Shadow Cross (The Shadow Accords Book 5)

by D. K. Holmberg

  She ignored it, darting in with her knives, slashing through them, ignoring burning flames.

  Once through the next door, Carth braced for the next attack, but it never came. The room was empty. There was no trap, no attackers, and no sign of Hoga.

  Nothing but solid walls greeted her. Either she was trapped… or there was a way out that she hadn’t discovered.

  She focused on the power of the flame, using it as well as the shadows to reach for connections to others, but she detected none in the room. There was something about the room itself that she could feel, and frowned.

  As she did, a section of the wall slid open. Guya emerged, two swords unsheathed in his hands, the injury that she’d inflicted healed since she’d left him bound to the Spald. “I’m sorry, Carth. But this is the end.”

  Carth took a deep breath, sighing. “I’m sorry, too.”

  Then she jumped forward and attacked someone she had considered a friend.

  31

  Carth rolled forward, slashing up with her knives toward Guya, but not certain what to expect from him. She had never seen him fight in person. Whenever they’d faced any danger, he had remained on the ship, and she’d always been the one to attack. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to discover that he was skilled with the sword.

  Guya slashed with his sword and attacked with a tight efficiency. He was good, much better than she had expected, though considering the leisurely way he’d always worn the sword, she should have expected that from him.

  “You don’t have to do this. You can help me.”

  Guya shook his head. “If I help you, those I care about will suffer. Why else do you think I was willing to do this?”

  He pulled two fistfuls of white powder from his pockets and tossed them into the air.

  Carth had been prepared.

  She reached through her connection to the flame and let that power explode away from her, igniting the powder in the air.

  She focused on his pockets and sent flames toward him.

  The powder hidden within his pockets exploded, tearing his pants free.

  He stood in front of her in his small clothes, sword still clutched in his hand. A small smile spread across his face. “I didn’t think that was what you were interested in. Thought with the way you collected women—”

  Carth stabbed forward with her knives and struck him in the shoulder, sending shadows pouring through them.

  The power of the shadows incapacitated Guya, and he dropped to the ground, convulsing. Carth took a step back from him, watching for a minute. When he didn’t get up, she approached carefully.

  She stopped in front of him, looking down, unable to hide the anger on her face, or in her voice. “We were friends. I would’ve done anything to help protect you, the same as I would’ve done for Dara and Lindy.”

  Guya stared up at her. His hands clenched and unclenched and the rest of his body strained, as if trying to move, but dark lines of shadow worked beneath his skin, unleashed by Carth’s connection. She let out a sigh.

  “Redeem yourself. Where are they?”

  Guya stared straight ahead. “You won’t find them,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Carth watched him, and then she sent a surge of blackness through him so that he convulsed one more time. This time, he collapsed and did not arise again.

  She looked around the room. What she needed was some sign of Hoga, but there was none. Guya’s presence told her that the woman had intended to protect this place, only what was she trying to protect?

  She searched Guya’s pockets, coming up with a small key as well as a few vials of different-colored powders. She pocketed those, thinking that she would study them later. If there was some way to counter her ability, and counter those with other abilities, it was possible that she could use this and take what Guya and Hoga had learned and apply it towards stopping the Hjan.

  Behind a long curtain, she discovered a door. Carth pulled it open carefully and stretched out using the shadows and the flame, searching for evidence of anyone else on the other side. As she did, she found no sign of anyone on the other side of the door.

  Carth entered carefully.

  She made her way down a wide hallway. Paneled walls rose on either side of her, inset with a few unlit lanterns. Carth took the time to light them with her connection to the flame as she went. A few paintings hung along the wall, skillfully made and reminding her of those she had seen in Nyaesh, near the Hall of Masters.

  Towards the end of the hall, there was nothing. The hall simply ended.

  There had to be something here.

  Carth closed her eyes. She stretched out, probing for signs of others, suspecting that there had to be someone here. As she did, she felt the distinct sense of dozens near her.

  Not near her. They were below her.

  Carth studied the long carpet running along the hallway. Grasping the end of it, she threw it back and saw three separate hatches cut into the ground. Carth grabbed at the edge of one of them and pulled. Stairs led below.

  She went down a couple stairs, then paused, using her abilities to search for signs of anyone hidden in the darkness. She detected something, but it wasn’t exactly clear what it was. Not the distinct sense of dozens of other people she had felt when she’d been standing above.

  This wasn’t the right opening.

  She took the stairs back up. The air in the hall had changed. There was a slight floral aroma to it, one that hadn’t been here when she had stood here before—had it?

  Carth didn’t want to take the time to determine if there was something she had missed. She needed to move quickly now.

  She reached the next hatch and struggled to grab an edge. There was a tighter seal with the floor than with the other. Leveraging her knife between the cracks, she propped it up. Borrowing strength from the shadows, she managed to pull the hatch free from the floor and tossed it to the side.

