Shadow Magic (2009)

by Jaida Jones

  “Then stop talking about it and get it over with!” Alcibiades snarled.

  He was excited too, poor darling, only he didn’t know how to admit it. Just think of all the stories we could tell when we returned, triumphantly, to court! No one there would have seen the new Emperor face-to-face. And Alcibiades would have to carry a stick with him at all times to fend off the gossips.

  When we entered the council room, the Emperor was sitting a long way away from us, across the narrow room, on a raised dais. Beside him stood his loyal friend, a man whom I admired not the least for the way he held himself. His warrior braids were drawn back off his face; when next to him, the Emperor looked less like a rabbit and more like a bear cub protected by his fearsome mother. If only I could have commissioned a portrait artist to capture that moment—but there was no time.

  “It is my honor to meet with you,” the Emperor said.

  “Oh, no,” I told him, bowing low. “The honor is all ours. Isn’t that so, Alcibiades?”

  “Yeah,” Alcibiades managed, clearing his throat. “Right. Thank you.”

  It was hardly the beautiful speech I’d imagined—next time, I’d have to prepare one for him beforehand so he wouldn’t spoil the moment—but the prince seemed happy enough with the informality, and who could blame him? Even I, who reveled in the lush formality of it all, was ready to depart for a breath of fresh air. If I were the young Emperor, I thought privately, I would have preferred to stay in the mountains.

  At least until my shoes got dirty.

  I’d mentioned to Alcibiades that I had one last bit of business to accomplish, quite small but terribly important, and because of curiosity or boredom or both, he’d agreed to accompany me.

  Of course, I’d always known I’d get him to see reason in the end. One just had to have the proper constitution for cultivating a friendship, and I very fortunately numbered myself among those lucky few.

  “It’s just this way, my dear,” I told him, taking his arm as we turned down a mirrored corner. There were a great many things I would not miss about our sojourn in the Ke-Han palace, but I couldn’t help but think I’d picked up one or two terribly clever ideas while there. I would have to see about getting mirrors installed in my own estate. If nothing else, they would keep me remarkably well coiffed at all times.

  “I hope you’re leaving us enough time to pack,” Alcibiades said. “Not that I need as much time as some. Knowing you, you’ve probably got more clothes leaving than you did coming here.”

  I waved my hand to dismiss the idea, then reached out to open the door that led down into the stables.

  “It just seems that way because the fabrics are so voluminous,” I pointed out. “I’ll be the first to wear such fashions in Thremedon. I predict they’ll become a trend soon enough.”

  “Yeah,” said Alcibiades, scuffing some hay aside with his boot. “Sure. I can’t believe you’re going back to all… to all that.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” I asked.

  Alcibiades blinked down at me. “You’re going back to Thremedon, I take it,” he said. “City of pleasures and vices alike. Well, not me. I’m not even stopping there. I’m going straight to the farm, and I guess that’s where we’ll be saying good-bye.”

  I guided him through the bank of stalls that housed the mounts for the Ke-Han nobility. There was one at the end that held a horse much larger than normal, more like a farmer’s draft horse than one meant for a diplomat.

  “Oh, my dear,” I said, releasing his arm as we drew up to the stall, “you have it all wrong. Do you think I would ever give up the opportunity to meet the famous Yana Berger?”

  Alcibiades went still at my side. I glanced up at him, quite delighted with myself, only to find his expression changed. He looked quite serious all of a sudden.

  I opened my mouth to apologize—or perhaps to express my shock at finally having provoked some emotion out of the general at last.

  “It’s Petunia,” he said before I could speak, and the next thing I knew he was hefting himself up over the stable wall to put himself into the stall with his horse.

  I sighed and plucked a stray piece of straw from my sleeve. I was going to have to have a whole new wardrobe made up for the countryside.

