has done.”

  “I want to go wit
h you.”

  Silas looked down at her.

  “I’ve done everything you ordered me to do,” said Kate. “Now I need your help. You owe me that.”

  “I owe you nothing.”

  A stray firecracker streaked from the crowd and burst with an ear-splitting bang overhead. Three more followed. Silas headed down the center of the steps, pushing through the people as they danced and twirled their way along like a living river.

  Kate ran to catch up to him.

  “What are you doing?” shouted Edgar, struggling to be heard above the noise as he followed her down. “We should go!”

  Kate was jostled, pushed, and squeezed between enormous dresses as the masked dancers swallowed her into their midst. She fought her way past pipe players, horses in black veils, and men on stilts wearing decorated blindfolds who were throwing handfuls of dead leaves over anyone they could reach. She ducked beneath one of the stilt walkers and a woman next to her cried out—a single red leaf had caught in Kate’s hair.

  “She’s next!” the woman shouted, trying to grab Kate before she slipped away. “This girl will be the next to die!”

  Kate ignored the woman and left the leaf flapping where it was. She had no time for superstition. They had the same tradition in her own town but no one took it seriously anymore. The woman shouted something after her, but she was already too far away to hear. She had spotted Silas moving up ahead and she was closing in.

  “I did everything you wanted,” she shouted the moment she was close enough. “I need your help. I need you to help me find my uncle. He could have been up here, safe with us, and you just left him behind!”

  “We both left him behind,” said Silas, refusing to slow his pace. “I did not hear you complain about it until after the deed was done.”

  “I have to find him!” said Kate. “Edgar said those wardens went to the museum looking for you—and for Wintercraft. Artemis was the only other person who knew that you had it.” She dodged the hot breath of a fire breather and people squealed excitedly away from the flames. “He wouldn’t have told anyone about it unless someone forced him. I think Da’ru has him. I need you to help me get him back.”

  “Your family’s problems are no concern of mine,” said Silas. “I have spared your life and I spared his. That is payment enough.”

  Silas pushed his way on to a street lined with stalls selling every kind of food that Kate had ever known. Steam rose from hot ovens, soups bubbled in enormous pots, and water spat from open pans. The smells were intoxicating. Kate had not eaten since she had been locked in the Council’s cell, and her stomach growled as she followed Silas through clouds of heat filled with the scent of spices, fried meats, and stewed fruits.

  “You told me that you were honorable,” she said, ducking beneath the outstretched arm of a biscuit seller. “That you never say things unless you intend to carry them out. You said that as long as I did what you told me, Artemis would live. I’ve tried to do everything you wanted and he is still in danger. You broke your word. I don’t think you have any honor.”

  Silas stopped and spun around to face her. “You do not know me, Miss Winters. Do not pretend to.”

  A handful of masked people stared at Silas, recognizing him at once, and Kate heard them whispering together before they backed away. Word of his presence spread swiftly, the people parted around him, and he forced his way past a sausage seller, almost toppling the terrified man’s cart as he made a sharp right turn down into an empty barrow alley.

  “When those wardens don’t report back, Da’ru will know something is wrong,” shouted Kate, starting to get out of breath. “Her guards will be waiting for you. They will stop you before you even get close to her. You want Da’ru, and I want Artemis. If we work together . . . maybe we can both get what we want.”

  “You are a bookseller,” said Silas. “Whatever plan you think you have, it will not work.”

  “Da’ru still wants me, doesn’t she? What if we went to see her together, with me as your prisoner? How close would the guards let you get to her then?”

  That got Silas’s attention. He stopped walking so suddenly that Kate almost bumped into him. “You would not suggest that if you knew the consequences,” he said.

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “You should care. Da’ru is not the only one in the High Council who is interested in the workings of the veil. They know what you are now. They will never let you go once they have you. They will imprison you and experiment upon you, regardless of anything that happens to her.”

  “And what will they do to you for killing a councilwoman?”

  Silas’s eyes grew darker. “Whatever happens, it will be worth it to see the look on Da’ru’s face when I send her into death.”

  “And your best chance of doing that is with my help.”

  “Our help,” said Edgar, panting as he reappeared beside them. “Da’ru still has my brother. If there’s a chance I can help him, I have to do it. I don’t want to leave him behind again.”

