Shadowspire (Wytch Kings, Book 3)

by Jaye McKenna

  Ambris looked almost panicked at the thought.

  “What? I’m fine, Ambris. Kian is an excellent healer. Besides, what’s Faah going to do to me? I’m a prince of Altan.”

  “Ai, and I was a prince of Miraen once,” Ambris whispered. “That didn’t stop Taretha.”

  Jaire shook his head impatiently. “It’s not the same thing. Where did Kian say he was going? Back to Aeyr’s Grove?”

  “He said he’d go east, toward the castle. I think he was intending to let Garrik know, but…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “He was a bit muddle-headed. You know how he is after a healing. And it was dark when he left, so I don’t know how he thought he was going to find his way. He was swaying on his feet when he left here, but I couldn’t talk him out of going, and I wasn’t about to follow him and leave you by yourself. I-I can’t imagine he got very far.”

  “Don’t worry, Ambris,” Jaire said, patting the exiled prince’s arm. “I’ll find him and bring him home for you.”

  Ambris looked torn. “You’ll be careful, won’t you? Garrik would never forgive us if anything happened to you.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Jaire said firmly. “You and Kian are both under Altan’s protection; making sure you remain so is as much my duty as it is Garrik’s.” Jaire strapped on the knife Jorin had given him. He didn’t wear it often, and he had no idea how useful it would be against a Wytch Master, or whether he had the courage to find out, but he felt better knowing he was armed.

  Ambris’s golden eyes widened as he watched Jaire’s preparations. “Do you… do you want me to pack anything for you?”

  “No,” Jaire said flatly. “I can move faster if I’m not weighed down. Don’t worry. I’ll find him.”

  Ambris followed Jaire to the cliff wall where they’d entered the canyon. “Be careful, Jaire.”

  “I will. You be careful, too, Ambris. Stay here until Ilya or Garrik comes. I mean it. I shall either return with Kian or send word as soon as I can.”

  * * *

  Vayne followed Jaire and Ambris to the place where Ilya had woven his illusion. He waited to approach Jaire until the prince had passed through the illusory wall of rock and was far enough beyond it that Ambris wouldn’t hear Jaire speak, even if he had lingered there.

  “Vayne!” Jaire’s face lit up when he saw him. “There you are. I wondered if I’d see you today.”

  “I was with you all night, though I’m not certain you remember any of it. You were very ill.”

  A soft smile played about the prince’s lips. “I remember someone singing to me. Was that you? I thought it might be, only… I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.”

  “It was me.”

  Jaire’s smile widened. “You have a lovely voice.” His cheeks flushed, and he looked away.

  “I…” Vayne struggled for words. No one had ever told him he had a lovely anything, though admittedly, he’d been so wrapped up in his work that he probably wouldn’t have noticed if they had. He finally settled for, “Thank you.”

  “Thank you. It helped. Every time I started to get frightened, I just had to focus on your voice, and it chased all the dark things away.”

  Jaire followed the faint path for a little way, then stopped and studied the ground, lower lip caught between his teeth. “Ambris said he thought Kian would go east, to the castle.”

  “I followed him as far as I could,” Vayne said. “When I had to leave him, he was still heading south, toward the village.”

  “Why did you have to leave him?” Jaire asked, a faint frown wrinkling his brow.

  “I can only go so far from the amulet before I get pulled back into the mythe,” Vayne reminded him.

  “All right, let me think for a minute,” Jaire said. “He can’t be in any serious trouble. Or at least… I don’t think he’s hurt. When he was with Ambris in Miraen, the guard captain at Blackfrost had Kian beaten, and I felt it all the way from Altan.”

  “Do you think you could find him if he wasn’t in trouble?” Vayne asked.

  “Probably, but that would mean actively searching for him, and if Wytch Master Faah is in Aeyr’s Grove, he’s close enough that he’d sense me searching. I don’t know much about Faah, but if he’s come out here to look for gifted children, chances are, he’s sensitive to any stirring of Wytch power in the mythe. And I imagine if I tried looking for Kian, I might make rather a lot of noise.”

