Shadow & Flame

by Mindee Arnett

  It had been the same for Anise, Kate remembered. She would often have periods of lucidity, where she seemed almost completely herself, only to have the madness strike again.

  “I need to see him,” Kate said.

  “He—”

  Nadira appeared in the doorway. “That is out of the question. You are not yet recovered enough to move about, let alone try to use your magic.”

  Kate flushed, ashamed at how clearly the woman had read her intention. She did plan to use her sway, despite how depleted she felt, like a well run dry. She might’ve failed to find a way to free Anise, but she wouldn’t with Corwin. She couldn’t bear the thought of it.

  And yet, even as she was determined about what she needed to do, she dreaded it. What memories might she see in his mind? Might she experience? When she invaded someone’s thoughts, she wasn’t some passive observer. She felt what they felt. There was no hiding the emotions connected to a memory or thought, no faking it. The reality made her sick to her stomach.

  In the end she was grateful for the delay, another three days of eating and resting before she was recovered enough to move about.

  Once there, she didn’t immediately go to Corwin as she’d planned. Faced with the reality of seeing him, she found it easier to deal with everyone else first. She wanted to check on Tira and Dal, Harue and Wen and the rest. Her thoughts inevitably turned to Signe, but she forced them away, the pain of her absence almost too much to bear. Far as anyone knew, she was still a prisoner in the Hellgate.

  Bonner had told Kate there’d been much debate about what they should do next among their strange band of refugees, and that debate was exactly what she walked in on as she followed Nadira out of her small cave and into what had become the main hall of the camp. More than fifty people loitered about inside and still the vast cavern was far from overcrowded. Kate moved next to the wall, sticking to the shadows so as to go unnoticed for as long as possible.

  Most of the people were congregated near the center of the cave where one of the earthists among them had fashioned a stone table and chairs out of pieces of the cave itself. Jiro was standing at the head of the table, the pyrist having resumed his role as council member since their escape from Norgard.

  “There is no question,” Jiro was saying, a nervous humming in his voice with every word, “we must flee Rime. Even if Laurent is successful in finding Genet and the others, it won’t be enough to mount a resistance. The Godking has thousands of men and hundreds of wilders and magists under his control. No force on earth could stand against such a conglomeration.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. Jiro always did have an annoying habit of using big words when simpler ones would do. She suspected he did it on purpose.

  “But where can we go?” asked a woman on the far side of the room, an aerist Kate recognized from Farhold, although she couldn’t remember her name. “Our magic doesn’t work beyond Rime.” She placed a hand on her belly. Seeing it, Kate reached out with her sway and sensed the child growing within her.

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Harue replied, and Kate was surprised to see her here and not off somewhere with her nose in a book. She didn’t doubt for a second that Harue had brought all of them with her when she escaped Norgard. They would’ve been her first priority. “If we take enough everweep seeds and the soil in which to grow them, we can maintain our magic anywhere in the world.”

  “It’s true,” Nadira said, coming to stand next to Bonner in the middle of the room. “That is how we were able to use our magic in the Mistfold.”

  “But how many would we need?”

  “How would we transport that much?”

  “Where could we go where we wouldn’t be feared for what we can do?”

  The questions came quickly, most of them directed at Bonner, who seemed to have become their de facto leader. He nodded his head at each one, seeming more like the general of some army than the blacksmith she used to know. He didn’t address any of the questions, though, allowing the argument to continue on its course.

  “Getting out of Rime won’t be easy,” Jiro replied. “But neither was winning Farhold. We can do it, if we work together and plan carefully.”

  Dal, who’d been sitting leaned on the stone table, chin cupped in his hand, stood abruptly and cleared his throat, the sound both loud and rude. All eyes turned to him at once. “You wish to flee? I understand it. But what about the people of Norgard? And the rest of Rime? Do we just leave them defenseless to the Godking’s rule?”

  “Yes,” Jiro said, eyes narrowed. “Have you forgotten already? They never wanted us here anyway. We have no duty to help them now.”