  No stairs led below. This was an opening, but one that had no signs of any way to reach the bottom.

  Carth surged flame away from her, lighting the space beneath the floor. Darkness stretched away, with no sign of anything more.

  This didn’t appear to be the place she sought either.

  A single opening remained.

  The only way she could tell this one was here was by the slight changing of color along the edge of the floorboards. Even her knife struggled to find a gap to pry open.

  She sat back and studied it, trying to find a different way in.

  Could she try another tactic?

  Carth jabbed her shadow knife into the floorboard, piercing deeply. She pulled on it, and with a groan, the board separated from the rest of the floor.

  Carth wiggled her knife free and kept it in hand.

  Much like the first opening, a set of stairs led down. Shadows shifted in the distance below. The sense of the others she felt against the shadows pulled more strongly here.

  Carth took the stairs down, hurrying two at a time. When she reached the bottom, she paused.

  There were others in the room now with her.

  She didn’t see them so much as she felt them. Using another surge of flames, she illuminated the space below. There was resistance to the power of her flame, the kind of resistance that came from somebody with abilities.

  Carth approached carefully. She detected something familiar.

  She eased off her connection to the flame, letting the darkness surround her and pushing out gently with the shadows, feeling a responding surge in return.

  “Lindy?”

  Barely a few paces from her, someone sucked in a breath. “Carthenne? How is it that you’re here? Did she capture you as well?”

  Carth reached her and found chains holding her wrists and ankles, binding her in place so that she could barely move. Carth severed these using a surge through the shadows.

  “No.”

  “The healer is a part of this. Did you know that?”

  “I learned too late.”
r />   “When you didn’t return, I did what I could, but…”

  “It doesn’t matter. Is Dara here?” She would tell Lindy about Guya later. She didn’t need to know about that until they were safe… and free.

  “She was. There are others who—”

  “I know. They intend to study you,” she said while examining Lindy for injuries. She found nothing obvious as she ran her fingers along Lindy’s arms, shoulders, and then down her legs. “Can you help me with them?”

  “There are too many. I don’t think we can get free.”

  “Leave that to me.”

  “You don’t understand, Carth. They have something they do that prevents me from even using my shadows. These others, they have abilities as well that have been suppressed.”

  “I know. As soon as we’re free, I’ll make sure that it ends.”

  “How do you plan on doing that?” Lindy asked.

  Carth breathed out, using a mixture of shadows and flame so that it hung suspended in the air, burning away some of the barely seen powder suspended there. She understood how Hoga had suppressed their abilities even while these women were captured. It was even worse than the way the slavers had suppressed her abilities. There had been deception, sneaking it into her water or forcing it down her throat while she was incapacitated. This was in the air, forcing them to breathe it in.

  “I’m going to capture Hoga, and then she’s going to help us.”

  32

  As they made their way through the lower level of the healer’s shop, Carth realized there were connections not visible from above. What would happen if she were to continue wandering? Would she eventually reach the same place where she had initially been captured?

  Was that how they moved women out of the city?

  Lindy followed her, staying close to her side. Her eyes had a haunted expression to them, one that hadn’t been present the last time Carth had seen her. What had happened during her captivity? What had Hoga done to her friend? What would Dara be like when they found her?

  “Where do you think they took Dara?” Carth asked Lindy.

  Lindy looked over and shook her head. The darkness around them practically enveloped her. She was sinking into the shadows, cloaking herself, hiding even from Carth. “I don’t know. They took her away, and I haven’t seen her since.”

  Carth glanced back at the women trailing them. They had nearly two dozen women, many with obvious abilities. Several were shadow blessed. That had surprised Carth. None had any of the abilities of Lashasn. Was that why Dara had been taken?

  Some had less obvious abilities, though Carth was surprised to note that two of the women had deep green eyes. They reminded her of the Hjan she had seen several times, and stories she’d heard of the city to the south. It seemed more than coincidental.

  They continued onward in silence. Carth debated taking them through the upper levels of the shop, but now that she had destroyed it, she didn’t want to risk going back through. She suspected there was another way out this way, and if so—and if she could find it—she would be able to bring these women to safety.

  At least, some form of safety.

  To find real safety, she would need something else.

  The cave changed, becoming rockier, now seemingly cleaved from the walls of the hillside. As it did, Carth became more and more convinced that she headed in the correct direction.

  When the hall branched, she paused.

  Lindy stood at her shoulder, peering up and down the hall with Carth, neither of them quite certain where to go. In the distance, Carth detected a change in temperature. Would Lindy detect the same, or did Carth only detect it because of her A’ras magic?

  She motioned for them to follow her where the heat shifted the most, dropping off. If she was right, this would lead out of the tunnel, and perhaps past the area where she had been captured before.

  From there, Carth needed to find some way of reaching Hoga. She still wasn’t sure what she would have to do when she found her. Would it matter that she had left Guya for dead?

