Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set

by Vanessa Nelson

  She ducked away from the difficult tangle running through her and instead checked her pockets quickly and found that she had a few pieces of chalk, and a vial of Orlis’ healing potion. It would need to do. If they delayed, Kallish would demand they wait until morning and try her method.

  Kester had all his weapons stowed again and was standing next to her when she looked up, his face unreadable, hair bound back in warrior’s braids.

  Arrow held out her arm and to her surprise and further discomfort, he took her hand. There was nothing personal in the touch, it was a simple handclasp, but the sensation of roughened, warm skin against hers threw her off balance for a moment before she could focus again and remember what it was she was supposed to be doing.

  The fissure from earlier was clear in her sight and she took Kester through much more easily than the five warriors from earlier.

  CHAPTER 17

  Although it was deep into the night, the shadow realm was still bright to her eyes, all colours and all seasons present at once. Kester had instinctively let her go when they stepped through, hands going to weapons hilts as he turned in a slow circle, making sure they were alone, then leading them out of the annex into the night.

  “Do you know the way to the dungeons?” Arrow thought to ask, feeling foolish for the question as soon as she voiced it.

  “This way.” He indicated with one hand, other hand staying on a weapon hilt, and walked with her, testing his balance and strides as Arrow repeated the information she had given the warriors earlier. There was no time for jumping this time, though she could not help wondering whether Kester could match Undurat’s leaps.

  This late into the night there were few people around, so they made their way easily around the Palace buildings to a heavy door that was solid and real in the shadow realm, and somewhere Arrow was sure she had never been before. And would not be able to find again in daylight, in the first world. She was thoroughly lost.

  “Through here, then there are stairs down and a metal door at the bottom, and another metal door further in which leads to the dungeons themselves. There are guards at each one,” Kester told her. She must had shown surprise for he smiled a little. “All White Guard spend some time at the Palace, and we all have to take turns guarding the dungeons. Even when they are empty, which they often are.”

  “Even the Queen’s own guard?” Arrow asked, curious.

  “The more junior of them, yes. I do not think Miach has guarded the dungeons in my lifetime.”

  “This is a new spell,” Arrow warned him, approaching the heavy door, “and you will need to stay close to me in order for the glamour to hide us.”

  “Very well.”

  He was close enough that she caught another scent under the weapons oil and cardamom. Citrus sharp and sweet. Distracted, she took another breath before opening her second sight and her mind to the book. The spell was waiting for her when she looked and moments later the door lock clicked open, a wave of shadow surrounding them as Arrow opened the door and they slipped inside.

  Even in the shadow realm, the steps inside were worn from centuries of use, the first damaged things that Arrow had seen in the entire Palace, and she was careful where she put her feet as they descended, the shapes of four Erith in the first world ahead of them.

  The spell modified itself, which made her grit her teeth before sketching the necessary runes in the air, rather than speaking the spell, so that the glamour came first, then the door unlocked and they slipped through again, with no disturbance in the first world, the guards continuing their vigil.

  The final door was as easy as the first and they were through, walking down a short, low-ceilinged corridor that opened out to a larger space, reflections of containment wards shining amber and green and crimson in the shadows. There were three other people present in the first world, all behind the containment wards.

  “We are in the dungeons. There are no guards here overnight,” Kester told her.

  Arrow made another opening and stepped through into the first world, Kester holding her shoulder this time.

  She had to blink several times when she was back in the first world, thinking she was blind but then realising that it was simply dark, the only light provided by faint glimmerlights at the entrance to the corridor. The air was cold, scented with earth, stone and water.

  She and Kester were standing on a rough stone floor in a large, low-ceilinged space which had been divided by metal bars to create cages. There were small niches set into the earth at the back of each cell to afford the prisoners limited privacy, but otherwise the entire room was open to view from the central space.

  “Arrow! Kester!” The voice, low and astonished, came from the cell to her right. She turned, saw nothing, and muttered a curse against her impure Erith heritage that left her senses so dull, then a quick spell to enhance her sight.

  ~

  Evellan was more dishevelled than she had ever seen him, dressed in plain, dark clothing, hair tangled, his ever-present shadows coiling restlessly. He also looked ill, his face hollow, lines around his mouth and dark circles under his eyes, his body slightly hunched over as he came towards them.

  “Lord Evellan.” She took a step towards his cell, pausing when she realised that there was someone in the cell beside his, lying on a low bench in the niche at the back.

  “Took you long enough to find us.” Seivella rose to her feet and came forward, standing beside Evellan, each about a pace inside their respective cages. The wards on the cages stirred, amber rising, reacting to the proximity, but remained passive. Arrow wondered how long it had taken the pair to work out how close they could get to the bars without alerting the guards.

  “You have only been here a day.” Kester’s voice was cool, perhaps resenting the criticism.

  “Have you found Gilean yet?” Evellan asked, voice urgent.

  “No.”

  “There has been rather a lot going on,” Kester added, voice still chilly.

  “Why? What has happened that was more important than finding Gilean?” Evellan snapped. Kester took a step forward and the wards on the cage brightened, reacting to his presence.

