The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  Fire and water, the two of them. She controlled the water portion of her Talents better than fire, in opposition to the queen, making Grace careful. Very careful, lest her water become scalding hot in answer to the flames.

  Her body ached as though Trevilara had tried to peel her skin and flesh from her bones, and perhaps she had. But she hadn’t succeeded. Grace lived, and in that realization, she understood what Trevilara had said. And she also knew that the queen uttered words she did not wholly understand or believe in herself.

  She had no faith in death. Or rebirth and redemption. Or of a future beyond this time and this flesh. Or a knowledge of memory and love and where they anchored you in the place of things known and unknown in this or any world. Nothing that Rivergrace knew deep within herself and that wisdom that would transcend her body.

  Grace drew herself up. She could feel the wall grower hotter with every licking flame reaching upward. She would burn if she stayed. She felt that inevitability. So she turned and ran, her cry of dismay ringing in her ears.

  Trevilara hadn’t meant her to run and survive. The queen had meant her to give life up, prove her words, and die at her feet.

  Grace ran faster and then dove into the air, letting her body dissolve into the mist that called her—cool and fleeting and diaphanous—beyond the queen’s reach. As she moved away from Trevilara, she could hear the sounds of the battle Sevryn waged, and her heart . . . more an image in her mind than a reality in her flesh . . . leaped.

  She could feel the mists of her form tearing apart as a sharp wind arose, a wind that smelled of burning cloth and flesh, heat that whirled as it ripped through her being. The River Goddess rose in her without asking, wet and angry and gasping at the searing hand that grasped at them. They rained through that hand of fire, cold and quick but not quick enough to get through intact. She could feel herself sizzle away, burned off into a vapor she could not control or contain. Bits of her gone forever, ripped off and lost to an inferno of flame and hate. She could turn on her attacker, on Trevilara, but she could feel Sevryn’s distress through every fiber of the being she had left, and that tore at her, too. His was the call she must answer, if she would survive on any plane. She gathered the River Goddess and her heritage of fire tightly and rode the thermal, gliding just above the fury until she could thrust herself beyond it and soar across the distance to her goal.

  Rivergrace felt her soul splitting, her life shedding into rain and mist, her other self begging to have full and total hold of her, the River Goddess trying to return the two of them to their most elemental form, to survive, to have done with thinking. Her thoughts, her intent to find Sevryn, tried to dissolve into the mists and shade of cool water, into primal nothingness. Firmly, she grasped her inner awareness, clenching herself—her image and knowledge of herself—as tightly as she could, knowing that if she let go, she would slip away. Fall to the ungentle earth of Trevalka as rain and fog and disappear forever into its corrupted soils. It wouldn’t have her, not now, not yet, not until she reached Sevryn and freed him.

  She tasted the coppery sense of blood first, seeping into her misty being, and then she felt the flesh, torn and jagged in pain, gaping, bleeding, and then she saw him. She reached for his broken body, splayed across the boots of Quendius as he reached down for one last slice, aiming for the throat.

  Rivergrace felt his life, weak but determined, his will to protect her at all costs, throbbing in him as she wrapped herself about him and took him up, twisting and calling on the last of her strength to spin about on the river they straddled, a water spout twirling out of the death master’s reach. The water in her and about her cried in joy at the release of energy, and she fled downriver with all the power of will she had left in her, going blind as the deepest of blues rose to consume her.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Two

  RIVERGRACE WOKE on the muddy banks of a river, a fading warmth against her, the taste of blood and sweet water on her lips. As she put her hands underneath her to rise, her flesh grew out of the puddles, forming her body bit by bit as she reclaimed it. Excess water ran off her in cascades as she did. Rivergrace looked down and saw Sevryn’s wet form huddled next to her, soaked in blood, but alive. Still alive. For how long, she could not tell. Crimson soaked into the puddles and mud, dribbling away in vivid streaks.