  Return to the stunning world of

  Havemercy and Shadow Magic

  with the newest novel from

  the dynamic duo of

  Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett:

  DRAGON SOUL

  Set in the immediate aftermath of the

  Volstov/Ke-Han war, and

  returning one of fantasy’s

  most unlikely pair of siblings to the page,

  this novel brilliantly begs the question:

  do metal dragons have souls?

  Available in June 2010.

  Turn the page for a special preview….

  THOM

  On the day Rook became my brother again, I turned into a liar.

  Balfour was the first to ask, once we started up a correspondence, whether or not I had any memories of my older brother. Our time together had been so distant, and to fondly remember a brother only to be confronted years later with the reality of Rook was bound to be a nasty shock.

  The question surprised me, but I’d found myself writing an answer nonetheless.

  Of course I remember John, I’d said, clutching at the few specifics that I knew to be true. They were enough to make these memories convincing to others and—after a time—I too became convinced.

  After that, it was too late. When others asked me whether or not I remembered my older brother, I always said “Of course,” as though it was a foolish question, and didn’t bear thinking about. I’d always prided myself on my honesty—a rare virtue, since it was always the first thing a Mollyrat cast aside—and that I’d stifled it so quickly was a notion that troubled me.

  “So you two are brothers?” the innkeeper asked. He was a short, provincial man, with one of those recognizably provincial accents: blurring his h’s and his e’s together, and rounding off his r’s, as though his tongue couldn’t quite shape them in time to get them out. I wondered if I could ascertain his place of birth and whether or not he had been raised there. To me, it seemed clear that he had been born in Hacian, just on the border between New Volstov land and the Old Ramanthe, but I never offered a theory on birthplaces unless I was a hundred percent sure. You never knew whom you’d offend, and among this man’s properties I noted a certain strength of arm, if not of character, that I myself did not possess.

  I would let the matter go, though I would make note of it in my travel log.

  We were far enough into the countryside that no one knew Rook by sight. We were anonymous travelers, with the mystery of the open road before us—though when I’d shared this sentiment with Rook he’d threatened to take my logbook and stick it somewhere where I need make no further entries. There was nothing to intimate that my brother was one of the greatest heroes of our time—the famed pilot of the dragon Havemercy, who had saved this country.

  Not single-handedly, but for some reason Rook had a way of sticking in people’s minds like an irritating burr.

  “Yes,” I told the innkeeper. “We are brothers.”

  “Don’t look anything alike,” said the innkeeper’s daughter. She wasn’t looking at me. She was staring straight at the window, out toward whatever place Rook had disappeared to earlier. The excuse was that he intended to stretch his legs, but we’d been walking for half the day, and personally I would have found it more relaxing to take a hot bath, have a hot meal, and compile notes about what we’d seen.

  “Ah,” I agreed, not trying to offend her either way. Searching for some other topic, I happened upon the only matter on which I was an expert. “I notice that you have an accent of peculiarly—”

  “I’d best be seeing to the horses,” she said, hurriedly fixing a strand of her hair before disappearing out the door.

  “Now you listen here,” the innkeeper said, reaching
across the desk and grabbing me by the collar. “I don’t want any funny business in my establishment.”

  “She’s just gone to see—”

  “The horses?” the innkeeper said. “Horses my left nut. She doesn’t need to fix herself up for any horses. You find that brother of yours and you make sure nothing happens.”

  “I will do my utmost,” I promised. It was the liar in me reasserting himself—though it wasn’t a true lie, since I did intend to try my hardest.

  I just wasn’t particularly optimistic about our chances—mine or the innkeeper’s.

  But what was most shocking to me was that anyone seemed to think that I’d have any influence on the situation. Despite what had changed since the time of our meeting in Thremedon—a time I preferred to examine in private, like poking at a bad tooth—it was fair to say that I still had very little influence upon what my brother chose to say and do.

  To his credit, thus far Rook had managed to avoid any behavior that would have gotten us thrown out of a night’s accommodation, but this was hardly the first time I’d been threatened in this manner. And it seemed that all the innkeepers we’d encountered were under the misapprehension that I had some control over my brother.

