Shadow's Voice

by Natalie Johanson

  “There was more,” she mumbled, “but I can’t remember it now.”

  “Tomorrow, dear.” He spoke just as softly. The king sat and watched her until she plopped some nasty berries in her mouth. He glanced once more at her throat before leaving. Rose managed to choke down the terribly bitter berries by the time she made it back to her room. She was able to barely tug the strings of the gown enough to yank it off and collapse into bed.

  Chapter 31

  Rose pulled back from trying to look through the shadows when the knock came. Her headache returned with it. Rose swiped a damp cloth from her washbowl and pressed it against her forehead as she opened her door.

  Captain Sayla frowned when she saw Rose. “It has only been two days. You need to let yourself rest.”

  “I was just trying to look around the castle. We haven’t found D’ray yet. What if he is still here?”

  Captain pursed her lips. “No one has spotted him. You will make yourself weaker if you don’t rest.”

  Rose opened her mouth to protest, but Captain Sayla raised her hand. “Are you ready?”

  Rose bit back a retort and nodded. She dropped the rag on the chair near her door.

  The captain stepped back from her door and Rose followed her out. The walk was quiet. Rose tried to keep pace with the captain even as every footstep jarred her body and her head echoed the pain. The captain was right. She needed to rest more than she had been. Even Madame Rita was getting angry with her. But how could Rose rest when she’d let D’ray escape? That was their one sure chance to rid themselves of the assassin and Rose had let it slip away. And she had never let someone get away before.

  She’d been through it in the days laying in her bed. All she needed to do was inform the guards. Rose knew where he was. She could’ve followed his movements and the soldiers could have captured him. But that was not what had happened. She clenched her hands at her sides. She’d been a fool and had rushed off on her own. Rose had felt powerful, had felt like she could prove she was . . . . Rose cursed herself. She didn’t know what she was trying to prove; who she was trying to prove it to.

  The captain stopped at the sitting room door and opened it without knocking. Rose followed, and when she sat in a chair Rose hesitantly sat on the couch. The king was sitting in a large arm chair at the front of the room.

  The burly General was back, as were Anita and Jacob, Ben the steward, and Aaron, though he stayed to the edge of the room. King Micah was looking around room. “Everyone is here, so we may begin. Aaron,” he turned to the captain of the Guard, “have your men turned anything up?”

  “Nothing, Sire. My men have searched every inch of the castle and have turned up nothing.”

  “Have you checked the abandoned sections?”

  “Yes, Sire. My men searched every entrance and followed the tracks in the dust. Nothing was found. D’ray is not still in the castle.”

  The king looked at Rose then back at Aaron. “Very well. After days of searching, I doubt he is still here. General Arboh, have the men you left on patrols found any evidence of a force moving on my castle?”

  The burly man shook his head. “No, Sire. If Lord Damian is moving a force against you it is either hidden or hasn’t moved yet. It is more likely it hasn’t been moved.”

  “Miss Trewin, if you would walk us through what happened in the rafters,” the king spoke tiredly after lowering his hand.

  Rose swallowed. “He spoke very little aside from that. I am convinced he has a magic similar to mine. I tried to escape into the shadows but . . . I couldn’t. He somehow made the shadows solid. I couldn’t pass.”

  “You think D’ray was responsible?” Micah asked.

  Rose nodded. “He said I was in his way.”

  “It seems we are still missing a big part of the puzzle,” Micah said.

  They were all silent. No one knew what to say. King Micah turned back to Rose. “Did he say anything else that would be important?”

  I will do what he couldn’t, D’ray had said. Who? What who couldn’t? What? He’d also said he could manipulate her shadows. The idea she was not alone with her magic, she was not the stronger of the two, terrified her. She didn’t know what the people in this room would do with that information.

  With a heavy feeling in her stomach, Rose shook her head. “No.”

  “The mage hired to kill the king has escaped, and now we have no idea what to expect next. Am I being accurate?” Anita spoke up from her seat in the corner.

  Rose sunk further into her seat.

  “Accurate, yes, but there is more to it,” General Arboh said. “The mage attacking Miss Trewin gave a lot away.”

  “How so?” Captain Sayla asked.

  “Killing the girl would accomplish nothing toward usurping the throne. Her death would be meaningless. He ignored his main mission.”

  Rose frowned at the general. “Not if he thought I could identify him. That I was a risk to his main mission. He would want to remove me first, if that was the case. I just proved to be more trouble than he thought.”

  “Or Master D’ray had his own agenda,” the king said. “If he was hired simply to be a means to an end, taking the risk of killing Miss Trewin was a wasted risk. He did that for his own purposes. There is more to this than a simple coup.”

  She saw the king drop his gaze to the scabbed line on her throat before raising his eyes back to her.

  “I find it more likely D’ray has his own agenda,” the king said.

  Rose had to turn away from his gaze.

  “Now what do we do?” Anita asked in the silence.

  “Continue what we’ve been doing. Increase the soldiers on the roads. Captain Sayla, I want two more of your officers to travel to Amora under disguise.”

