The Shadowglass

by Rin Chupeco

  “Let me translate. ‘Help me, Little Tears,’ Hollow Knife implored the other goddess. ‘Help me take Blade that Soars’ heart, so that I can make the world whole again.’”

  He paused. “Until this point, the text is the same as in the other book, but there are passages in this Drychta book that the former did not have: And upon taking his brother’s heartsglass, still stained with his lover’s blood, did Hollow Knife turn to slaughter the seven creatures of Blade that Soars. From each, he drew a shining stone, a different color for each carcass. He took these gems into his own heartsglass with much suffering, but his will was true, and all seven beasts were revived under his bidding. No longer were they ravening beasts that terrorized the people. They became docile and obedient. And with them, his heartsglass shone as black as Blade that Soars’ shone bright. Then he reached for the First Harvest, to join dark and light to create shadowglass.

  “The text here then follows the other book’s. But before he could use his brother’s—Lady Tea?”

  I rose from my chair, hands clenched. I stared down at Sakmeet’s notes, the letters blurring together. “Dark into light,” I said hoarsely. “Shadowglass. Althy, this is all in Aenah’s book. To you, seeking Hollow Knife’s path: present yourself to the mountain for judgment. If proven worthy, arm yourself with a heartsglass of black, where love’s blood had shed over. Boil seven daeva’s bezoars separately, and drink a vial’s worth of their waters. Weave Compulsion in the air; its heart shall reveal itself to you. Take it into your heartsglass, and be born anew.”

  I knew that shadowglass spell; I had committed it to memory nearly two years ago, and it was now a mantra, buried so deep within my psyche that nothing could pull it loose. I had pored over those words for so long that sometimes they came easier to me than my own name. Shadowglass was the reason the Faceless had tried to take Kance’s heartsglass. Aenah had died for the chance. She had tried to kill me for it.

  Polaire had paid the price instead.

  And what was the next part of that spell? The unity of seven into darksglass and Five into lightsglass is the key. Merge both with the First Harvest and be born anew, with shadowglass to do as you see fit.

  “The last place I would have looked to find confirmation is with that Faceless’s book,” Althy said grimly. “But you’re right.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lord Garindor said. “I don’t quite follow.”

  “We’re in trouble,” Kalen interrupted grimly as he strode in, Khalad trailing after him. “Tea, soldiers have reported sightings of the zarich. It’s left the Runeswood.”

  Likh paled.

  I gritted my teeth. “Has it attacked anyone?” The Isterans hadn’t seen the creature since Sakmeet died. For what reason would it leave the safety of its home?

  Kalen shook his head. “The Isteran soldiers have been briefed for occasions like this. They’re keeping their distance but tracking its movements as best as they can.”

  “How is Yarrod?” Garindor asked.

  “Dark magic might not do much, but runic wards still work on him,” Khalad responded. “Kalen made sure of that. He’s in no danger to himself or others—for now.”

  Althy stood, but I shook my head. “It would be better for one of us to stay here. The wards might hold Yarrod in place, but we’ll need someone close to make sure he doesn’t break free. My magic is useless, but yours isn’t.”

  The older asha paused, then nodded, still frowning. “Take care, Tea. We’ve never confronted the zarich before. That had always been Sakmeet’s duty and that of her Isteran predecessors.”

  “I will.” I started for the door and Likh followed. “What are you doing?” I asked. The boy asha shrugged. “You might need help. I’m pretty good at this now.”

  “Promise me you’ll stay at a reasonable distance.”

  I marched toward the palace entrance. Already soldiers were running back and forth, as orders were called out over the din.

  What’s happening, Tea?

  Fox. Tell Mykaela that a zarich has been sighted near Farsun. I’m off to take care of it.

  Be careful. I could feel his worry, his frustration. That he wasn’t here with me was eating him up.

  I will. Kalen’s here. You know he has my back. Anything happening in your neck of the woods?

  The elders are up to something, but they haven’t made any moves yet. From what Zoya and Shadi could gather, they’ve been recalling some of the asha who’d been contracted out to other kingdoms. I’ll tell you more when we get back. Don’t make any rash decisions.