  This was far from the truth, but I found myself marching off to avert disaster as best I could—a lone sandbag against the coming flood.

  The horses were liable to grow spoiled, with three people heading out to see to their needs. Except that it was only Rook who’d set out to look—myself and the innkeeper’s daughter were there for another beast entirely, and one that didn’t go about on all fours.

  I had barely reached the stables before I heard his voice. Whether he’d lost the best of his hearing during his time with the Dragon Corps, or whether he just didn’t care who heard him, I had never been able to ascertain, but Rook was loud and it carried. He had no reason to quiet himself since, for Rook, reason was akin to desire. If he didn’t desire something, he found it completely unreasonable.

  “We can do this easy or you can be difficult about it, but it’s gonna happen, so you might as well be a good girl and keep your mouth shut, all right?”

  A sinking feeling settled into my stomach. Visions of being thrown bodily from the establishment, of sleeping on the hard ground in the cold with no respite for either my tired muscles or my grumbling stomach, flitted through my mind. I hoped the innkeeper was still inside, or at least tending to matters that would keep him there for a while, for I was in no mood to consider giving up the bath I’d been fantasizing about all day. I picked up the pace.

  Fortunately, it was a short enough distance across the courtyard that I didn’t have time to call up anything too lurid in my mind. Perhaps it was because the circumstances under which I’d been reunited with my brother had been so particular, but I found myself consistently expecting the worst.

  As Rook had kindly suggested, offering his opinion on my “nerves,” I was a grim little fucker when I set my mind to it.

  When I reached the stables, he was bent double, digging a stone out of one of the horses’ hooves with his pocketknife. The innkeeper’s daughter was standing as close as she could without chancing a stray kick. She held her hands clasped nervously in front of her. It was as innocent a scene as I could have hoped, and I couldn’t help feeling some perverse disappointment, as though I’d somehow been tricked.

  “Picked up a stone, did he?” the innkeeper’s daughter asked.

  “She,” Rook grunted, his attention on the horse, who didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, though I knew that if I’d attempted the same trick, I’d have received a good kick to the chest for my efforts. Rook’s hands had that effect on animals—and women too, I sometimes thought in my less charitable moments, but I prized myself on being too much of a gentleman to voice the comparison. “Not her fault. Some people have a hard time followin’ the trail.”

  He’d added that last part just for my benefit; he must have, since Rook was of the opinion that it wasn’t any fun listing my shortcomings unless I was in the room to hear them. I thought I’d been rather quiet in entering—not knowing what I was about to walk in on—but apparently my best was still not enough to catch Rook off guard.

  I should’ve known, but that didn’t stop me from trying every now and then.

  “That wasn’t a trail, it was the side of a mountain,” I sniffed, crossing my arms. “And if I’d known you were going to declare your own shortcuts every ten miles, I’d have prepared myself better.”

  The innkeeper’s daughter spooked like a startled horse. She hadn’t heard my approach, nor did she know enough of Rook to know when he was needling someone in the shadows, and she proceeded to glare at me as though I’d interrupted the most intimate of encounters.

  Fortunately, I’d survived glares more withering than hers.

  She was a strapping sort, and it was obvious that, despite her father’s precautions, she could take care of herself. Only Rook wasn’t the sort of man you could take care of yourself against, no matter who you were. The countryside had never been prepared for him. He was like a walking natural disaster—one for which the Esar provided no compensation or monetary relief. In fact, since the dissolution of the Dragon Corps, I was sure he wanted nothing to do with Rook, and the sentiment was entirely mutual.

  “Hungry,” Rook said, more like a grunt than a word.

  The innkeeper’s daughter didn’t miss a beat. “I’ll bring in some supper,” she supplied, moving past me as though I weren’t even there. I could hear her feet crunching the hay, and the whinnies of the horses as she hurried off.