  There was a chorus of agreement from many of the people, although not everyone. There were magists among them after all, easy to recognize in their gray robes. They were sitting together near the edge of the crowd. Among them was an older woman Kate recognized but couldn’t place. She wasn’t wearing a gray robe but was clothed in a plain brown dress, clearly one not made for her. For some reason, she envisioned this woman in ceremonial robes instead—and then the answer came to her.

  Kate gasped. It was the high priestess of Noralah.

  “What about the land?” Dal gestured with both hands, palms up toward the ceiling. “This is Rime. It’s who we are. All of us—wilder, magist, and nonmagic alike.”

  Jiro tapped his foot as the room murmured. “It’s a lovely sentiment, Lord Dallin, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are hopelessly outnumbered. Better to live as refugees in a foreign land than to die at home.”

  Silence answered him this time, stretching out into several long moments before someone worked up the nerve to break it.

  “What does Saint Kate think we should do?”

  To Kate’s surprise it was Jessalyn speaking, the very guard she’d had to subdue with her magic in order to leave Farhold with Signe. Kate hadn’t known she’d been captured and brought back to Norgard. Despite Kate’s treachery toward her, Jessalyn was looking straight at her now, gaze trusting and hopeful.

  Saint Kate—the moniker sent shame burning through her. Don’t look at me that way, she wanted to say. I betrayed you. I was a fool who did exactly what Edwin—that is, what Rendborne wanted. Rendborne had orchestrated it from the start, assuming Janus’s identity and leading Edwin by the nose as easily as he would a dog with a bone.

  The eyes of everyone in the room settled on her now, many looking at her as Jessalyn did, while others—most of the magists—were openly wary.

  Kate shook her head. “I’m no saint. Not now, not ever.”

  Jessalyn swallowed, looking chastised. But then her expression turned defiant. “You’re the Wilder Queen. You led us through the Wilder War. You helped secure Farhold. We followed you then, and we’ll follow you again now.”

  Follow you. The words hung in the air. Kate felt the eyes on her again, the silence in the room as oppressive as the straps Rendborne had used to tie her down for the bloodletting.

  She gritted her teeth, hardening her gaze. “I don’t know what to do. Not this time. But Jiro is right. The Sevan force is larger and more powerful than anything we’ve ever faced.” She turned to Bonner. “Would you take me to Corwin, please?”

  Relief passed over his features as he nodded, both of them eager at the excuse to escape the argument, it seemed. Kate followed him to a side passage off the main hall, but before they’d gone far, Dal called after them.

  “Kate!”

  With a sigh, she stopped and faced him. Fatigue and irritation tugged at her in tandem. “What is it?”

  Dal’s eyes narrowed. “We can’t run away. You know that. They still have Signe.”

  Drawing a deep breath, Kate willed her voice to remain even. “We can’t be sure she’s there. Her mother might’ve taken her back to the islands already.” Or Rendborne might’ve killed her like he’d nearly done before.

  A scowl stormed across Dal’s face. “So that’s it, then? You’ve given up on her?”

  “Of course
not.” Kate’s nostrils flared, her sudden anger making her feel more alive than she had in weeks. “Signe was my friend first. No one cares more for her than me.”

  “Prove it.” Dal folded his arms across his chest, his chin stuck out defiantly.

  Refusing to let him draw her into a fight, Kate carefully replied, “We will decide what to do later. Once I’ve spoken to Corwin.” Then, without waiting for a response, she turned around and motioned for Bonner to continue. To Kate’s relief, Dal didn’t follow.

  They moved down the broad passageway past several more caverns, all of them vast though not so big as the main hall. Although Kate still didn’t believe the supposed origin of these caves—drakes were one thing, but dragons large enough to cut through a mountain were something else entirely—she understood why some would. Every room she’d seen in this place was large enough to hold a dragon like the kind described in old tales. Including the cave where they were keeping Corwin.