  Captain Sayla glanced at Rose before answering the king. “I’ll have the officers report tomorrow, Sire.”

  More? Are they sending spies? He said more . . . they’ve already sent some? Rose looked back and forth between the people talking around her in the room.

  “Rose?”

  Rose snapped back to see the king staring at her. “Sorry?”

  “I understand you are still recovering from the attack and I thought you would like to return to your rest.”

  Rose hesitated a second longer hoping he’d change his mind, but it was clear in his voice. She didn’t know why the dismissal hurt the way it did. She owed these people nothing. She wasn’t even going to stay, was she? So why had she wanted . . . .

  She wasn’t worth needing. She was a stranger with a past passing through, who’d already said she wasn’t staying.

  Rose nodded and stood. She left the room as quickly as she could without running. Out in the hallway Rose strode to the ground floor and headed straight to the gardens.

  Rose still wasn’t sure why she was so angry. She slipped through the bushes, the flowers drying up with the colder weather. The bushes were thinner now that most had lost their leaves, and Rose could see Lady Sephrita sitting not far in the distance. Rose half-turned to retreat to a different part of the gardens to cool her temper, but she paused. Maybe away from the press of people, the standoffish B’leakon might be more willing to talk.

  Rose walked quietly along the path until she was near the small bench Lady Sephrita was perched on. She paused a few steps away and Lady Sephrita’s wide, bright eyes slid over to Rose.

  “May I join you?”

  Lady Sephrita turned to face her, a pinched crease between her eyebrows.

  “We spoke briefly at the ball several days ago.”

  Lady Sephrita’s eyes widened with recognition. “Yesss. I remember now. You may sit.”

  Rose took a deep breath and settled next to her. “You must be happy to be returning home soon.”

  Lady Sephrita sighed and it almost soun
ded like a breathy hiss. “Yes.”

  “Will D’ray be returning with you? I had heard he arrived ahead of your party to deal with trade.”

  The B’leakon sniffed. “D’ray has not been seen since the ball. While I do not care for his company, we have business to discuss.”

  The anger in Lady Sephrita’s voice carried over in the drawn-out ‘s’ sounds. The hissing sent shivers down Rose’s spine and she was glad she wasn’t the one Lady Sephrita was angry at.

  “Can I ask why D’ray is so disliked?”

  Lady Sephrita sat still as a statue for so long Rose didn’t think she would answer. Rose waited. And waited.

  “Does he . . . have a magic that is . . . .” Rose asked and shrugged when the silence went too long. “A magic that is unsavory?”

  Lady Sephrita growled and the sound reverberated in the quiet garden. “He is a shyryric.”

  Rose raised her eyebrows at her and Lady Sephrita growled anew at the language barrier.

  “He dwells in the shadows. A magic only seen in humans and he has it. A dark magic. A wrong magic.”

  Rose pressed her lips together. Tried to ignore the self-consciousness and focused on the useful information. “Why does he have that magic, then? If it’s only been seen in humans before?”

  “I do not know why the gods do what they do.”

  “And this magic is . . . dark?”

  Lady Sephrita hissed again. “Those with magic in the shadows cannot be trusted. They live in a world between places, one foot always in another world. How can you trust someone who is never fully in one world?”

  Rose swallowed. Her magic had a history. Her magic wasn’t a thing only she had. Did that mean there were others or had those with the magic been hunted like so many others?

  “Why so many questions?”

  Rose looked up at Sephrita and was met with glowing, orange eyes. “Like you said. He can’t be trusted. I was wondering if there was a reason behind my instinct.”

  Lady Sephrita smiled a close-lipped smile that looked lethal. Her eyes swirled and glowed orange colors. “You are a smart human.” She stood, and Rose craned her neck back. “Now, I must go find that stupid male. Listen to your instinct.” The tall B’leakon paused at the edge of the path and turned back to Rose. “I heard he spent a lot of time wandering around the burnt halls of your castle. I do not know why.”

  “Why are you helping me?” Rose dared to ask.

  Her eyes swirled darker orange to red and Rose forced herself to sit still beneath the look. “Because I hate him more than I hate humans.”

  Rose swallowed at the harshness in the woman’s voice.

  Lady Sephrita turned away without another word and Rose watched her gracefully stroll away, her colorful skirts whispering. Rose rubbed her forehead. There was more and more about her magic that Rose never knew existed. And there was more to the history behind Sephrita and D’ray.

  Rose stood and turned to the tall, looming castle. The old burnt wing peeking out from behind the main castle stood out like a sore. What was back there that D’ray was so interested in? Rose took a deep breath. She would be worth more than her ability to spy. This would be different than her father. She would find answers.

  Searching the dusty, soot-covered halls for several long hours offered nothing more than burnt walls, broken beams, and charred remains of rooms. The halls were cool, most everything but the stone burned away. She wandered through the quiet rooms until she found a wall with no door. Rose followed the wall until she found a collapsed stairway, filled with stone and rubble. Glancing up, Rose saw through broken stone and rafters to the next floor.

