Cast in Secrets and Shadow
Page 1
ALSO BY ANDREA ROBERTSON
THE NIGHTSHADE SERIES
Rift
Rise
Nightshade
Wolfsbane
Bloodrose
Snakeroot
THE INVENTOR’S SECRET SAGA
The Inventor’s Secret
The Conjurer’s Riddle
The Turncoat’s Gambit
Invisibility (with David Levithan)
THE LORESMITH SERIES
Forged in Fire and Stars
PHILOMEL BOOKS
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First published in the United States of America by Philomel Books,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Seven Crows, Inc.
Map art by Virginia Allyn
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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Names: Robertson, Andrea, 1978– author.
Title: Cast in secrets and shadow / Andrea Robertson.
Description: New York : Philomel Books, 2021. | Series: Loresmith ; book 2 | Audience: Ages 14 up | Audience: Grades 10–12 | Summary: “After suffering betrayals and losses, Ara, Nimhea, Lahvja, and Teth must try to come together and find the Loreknights across the kingdom.”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021015485 | ISBN 9780399164231 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698174139 (ebook) Subjects: CYAC: Fantasy. Classification: LCC PZ7.1.R598 Cas 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015485
ISBN 9780399164231 (hardcover)
ISBN 9780593403068 (international edition)
Edited by Jill Santopolo and Kelsey Murphy
Cover art © 2021 by KattPhatt
Cover design by Jessica Jenkins
Design by Ellice M. Lee, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
pid_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0
TO KATIE, FOR WORLDS IN THE WOODS
Contents
Cover
Also by Andrea Robertson
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map of Saetlund
Prologue: The Vokkan Invasion of Saetlund
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Prologue
The Vokkan Invasion of Saetlund
Winning the war left a bitter taste in Captain Liran’s mouth. The conquest of Saetlund could hardly be called a war; it had been a rout. Too short and too easy. What forces King Dentroth sent against the invading Vokkans were pitiful, lacking in training and discipline. On the plains of Sola, Saetlund’s forces had melted before Liran’s advance once the storied Loreknights had fallen.
Foolish tales.
Liran believed in gods; rather, he believed in one god, Vokk the Devourer. He’d seen Vokk with his own eyes—a visage he wished with each breath he could forget—and knew it was that god who had kept his father alive all these centuries. People speculated that Fauld the Ever-Living wasn’t truly immortal, but Liran knew the truth. For so long as Vokk sustained his father, the emperor would not die.
To Liran, Vokk was all-powerful and terrifying. It was Vokk’s army that had consumed all the world but this last kingdom, Saetlund.
But Liran did not love his god.
And this war . . . it was meant to be the last. Saetlund was the final conquest. Liran had been told that the kingdom held this honor due to lore of old, which the captain put no stock in. All that mattered to him was the idea that after Saetlund there was nowhere else to claim, and as far as Liran could see that meant soon the world would starve.
What of the Devourer then? Would Vokk abandon his people and find a new world to consume? Liran worried the god would consume his worshippers before abandoning this realm.
Saetlund claimed to have its own gods, but those same gods were supposedly responsible for the champions—so-called Loreknights—Liran’s foot soldiers had cut down with ease. They’d been the opposite of legendary: only adequate with their arms (which showed no signs of being magical, as myths claimed) and lacking in honor. Three of the Loreknights had tried to flee when they saw their fellows laid low. Liran’s cavalry had run them down in a matter of minutes.
Liran had heard it said that the empire delayed its attack on Saetlund because these knights were nigh invincible. It seemed Emperor Fauld had waited centuries for no good reason. When the Loreknights fell, an audible groan swept through King Dentroth’s army. Chaos ensued.
Soldiers stopped obeying their officers’ orders. Their ranks split, faltering. The Vokkan commander seized this advantage by sending his troops through these breaks to flank the enemy. The Vokkan forces so outnumbered Saetlund’s that Liran soon had the bulk of the kingdom’s army surrounded. After a third of Dentroth’s soldiers had fallen, the remainder surrendered, opening a path to the capital city of Five Rivers.
The Vokkan army had prepared for a siege. They needn’t have. Five Rivers had devolved into frenzied panic. When word spread in the capital that King Dentroth had fled rather than fight, its citizens poured out of the city, attempting to flee and surrendering in droves to the advance troops sent to scout positions.
While the commander managed the hordes of Saetlunders suddenly on their hands, Captain Liran led a contingent of his troops into the city to make their assault on the palace. To Liran’s chagrin, his brother Zenar insisted on accompanying them into the city. There was someone in the palace he wanted to capture, someone other than the king. Zenar’s demand had surprised Liran. Aside from the spells they maintained to fortify Vokkan soldiers, the ArchWizard and his followers didn’t trouble themselves with banal events like war, but this time was different.