  Have I ever?

  Wordlessly, I called for Chief, and soon my Gorvekan horse came cantering. Kalen was already astride his own stallion, Likh and Khalad scrambling up their own steeds.

  It was easy enough to pinpoint the zarich’s location. We only had to follow the reports the soldiers provided and investigate its fresh tracks leading from the Runeswood.

  The beast hadn’t wandered too far from its home. We found it settled by a frozen stream on the edge of the forest leading toward the River of Peace, which marked the boundary between Istera and Tresea.

  The zarich was a disconcerting creature to behold at first. It resembled an upright goat but was the size of a small barn. The five horns growing around its head glistened from the snow, and its face was overrun by a mass of eyes that never closed all at once. Despite its mammalian appearance and its cloven hooves, the zarich was overtly reptilian, with scaled skin and a long snout protruding from its crowd of eyes, reminding me of illustrations I’d seen of long-snouted swamp creatures that inhabited parts of northern Yadosha.

  The creature let out a soft, slithering hiss as we approached, but it did not attack. It was not like any daeva behavior I had encountered before.

  “What’s it doing?” Likh asked nervously.

  “I’m not sure.” I drew the Raising rune and, carefully, entered the creature’s mind. What I found was not so much thoughts as impulses, strange yet familiar, repulsive and enticing. As I probed deeper, the zarich put up little resistance.

  Somewhere in another corner of my mind, I could feel Fox’s thoughts drift toward me, tensed like he could ride into battle in an instant to aid me.

  The azi responded too. It uttered a soft, plaintive sound. The azi was not angry, nor was it combative. I could feel its presence slide through my mind, reaching out to the zarich.

  The zarich blinked its eyes at us and then turned. It padded deeper into the forest. The beasts’ emotions tumbled into and against each other until one stood out.

  Follow.

  “Are you serious?” Kalen asked as I adopted its suggestion, moving deeper into the woods after it.

  “It doesn’t want to fight. The least I can do is see what it wants to show me.”

  “And you find nothing wrong with that?” he muttered, but he and Likh followed me anyway.

  At a small clearing, at the foot of a magnificent pine tree, the zarich began to dig. Its massive hooves kicked up ice and frozen dirt with little effort. For five minutes, it pawed at the ground until it dug a considerable hole. Then it turned to look at me and bleated.

  I sensed it. There was another presence within the zarich’s mind. I could feel it gathering as if to take control. I remembered my time in Daanoris—of the Faceless, Usij, and his past attempts to entrap me in this manner with the savul. I recoiled at the memory and reacted on instinct, putting everything I had into one word.

  “Die!”

  The zarich didn’t fight me. Its head lowered, as its many eyes drifted closed, its limbs settling against the ground. It let one last cry, melancholy and regretful, and ceased to move. Still braced for an unexpected attack, I waited, probing its head once more, but its mind was gone, and so was the other presence along with it. I felt Fox’s relieved sigh, felt the azi turn away with an unhappy wail.

  “Was that supposed to happen?” Lik
h asked shakily. “Not that I’m complaining, but that was easier than I hoped. I wish they were all like that.”

  “It wasn’t intending to fight.” I moved to the daeva’s prone body and fished out my knife. With its blade, I searched at the base of its skull, where all five horns circled around. Likh turned pale as I slid past the brains and the black blood, finally locating and bringing out another bezoar, its bright surface shining despite the gore.

  “I’m sorry,” I told the beast quietly. I couldn’t risk anyone entering my mind again, however friendly the zarich appeared to be.

  Kalen lowered himself down the hole. “This is all that’s in here,” he reported, lifting out a small sack. Deftly, he undid the knots.

  “It’s paper!” Likh burst out.

  “It’s more than that,” Kalen said grimly, scanning the contents. “One is signed by Sakmeet herself. The other…is in Vernasha’s handwriting.”

  “So the zarich remembered Sakmeet’s instructions, even after she’d died?”