  Rose stared at the scorched wall and huffed. She walked the length of the wall, only to learn it was a large circular room. Perhaps an old common room or cluster of rooms. Or maybe, with a prayer to the gods, an old library. If she wanted inside, she’d need to use the shadows to get there.

  Pressure built up behind her eyes as she tried to enter, but Rose refused to stop. The shadows were a solid wall to her. She pushed against them, and they pushed back.

  Sweat dripped into her eyes and started to roll down her back. She gritted her teeth and pushed as if she was pushing against a wall. “Dammit, let me in!”

  She fell forward with no warning and landed on her face in the shadow tunnels, mist swirling around her. Rose stood only to sink back to her knees. Her stomach rolled and her head pounded hard enough to make her see stars. The edges of her vision started to fade.

  “No, dammit.” Rose stood shakily and looked around. A dense, dark cloud rolled in from nowhere and formed itself into a single giant wolf. The gray mists swirled around it and obscured the true shape and size of the wolf. The only thing that stood out was its red eyes.

  You needed to earn the right to travel the Undertunnels again.

  Rose stood her ground even as she wanted to run. “Earn what right?”

  The mist consumed the wolf and it reformed to her left. He was stronger than you. You did not overpower his grasp. The giant wolf blinked and lifted its lips in a silent snarl. If you cannot defeat the traitor, you are useless to us.

  “Traitor? Traitor to what!” Rose licked her lips.

  To us. They growled. He betrays his duty to us!

  “What are you? Why now?”

  So many questions, which shall we answer? Shall we answer at all? The wolf padded around her.

  Rose clenched her jaw and rubbed her temple. The pounding was constant. “Please answer.”

  Perhaps we will not. You have not earned answers.

  Rose got angrier and her headache got worse. “Tell me.” She turned in a circle, following the wolf. “What duty do I have? Tell me.”

  Why should we?

  She was tired and sore and frustrated. Her anger snapped and she shouted with a force behind her voice, “Because I demand it!”

  The wolf stopped and stared at her, ears back and teeth bared. Rose stared back. She lifted her lips in her own snarl. She felt powerful and for the first time she felt in control. She pointed at the wolf and it growled. To prove she was the one in control she spoke and again there was a commanding power behind her voice. “Sit. Sit and answer my questions.”

  The wolf shook its whole body and it felt like the whole world moved. The mist quivered around her.

  Then the wolf sat and the mist around her stilled.

  So ask. Not all may be answered however. The Balance must be maintained.

  Rose let out a breath and wiped the sweat from her eyes. “How is D’ray betraying you?”

  The wolf snarled and the growl was echoed by the mist. We must maintain the Balance. He seeks to control what he shouldn’t and upsets the Balance. He follows the path of another, from long ago.

  “Who?”

  The shadows vibrated in a growl but did not answer.

  Rose sank to her knee. She was so tired. Her head felt so heavy. “What balance?”

  The wolf stared at her.

  “All right, don’t answer.” She thought about her questions. She didn’t know how much longer she could stay in the shadows before passing out or how much longer the wolf/shadow would answer. “What he seeks, the thing you’ve hidden . . . is it here?”

  The shadow creature stared at her in silence.

  “I can’t help you if I don’t know!” she yelled at it in frustration.

  For her answer the wolf stood and started walking. Rose grudgingly stood and followed it through the fog. When exhaustion made her stumble, the fog around her lifted her back to her feet. It was almost as if her magic changing and growing had opened a new part of Rose. It was exhausting, draining. The wolf stepped out of the shadows, and Rose stumbled right behind.

  The second she stepped back into the real world she collapsed to her knees. It was compl
ete darkness around her; when Rose closed her eyes there was no difference. She tried pulling on her shadow sight but pain slashed through her head. She felt cool fur, like it was covered in morning dew, brush her face, and a large book fell into her lap.

  That is what he seeks. Now go.

  Rose numbly grasped the book to her chest and painfully forced herself back into the shadow world. Her vision was fading when she stepped out. She didn’t know where she’d gone, but it wasn’t far. Again, she fell to her knees. Then she fell the rest of the way to land heavily on her shoulder.

  She is weak.

  They watched the Shadowstalker as she fell to the floor.

  She is young. There is power in her. If she can learn to control it.

  The shadows shifted restlessly. Not if she dies here.

  The leader sighed and the whole stopped to listen. Her anchor can save her.

  But he is more ignorant than she!

  The shadows moved around the woman. Several took shape and snarled. We must tell him.

  No! More took shape and snarled and growled. We must not. We interfere too much.

  The leader took shape and towered over the others. They silenced as their leader approached. We must. Without the Shadowstalker, the traitor could control all. She will maintain the Balance. The interference is justified.

  The others slowly nodded and the churning shadows quieted.

  It is justified.

  Chapter 32

  Micah turned the corner and his servant lifted the lantern higher. The weather was growing colder and with it the night was coming faster. The servants were going to have to start lighting the candles earlier. The sound of a sword being drawn halted Micah in his steps. Aaron moved in front of him.

  “How in the hells did a wolf get in here?” his second guard, Jenkins, shouted.

  Wolf? Micah squinted in the dim light. That is no normal wolf. He took a step back.