  “But if you don’t, we could wander around for ages and not find him,” Vayne pointed out. “I’m not any kind of tracker. I always preferred the library to the hunt. My brothers may have been able to tell you a family of pheasants crossed this trail two weeks ago, but all I see is the forest floor.”

  Jaire grinned broadly. “A man after my own heart. The library is much more interesting than a hunt. That doesn’t help us now, though, does it?” He caught his lower lip between his teeth again, a habit Vayne was beginning to find quite endearing. “Well, I can’t come up with a better idea, so I shall have to risk using my own Wytch power. Faah won’t be looking for me, so if I do alert him, I can always give him the usual excuse: I got lost gathering herbs for Master Ilya. That’s happened enough times that no one would be at all surprised. Will you keep watch and shout at me if anything comes? It might take me a while to find him.”

  “I will,” Vayne said. “Be careful. If you sense anything that might be Wytch Master Faah, stop searching, all right?”

  Jaire gave him a distracted nod, closed his eyes, and went very still.

  Vayne kept an eye out for anything threatening, but the forest was peaceful. Birds called from tree to tree, and the rustling of various small creatures could be heard in the underbrush.

  It felt like a long time passed before Jaire finally stirred. Worried grey eyes opened and fixed immediately upon Vayne. “I can’t sense him,” Jaire said. “Not at all.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t… I’m not certain. He’s either too far away — which is impossible, since he was on foot, and I’ve sensed him from two kingdoms away before — or he’s unconscious. Ilya says unconscious minds are much more difficult to sense, and I don’t think I’ve ever tried to find one before. Do you think… maybe he’s asleep or unconscious in the forest somewhere?”

  “He was in rather a bad way when he left last night,” Vayne said slowly. “From the look of him, he was suffering from mild mythe-shock. He could barely walk in a straight line. He may have collapsed before he got very far.”

  Jaire’s eyes went very wide. “Mythe-shock… what if he can’t wake up?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “We have to find him! Quickly.”

  “How?” Vayne asked. “If you can’t sense him, how do we even know where to look?”

  “We’ll have to search the whole area. If he was as badly off as you say, he can’t have gotten very far.”

  Vayne gave him a dubious look. “I’ve seen men near death who’ve managed impossible feats of strength when their loved ones were threatened,” he said. “Who knows how far he might have pushed himself if he feared for Ambris’s safety?”

  Jaire swiped a hand across his eyes and said in a quavering voice, “All right. I understand. You think it’s hopeless. Well, you’ll just have to indulge me, and since I’m not going anywhere until I’m satisfied that he’s not lying under a tree dying, you might as well help me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vayne said quickly. “I never meant I wouldn’t help you. I just meant…” He pressed his lips together, not wanting to voice his doubts further.

  “Head south toward the village,” Jaire said in a sharp voice, “and I’ll go east, toward the castle.”

  “We can’t go too far apart, though, or I’ll end up getting pulled back into the mythe. If that happens, I’ve no way of knowing how much time will pass for you before I’m able to come back.”

  “How far is too far?”

  Vayne considered that. He’d never had any way to measure the distance, not even the length of his own
paces, since he didn’t exactly walk in the human world, but rather drifted along in whichever direction he wanted to go. “I’m not sure, exactly. I’ll go as far as I can, and the moment I find Kian or it begins to get foggy, I’ll turn around and head toward you. I can always find the amulet.”

  “All right, I’ll just keep going and wait for you to show up, then,” Jaire agreed. “I know you said you’re not a tracker, but look for tracks anyway. If he strayed from the trail, we might see some sign that he forced his way through the underbrush, or… or something.” His cheeks darkened, and he muttered, “That’s how the villains always find people in stories.”

  “It’s a good idea, Jaire. I’ll keep my eyes open. You… you’re wearing proper boots, aren’t you? I don’t want you wading through the bushes only to be bitten by another snake. I wouldn’t be able to do anything for you if you were, you know.”