  The farther she walked, the more she detected a salty scent in the air and knew she headed in the right direction.

  Carth reached the end of the cavern and found nothing but a rocky wall. Lindy beat on the wall before looking to Carth with her eyes still wide and haunted. “There’s no way for us to get out, is there?”

  Carth reached through her connection to both the shadows and the flame and pushed away from her, letting the power slide distantly from her. There was an opening on the other side of the wall, but there seemed no way to reach it.

  She needed more power than she could draw on her own.

  The shadows would grant strength, and she could use the power of the flame, but she needed a focus.

  Carth pulled through her mother’s ring, using the focus that had been her first connection to the flame, and sent it at the wall. The rock began to glow softly. Garth pushed more energy through it, building steadily, until the rock began shaking, vibrating with energy.

  Carth shoved her shadow knife into the stone, letting the shadows flow from it. The combination of the two exploded out from her.

  The sound of the ocean washing beneath her came more clearly. A salty breeze gusted through the open space, and night drifted in.

  Lindy wore a relieved expression on her face. Some of the haunted expression remained on her features, but not the way it had.

  “I’m getting you to safety. Only a little longer.”

  Lindy nodded slowly.

  Carth started down the rock. As she reached the bottom, she stood only a few feet above the ocean, the waves crashing near her. From here, she could see movements nearby, as well as out in the ocean, as ships made their way into the port of Asador. She let out a sigh, breathing in the salty air.

  Behind her, Lindy did the same, though neither of them said anything. The other two dozen women following them did so quietly as well, making their way along the rock. Carth motioned towards a trail that led towards the city.

  “This will take you back.”

  One of the women, a younger girl with pale blond hair and deep blue eyes with a few dark smudges on her cheeks, looked at Carth, her eyes widening. “You’re not coming with us?”

  Carth met Lindy’s eyes. “You need to bring them back into the city. Make sure they’re safe. Do you remember the tavern where were you first went?” Lindy nodded. “Julie will keep them safe. There’s a man there who will help.” She hoped Timothy hadn’t left yet.

  Lindy opened her mouth as if she were to say something, before clapping it shut once more. “I think I can do that. What are you going to do?”

  Carth looked back toward the empty cavern. She needed this to end, and in order for that to happen, she needed to reach Hoga.

  “I’m going back.”

  “Are you sure that’s safe?” Lindy asked.

  Carth looked at the women making their way along the rock. Some had regained a measure of the confidence she suspected they’d had prior to the attack. Others lingered, taking a more cautious approach. Getting the women to safety was part of what needed to happen.

  She thought of what Julie had been through, what the women of the city had feared.

  “I’m going to find Dara, and then I’m going to end this. It’s something that has to be done. This can’t happen again. Never again.”

  33

  Once the women were safely on their way back towards the city, Carth ducked back underneath the rock, moving into the cavern once more. Hoga wouldn’t have left her shop, much as Guya wouldn’t have left the ship. That meant that she’d overlooked something.

  She reached the room where the women had been captive and scanned it again. She saw no sign of anything else here. She hurried back the other way, feeling the effects of her flame magic, the flames already eating through the walls above her.

  Where was Hoga?

  Searching through the rooms where she’d faced attack after attack, she discovered no sign of he
r. She made her way back to the room where she’d found three trapdoors in the floor. She’d discovered the women in one, but what of the other two?

  Carth jumped down the first one. She ignited the flame through the knife she carried, brightening it so that it would light her way.

  The room was a small cavern. Chains were set into the wall, but there was nothing else here that revealed what the room had been used for. Traces of color smeared along the wall, some black, some green, some a sickly brown. The air had a musky and fetid odor. She wondered what Hoga might have used this room for, but given the staining on the walls and the odor present, perhaps this hadn’t been where she’d tested her powders to see if there were ways she could counteract abilities.

  Carth surged with the power of the shadows and jumped out of the cavern. She made her way to the middle one. Neither of the other caverns had held Hoga. Why should the last one be any different?

  The only way she would get answers was by jumping down.

  When she did, she saw that the room was appointed differently than the others.

  The others had been burrowed from rock, the walls nothing but stone, but this one was different. Instead of nothing but rock, and chains anchored to the walls, there was a desk and a row of shelves.

  Carth was studying the shelves when she felt pressure behind her.

  She spun, but there was nothing there.

  She had detected something, but saw no sign of anyone else. As she started to send power through her knives, she heard a voice above her.

  Carth released the shadows and the flame.

  She stood holding on to only a trickle. It was barely anything, only enough to avoid having it separated from her, but little enough that someone shouldn’t be able to detect it.

  “You have failed, Hoga.”

  “Is that what you believe? I think I’ve proven that the formula works as I promised. Your man knows what I have done.”

  Carth crept closer. She recognized Hoga’s voice, and there was familiar something about the other voice as well, though she didn’t know why it should be.