Shadowblack

by Sebastien de Castell

  As if she could sense my indecision, Ferius dropped her reed to the ground and stamped it out with the heel of her boot before mounting up on her own horse. I walked over and stared at mine. ‘Well?’ I asked Reichis. ‘You reckon we should follow her into even more mayhem?’

  ‘Don’t give a shit,’ he mumbled, nestling his head in the folds of the thin, furry gliding flaps that ran between his front and back legs. ‘Sleeping.’

  Ferius was already on the move, so I put a foot in the stirrup and hauled myself up to the saddle.

  Once I caught up with her on the road heading out of town, I asked, ‘Why did we have to leave in the middle of the night? Those people were going to throw us a parade or something.’

  She kept her eyes ahead of her. ‘Yeah? What would that have been like?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I grumbled. ‘Nobody’s ever thrown a parade for me before. I guess it’d be a lot of people cheering for us and telling us how great we are. Seneira’s father said they had some kind of ceremonial plaque or sculpture they give to those who’ve done great deeds for the Academy.’

  A sliver of a smirk settled itself on her lips. ‘Well, when you put it that way … it sounds even more boring than I thought.’

  ‘What about Seneira? We never said goodbye!’

  It seemed like a pretty good counter-argument. I mean, why would you leave before even settling things with someone you cared about? But Ferius just asked, ‘What were the last words she said to you?’

  I thought about that for a second. ‘I think she said, “You’re a better person than you think you are.”’

  ‘Yeah. Kid, those sound like pretty good parting words to me.’

  The simple truth of that settled on me like a cold, lonely night. Seneira had her own life to live now; a future full of fine and important people, of diplomatic missions and vital trade agreements. Someone would come into her life who wasn’t an itinerant Jan’Tep outcast with a bounty on his head and a curse around his left eye. Someone who could share a proper life with her. Someone who wasn’t me.

  Seneira had said goodbye.

  ‘Besides,’ Ferius went on, ‘you really want to carry some big-ass plaque in your saddlebags from here to Gitabria?’

  ‘Gitabria?’ Just the word on my tongue felt uncomfortable. And dangerous. ‘That’s where we’re going?’

  ‘That’s where I’m going, kid. Dexan’s journal showed most of the Academy students who’ve gone home with those darned worms in their eyes come from there. Those kids need seeing to before whoever’s got the other half uses them for whatever magical shenanigans they got planned. Best put a stop to that nonsense before it gets troublesome.’ She finally turned to look at me. ‘Fancy raisin’ some hell with me?’

  Shenanigans. Nonsense. Troublesome. She made it sound like nothing more than children being quarrelsome instead of what it really was: a consortium of deadly Jan’Tep mages, with a plot that could stretch across the continent and the means to destroy anyone who got in their way.

  Ferius kept staring at me, even as our horses settled into a gentle walk along the sandy road, waiting for a reply. ‘Well, kid? You decided what you want to be when you grow up?’

  Behind the glib words was the question that had been eating me up inside ever since I’d fled the Jan’Tep lands. All I’d aspired to was to get away from the people who wanted me dead, to find somewhere safe or some path I could follow that would ensure I didn’t have to be afraid any more. More than anything, I’d wanted someone to tell me who I was, and what I was going to be. I looked down and was surprised to find Reichis, eyes open, watching me, waiting.

  ‘My whole life I’d planned on being a Jan’Tep mage like my mother and father,’ I said. ‘To spend my days learning and crafting new spells with my people, maybe even to become a lord magus one day. That life is gone forever, isn’t it?’

  ‘Reckon it is,’ Ferius said.

  ‘And I probably won’t become a proper Argosi like you, will I?’

  ‘That’s up to you …’ She held back for a moment, then said, ‘But I’m guessing not.’

  ‘And Dexan was the only other spellslinger I’ve met, and he turned out to be a liar and a thief.’

  ‘Hey!’ Reichis growled. ‘Don’t go insulting liars and thieves.’

  My horse shook its head, nearly dislodging Reichis, who proceeded to chitter a number of rather nasty threats in its ear. Our mount promptly reared just enough that I had to hang on to the saddle and Reichis went tumbling to the ground, before the horse stopped and waited politely for the squirrel cat to hop back up. Apparently certain rules were being established.

  I found my gaze drawn to the sand, the quartz so pure it reflected the night sky above us like a giant map of the stars; an infinite number of lights, each one a guide to a different destination, not one of them demanding I follow it to the exclusion of all others.

  ‘Guess I’m always going to be part Jan’Tep,’ I said finally, ‘even if they never want to be part of me.’ I felt something in my chest that had been tight for a long time finally start to ease. ‘Reckon I’ll be part Argosi too. How else am I going to keep up with my dancing lessons?’

  Ferius grinned and brought her horse closer to mine. ‘Gonna make a passable musician out of you too.’ She unslung the little guitar from her back and handed it to me. ‘Go on, kid, play us something grand.’

  I stared at the thing. ‘How? You haven’t taught me how to play.’

  ‘That’s cos I’m hopin’ you’ll figure it out on your own.’

  I let go of the reins and strummed a couple of opening chords I’d seen Ferius play in the past. The resulting noise was pretty awful, but I kept on trying anyway. ‘I figure I’ll need to be part spellslinger, since some folks keep insisting on trying to kill me.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s fair.’

  I was about to try a tune on the guitar when I felt a tap my knee, and I looked down at Reichis, whose expression was making it clear I was in a great deal of personal danger. ‘Yeah,’ I finished up, ‘I’ll probably have to learn to be part squirrel cat too.’