  She had to stop the bleeding and get the two of them away before they drew predators and Quendius to the scent of blood. Her body ached in every fiber and her gut knotted up in ravenous hunger, her flesh drawn beyond its limits to sustain her. She knelt at the river’s edge and drank, gulping down its cool sweetness until she could no longer drink, and sat back, panting a little. Then, and only then, did she look at and seriously assess Sevryn. She brushed his hair back from his forehead, darkened by the wetness and by blood. His flesh held life’s warmth but felt cool to her touch. She tore her outer skirt to ribbons, wondering a moment that her transition to water and back had transmuted her clothing as well. She bandaged his gaping wounds quickly, sealing the edges of flesh together as well as she could. Stitching would not help him, only a Vaelinar healing, and she could not manage one here. Nor could she heal as a true Vaelinar, but she was the only hope he had.

  There were other wounds that troubled her more. Slits in and about his vitals, bleeding on the surface and hinting at great damage unseen. He could easily be bleeding out internally, giving her little time to get him somewhere safer. Rivergrace pushed her hair from her face, knotting its heavy tendrils at the nape of her neck and scanning the countryside. They had lost the road, or passed over it as rivers and bridges have a way of doing, and their mountain stood tall and indomitable in front of her. She might build a stretcher she could drag from the driftwood that littered the muddy bank around her. Even as she shaded her eyes, she could see movement down the mountain, a rippling on the horizon. Not movement on foot or even horseback but on wing. As she straightened to get a better look at the phenomenon, she realized she saw river birds coming down out of the evergreens where they nested in the early evening, gliding on the afternoon air, quiet except for a low call now and then, a sight like she’d never seen before. They came as if summoned, and they came silently as if knowing her life might depend on it, and they glided to a halt all about her at the river, wings of blue and gray and brindled brown folding, and their sharp bright eyes upon her.

  And behind them, they brought the trappers.

  • • •

  Ifandra helped her settle Sevryn on the cot in the corner and sent for bandaging. She watched as Rivergrace sliced one wrist free of the bloody scrap and put her hand over the gaping cut. Her arm shook as a like wound began to open in her own arm, blood springing free. A sudden blow knocked her across the tiny hut, where she rolled onto her side, gasping and clutching her freely bleeding arm tightly.

  “Bloody cold hell,” Ifandra cried at her. “What do you think you’re doing? Is that the only healing you know? You can’t handle his wounds that way, or we’ll have two dying people on our hands instead of one.”

  “It’s what I know,” Rivergrace said painfully, as she sat up slowly. “Healing is not one of my main Talents.”

  “It’ll do for a bruise or strain or a single cut but not now. Look at you. Wrap that up and concentrate on closing it yourself. I’ll be back with the healing woman.”

  Rivergrace could not think of anyone who carried that ranking in the small clan of trappers. Surely she did not mean Greyla, the simples woman, whose skill with herbs was well-enough earned though no greater than her own. Someone thrust a bundle of bandages through the door but came no closer. She grabbed a clean strip and began to wrap her own slicing cut tightly as she crouched near Sevryn, listening to his heartbeat, slow and steady but too low. The bleeding outwardly slowed, but she did not count that as a victory. Internal bleeding might be threatening his very life and she could not help him because Ifandra was right, damn her words. She would die trying to
save him and no good would be done. He’d die anyway.

  She leaned close, putting her cheek to his. “We can’t die again, we’ve too much living to do. Do you hear me? Hold on. Dying is too easy in this world, so don’t you surrender. Don’t give in. We’ve a fate to honor, and then we have love still to be shared. Hold on to that. Hold on to the love.”

  Soft, small footsteps alerted her to someone’s approach, and Rivergrace lifted her head. A child not yet a woman joined her. She smiled tentatively. “I am Rimple’s daughter, called Leyle. I have some skill in healing by the mind’s eye.” She went to her knees next to Grace.

  “He is sorely wounded. I’m not certain . . .” her voice staggered to a halt.

  “I can give you power.”

  “Thank you. But even that—”

  “I know,” answered Rivergrace softly.