  Kate froze at the sight of him, sitting atop a stone chair padded with blankets. They’d lashed him to the chair with a rope, and although he wasn’t struggling at the moment, the skin on his wrists and arms bore the signs of it, fresh scabs and even fresher wounds. He looked asleep, or passed out, head tilted to the side and eyes closed. Deep, dark circles rimmed his eyes and the tops of his sunken cheeks. He seemed to have aged ten years since she’d last been by his side, barely a year before. He looked far too much like his father in the final years of his life—a specter of death.

  “Should we come back later?” Kate said as Bonner entered the room.

  At the sound of her voice, Corwin’s eyes flashed open, and he became fully alert in an instant. His gaze locked at once on hers. Kate wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around his shoulders and pull him close. But his wary expression, like that of a cornered animal, held her in place.

  “Kate,” he said, and the sound of her name on his lips sent an electric shock through her. He was truly alive. Truly here, in reach of her arms. And yet the distance between them was a continent. “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you mean, Corwin?” Her voice came out as tremulous as a newborn foal first trying to stand. “I’m here to see you.”

  He turned away from her. “I don’t want you here.”

  His words sliced into her, and automatically she reached out to him with her sway, wanting to know if he was being truthful or not—he was, and wasn’t. As before, his mind was a battlefield, evidence of Gavril’s terrible work threaded through every turn inside him.

  Corwin, she whispered into his mind.

  “Get out of my head.” Corwin jerked against the ropes, teeth gritted. “Get out!”

  Kate withdrew, her insides liquefying at the rejection, which she had felt in all its visceral sincerity. For a second, she almost fled from him, but then rage rose up inside her as the faces of the dead flashed through her mind. Raith, Anise, Francis, Vianne, Kiran. She’d been unable to save any of them.

  You will not take him, she thought, shouting it to the air, the gods, anyone who might be listening.

  She strode toward Corwin, who leaned away from her, trying in vain to avoid her.

  “What are you doing? Leave me alone, Kate. Leave me—”

  She gripped the sides of his face with her hands, fingers sliding into his hair as she pressed her palms to his temples—this sort of physical contact strengthened her sway. Then she plunged into his mind, ignoring his protests, his mental resistance like a hail of bullets. His panic and fear tasted like bile in her mouth. Even worse was the ache of need inside him, his desperate desire for nenath. What is it? Kate thought into his mind.

  He refused to answer. Or maybe he couldn’t. Get out, get out, please, please, please. Get out!

  No—I’m here to free you.

  You’re just like him!

  Ignoring the claim, Kate dug in deeper, searching for the root of the magic that held him captive. His memories came to life for her as if they were her own. She saw faces she didn’t know, places she’d never been—a dark, damp cave, deposits of glowing, bluish crystals, prisoners dressed in rags. This was the mine, where Corwin had lived as Clash in the long months after his fall at the Mistfold. Then he was discovered and brought to the Sun Palace, with its gleaming red spires. She saw the towering walls of the Desol where Corwin had first learned Bonner was still alive. Then he was in a vast library filled with enough books to render even Harue satisfied.

  Kate saw Gavril, and felt Corwin’s hatred of the man. It ran deep inside him. Memories of the torture he’d put him through blazed inside her, stoking her own hate for him. Gavril had forced Corwin to kill a man he’d cared about, condemning him to a brutal death. In response, outrage ignited like a fire inside her.

  “Get out!” Corwin jerked his head hard, nearly freeing himself, but Kate tightened her grip, fingers slick with his sweat—and hers. She almost had it. She could feel the root of Gavril’s magic just out of reach, like writhing snakes made of shadows, insubstantial but deeply entrenched inside him. She just had to hold on.

  The feel of the memories suddenly changed, becoming less random and more pointed. Gavril faded, and a woman took his place, tall and slender, with long silken hair that slid like water down her back. Hate gave way to affection, a sense of comfort and peace, a haven in the midst of the storm. Kate’s head spun from the emotional shift, knocking her off-balance. She shook it off as understanding blazed inside her. This was Eravis. Princess of Seva.

  Corwin’s wife.

  No.

  Senseless with hurt, Kate called on every ounce of magic there was inside her, feeling the drag of it in her veins, her blood.

  Forget, she thought.

