Shadow

by Jenny Moss

  I sank to the ground and stared out at the sea. Eldred, you manipulative old man: Where are you when I need you? I angrily brushed away my tears.

  I looked down at Kendra and Ingen from my seat behind Kenway. The horse was restless, stomping her hooves against the rocky ground. She wanted to be gone.

  That was my wish as well. I would rescue Piers and find a safe place for us.

  I huddled in my cloak, chilled by the mountain air. When we’d first escaped from the castle, I had welcomed the cold. Something inside of me, then, glowing like a hot coal from a new fire, had kept me warm.

  That had been doused. My stomach was ice, and I was chilled to the core.

  “Your father was a man to admire,” Kendra said. “So tall, with broad shoulders and a golden red beard. He had more energy than ten men and filled a room with his presence. Filled a country with his presence.”

  I wanted to hear more about my father. I hoped I might be like him. In the strength I had always felt. It was him in me. He didn’t know to what fate he’d left his child.

  Erce had known. She knew even now.

  “He was trusting,” said Kendra. “Once he gave his loyalty, he didn’t snatch it back. Fyren was his cousin, his friend when he was young. The king thought well of him, but Fyren betrayed that trust.”

  She exchanged a look with Kenway. I shouldn’t have left them alone this morning. They were conspiring against me.

  Kenway prodded the horse, starting us on our way.

  We didn’t get very far. At the western edge of the hill, I caught a whiff of something burning. I knew it was from Goodham. I remembered another village, a place filled with the murdered.

  “Stop,” I bade Kenway. I sat still for a moment, my hands balling into fists, my heart beating wildly. I couldn’t do this alone.

  I looked back at Kendra, a pale figure against a gray sky. She walked toward us, her feet bare and white on the rocks. Kenway took us on the path back to her. Ingen did not move, just watched from her place by the hut.

  When Kendra grabbed the reins, the horse neighed and pulled back.

  I hesitated, not wanting to tell her.

  “I’ve been experiencing things, feeling emotions.” I bit my lip, not wanting to say more. Kenway moved in the saddle. I put my hands on the cantle behind me.

  “What emotions?” she asked.

  “Not mine. Not my feelings.” I looked off. “They are from…someplace else.”

  Kenway turned his head toward me slightly. “From where? Erce?” I was glad I couldn’t see his eyes.

  I didn’t want to tell them, especially him.

  “From the villagers,” I snapped. “From you, Kendra. And Kenway, too.”

  He twisted around, looking at me directly. I stared back.

  “I don’t understand it,” I said. I grabbed at my hair, pushing it back and back, trying to push away the fear. “Why do I feel them?”

  Kendra’s eyes were the color of water, revealing nothing. “When did it begin?”

  “I don’t know,” I said quickly, for that was only part of the truth.

  I remembered feeling Kenway’s anger and sadness, when he stood over me at his father’s home and when we talked under the pine trees. But there had been moments before that, back in the castle, with Piers, when I felt I was glimpsing something inside of him. I had controlled it then.

  I could no longer push it away, whatever it was. It was growing stronger. Flooding into me, sapping me of strength. The thought of going back to the castle weakened me even more.

  Kendra finally spoke: “You dwell in the space between.”

  “Between? Between what?”

  “You’re the daughter of nature and man, so that’s where you dwell: between nature and man. Between man and man.”

  I shouldn’t have asked her. Her answers made no sense. “There’s nothing but air between us.”

  “All that matters exists in the space between us. Men are not self-contained; neither are the things of nature. Our spirits pour out of us, through our skin, just as the clouds release rain.” She leaned in and whispered, “You collect the rain.”

  I pulled back from her, not wanting to even feel her touch. “If this is so, why did it just begin?”

  She looked at Kenway. “You cannot open yourself up to your own feelings and expect to stay immune to ours.”

  I saw her meaning. “Let’s go,” I said.

  “We need you, Audrey.” Her eyes were wild. I saw madness there.