At the palace gates, they faced the most resistance. Unlike Saetlund’s army, the palace guard fought hard, falling back only when forced to
, then establishing new defensive positions and fighting on.
Their efforts, though honorable, were futile. Bit by bit their numbers diminished. Liran’s forces took the palace with only a few losses, where the palace guard were slaughtered. Liran’s targets were the royals, but Zenar begged a portion of his brother’s soldiers to hunt down the palace blacksmith. Liran would have refused but for the mad gleam in his brother’s eyes. When Zenar became rabid about an issue, Liran knew better than to thwart him. And Zenar’s strange request was in a way a gift to the captain, because the ArchWizard’s presence would have posed a problem for the work to come. Liran couldn’t have his brother interfering with his plans for the king and queen.
The fight outside the royal quarters was ferocious. Liran led from the front, cutting men down with sword and blocking their attacks with shield. The captain wished these last guards would surrender, but knew they would fight as long as they could. They were the type of soldiers Liran wanted in his army; that they fought for a coward who hid behind walls and doors rather than face his enemies was a tragedy.
When the king’s guard had been defeated, Liran strode into the royal chamber. Dentroth and his queen, Kalhea, cowered together behind the bed, as if its four posters offered a defensible position. A final guard stood between Liran and the royals. They sparred briefly, but Liran was the superior fighter and the other soldier fell. When Liran approached the king, Dentroth stayed on his knees while the queen wept.
“Mercy.” Dentroth went so far as to try to grip the hem of Liran’s surcoat.
The captain’s lip curled up in disgust, but he said, “You shall have it.”
With two swift sword strokes, Liran opened the throats of Saetlund’s rulers.
He knew the king hadn’t been begging for death. Dentroth was too much of a coward to perceive his demise with anything but sheer horror. But Liran had given the king and queen a gift. Death was mercy.
Turning to his men, he said, “The last of the king’s guard did this. He’d been ordered by the king to kill them before letting them be taken.”
Liran’s soldiers nodded. They understood their captain’s motivation and agreed with it—that was the reason he’d selected them for this mission. It was also why he’d been glad Zenar had a separate purpose after entering the palace. His brother would have wanted the king and queen alive.
That was why they had to die.
1
Traitor. Coward.
The landscape slipped past Eamon in a blur. He didn’t see the vast fields of Sola that stretched to the east.
Wretched. Worthless.
Eamon didn’t notice the fountains of green that sprung from the soil in some of the fields, nor did he notice that many lay barren. The famed black earth of Sola in those empty spaces had turned chalky gray and spun up in funnels when the wind caught it.
Doomed.
His horse jogged along, at times turning its head to peek at its rider, who hadn’t moved in the saddle all day. Had it not been for the other horses trotting before, alongside, and behind, Eamon’s mount would have wandered into those fields to feast on tender early summer grasses.
Eamon wasn’t sure how he stayed upright in the saddle. He didn’t feel like he was inside his body. He had no sense of time. He knew he sat astride a horse and that he held the reins, but it seemed like he was somehow apart, watching himself travel north, surrounded by Vokkan soldiers. To passersby he probably looked like an important person being escorted to Five Rivers, but Eamon knew he was a prisoner.
Even the worst episodes of illness Eamon experienced didn’t compare to the physical and mental anguish he felt now.
I had to do it, didn’t I?
He couldn’t answer his own question. He wasn’t even sure what it was he’d had to do.
Did he mean he had to collaborate with Vokk’s wizards? Or he had to leave the others?
Doubts festered inside him, oozing like infected wounds that leaked their poison into his blood and made his stomach heave.
When Eamon first agreed to ArchWizard Zenar’s proposal, he’d never imagined it would end this way—with him scribbling a pathetic note to his twin, Nimhea, in the middle of the night and creeping out of the camp like the craven he was. In countless daydreams he’d seen Nimhea on the River Throne flanked by Prince Zenar and himself. The ArchWizard’s promises still tugged at Eamon’s heart. All he’d ever wanted: Nimhea secure, protected by the Vokkans, Eamon himself finally rid of the chronic illness that plagued him. He’d made himself believe that if not for his secret alliance, Nimhea’s attempt to regain the throne would be forever thwarted. The Vokkans were simply too powerful to be overthrown by that ragtag group that called themselves the Resistance. He’d done everything for the sake of giving Nimhea her crown.
It’s the only way.