  If she couldn’t undo the damage Gavril had wrought, she would obliterate these memories, make it like they had never been. Distantly, she heard Corwin’s agonized scream, but it couldn’t reach her this deep into his mind. Nothing could.

  But then hands closed around her shoulders, and she felt herself jerked backward, her grip on Corwin breaking, along with her sway.

  “That’s enough, Kate.” Bonner spun her around hard.

  Kate blinked up at him, slowly coming back to her senses. She looked over her shoulder at Corwin, confused by the tears running down his wan, bruised face. His eyes were opened and staring at her, brimming with fear—and something else she couldn’t name at first.

  And then she could. She felt it herself. Shame. For what she’d seen. What she’d done. What he’d done.

  Fighting back tears herself, Kate faced Bonner once more, but words failed her. She couldn’t give voice to what she’d seen, what she was feeling.

  Yet somehow, Bonner understood exactly. He pulled her close, hugging her like he might once have done. “It’s not him,” Bonner whispered. “It’s Gavril. He did this. He’s responsible for everything.”

  Kate inhaled, choking on tears. But they weren’t just of sorrow, but rage as well. It was Gavril’s fault. He’d orchestrated all of this.

  Are you sure? a voice of dissent whispered in her head. You felt his affection for her . . .

  Kate shut the voice out, letting hatred replace the doubt.

  She pulled back from Bonner. “You’re right. Gavril is responsible.”

  And there was only one way to free Corwin—Gavril must die.

  Kate scrubbed the tears off her face and drew a steadying breath. “I need to talk to Dal and the others. We aren’t going to run. We’re going to fight.”

  21

  Corwin

  WHETHER AWAKE OR ASLEEP, CORWIN’S heart raced. It wouldn’t stop, as if he were running a footrace, one without end.

  It couldn’t end. Not until he made it back to Gavril.

  He strained against the ropes, barely feeling the pain of the shredded skin around his wrists. His tongue lay in his mouth like a dead thing, swollen and rough as tree bark. They brought him water, and even forced it down his throat, but it was as if his body had forgotten how to process it. It rejected
everything that didn’t contain the nenath it so desperately craved. Anything that didn’t bring him closer to satisfying the edicts laid into his soul. You will not try to escape.

  He knew that if he didn’t get out of this chair soon he would die. A part of him longed for death. But he couldn’t even ask his captors for that mercy. Death would only be an escape. The final one. They couldn’t kill me even if they tried, he remembered, feeling the burn in his uror mark. He couldn’t die. Not without a weapon designed to slay the gods themselves. It was hopeless. He couldn’t even mention the Hellsteel aloud. The Tenets wouldn’t allow it, sensing as they did that Corwin might use it to free himself from their control.

  And so he sat and waited and suffered. But at least he was allowed to do it in private. After that first meeting with Kate, he’d asked to be left alone, his only visitor Nadira, who came in twice daily to see to his well-being as best she could.

  She came into the cave now, appearing in front of him as if from nowhere, his senses so dulled by misery he failed to notice her arrival until she spoke.

  “Good evening, Prince Corwin.”

  He didn’t reply, as it would take too much effort. Besides, they’d run out of things to talk about days ago. Or maybe it was weeks, or months. He couldn’t be certain. There was no sense of time in this place or in his head, just the relentless, pounding need to return to Gavril.

  “I know you asked for no visitors,” Nadira said as she leaned down to set the night’s meal on the makeshift table beside his chair, “but we must make an exception.” She stepped aside, revealing a figure standing just behind her.

  At first, Corwin’s addled mind couldn’t make out the person’s face, but then the features slowly resolved into Kate. His first instinct was to reach for her and call her name, but a second later Gavril’s Tenets tightened their control—they understood the threat she posed, this other wilder with sway.

  “Hello, Corwin.” Her tone was painfully civil, as if she were addressing him as prince, instead of what he’d once been to her. She stood rigid as a sword, arms at her sides and hands clenched into fists. Tattoos he didn’t recognize ran down her arms, bare in the leather jerkin she wore, so many flames she looked as if she were on fire. He wanted to ask her what they meant, but he could only stare.