  Lines deepened at the corner of Leyle’s eyes. She put her hand on Sevryn’s bloodstained shoulder, her face bent downward, her breathing steady but light. She had hair the color of nut-brown bark, and skin tanned from hunting, a soft golden hue that might carry a hint of the gold coloring some Vaelinar had. Her eyes, before she’d shut them, had been gray with flecks of green and brown, and she had scarcely a wrinkle upon her skin. Her knuckles, however, were crossed with tiny scars, which came from bramble bushes harvested frequently. Slowly, she raised a trembling hand and placed it on Rivergrace’s shoulder. In a faint, whispery voice, Leyle told her, “He is bleeding inside out. I am tracing it as best I can. This man has been butchered.”

  “Don’t tell me. I know. Just concentrate.” And Rivergrace put her hand over Leyle’s small, slender, scarred fingers. She could feel the tension in her young form, the focus, the determination. If Leyle could not heal Sevryn, it would not be because she hadn’t tried. She poured what she could into the other; not just her strength, but her very knowledge of his body, flesh and soul. How he moved, how he thought, what he could endure. Every intimate detail that she cherished and hated, she gave to the girl so that she might have the best chance of healing him. Leyle flushed faintly as if acknowledging the depth of their contact, but said nothing, her face bent over Sevryn in deep concentration now, her energy almost a palpable aura Rivergrace could see and even touch.

  Sevryn took a gasping breath, interrupted by a deep moan. His hands opened and closed, grasping at the blankets knotting under him, his back arching in agony, his pale face nearly disappearing under a sheen of sweat. She wanted to turn away but could not. She opened her Vaelinar sight and saw the threads of energy pulsing about them, and the slow, erratic pulse of his body. She was losing him, albeit ever so slowly. Which meant they could pull him back, bit by bit . . . possibly, but only because they had not lost him yet.

  A stifled groan escaped Leyle’s mouth, and she bit her lips to hold back the sound. Rivergrace squeezed her fingers in encouragement and got a sharp nod in return. Before them, bleeding began to slow.

  “I have located the internals,” Leyle managed, forcing each word out with a gust of air. “One. At. A. Time.” Her fingers knotted into Sevryn’s shoulder; Rivergrace reached across, tearing away the shreds of his shirt so that she could touch bare skin, making the contact even more efficient. “Oh. Better.”

  Her face reflected the struggle she fought, and Rivergrace followed each tiny frown, every grimacing twist of her mouth, the drops of blood that fell as her teeth gripped her lip to keep her from crying out in pain, and that moment of quiet when Sevryn finally fell into dark unconsciousness. His body collapsed, his frame slack in that nerveless way the unconscious and the newly fallen dead hold.

  She closed her hand more tightly about Leyle’s, willing herself into the healing itself, following the girl’s energy and concentration. The girl’s power took her with it, into the intricacies of what she attempted to do: find the lacerated organs and veins, close them, and start healing which would progress on its own. The healing would not be finished when Leyle was done; it would have just begun, but that she could manipulate the process where Rivergrace could never have touched revealed a truer Talent than she had ever met before. When Leyle finished, long hours must have passed. Her shoulders were cramped, sweat plastered Grace’s hair to her forehead, her shirt clung to her uncomfortably, and her knees felt as if they’d turned to jelly and could no longer bear her weight. They unlaced their hands, and Leyle fell kneeling to the floor where she took quavering breaths. When she spoke, however, her gaze, still sharp, held Grace’s.

  “Can you hunt?”

  “Can I—” Grace stopped herself. Of course. This was a self-sustaining community and they could ill-afford dead weight through the winter. “Yes. Yes, of course. And skin and dress and smoke, although I am not good at tanning.”

  “Good. I will tell them our efforts are not wasted, then.” Leyle put up her hand and Grace took it, pulling her gently to her feet. “He’ll be a long time healing. I won’t ask what happened, but it was a monstrous attack. And . . .” The girl paused, and her steady gaze fell away, to the floor. “He’s not alive, lady, not as you and I know it. He’s not dead either. I can’t explain what I don’t understand.”