  “Lady Teresea and Seggerat are dead,” Arrow said baldly.

  The exclamations of surprise were loud enough that Arrow thought the guards would hear. Evidently, Seivella and Evellan realised that, too, quietening their voices. After a quick look into second sight, Arrow realised that a confusion spell would not work here as there were counter measures woven into the wards on the cages.

  So she told them as quietly and quickly as she could about the events in the Palace and at the farm, Kester adding a comment now and then. Evellan was experienced enough in receiving bad news that he remained silent, Seivella biting her lip, hard, in several places to hold in an exclamation.

  Before they could begin to ask any of the dozen or so questions brewing, she held up a hand, palm out, cutting them off.

  “And now I think you should tell us why you are here, and still contained.”

  “The second part is easy to answer.” Seivella held out her wrist, showing a thick, silver cuff with runes carved on it. Evellan raised his hand, showing a similar bracelet. “They have suppressed our magic.”

  Arrow spared a glance at the devices. Old, strong magic had been crafted into the silver bearing the familiar traces of the Palace ward keepers. “And why are you here?”

  “Ask the White Guard. They brought us.” Seivella folded her arms across her middle, scowling. “In the middle of the night without any courtesy.”

  “Orders from the Queen,” Evellan put in. Anger brightened his eyes, mouth a thin line.

  “Not from the Queen,” Kester contradicted. “Miach is sure of it.”

  “And Miach knows everything, does he?” Evellan spat back. Not just angry, Arrow realised, he was furious.

  “The Queen is aware there is something going on,” she said. “But I do not think she is talking to anyone.” She had mentioned the mercat in her summary.


  “That sounds like her.” Seivella’s voice was coated with bitterness. “Always plotting and planning and the rest of us have to scramble to keep up. And she is ruthless.”

  “Whoever is behind the deaths is trying to eliminate everyone they think can stop them. Teresea. Seggerat. Arrow.” Kester was giving Seivella a hard stare.

  “Me?” Arrow’s voice squeaked.

  “Your abilities are known,” Evellan’s voice softened, “among certain circles.”

  “You have been gossipping about me?” Arrow was not sure how she felt about that. Angry. Embarrassed. And also curious as to why the elite among the Erith would find her, an exile, worthy of discussion. Her curiosity was quickly answered, Evellan tilting his chin towards her.

  “There has not been a single shadow-walker for centuries. Very few Erith alive remember the last one.”

  “No-one knows what you can do,” Seivella said bluntly, “and they are worried.”

  “The Erith have always been worried about me,” Arrow answered back, eyes shimmering silver, reflecting her temper. “It is why they had me collared and oath-bound for years.”

  Evellan’s colour rose, eyes dropping, unable to hold her stare. Seivella glared back, cheeks flushed but defiant.

  “And why are the Erith so interested in me now? I am exiled.”

  Evellan lifted a brow, wry twist pulling his mouth, and she had to concede he had a point. She might be exiled, but she was standing in the Erith heartland.

  “We might not fully understand what you can do, but we know your abilities are special.” Seivella’s voice was unexpectedly gentle.

  “The Erith are keeping track of me so they can use me in future,” Arrow concluded, hugging her arms around her middle. She straightened her spine, power rising so her eyes flared silver. “I am not going to be used again.”

  “We do not have time for this now.” Seivella’s voice had hardened again, a tone Arrow was familiar with.

  “I suppose we should get you out,” Kester put in. He sounded reluctant. Arrow had been so intent on the Preceptor and his deputy that she had almost forgotten him. She glanced across and saw the set line of his jaw, amber flare in his eyes.

  “That would be helpful,” Seivella agreed.

  “Unwise. Our captors put us here for a reason, and they may be working for the Queen,” Evellan objected.

  “You are half-dead, old man,” Seivella snapped at him.

  “The Queen did not put you here,” Arrow disagreed, opening her sight again to examine the cages. She wrinkled her nose. “The wards and spells on these cages are strong. It will take time to unravel them.”

  “They are guarded against a magical attack,” Seivella told her, irritated. “Not that we could form a magical attack with these things on.” She shook her wrist.

  “Well, perhaps picking the lock would work.” Kester stepped forward, wary of the flare of amber. He hesitated a moment, then put his hand to his chest, where the White Guard wore their medallions, and spoke a word. The amber wards died at once. A White Guard password, Arrow realised, curiosity prickling, watching as he reached into an inside pocket and produced a small leather wrap which opened to reveal a set of finely-crafted metal tools that were completely unfamiliar to her.

  “Lock-picks?” Seivella’s voice had lost its harsh edge. “When did the White Guard adopt breaking-in as an acceptable battle tactic?”

  “We use whatever means required,” Kester answered absently, most of his attention on the lock of Evellan’s cage.

  The lock gave with a quiet click and the door swung open.

  As Evellan stepped out, a flicker of movement at the edge of her sight caught Arrow’s attention. She turned in time to see one of the shadows in the room moving, forming into a too-familiar, dark-clad shape. Her wards flared in response to her alarm as she faced her attacker, battle wards blazing in the first world.