  And when she grabbed my hand, I found the source of it: Devona’s death. It was pushing her to a dark place. I never knew a mother’s love was like this—deep, strong, sharp. Too much feeling. How did she bear it? Was my own mother’s love for me like this? I doubted it.

  I wrenched my fingers from her grasp.

  “You are our only connection to what has died. To Erce and to one another.”

  “Now, Kenway,” I said, tugging at his cape. Kendra wasn’t going to help me. I was a fool for telling her.

  “You must not fight us. It will kill you, and us.”

  “Go!”

  “Erce must reawaken!” shouted Kendra as we rode away.

  I didn’t look back this time.

  The smell of smoke stayed with me. It sat on my tongue, in my nostrils, behind my eyes. I blew out and out as Kenway took us down the path, but I couldn’t make it go away. It made me so dizzy I feared falling from the saddle.

  It wasn’t real smoke. I knew that.

  “Queen Audrey,” said Kenway.

  “Don’t.” His manner was so courteous, deferential. “Don’t call me that,” I told him. “I am no queen.” I longed for the old Kenway, desperately.

  “What shall I call you then?”

  “Nothing feels right,” I said.

  “My duty is to protect you, and your duty is to face Fyren.”

  I felt such sadness. Hadn’t he heard what I just told Kendra? Was duty so paramount that it pushed out tenderness, or had there been none in his heart for me anyway?

  Pulling on the reins, he brought us to a halt. The wind blew his hair this way and that. “Do you think the peasants will have freedom with Fyren as their ruler?”

  “You are not one to talk of the freedom of peasants.”

  “I was wrong about that. I know that now. I know it because I look on one whom I thought was…” His voice trailed off.

  “You can say it. You thought was nothing.”

  “But I was wrong. You are the queen.”

  “You should have valued me anyway!”

  “You know that I did,” he said. “And still do. Don’t let your fear keep you from doing what’s right.”

  “I don’t fear death, Kenway. Go!”

  “Then you are selfish. You’re no better than what you accuse me of.”

  Selfish, like her. That was what he thought.

  He started the horse back on the path. Our anger hung in the air.

  The village was in trouble. I knew it. I felt as if, like Roe, I carried rocks, one for each person in Goodham. His rocks brought him comfort; mine only put a great weight upon me, crushing me.

  Had the town been invaded? Fyren’s soldiers again? Taking villagers or looking for us? I thought I might be sick and closed my eyes. The cold wind stung my cheeks. I wanted to huddle closer to Kenway, but didn’t.

  We did not find destruction. Houses were intact. Pigs grunted in their pens. A dog lying in the hard-packed dirt watched us as we made our way down the main road. But no one was out.

  The village held the quiet of snatched hope.

  I ran into the cottage. Tayte lay on a pallet, huddled against the wall. Her boys sat beside her, their hands on her body as it rocked to and fro and she moaned and cried.

  “What is it?” I asked, panic rising in me.

  Kenway was behind me. “What? What’s wrong?”

  Rowe ran to Kenway. “You must go find them, sir!” His freckled cheeks were wet with tears, his mouth a tight white line.

  �
��What has happened, Rowe?” I asked.

  But it was his brother who looked at us with eyes no longer sweet. “The soldiers took our father.”

  Tayte let out a wild wail. I dropped to my knees in the dirt and put my hand upon her shaking back. She was cold. I covered her, but she threw off the blanket.

  “Fyren’s men?” asked Kenway.

  “We were out in the field. I heard the horses and told Father, but they were on us too quickly. Twenty soldiers. They circled us. Ian and Dagger, the older boys, wanted to fight. They tried to rush at them with spades. The captain said he’d kill everyone in the village. Father told the boys to drop the spades.” Roe’s chin trembled. “The captain read us a proclamation. Then the soldiers took them away. All of the men and the older boys.”

  Tayte continued to weep, burying her face in the pallet.

  “What did the proclamation say?” I asked.