  “Amazing, isn’t it,” Rook said. He whistled, a low sound to soothe our horse, then dug the pocketknife in deep and, with one fluid motion, eased the stone out.

  “That is one word I’d use to describe it,” I admitted. “I wonder if she’ll bring two plates.”

  “You didn’t fucking ask,” Rook pointed out. He flipped the stone over in one hand, the nails of which were cracked and muddied, before he held it out to me with a grin, knowing full well that I’d recoil. “Memento? Souvenir? You’re always asking about ’em.”

  “Rook,” I began.

  “Didn’t think you would. Can’t put this kinda thing down in your book, can you?”

  I couldn’t, and it was impossible for him to understand. The beginnings of a headache—not unfamiliar to me now, as all my days ended with them—were creeping toward my temples from the bridge of my nose. I recognized the dull pain instantly, and knew there was only one solution: a hot bath, a full meal, and a good night’s sleep.

  “Sure is taking a long time to get the fuck out of this country,” Rook muttered, giving the horse one last soothing rub before clapping her, in an unsettlingly recognizable way, on her rump. Even she allowed these offenses with a pleased whinny, and I gave up hope of ever convincing anyone that Rook’s abuses were not misplaced signs of affection. It was all too easy to fall into that trap with Rook. Whether it was conscious or not, he encouraged that response—the angry sort of person fools believe themselves capable of calming.

  I had assumed—quite miserably presumptuous of me—that things would change when we were on the road, but every muscle in Rook’s body was tightly wound with such thrumming, anxious tension it seemed at times he would snap like a metal coil and ricochet with violent speed in an unknown, dangerous direction. He was no longer openly hostile toward me, however, and I was grateful for even this smallest of changes.

  Logic said you couldn’t change a person, but I was committed to trying.

  “Well, Volstov is very large,” I reasoned, shoving my personal thoughts aside in an attempt to soothe him with facts. I always found facts very soothing. “I could show you the map again, if you’d like.”

  “I thought I told you to take that map,” Rook began. Before he could finish, he nearly ran into the innkeeper’s daughter—which on any other occasion wouldn’t have stopped him, but she was carrying a plate of the most incredible countryside food. The ve
ry smell of it was so delectable I found myself transported to another time and place, and my stomach rumbled so loudly I couldn’t help but be embarrassed.

  “I prepared it for you myself,” the innkeeper’s daughter said, somehow managing to support the heavy-looking tray on one arm while twirling a stray lock of hair with her finger.

  “All the loving care of home, huh?” Rook asked. “Well, this idiot’s hungry. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

  “What?” I asked, snapping back to reality a little more rudely than I might have wished to under the circumstances. Someone had to defuse this situation, and it certainly wasn’t going to be my brother.

  “Pardon?” the innkeeper’s daughter managed, fluttering her eyelashes with what seemed to be a nervous tic.

  “Been listening to his stomach growl for near on an hour now,” Rook said, taking the tray from her hands as though he wasn’t drawn in the slightest to its symphony of aromas. “It’s grating on my fucking nerves.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said the innkeeper’s daughter, in a way that really meant she was sorry, but it was only because I was there at all.

  Rook shrugged, thrusting the food at me without as much as a cursory glance. “He’s too stupid to say anything. Got dropped on his head as a kid and he’s never really been the same since. Hard traveling the country with a brother that slow, but we’ve all got our burdens.”

  Excuse me, I wanted to say, but my mouth was full of bread and turkey gravy, and I couldn’t quite form the words. It was rude not to speak when spoken to, but ruder still to speak while eating.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize,” said the innkeeper’s daughter, looking at me with a sudden sympathy. “Have as much food as you like. It tastes delicious,” she said, the words drawn out and slow as though she were teaching an infant to speak.

  Rook chuckled as though he’d found a silver lining in the cloud after all, then clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s all right. He’s just like a big animal, really. Real sweet-tempered until he gets into one of his fits.”