  “I will not protect you. Either of you,” said Silas. “It is of no interest to me if you live or die.”

  “We know that,” said Kate.

  “Then you are both fools. But you are right. Presenting you as my prisoner would certainly get Da’ru’s attention.”

  A dog’s fierce bark echoed above the music.

  “The wardens must not find us,” Silas said. “Follow me.”

  The barrow alley led into another part of the crowd and the flow of people carried them along so strongly that Kate lost sight of Silas as he raced ahead again, disappearing between a moving carriage and a masked juggler on horseback. She kept going, trying to spot him in the heaving crowd, and Edgar pushed his way along beside her.

  “Can you see him?” he shouted.

  Kate spotted him at last, walking through a wide stone archway that linked two towers together. Beneath it, tucked just inside an alleyway, was a two-horse carriage decorated with black ribbons and paper skulls. The carriage still had a driver, but he was more interested in watching the crowd than in anything else going on around him. Silas crept up beside him, grabbed the whip, and held it firmly to the man’s throat. Kate was too far away to hear what was said, but Silas talked while the driver just nodded nervously. She was expecting the worst, until Silas lowered the whip and the driver leaped down from his seat, fleeing into the night.

  Kate and Edgar ran to the carriage and climbed into the back while Silas snapped on the reins, guiding the horses swiftly into the busy streets. Kate looked out of the window at the leaning towers gathered around them, which looked much older and more decrepit than any she had seen before. “Is this the way to the council chambers?” she asked.

  “We’re not going to the chambers,” said Edgar. “Da’ru won’t be there tonight.”

  “Then where are we going?”

  “The city square. The High Council go there every year. That’s where Da’ru will be.”

  Silas took the carriage down through the narrowest streets of the city, dodging the busiest areas and driving the horses along at a steady pace. He could have gone faster, but he did not want to draw attention to himself. No amount of prisoners would do him any good if he was captured by a warden patrol. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, concentrating on the task before him, until the four round towers marking the corners of the city square rose slowly into sight.

  Fume’s main square was very different from the one in Morvane. It was edged by tall white-stoned buildings with arched roofs and high stained-glass windows, and instead of barrow alleys, the crowd entered through ornate stone tunnels that sloped gently upward, decorated with carvings that looked centuries old. Silas took the carriage into one of the tunnels and stopped it a short way inside. “We’ll get out here,” he said, speaking through the hatch behind his seat.

  They abandoned the carriage behind another that had stopped in the same place and then they were part of the crowd again, squeezing along by candlelight
into the bright fiery glow of the square.

  Inside the straight edges of the outer buildings, Kate was surprised to see that the city square was not a square at all. It was a circle. The tunnel came out at the top of a long staircase, which led down to stepped galleries of wooden seats surrounding a sunken circle of stone. A huge bonfire was burning at one side of the circle, most of the seats were full, and the whole plaza rippled with noise as people began cheering and clapping at a line of polished black carriages that rolled into the circle through a pair of high arched doors. Kate remembered the vision of Da’ru she had seen in the council tower and knew that this was the night she had seen. The Night of Souls. It was actually happening.

  “Time to go,” said Silas, clipping the silver chain back on to Kate’s wrist.

  “This wasn’t what we agreed!” she said.

  “You are my prisoner, exactly as we agreed,” said Silas. “Now walk.”

  Kate heard four thuds as wardens closed heavy wooden doors across the mouths of the entrance tunnels. The stairways between the galleries were packed with people trying to find a seat before whatever was about to happen began. Silas forced a path through them, pulling Kate along so fast that Edgar was soon left behind, his face lost among a sea of strangers.

  Down in the circle, the carriages’ passengers stepped out into the open air and twelve of the councilmen took their seats near the center, surrounded by twice as many of their own personal guards. The thirteenth council member, Da’ru, walked over to a large stone table, ready to address the crowd, and anyone who was still on the stairs stopped where they were to listen to what she had to say.

  “Once again, we are together,” she said, her voice carrying powerfully around the square as firelight reflected from a glass locket at her throat. “The war goes on, both outside our borders and now within, as those upon the Continent continue to challenge us for what is rightly ours. Our people fight to protect us, to defend our lives and preserve our history, but as we, the inhabitants of this ancient city, know only too well, no victory can be achieved without sacrifice.”