The Shadow Watch

by S. A. Klopfenstein

  Ren smiled grimly. “Get the others out, Astoria. I’ll find you.”

  Tori nodded to her captain. This time, she would not let him down. She could see five Rulaqs marching across the boulder field. Their long necks towered like battlements. More shrieks filled the valley. How many of them are there?

  Tori could not let herself think what might happen to Ren. She obeyed his orders, leapt from the ground, and flew farther and faster than she’d ever flown before. She soared through the bitter night air, praying Ren would be able to hold off the attacking horde of Rulaqs before it was too late. She caught up to Mischa and Dajha as they neared the Watchtower. They landed within the gates and crept through the silent lanes of the ancient stronghold. Everything in the Watchtower, everything in the entire Valley of Orran, was still. It was late, long past midnight, but Tori expected someone would be waiting for their return.

  “What do we do?” said Tori.

  “Split up,” said Dajha.

  “Daj, you find Sahra. We’ll round up the others,” said Mischa. “We’ll meet in the courtyard.”

  Dajha went running, his form blurring again, and Tori and Mischa hurried toward their central spire chambers. But as they reached the main courtyard, they heard a voice.

  The girls ducked behind a corner. The voice was approaching from across the courtyard. It sounded vaguely familiar, like something from a dream. But this was not because it belonged to someone from the Watchtower.

  Tori had last heard the voice in a dream—back in the Haunted Forest of Ghen. Her heart thundered. It had been so many months since she’d last heard it, she could hardly believe it.

  “They should be here by now,” Darien said. “Something’s gone wrong.”

  After all this time, all the horrors they’d both been through, all the time spent wondering if it might be possible he was still alive—here Darien was. As though the gods had brought them back together. Tori’s heart filled with warmth.

  Until she heard the other voice.

  “Everything he’s planned has fallen into place,” said a strange girl. “Trust him.”

  “Of course I trust him.”

  Tori peeked around the corner. Darien and the strange girl stood at the edge of the courtyard, looking away, toward the valley below. Tori wanted to leap out and shout, but Mischa’s grip had gone tight around her wrist.

  “That’s him,” Tori whispered. “The Gallows Boy.”

  Mischa clapped her hand over Tori’s mouth and pulled her deeper into the shadows, shoving her against the tower wall. “Wait,” Mischa whispered. “Listen.”

  Together, they waited and listened to Darien and the strange girl, whose silver hair glimmered in the moonlight. Tori tried to push away the agonizing sense that this was too good to be real.

  “I wish he would have let us go to the village,” said Darien. “Not stay back here with the bloody Legions.”

  The Legions… Tori thought. He’s part of the attack, but… he could help us.

  “You’re sure that’s him?” whispered Mischa.

  Tori nodded, though fear had begun to replace her joy at hearing Darien’s voice. “I’d know his voice anywhere.” And yet it did not sound like anything Darien would say.

  “I mean, are you sure that’s the Gallows Boy you knew?” said Mischa.

  Tori was not sure. Darien was a Shadow of the Night Legions. But surely he’s the same boy I knew. Surely he’s here for a reason. Tori feared this was only wishful thinking. She knew what happened to soldiers in the Legions.

  “This is the most important part,” the silver-haired girl said to Darien. She touched his arm, which made Tori tense up all over. “That’s why he chose us. To secure this tower until—”

  “You don’t get it, Valeria,” said Darien. “I wanted to be the one to capture the Gallows Girl. The last test to prove myself.”

  “The chancellor knows where your loyalties lie,” said Valeria.

  Tori could not believe what she was hearing. She felt like she might be sick. “No,” Tori whispered. “He wouldn’t…”

  “No one is invincible to the conditioning of the Legions.” Mischa took her hand and pulled her deeper into the shadows. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “What about the others?”

  “It’s too late for that now,” said Mischa. “The Legions are already here. The chancellor is coming for you, and I’m not going to let him have you.”

  They made for a narrow passage into the Watchtower, but there was someone standing in their way, waiting to meet them.

  It was Vashti.