  “The queen is dead. The regent will be crowned in three days. He’ll hold a festival,” Roe said, spitting out the words, no longer the innocent boy I had left just days before. “He’s promised jousts and jugglers, and fancy breads and sweetmeats. He’ll snatch the men who show up for the food. I know it.”

  Kenway looked at me. It might have been my own guilt, but I felt he was accusing me.

  “You must go after them!” screamed Rowe.

  Kenway dropped to his knees in front of the boy, taking him by the shoulders. “I’m sorry, Rowe. I cannot.”

  “You are a knight! You can fight them!”

  “I have another task I must do.”

  “You must do this. We helped you. My father saved you. My mother nursed you. You would have died.”

  Kenway looked at a loss for words.

  Rowe pulled away from him. “You are a coward then! Why did I ever think I wanted to be a knight like you?” He tore out of the hut.

  Despite all our efforts, Tayte wouldn’t move from her place on the pallet. As the day ended, we settled on logs and stumps outside the hut, eating a little supper around a small fire.

  Rowe returned to us, but he sat alone and shunned our small circle. Kenway kept an eye on him.

  “Boys, you must listen to me,” said Kenway. “You, too, Rowe. If Fyren’s men come back, you must not fight them. Do you understand? As soon as I can, I will be back for you.”

  Rowe kicked at the dry earth, sending dust into the air. He glared at Kenway and went inside the hut, slamming the door behind him.

  Roe stood before me, his face so small and hurt. “I guess we ended up like Piers, didn’t we, my lady?”

  “Oh, no, Roe,” I said. “No.”

  He held up his closed hand, opening it to reveal one bluish rock. It was not smooth, not rough, not his largest one, nor his smallest. “It’s the color of your eyes,” he said. “I found it by the river.”

  I nodded, but could not speak.

  He slipped it into his pocket and then left us.

  Chilled, I wrapped myself tightly in a blanket. I felt alone, as if I were adrift upon a great dark sea.

  “I was wrong about many things,” said Kenway.

  “It’s not your fault Stillman was taken.”

  “And not my fault that I couldn’t protect Devona nor my family?”

  “You can’t protect us all, Kenway.”

  “It is clear I can protect no one.”

  “Your family could still be safe,” I said, although I didn’t believe it. Who was safe in this new world?

  “That is my hope.”

  “And mine as well.”

  “As I said, I was wrong about many things,” he said. “One of those things was you.”

  Did he truly understand? I looked at him expectantly.

  “I know your life in the castle was difficult,” he continued. “And I did nothing to help you.”

  I watched him in the firelight. I had been drawn to him, from the beginning, when he came to the castle as a young boy. I remember when Sir Crag, an older knight, had rushed at him with a sword, trying to frighten him, make him back down. Kenway had stood there, feet planted, jaw set. His courage had thrilled me. I’d wanted to be there beside him.

  And there was even more. He had defended me when the others were harsh and cruel. I hadn’t needed him to do it. I was strong, probably stronger than he was. But when I had been the most vulnerable to the will of others, he had reached out for me, to me.

  “You must put your old life behind you, Audrey,” he said. “In a way, that life prepared you for this one. You will be a strong queen.”

  Oh, Kenway. I looked away.

  “We need you.”

  I am alone, I thought. “Do not.”

  “It is your duty,” he said. “You cannot escape it.”

  “Those are Kendra’s words, not yours.”

  I left him and went to the village square. The blackberry bush was still there, smelling wild and new. I spread my blanket beside it.

  I lay under the black sky, fighting Tayte’s pain, feeling her sadness dripping on me from the stars above. I couldn’t bear it. I rolled over, trying to hide my face in the dry dirt.

  Audrey. It was Erce, whispering. Breathe it in.

  Breathe it in? I didn’t trust her. I could only survive if I fought the feelings of others. Or else they would destroy me.

  Trust me.

  A new breeze blew across my cheek, so delicately. It smelled sweet—of blackberries and sweet herbs, of wild honeysuckle and roses in the royal garden. Erce was here, giving me the quiet peace of the things of nature, as she had all my life. It was then I realized: Erce had never really left me. Her love had always been there, in the things of the Earth, reaching out to me.