  “She must have had a strong bond with the daeva, similar to Tea’s bond with the azi.” Kalen handed me Sakmeet’s letter to read. There was a strange symbol drawn across the page—a kind of mountain, by the looks of it.

  If you are reading this, then I am gone. For the love of Anahita, say nothing of these findings to the elders of Kion.

  I have lived longer than most bone witches, long by even asha standards. But the elders will reject what we Isteran witches have discovered. They will destroy my books should they learn what I have recorded.

  My predecessor, Parika, told me a story passed down to her by the previous bone witches of Istera. It is the story of how the elders of Kion came to Farsun under the pretense of diplomacy but sought in secret to destroy certain volumes in Istera’s library. A Dark asha, Talyri, knew that hiding the books would be impossible; the elders had demanded a complete list from the Isteran king. But one book was unnamed and escaped the librarians’ notice. Only that text was she able to save.

  As she watched, horrified, the elders destroyed the other books, and the old king did nothing to stop them. Talyri managed to steal a letter written by Vernasha herself, which one of the elders had possessed. She—and I—stand by its truth. She guarded the unnamed book for the rest of her life, as did her successors. As did I.

  It is a terrible thing, to force a witch to hide from her fellow sisters. It is a terrible thing to destroy a book in order to better live a lie.

  The Kion oracle once told me that my writings would one day change the world. I wished I had asked her if I would change it for the better or for the worse…

  I leave you with a symbol I found in my research: the mark of the People of the Shadow. My predecessor told me it marks those who guard the secrets to shadowglass. Perhaps it can be of use to you, my dear reader.

  I wish I had the strength to denounce Kion’s lies. But I am too old, too tired. Safe within Istera’s tolerance, I have neglected my duties to my sisters in the southern kingdoms. I am sorry. May this redeem me.

  Shaking, I gently laid Sakmeet’s letter aside, and picked up the other page.

  “What does it say?” Kalen asked.

  “Beware the Dark asha,” I read in Vernasha’s flowing hand, “for the only good bone witch is one deprived of heartsglass. Temper them, weaken them, collar them if you must. They are Little Tears’s seed, none of whom must come to pass.”

  The veritable asha Lady Altaecia waited as the last of the winds deposited us at Ankyo’s port. On any other day, the harbor would be alive with the sound of merchant ships and merchant greed, a jarring cacophony of language and dialects that had everyone from Gorvekai hunters from the Srevny Fjord down to the camel eaters of Karinsha haggling and bargaining for precious cargo. But a blockade was in progress, with soldiers outnumbering the traders fifty to one. We were one of only three docked ships, and for good reason.

  Smoke curled out of the city of Ankyo, twisting against the evening heat. From the pier, I could see fallen houses, the pristine, white walls common in Kion architecture reduced to rubble and dust. Teams of masons labored to clear the streets, but many citizens, stricken and shocked, huddled underneath the curved roofs of other surviving buildings, still clad in their weekday finest. The jewels in their hair were a discordant note among the wreckage. They were not people used to poor defenses.

  Even among the wreckage and the slag, the city remained a stunning sight. Not all the structures were damaged, and many had escaped the daeva’s three-headed fury unscathed. Scrub off the soot and clear away the broken timbers, and the aesthetics were intact, the way layers of dirt do not hide a girl’s beauty. Ankyo always carried about it an air of perfumed danger, like elegantly dressed women with a secret—a coquettish smile behind every painted fan and a knife hidden up every silken sleeve. Their asha—epically, socially, traditionally—had always danced too close to the fires of history, tempting its flames. A burning seemed inevitable.

  I had never felt comfortable in Ankyo. At least Drycht never hid its contempt of me.

  The night smelled of lingering wildfire. The scent of incense was gone, but something else lay scorching in its stead. Every now and then, one of Kion’s soldiers cast a wary gaze at the dark sky above, dreading an attack.

  The Dark asha’s description of her mentor was accurate; Lady Altaecia could have been a fishwife, if fishwives were accustomed to gravity and elegance. Her hua was a silvery moon peeking through wisps of clouds, and it did nothing to hide her round, pleasant figure. But I could feel the power emanating from her person, knew she was a woman of importance despite her drawn face and eyes that had not known sleep for many nights.