  “Oh, thank the gods! You’re okay!” said Mischa. She hugged the Yan Avii princess, but Vashti returned it stiffly. “We need to get Tori to the catacombs. The Legions are looking for her.”

  Vashti regarded Mischa with a strange look of sorrow. “You’re wrong, Mischa,” Vashti said. “For once, our beloved Gallows Girl is not the center of everyone’s attention.”

  “Vashti, what are you talking about? We need to go!”

  “They’re not here for Tori. They’re here for me, Misch. The chancellor is here for me. SHADOWS!”

  Before Tori could fully comprehend what was happening, Darien and Valeria were upon them. A company of Legions appeared behind the girls, torches suddenly lighting up all around.

  Darien stepped forward, the torchlight glinting off his copper skin. Tori felt weak at the sight of him in Legion uniform. He looks the same as ever, and yet…

  Darien’s face had hardened, and he was built thicker, filled with muscle. And his eyes—there was something off about his eyes. He met Tori’s gaze, and she could not move. After so many months, she and Darien stood face-to-face, and Tori’s body seemed to have forgotten how to function.

  She was relieved to see him alive, and something told her he was going to help them. Maybe not at once. But surely he would not let the chancellor have her.

  Darien looked Tori over, and his eyes lit up as recognition dawned on him. “Good work,” he said to Vashti. “You brought me the Gallows Girl. Tori, I was hoping I’d be the one to find you…”

  “Darien!” Tori said weakly. She wanted to rush to him, to pull him into an embrace. Tell him that a day had not gone by she hadn’t thought of him, wanted to find him, wanted to free him from the Legions. She had never forgotten him.

  Tori had to believe that he’d wanted to be the one to find her so he could help her escape. But Darien’s eyes betrayed him. Just like Fallon’s had right before he died. The pupils narrowed. And then his body shifted, and he took on the form of a dark, winged Metamorphi. Long wings stretched out like a dragon’s, claws stretching out. They brushed her shoulder.

  Tori jumped back in disgust. “What have you done with Darien?”

  The terrible creature smiled, and then it spoke. And even behind the rasp, Tori could still hear the true timbre of Darien’s voice, and it filled her with dread. “I am Darien. This is me, now. Thanks to the chancellor, this is what I have become.”

  Darien pointed a taloned finger at the guards. A pair of them clasped their hands around Tori’s arms. Two more took hold of Mischa. Tori tried to resist, but it was useless. This can’t be happening. It can’t be real.

  “Hold them with the others,” Darien said, shifting back to his human form. The form Tori had leaned on, depended on, all their years as slaves. “The chancellor will be here shortly.”

  Darien’s voice belonged to that same boy from Scelero’s estate, but Tori’s friend was worse than the dead ghost of Ghen that haunted her nightmares. By defying the chancellor, by thwarting Darien’s suicidal rebellion, Tori had turned him into the very thing he had raged against.

  A mindless soldier who did the chancellor’s bidding.

  A monster.

  31

  Tori and Mischa were escorted to the Great Hall of the Watchtower. The dim room was lit only by a torch at either end, but even in the low light, Tori could see the bodies littering the floor.

  “No!” Mischa shriek
ed, resisting the soldiers holding her. One of them slugged her in the gut, and she crumpled to the ground, only to be jerked back to her feet.

  “Let her go,” instructed Darien firmly. “Let them both go.”

  The Shadows shoved Tori and Mischa into the center of the room, beside the bodies of their friends. Tori’s nails bit into the palms of her hands. He killed them. He killed them all!

  Darien’s face remained hard and his eyes cold. Without a glance in Tori’s direction, Darien left, his comrade Valeria right behind him. Vashti remained in the hall, and four Morphs stood guard at the door. Mischa and Tori hurried over to the nearest body—Zaya Shalvar’s. Mischa was trembling, and she held onto Tori’s hand. Tori steeled herself and felt Zaya’s neck for a pulse.

  Tori breathed, and her body relaxed slightly. “She’s alive.”

  “Thank the gods,” Mischa whimpered.