  And now, she wanted me to release, to let go, to stop holding on so tightly. I knew as I did, as I let my anger go, the agony of others would rush in, pour in, drown me…but trust me, she said, and I did. I felt their pain deep down, sharp, but then it was gone.

  Taken by the wind.

  When I awoke, I felt it’d only been a dream.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Tayte was still on her mat, staring at the ceiling. I placed Erce’s medallion about her neck and kissed her forehead. We didn’t wake the boys. The road was dark. No villagers pleaded with me to stay this time.

  My eyes stung. I had slept only a few hours, despite my exhaustion. Erce hadn’t returned since last night, but my thoughts wouldn’t leave her. It was time for her to put aside her selfishness. Sixteen years was too long. We were all dying a slow death with her. I was weary from anger, but it clung to me.

  I wore the tights and shirt of a peasant. The afternoon before, a thin, pale woman had traded her kidnapped son’s clothes for my silk dress. As we rode, the material brushed guilt onto my skin.

  Riding through the marsh was even more difficult than before. I could barely stay on the horse as she plowed her way through the muck. More and more the feelings of others poured into me. How could I bear it? I remembered how I’d felt when we’d escaped. I had never known such joy. And now we were returning to that dreadful place, willingly.

  The birches were still the same, eerily beautiful. I wondered if they possessed some healing power because I felt a numbing of the raw edges of my pain. Then came a whisper in my ear: “I have faith in you.” I whipped around in the saddle, looking for Ingen, knowing it was her voice. But of course she wasn’t there.

  Were she and Kendra at Erce’s temple? I worried for Ingen. What would she try to do if I did nothing?

  The village of Erce was deserted. We rode through without a word. I didn’t look back as we crossed the stream into the forest beyond.

  We were taking a more dangerous way back, closer to the camps of the royal soldiers, not skirting to the west as we had done before. That path would take time we didn’t have. Kenway put us on a little-traveled dirt trail, barely wide enough for the horse. Prickly branches scratched our faces as we pushed them out of the way.

  We stopped at nightfall. Dusty and tired and sore, we almost fell off
the horse. I leaned against a tree, grasping my knees.

  “You are too pale,” said Kenway. He sat beside me, touching my face. His hand felt so warm and soft on my cheek. “Audrey, are you well?”

  “No, I am not well.”

  “You must eat something,” he said, offering me blackberries.

  I stared at the fruit, not moving. It had become the fruit of betrayal to me—given to me by Devona first, and then my mother. A substitute for love.

  “I thought they might give you strength. That there might be…something in them.”

  I looked at him skeptically. “Something like magic?”

  “It’s your mother who isn’t human,” he said.

  I ate one. I thought I might retch.

  “We are close to your father’s castle, aren’t we?” I asked. “Did you tell Kendra your plans?”

  I saw his face set in his stubborn way. “There’s time. In the morning, we’ll return to my father’s. We need his help. Kendra’s wrong to think otherwise.”

  I thought Kendra’s plan was the more prudent one, but I said nothing.

  We did without a fire because the smoke might be seen. I could have used the heat. The night air was very cold, and I was trembling.

  We slept hidden in the quiet woods, in a grove of pines. Their sweet scent was too strong, overpowering, flying up into my nose and mouth. I threw my arm over my face.

  A root poked me in the back all night. I couldn’t get away from it. And I couldn’t hide from Kenway’s fear, either. That, and the root, and the smells in the forest, made me toss and turn.

  We left before dawn.

  It was not two hours later when we crept up to the town. We watched from a rim of trees outside the gates. Guards, in red and black, strode up and down the battlements. Like spiders, they crawled atop the walls.

  “We’re too late,” Kenway whispered.

  He looked over at me, as if he believed I would think of something. The wind whipped up around us, sending the branches over our heads swaying. I doubled over with pain in my stomach.