  With her was another strange figure—a fellow Drychta, white-haired from age, with stooping shoulders and a drooping beard. But his eyes were alert and ever vigilant, making note of those who disembarked before settling curiously on me. My discomfort grew at his silent inspection.

  “Got them all back safe and sound, Althy,” Zoya said, “and with a couple of hours to spare.” Barely were the words out of her mouth when a beautiful woman with golden skin and long braids dashed forward, enveloping her in a warm hug.

  “You overexerted yourself again, Zoya,” she scolded, peppering the other woman’s face with kisses. “I could tell. I told you not to.”

  Zoya blushed, her sardonic expression softening. “We wanted to return as soon as we could. No telling if Tea intends to mount another offensive in the interim.”

  “What has happened while we were away?” Lord Fox asked tersely. Lord Khalad appeared preoccupied, nodding distractedly at the others before walking ahead, too occupied to even greet Lady Altaecia.

  Lady Altaecia sighed, watching him leave. “This trip will be hard on him. No word yet of where Tea has disappeared to. Her azi is nowhere in sight. But…”

  “But what, Althy?” Inessa prompted.

  The older asha schooled her features, though her jaw remained set and square. “She lurks nearby. I can almost feel her in the air, crackling with magic so subversive that not even I can see. And who is this?”

  “Only a bard, milady,” I offered.

  She frowned. “Ah. The chronicler Tea dragged into this mess.” She extended a hand, but not to grip mine. “Her letters. Where are they?”

  I paused, tightening my hold, the pages crumpling in my obstinacy. This was the only task she had given me. Venerable as Lady Altaecia was, I could not comply. The Dark asha had given them to me.

  She sighed. “We are wasting time.”

  “We have had little chance to read them, given Zoya’s enthusiasm for speed,” Lord Fox said. “Tea entrusted her papers to him, and he feels compelled to watch over her words. We can read the rest of them once we return.”

  Lady Altaecia pursed her lips. “Very well. We must make haste for the Valerian. The Willows was the hardest hit, but whether by coincidence or from a belat
ed sense of obligation, Tea left the Valerian untouched.”

  She winced. “The oracle…she forewarned us, saved us. She had been refusing visitors the last few months. We thought she was ill or worse until she reemerged a week ago and spoke of fire raining down on Ankyo, and by the time the azi arrived, we had taken the bulk of the citizens to safer ground. We would have suffered worse without her warnings.”

  “I hope,” said the elderly Drychta beside her, “that you would give me the chance to study her letters as well, milord. I promise to treat them like I would one of my rare books and give her the due honor she deserves.”

  “Tea brought about Mykkie’s death, however indirectly,” Althy said, though the look on her face was in contrast to the harsh words. “The time to honor her has long elapsed.”

  A spasm of grief passed through Lord Fox’s expression, though he steeled himself quickly enough. “We’ll talk more at the Valerian.”

  “I am glad to see a fellow Drychta, even if I’d hoped the current state of affairs would be different,” I said. “But how do you know the Dark asha?”

  “We knew each other only briefly, kinsman, but it was enough to know her friendship. My name is Garindor Sverrthiya. I know nothing of fighting, but perhaps I can be useful elsewhere.”

  5

  The legend of Blade that Soars poses too many questions, Vernasha wrote. Bone witches will demand answers we should not be at liberty to divulge. The tale tells us to use our magic to set the world right, but at the cost of magic’s possession. I reject such sentiments. We can do far more by retaining what the Creator graciously bestowed upon us. To sacrifice such power holds neither merit nor results. The People of the Shadow may think to stop us, but they are few in number, and we are many.

  I intend to reframe the legend to suit our purposes. A harmless lie is better than a harmful truth. Better to wield strength in an imperfect land than to be powerless in a perfect one.

  “Wow,” Likh commented. “Vernasha of the Roses was kind of a bitch.”