  “Of course she’s alive. All of them are.” Vashti strode forward, holding up a vial filled with a dark liquid. “A sleeping draught developed by my brother. This was how Salla managed to get me out of the Red Palace after my father burned me alive. I would have been shrieking in agony when I woke, as they were smuggling my body away. This draught saved me then, and it saved every Watcher now.”

  Tori wanted to punch the Yan Avii princess. “Saved them?”

  “W-what are you talking about?” said Mischa.

  “The chancellor’s men were able to enter without shedding a drop of magical blood,” said Vashti. “While everyone slept safe and sound.”

  Mischa had gone completely pale. Her jaw tensed. “Why, Vashti? How could you betray us?”

  “Betray? I am saving us all from fighting a battle we never could have won.” Vashti knelt down and placed her hand on Mischa’s shoulder, tenderly. Tears were streaming from Mischa’s eyes. Vashti looked away, but Tori noticed the pained expression the princess fought to hide. “The chancellor is not a monster,” said Vashti. “He doesn’t want to kill us. He wants to bring magic back to the world. Can you imagine it, Misch? We wouldn’t have to hide anymore.”

  “You know what he did to me in his citadel,” said Tori. She could not believe that Vashti could be so naïve. “He harvested my blood, Vashti! He used me to build his power. You really believe he intends to spare us?”

  “I don’t have a choice,” hissed Vashti.

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “Oh, how foolish of me. Thank the Sol I have the Gallows Girl to remind me what I have! Look around you, Tori. We lost Ren’s little revolution before it began. My brother was smart enough to take the chancellor’s side before the war came to the Yan Avii. And now I have the same chance, to save the Watchers.”

  “Vashti, what are you talking about?” said Mischa.

  “My brother, Salla, has been chosen as the new Great Soltayne of the Yan Avii, and he’s formed an alliance with the chancellor. He promised my hand in marriage in exchange for peace. For my people. Our people.” Vashti turned to Tori with scathing eyes. “If that means anything to you.”

  “Of course it does!” Tori snapped. She had always felt loyal to her people, but she had not lived among them in eleven years. Her people were here at the Watchtower. “The Watchers are our people too.”

  “And the chancellor has promised the same peace for the Watchers if we do not resist,” said Vashti.

  “You believe that shenzah?” said Tori.

  “My brother saved my life,” said Vashti, meeting Mischa’s gaze again. Her voice grew softer. She took hold of Mischa’s hand. “I spent all my childhood suppressing who I was. When Salla sent me here, he found a way I could embrace who I was. Now he has found a way for a dead princess to become queen of the most powerful nation in the New World. And besides, what other choice do we have?”

  Tori thought the choice to kill Vashti was sounding very appealing. But she never got the chance to entertain it further.

  The doors to the Great Hall flew open. The first to enter was Dajha, shoved to the ground by a pair of Morphs. The creatures had found him. Darien and Valeria marched in after, Darien bearing a limp form in his arms. He set the body, roughly, on the floor beside Dajha.

  It’s Ren’s body, Tori realized with sick dread. The captain of the Watchers was covered in blood and the dust of rubble. “No!” Tori rushed forward, fearing what she would find.

  “He’s not dead,” Darien said as she knelt beside her captain. Tori searched Darien’s face as he spoke, but there was no expression, no hint at what was going on inside his mind, no revelation as to where his loyalties truly lay. It killed her to see Darien this way.

  Ren’s hands were cold, but Darien had not lied. Tori could sense Ren’s life before she even checked his pulse. It was the same way she had known when she revived him in the courtyard. His mind teemed with magic, and she could feel it.

  Ren stirred. His eyes cracked open and then grew wide when he saw where he was. His gaze locked on the Morphs, and he shot up from the ground. But he had no strength to stand, let alone wield magic. His legs gave out, and he crumpled to the floor.

  “Captain,” Tori whispered, gripping his arm.

  Ren groaned. “I… failed. The Rulaqs… broke through.”

  “You’re alive,” said Tori. “It’s all that matters.”