  “I know.” Jaire lifted his foot to show Vayne the thick leather boots he was wearing. “I should have been wearing these yesterday when I went to fetch water. If I had, none of this would have happened.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “No, I suppose not, but I should have thought. Everyone always says I spend too much time with my head in the clouds.”

  “Same thing they always said about me,” Vayne murmured, and Jaire gave him a small, shy smile.

  They parted ways and began to search the forest for any sign of Kian.

  * * *

  Though he knew Vayne was right, Jaire couldn’t shake the feeling that their predicament was all his fault. If only he hadn’t let himself be so distracted, he’d have been watching where he was going, and not been bitten. To make up for it, he kept a careful eye on the ground, searching for any hint that someone might have come this way.

  It didn’t take him long to realize that finding Kian in the forest was not going to be as easy as he’d hoped. Having spent as little time as possible outdoors, Jaire had no idea how to tell the difference between a path made by a human and one made by an animal. It hadn’t rained for a few days, so there wasn’t even the chance of finding a boot print to confirm that he was going in the right direction.

  Had Kian even made it this far? Healing took a lot out of Kian, and he often wasn’t much good for anything but sleeping for the next day or so.

  Jaire considered trying to search with his Wytch power again, but decided against it. If there had been anything to sense, he’d have found it already.

  A flash of red through the trees caught his eye, and his heart leapt. Kian sometimes wore a red cloak. Had he brought it with him to the shelter? He should have thought to ask Ambris what Kian was wearing when he’d left.

  He started pushing through the underbrush toward the spot where he thought he’d seen the flash of color. A twig snapped behind him, and Jaire froze, heart pounding. His hand flew to his knife, but before his fingertips could even brush the handle, he was grabbed from behind.

  He struggled to pull free, but the arms that held him tightened around his chest like bands of steel, pinning his elbows to his sides. A red-cloaked figure stepped in front of him, and Jaire found himself staring up at a Drachan soldier. Whether he belonged to Faah or not, Jaire couldn’t have said; the upper half of the man’s face was covered in a black cloth mask. All Jaire could see were a pair of cold blue eyes and thin lips pressed together in a grim line.

  “Let me go!” Jaire protested. “I haven’t done anything!”

  Neither the soldier holding him nor the one standing in front of him said a word. They weren’t rough in the way they handled him, but their silent efficiency was almost more frightening than the fact that he’d been grabbed.

  “I was gathering herbs for Master Ilya,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “You can ask him. I do it all the time.”

  The soldiers gave no indication of having heard him. They escorted him firmly to a pair of black horses, one of which had a body draped over its back: a big man with golden-brown skin and long, black hair done up in a loose braid.

  Kian…

  As they drew closer, Jaire sensed something cold and horribly familiar stirring in the mythe. It felt exactly like the collar Master Tevari had made him wear when they’d feared the power that was awakening within Jaire. It was called a blood-chain, and prevented a Wytch from touching the mythe, rendering him powerless. Contact with the thing had made Jaire so ill he could barely move.

  He dug his heels into the soft earth, but the men flanking him were far stronger than he was, and his frantic struggles barely slowed them. Panic burned through his limbs as he realized that the thing he sensed was locked around Kian’s neck.

  The man who had first grabbed him held him tightly while the other went to the nearest saddlebag and pulled out a small, carved wooden box. From the box, he drew a gem-studded collar. Jaire made a small noise of protest in his throat, and tried to pull away from his captor.

  “Who are you working for?” He tried to make his voice sound imperious and indignant, but it came out small and quavering. “Who ordered this?” Had Garrik and Ord been betrayed to the Wytch Council? If so, Jaire might be dragged back to Castle Altan only to see his brother stripped of rank and title and thrown into the dungeon.

  What would become of him then? Would they assume that he was also a conspirator? Or was the Wytch Council planning to oust Garrik and put him on the throne in his brother’s place?

  If he’d had the energy, he’d have laughed at the thought. If that was their plan, they would hardly have trussed him up on a horse and locked a blood-chain around his neck.

  “Vayne!” he cried. “Vayne, help me!”