  The attacker cut through her wards with the same ease as before, aiming a bladed weapon at her. She darted to one side, stumbling on an uneven patch of floor, catching herself against the bars of a nearby cage, the prison’s wards flaring in alarm.

  The magical alarm was joined a moment later by the sound of steel on steel as Kester knocked the attacker’s weapon aside with his own blade.

  “Get behind me,” he snapped to Arrow.

  “He has a null cloak,” she told him as she scrambled to move out of his way, stepping behind him. The armoured coat she was wearing, hampering her movements, would provide some defence, but she had nothing to combat the clothing the attacker wore.

  “You were warned to leave.” The attacker spat the words, voice low, then lunged forwards, blade extended. Kester slapped it aside. Safe for a moment, Arrow opened her senses, trying to see the attacker properly. The clothing he wore, however it was made, made him blurred in second sight, distorting her senses as it reminded her of the shadow realm, all colours blended together to a bland darkness in the first world.

  The clothing disguised his outline as well as his presence to her senses, but the cloth could be torn, she knew, from the tiny scrap she had found in the library. Arrow stayed behind Kester as the pair circled, waiting for a chance.

  He lunged past Kester again, blade deflected by a White Guard weapon, and Arrow seized her chance, stepping forward and grabbing a handful of what she thought might be a sleeve. He swore, words she had rarely heard, and pulled back. Between them, the cloth tore with a sharp rending, Arrow left holding half of a sleeve, the attacker’s forearm and hand exposed. Ghost white Erith skin, with a vicious looking scar across the back of one hand. He growled something that might have been a curse, drew another knife from somewhere and lunged forward again. The flat of Kester’s blade slapped against his wrist and his hand opened, blade clattering to the floor.

  “Let me out!” Seivella called from her cell.

  The attacker darted one way, Kester following, only for the attacker to immediately go the other way. Arrow opened her mouth to cry a warning, realising that it was not needed as Kester’s second blade blocked the attacker’s move.

  Behind the attacker, the short corridor to the dungeon’s entrance brightened.

  “Guards on their way,” she warned Kester.

  “Naturally.” He did not sound out of breath, feet sure and quick as he stayed between the attacker and Arrow. “Can you make an opening? Evellan, get back in your cell for the moment, Arrow and I will hide.”

  To Arrow’s surprise, the Preceptor did as he was asked, even pulling the door shut behind him. Arrow followed the movement and saw Kester’s lock-picks on the ground in front of the cell door. She ducked down, picked them up, and opened her sight to find the fissure that she had created to get them here.

  The heavy sounds of footsteps on the stairs signalled the arrival of the White Guard. The attacker made a low, furious sound worthy of a shifkin.

  “This is not over yet, Arwmverishan.” Definitely Erith. No other race could produce such venom with one word. There was absolute conviction in those words, a promise that sent a tremor through Arrow before the anonymous Erith darted away from Kester, heading for the corridor and escape, and Kester let him go, turning back towards Arrow.

  “Now.”

  “Here.” Arrow grabbed his wrist, as he was still holding weapons, and pulled him into the fissure with her, not a moment too soon as the dungeon area was abruptly flooded with White Guard, armed and alert.

  From the shadow realm, Arrow could not clearly make out what was happening but the newcomers took a long time to go around the cells, checking there was no one else there. They must have seen the dark-clothed attacker but did not pursue him, staying in the dungeon.

  In the shadows, Arrow stood next to Kester by the back wall of the dungeon, trying to keep her breathing calm and even. He seemed to have realised that they could not talk, putting away his weapons and lockpicks before standing still, a White Guard on watch, observing the shapes in the first world. The only sign he had been in a battle the
slightly stronger scent of cardamom twinned with a stronger hint of the citrus she had smelled earlier. A combination that should not have worked, teasing Arrow’s nose.

  The overlay of cardamom, which had long been a favourite of hers, mingled with the memory of the attacker’s words in a bittersweet tangle. Yet another Erith wanted her dead. It was no surprise. And it still stung. After the quiet acceptance of Miach and the Queen’s guard, the warmth the Queen had displayed, and the discovery, which she still found hard to believe, that there were mixed-race Erith living in the heartlands, the reminder of how despised she truly was had stung more than usual. Her eyes prickled. Stupid eyes. She blinked, clearing them. It was not the time or place for silly emotion. Back in the workspace the shifkin had provided, warded and alone, she could be emotional as much as she liked, or so she told herself.

  After what seemed a very long time, the shapes in the first world disappeared back along the corridor. Evellan and Seivella were each at the back of their cells, keeping still.

  “There are three people in the cells,” Arrow remembered, seeing the third tucked away at the back of one of the cells opposite Evellan and Seivella. None of the guards appeared to have gone near the other prisoner, although they had gone into Evellan and Seivella’s cells.

  “We should check,” he agreed, “once we are back.”

  “Of course.” She opened the fissure again. He put his hand on her shoulder and they stepped through, Arrow’s body heavier as she came back to the first world again.

  “I think you saved our lives,” Evellan said by way of a greeting. “None of the guards seemed surprised to see the attacker.”

  “He just ran past them.” Seivella’s voice was bitter again. “Get us out of here. Now.”