  A slight grin creased Darien’s lips as he watched them. It was not his true smile. Not the one Tori had known. Not the one that had kept her fighting in the Fringes. This was not the face that had helped fuel her training to lead a revolution against the chancellor, that had kept her mind from thinking that all had been lost the day of the Gallows. Now those fears swept upon her like a rogue wave, capsizing her fragile resolve to keep hoping. Darien’s gone. There’s nothing of that boy left anymore…

  The doors flew open again, and this time the chancellor appeared. He regarded the scene with delight. “What a sight! The Gallows Boy and the Gallows Girl, reunited at last. What, no tender embraces?”

  Darien smirked, and Tori said nothing. There were no words for such treachery.

  “I really should thank you, Astoria,” the chancellor continued. “When you defied me before all of Osha, little could I have known you were actually saving me from executing my finest and most dedicated soldier. What a shame that would have been!”

  Tori wanted to scream. To call the chancellor the bastard he was, but she restrained herself. She had to wait for her moment. If there are any moments left to wait for.

  Ren struggled to sit up, anger flaring at the sight of Cyrus Maro. “How?” he rasped. “How did you find us?”

  The chancellor smiled. “Ah, you have your pathetic brother to thank for that, Lord Andovier.”

  “W-what?” Pain was written all over Ren’s face. “H-he wouldn’t!”

  “Come now, Ren,” said the chancellor in a patronizing tone. “You know you and your little rebellion are no match for my Morphs and Legions. It was almost too easy to force the Exiled Lord to give you up.”

  “Where is he?” Ren growled, rising to his feet. “I’ll kill that skazha!” It was a curse from the Old Tongue, reserved for the vilest of creatures.

  The Morphs had their hands on the hilts of their blades, but the chancellor laughed. “I don’t imagine you’ll get the chance. That skazha is tending to her, of course, back in the Red City. To Kirra. Though I must say, he sees to his love life better than you, Lord Andovier.”

  The chancellor regarded Vashti, who had not looked at Ren since he’d entered. And then his eyes fell to Tori.

  “Vashti was only too happy to help. And Tori… well, let’s just say that Morph didn’t have to try very hard to keep you all distracted while we infiltrated your Watchtower, did he?”

  It was Tori’s turn to look away from Ren. The chancellor played us all. This whole army, this whole revolution was an illusion. We never had a chance.

  “Yes, Ren,” said the chancellor, “you could learn a thing or two from your spineless brother.”

  Ren’s strength was waning. He
slumped over, supporting himself against a pillar.

  “But Ren, you’re not who I’m really here to see,” said the chancellor. His eyes passed from Ren to Vashti to Tori.

  Tori stood so that she could look the chancellor in the eyes. Cyrus Maro strode across the room, took hold of her hand, and held her gaze, much to Vashti’s chagrin. His skin was warm, and Tori hated how intoxicating his glacier eyes were. Despite all she knew, deep down, there was something about his eyes that made her think he couldn’t possibly be as purely evil as his ancestors.

  “Come, Astoria. I’d like to show you something.” The chancellor’s voice was sweet to her ears, like the rush of a brook in a meadow. No, it’s his spell, his magnetism. Just like the first day I met him.

  But Tori followed him out the door. Darien and Valeria made to follow, but the chancellor bid them away. “Don’t worry, comrades. The Gallows Girl is no threat to me. In fact, she never was.”

  Darien and Valeria obeyed.

  As she left, Tori overheard Mischa mutter, “I hope being queen is worth it!” And Mischa stormed to the other side of the hall to tend to Zaya, who remained unconscious. Ren followed her. “I’m all right too, by the way,” Dajha said derisively, following after them.

  Vashti was left standing alone, amidst the unconscious forms of the Watchers she had betrayed.

  The chancellor escorted Tori by the hand through the halls of the Watchtower, up a narrow staircase, to an intricately carved set of doors—Ren’s chambers. Ren kept a pair of blades above his hearth, and Tori entertained the brief notion that she could summon one and attack the chancellor. But she knew it was futile. She was spent from all the magic she had already used, and she knew the chancellor was fueled by replenishable blood.

  “Don’t be foolish, Astoria,” said the chancellor, leading her past the hearth. “Resistance would only result in death, and not just for you.”

  Tori did not respond, but she dismissed the notion. She would have to play his games for now.