  ‘Damned straight,’ he said, curling himself back up to go to sleep. ‘If I leave things to you two morons, we’ll just keep risking our lives and end up with nothing to show for it.’

  ‘What’d he say?’ Ferius asked. When I translated, she said, ‘Well, not nothing. Kellen got himself a nice new hat.’

  Reichis opened one feral eye and looked up at me, then closed it again. ‘Guess it is a pretty cool hat.’

  We rode slowly but steadily all through that night, the stars above us and the glistening sand below. I would bungle various chords on the guitar while we took turns singing – even Reichis. We made up preposterous songs about our adventures, sometimes cheering each other on, sometimes, like when Ferius sang a soft, whispering lament for Revian – a young man I had hardly known but whose death was burned into my soul – I even cried, almost as if I was a decent human being. Mostly, though, we laughed at our own exploits, because when you thought about it, the three of us had to be pretty much the craziest bunch of lunatics the Seven Sands had ever seen. Somewhere in that long night of song, of laughter, of tears, I somehow found myself.

  My name is Kellen Argos. I am the Path of Endless Stars.

  Acknowledgements

  The writing of the second book in a series can be a dangerous road for any author, full of pitfalls and hidden traps. Fortunately for me, a number of kindly Argosi wanderers helped keep me on the right path.

  The Way of Thunder

  Writers are perpetually asked where they get their ideas, to which most of us reply with some variation of: ‘Umm … everywhere … kinda … I mean, I sort of just … Next question, please!’ Even more important than coming up with an idea, however, is giving it the right shape. I do that by talking those ideas through with the following experts:

  • my darling and endlessly insightful wife, Christina de Castell

  • my occasional writing partner and consta
nt narrative sage, Eric Torin

  • my friend and fellow traveller on the long roads of novel writing, Kim Tough.

  The Way of Water

  Right, so now I’ve got the ideas down, I’ve written a draft, but where to go next? How can I subtly (or not so subtly) change the flow of the story to make it better? They don’t make a compass for writers, so you have to ask for guidance along the way. I’m grateful to the following perceptive people for their wisdom and advice:

  • my editor, Felicity Johnson, who never tells me what to do and yet somehow I’m pretty sure I end up doing just what she thinks I should …

  • my publisher, Jane Harris, who, in addition to providing the title for the third book, persuaded me to allow just a little romance into poor Kellen’s life

  • the chronically astute Dramatica expert Jim Hull of narrativefirst.com

  • the perpetually enthusiastic (and occasionally murderous) human embodiment of the squirrel cat, Nazia Khatun

  • the shrewd and sensible Simone Hay. I promise to put more fights in the next book!

  The Way of Stone

  There’s a strange magic to the way all the loose ends of a manuscript suddenly become something real – something permanent – when the right people get their hands on it. My gratitude to:

  • Talya Baker, for helping shape my messy prose into coherent sentences

  • Melissa Hyde, who spotted not only typos but also plot holes

  • Sam Hadley, for his outstanding illustration (and for showing me what Seneira really looks like!)

  • Nick Stearn, who not only makes the covers beautiful but makes the process tremendously fun

  • Jamie Taylor, for putting it all together into the book you now hold in your hands.

  The Way of Wind

  One of the saddest truths of the publishing world is that many books never get read simply because readers don’t get to hear about them. Luckily for me, some very fine champions gave their all to bring Spellslinger to the attention of the world:

  • my wonderful agent, Heather Adams (and her almost-as-wonderful husband, Mike Bryan)

  • Mark Smith, who is bold, fearless, and still owes me a private jet

  • Annabel Robinson, Sophie Goodfellow and the rest of the FMcM team who put actual fire into the launch of Spellslinger

  • the excellent sales team at Bonnier Zaffre, who are no doubt tired of saying, ‘Well, it’s kind of like a western only there’s magic and no cowboys … but there’s a talking squirrel cat. What’s a squirrel cat, you ask? Well …’

  • if you’re reading this in something other than English, then know that a brilliant translator was forced to make my rambling prose sound elegant in your language

  • of course it never would have gotten to them were it not for Ruth Logan and Ilaria Tarasconi, who convinced publishers in many countries to become spellslingers themselves

  • the many, many kind reviewers, bloggers, and booksellers who went the extra mile to read the book, rush to meet print and web deadlines and introduce readers to Kellen, Ferius and Reichis. May you all get your own squirrel cats one day!

  The Path of Endless Stars

  The real magic of a book, of course, only happens when readers take the time to read it, bring their own sense of wonder to the story and then cast their spells on friends and family, inspiring them to read it as well. It’s through that act of sharing one’s excitement and enthusiasm that the book really comes to life, and to all of you who take the time to do so, you have my eternal gratitude.

  If you’d like to write to me, you can reach me at

  www.decastell.com or follow me on Twitter @decastell

  Thank you for choosing a Hot Key book.

  If you want to know more about our authors

  and what we publish, you can find us online.

  You can start at our website

  www.hotkeybooks.com

  And you can also find us on:

  We hope to see you soon!

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  HOT KEY BOOKS

  80–81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE

  www.hotkeybooks.com

  Text copyright © Sebastien de Castell, 2017

  Illustrations copyright © Sam Hadley, 2017

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Sebastien de Castel and Sam Hadley to be identified as author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-4714-0668-3

  Hot Key Books is an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre Ltd,

  a Bonnier Publishing company www.bonnierpublishing.com