  A sharp blow to the side of his head stunned him, and he sagged back against his captor. When his vision cleared and he could think again, his hands had been bound in front of him, and he was being hoisted over the back of a horse, the same way Kian had been.

  The cold power of the blood-chain wormed its way into his head, and Jaire sobbed in helpless misery. It hurt him inside, cutting and binding in ways he could never describe. His throat was so thick with tears that he couldn’t speak.

  The Drachan soldier said nothing as he mounted the horse, and before long, they were moving. Jaire couldn’t tell which direction they were going, and couldn’t summon the energy to care.

  He wondered vaguely if Vayne had heard him, but a wave of numb exhaustion washed through him and took away all the worry along with any capacity for thought of any kind. He was so tired, and the easiest thing to do was give in, close his eyes, and sink down into the darkness.

  Chapter Six

  The fog engulfed Vayne so quickly he didn’t have time to react. Jaire must be running or on horseback, neither of which boded well. After an anxious period of disorientation, Vayne found himself back in the mythe, lying at the base of the emerald spire.

  Pressing a hand to the cool surface, he closed his eyes and struggled to focus his mind. The pounding of his heart was distracting, as was the sense of urgency burning through him. How much time might have already passed in the human world? Minutes or hours? Years? There was no way of knowing until he found his way back, and that would not happen until he calmed himself.

  Deep, cleansing breaths, Vayne. Fill your lungs as completely as you can. Release the tension as you slowly breathe out. Picture your anxiety dissipating into the mythe, leaving you calm and relaxed, a placid, dark pool in the midst of chaos…

  Wytch Master Larana’s voice echoed in his mind. The lessons may have left him hurting and shaking, but they’d been etched into his very soul, and Master Larana had taught him well. It wasn’t long before Vayne had achieved the focus required to weave the mythe.

  He dipped into the glowing core of power at his center and began shaping a pattern of light and shadow. The pattern that would take him to the human world, where he would find Jaire.

  If it wasn’t too late.

  If Jaire wasn’t already long dead…

  Refusing to allow himself to dwell upon the
time disparities he’d encountered in the past, Vayne took a deep breath and focused on the pattern. He experienced another period of disorientation before finding himself in a sparsely furnished bedroom with a curved wall. On a large bed near the room’s only window lay Jaire, still dressed in the brown breeches and pale blue shirt he’d been wearing when they’d set out to find Kian.

  Vayne drifted over to him. “Jaire? Are you all right?”

  Jaire’s eyes were closed. His hand clutched the amulet, and his breathing was deep and steady. The relief sweeping over Vayne was strong enough to give him pause. How quickly he’d come to depend on Jaire’s company, despite all the years he’d endured alone.

  He moved to the window and looked out. Beyond the bars set in front of the glass, jagged, snow-capped peaks scraped the sky. The Iceshards, then; the slopes of the Dragon’s Spine were gentler, the peaks not nearly so high.

  If the mountains outside were indeed the Iceshards, Jaire had been taken to one of the northern kingdoms. But which one? Irilan had no holdings within the mountains. Or at least, it hadn’t when Vayne had walked the human world, though much could have changed during the years of his exile.

  Determined to learn as much as he could, Vayne set about exploring the place. The more information he could gather, the better prepared Jaire would be for whatever lay ahead.

  The bedroom was connected to a bathing chamber, and beyond that was another bedroom identical to Jaire’s. The view of the jagged mountains was similar to the view from Jaire’s room, giving him no further insight into their location. A door at the far end of the second bedroom led into a large room containing a wooden table and three chairs. Another door brought him full circle, back to Jaire.

  It wasn’t exactly a dungeon cell, but it might as well have been, with its bare stone floors, sparse furnishings, and barred windows. Escape would be difficult, if not impossible; Vayne could find no exit, and though the windows were big enough for a man to fit through, even if one could get past the bars, it would still be too high to jump; a fall onto the rocks below would surely be fatal. He drifted through the inner wall and found a staircase spiraling down the tower’s core. Although he found a wide landing on each level, there was no sign of a door of any sort.