  “His mind is not there?”

  “Perhaps. More of a feeling that his soul is not.”

  A chill went through Grace, but she shook her head in denial. “It’s his way of dealing with extreme pain. His thoughts have just gone elsewhere. He’ll be back, as his body heals.”

  “You’ve seen this before?”

  No. “Yes, although it’s not common. He, however, is an unusual man and has his own ways of dealing with things.”

  “I’ve seen his scars.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “A hard life, then. But you feel he’ll recover.”

  “Yes.” An even harder life, if one was thought to be useless. Rivergrace held herself very still.

  “I pray so.” Leyle paused at their water bucket and drew herself up two quick ladles, one to dash over her head and the other to gulp down. “I’ll check on him tomorrow?”

  “If you must. I can handle it from here.”

  “Give him water. Broth later. But you probably know that.”

  “Yes, and to turn him and such.” They both were talking days, perhaps weeks, of recovery. Leyle glanced at Grace’s arm and put her hand about it. Though a faint tremor of weariness ran through her, Rivergrace could feel the warmth of healing speed through the bandages about her gaping wound and the flesh knit tight. “Now you both heal.” She smiled faintly, bent her head, and left their abode.

  Grace could hear murmurs outside and knew that Leyle reported to Cort and Ifandra. She expected Ifandra to enter moments later, but it was Cort who pushed his head and shoulders inside the door flap.

  “Well enough?”

  “Yes. Give my thanks to Ifandra and let her know I will talk to her about payment to Leyle.”

  “You women handle those details.” He passed his hand through the air. “May I ask what happened?”

  “Come in and sit.” Grace folded her shaky legs and let herself collapse, more or less, to the floor. Cort entered and took up one of the chairs. He shut the door before he turned to face her, so that their words would not carry. She wasn’t certain if she appreciated that courtesy or not. She would have no witness if she had to dispute what he reported later. But did she want one?

  Cort wrapped one of his big hands about the other. “Leyle says he will heal, but it will take a while.”

  “If he had had only two or three wounds, her abilities would have restored him completely, I think. But he was . . .”

  “Butchered,” Cort supplied.

  “Yes.”

  “And so the question I would ask is who and why? The two of you left us early in the day, and none of us noted your going. We found you to the west, not far from the trade road, as it runs, twisting about the base of the mountains.”

&nb
sp; “And there is another question you must ask.”

  His wiry eyebrow quirked.

  “If we will bring that same danger to the clan.”

  He inclined his head. And waited.

  Rivergrace sorted through the various answers she could give him. He would not accept the total truth, she’d be thought mad, and they would be turned out. She clawed her fingers through her tangled hair.

  “We are not from here. You know that from the Truthbringer when Ifandra drugged us. You know that from our dress and manner of speech. Trevilara has never been our queen.”

  His face remained neutral, but his pupils widened. “You did battle with her?”

  She shook her head. “No. We tried to stop her from meeting with the leader of the Undead that march the road. The master of death wants to ally with your queen, and the darkness we pursue would be unleashed, shadowing—crushing—the lives of everyone it touches. We tried to stop it. He tried to stop Quendius.”

  Cort looked to Sevryn’s body on the cot, still lying in various pools of blood that now congealed and dried under his form. “And this Quendius did that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can he trace you?”

  “No. He is as new to these regions as we are, and he hasn’t the resources or friends that we have, as near as we can tell. He’s the one who drove us to hiding and to these mountains.”

  “He is still formidable.”

  “Very.”

  “What do you ask of us?”

  She studied his impassive face. He was a rebel, they all were in this clan, but only in the sense that they stayed as far from the city and Trevilara’s rule as they could. They made huge sacrifices to accomplish this. “The winter you promised us. I can hunt well enough so that we’re not a burden to the community. We ask nothing more. No more rescues. No soldiers. No arms.”