He’d managed to convince himself that Ara would understand what he’d done—once he had the chance to explain his reasoning. He hadn’t been too worried about Teth. Eamon decided the thief would happily return to his life in the Below. So long as the kingdom was thriving again, a rightful ruler restored to the throne, the Low Kings would be satisfied. Nimhea would have her throne, the ArchWizard would gain the secrets of the Loresmith. Saetlund would thrive again in peace and prosperity.
But Lahvja. Lahvja the Summoner. Everything had changed for Eamon the night she drove away the wizards’ hounds.
An irksome little voice in Eamon’s head reminded him that he’d been relieved to see the hounds gone. He’d been horrified when they appeared. It meant the ArchWizard doubted him. Or thought Eamon didn’t have the strength and will to see his mission through.
The sight of those menacing shadows twisted Eamon’s gut so tightly he thought he would faint from the pain. It was too soon. Far too soon. Zenar’s impatience was foolish. Had the prince captured his quarry that night, everything would have fallen apart. Their prize forever lost.
Wicked.
Whenever Eamon looked at his hands he saw blood. It made his head swim and his skin feel too tight, like his soul was being wrung out. However unpleasant, the sensations brought him a measure of reassurance. They reminded him that despite what he’d done, he wasn’t evil. He would never have chosen this type of magic, but he hadn’t any of his own—only that which he’d been taught by the ArchWizard’s agents. The ritual required to maintain communication with the wizards repulsed Eamon. It was the first thing that planted a seed of doubt about his decision to ally with Prince Zenar.
It isn’t right. It can’t be right.
He often wept before whispering the verses that would draw nearby creatures to him. In the forests it was rabbits and squirrels. He hated what he had to do, but they were small, so he could force himself through the motions.
I always said, “I’m sorry.”
The apology didn’t make the visions of bloodstains on his hands go away. Nor did the scars that crisscrossed his arms take away the pain and guilt that haunted him.
Eamon’s worst episode was at the caravan. His call had drawn a kid goat, likely untethered because its owners assumed it wouldn’t stray from his mother. He’d tried to chase it away. But the little goat was ensnared by the spell and wouldn’t leave Eamon’s side. The wizards hadn’t taught Eamon how to stop the ritual once he’d started it. It was only a matter of time before the kid’s owners came looking for it. Eamon couldn’t return to the caravan with a baby goat dogging his every step.
He let the goat sit in his lap, as he did with all the animals he summoned. Eamon wanted to spend time petting the kid, scratching behind its ears, speaking to it in a quiet voice, but with the caravan nearby he couldn’t risk taking the time. He pushed the baby goat off his lap and onto the ground; it didn’t resist or struggle, simply continuing to gaze adoringly at Eamon. At least he knew how to make the kill swiftly and, he hoped, with the least amount of pain possible.
As always, the blo
od poured out. Eamon hated the blood, but he needed it. Blood and entrails. They made him vomit. He’d learned not to eat before undertaking the ritual, so he dry heaved as he opened up the goat’s abdomen and dug out its intestines. Pushing the gutted animal aside, Eamon arranged the entrails into the required shape—a spiral sitting in the goat’s pooled blood. Then he spoke the words that would call Zenar.
No visage of the ArchWizard appeared. Only his voice, as clear as if the Vokkan prince were sitting beside Eamon. Eamon would give his report—where they were, what progress they’d made on the Loresmith’s quest. He never lied, but he did omit. The ArchWizard’s moods were easy to gauge even though Eamon had only the voice to go by. He’d learned that he needed to give enough information to make Zenar content—not necessarily happy, but at least satisfied that Eamon was performing the tasks he’d committed to. The one time Eamon had failed to do so, Zenar had sent the hounds after them. After that terrifying night, Eamon spent much more time composing his reports to the ArchWizard, rehearsing their delivery in his head until he felt sure Zenar wouldn’t intervene.
At least that was Eamon’s hope. But the ArchWizard’s unexpected and unwanted interference planted seeds of doubt about his dreams of the future. As their journey continued, those seeds had sprouted, spreading like thorny weeds that tore at his insides. He didn’t stray from his path, sending updates to Zenar, trying each day to convince himself that despite his growing fears, this plan would work. It had to work. The alternative was unbearable, for it meant every step of the way, Eamon had made the wrong choice, had shown the worst judgment.
That was why he’d finally made the choice to leave. Putting the words to paper in the note to his sister had rent his heart, but he saw no other way forward. He couldn’t gamble with Nimhea’s and his new friends’ lives when he was this uncertain. He would face the ArchWizard and discover for himself the true nature of that man. Should Zenar give Eamon the assurances he needed, he would continue working with the ArchWizard toward their common goal. If his hopes had been misplaced in allying with Zenar, he would do what he could to protect Nimhea and the Loresmith.