Cast in Secrets and Shadow

by Andrea Robertson

  “Lucket’s got the Below workin’ for the Resistance!” Fergin bleated. “But not me. Never me. Fergin’s no fool!”

  Zenar cut in. “You can see why Chancellor Pilth thought I might be interested to hear what King Fergin had to say.”

  “I can,” Liran replied. His mind was working very quickly. He was aware of the Below’s recent alliance with the Resistance, and the boon it was to them. To have it undermined would be a huge blow.

  Zenar rose and went to a cabinet. He filled a crystal goblet with golden liquid. When he returned he offered it to Fergin.

  “A toast to you, Your Majesty, and your continued partnership with the empire.”

  Fergin squinted at the goblet for a moment with suspicion, then, seeing Zenar’s stern expression, thought better of it. He snatched the goblet and downed its contents. His eyes widened and he smacked his lips, apparently delighted at the taste. His wide mouth spread into a horrible, bliss-filled grin, then he slumped in the chair, rolled over, and fell face-first onto the rug.

  “Dead?” Liran asked.

  “Oh, no,” Zenar replied, settling into his chair once more. “I just wanted to give us a bit of privacy as we discuss what to do with this information.”

  Liran nodded and decided he would sit after all.

  19

  The darkness and silence were so complete that Ara jumped when Nimhea spoke.

  “What happened?” Her voice was a reverent whisper.

  Lahvja answered, “We mourned, for them and with them. For that they have given us a reprieve. We will be allowed to pass through this place cursed by the Vokkans’ greed and violence.”

  The truth of her words resonated in Ara’s limbs. She had felt grief, raw and burning, unlike any sorrow she’d known. She’d been too small at the time of her father’s, mother’s, and grandfather’s passing to know true grief. But tonight she had felt the loss of not a single life, but thousands—not only the beasts of the jungle, but the trees and vines, the flowers and creeping insects. So much life hacked apart or scorched to oblivion. The force of it had been overwhelming. If not for the hands of her companions, grasping hers so tightly, she would have swooned beneath the emotion.

  Even now, she was shaken. Sorrow constricted her breath. Her muscles were weak, her knees trembling simply from the effort of keeping her upright. She felt inexplicably empty.

  I must not fail. I cannot let the Vokkans destroy Saetlund.

  A similar unsteadiness held sway in Teth’s voice when he asked, “If my arrow had found its mark . . .”

  He couldn’t finish the question.

  “We would likely be dead,” Lahvja answered in a flat tone. “You cannot kill a spirit. Only appease it.”

  Silence engulfed them once more.

  Several moments later, Lahvja spoke again. “We can talk of it further tomorrow, if you wish. But for now we sorely need rest.”

  No one answered, but Nimhea released Ara’s hand. Teth did not. Their fingers remained entangled.

  Ara didn’t want to let go. She’d forced a change between them, drawn a line at romance. But romance wasn’t what she needed, and she sensed that wasn’t what Teth wanted. It was something deeper, more visceral. The simple presence of another after bearing witness to horror.

  There was a shuffling of feet as the others sought their tents.

  Teth gave a gentle tug on Ara’s hand. She didn’t object when he slowly led her through the dark. She heard the rustle of a tent flap being lifted—she didn’t know if it was hers or Teth’s. He released her hand, but only to move his to her shoulder, pushing down so she crouched to pass through the opening. He followed then moved past her, keeping one hand lightly on her arm as he moved. Then he took both of her wrists, pulling her down until she knelt, feeling the softness of a bedroll beneath her.

  Teth moved again, this time behind her. He wrapped one arm around her waist, guiding her onto the bedroll so she stretched alongside him. Her body curled against his, the firmness of his legs and torso pressed into her, surrounding her with warmth.

  He didn’t speak, nor did he kiss her. His fingers didn’t caress her. He only held her close, his breath soft against the crown of her head.

  Ara closed her eyes, letting his embrace wash over her until the tension in her muscles eased and the lingering grief loosened its grip until, at last, sleep stole her away.

  * * *

  Teth was gone from the tent when Ara awoke.

  The memory of what had transpired the night before, and of Teth’s arms around her, sat her bolt upright. She was alone, left to wonder when he’d left her and what he’d been feeling when he slipped from the bedroll without waking her.

  As to her own feelings, Ara didn’t want to examine them too closely. She was horribly aware of how much she didn’t like that Teth hadn’t been beside her when she woke. It left a hollow cold in her stomach. Nor did she want to dissect the significance—if any—of their having spent the night, or most of it, together after she’d broken off their romance. He’d been so angry with her, yet he’d been the one to lead her here last night, to pull her into his arms.

  Ara shivered at the memory of his warmth, the feel of him against her. She wished she could stop wanting that closeness from him. If they were to be friends, she had to resist the urge to be close to him, to touch him. Last night had been a lapse in judgement. No matter how much she’d needed the comfort of his embrace. She couldn’t let it happen again.

  Lahvja gave each of them hand-tied cloths filled with dried fruit and nuts.

  “We should break our fast while we ride,” she explained. “Though we’ve been given a reprieve, we must still make our way out of the Gash as soon as possible.”

  No one disagreed with her, and they were soon on their way toward the abandoned fort located on the far edge of the Gash.

  As they rode north, the Gash remained an unpleasant place to travel through, but some of its overt menace seemed to have receded. While Ara didn’t feel safe, she no longer sensed she was in imminent danger.

  Teth reined Dust in to keep pace beside Cloud. He sighed, stealing a glance at Ara.

  Ara gave him a little smile, hoping he’d take it as a peace offering.

  “Do you mind if we slow down for a bit?”

  “You think we should?” Ara frowned at him.

  He gestured to the other riders and Joar. “Not all of us. Just you and I. We can catch up with them in a minute.”

  She nodded, holding Cloud back until she and Teth fell a short distance behind the rest of the group. He didn’t say anything until they were out of earshot.

  “I want to apologize for last night.” He ran a hand over his hair, unable to look at her. “After what happened I just . . . needed to hold you.”

  And I needed to be held, Ara thought, but the words stuck in her throat. To admit the truth felt dangerous. Still, she didn’t need him to apologize; he’d done nothing wrong. She hadn’t objected when he’d led her to the tent, and she hadn’t tried to enforce the boundaries she’d laid between them.

  She was about to say so when he continued, “You’ve made it clear how you need things to be between us. And I—”

  His jaw clenched, and he forced himself to look at her. “I have to respect that.”

  It should have been exactly what Ara wanted to hear, but instead she felt a wrench of disappointment.

  What? she silently asked herself. Do you expect him to keep pursuing you when you’ve told him he can’t?

  Her feelings forced her to admit that she did, or at least she’d been secretly hoping he would. She wanted to know that Teth still desired her. That he loved her.

  And she recognized how wretchedly unfair that was. She felt awful. A true friend would never treat him that way.

  “I also want to apologize for almost getting us all killed,” Teth said. “I read the situation wrong.
I shouldn’t have.”

  “No one could have known,” Ara told him. “I reacted the way I did on instinct. I could have been wrong just as easily.”

  Shaking his head, he replied, “You don’t understand. I live by my instincts. They’ve never put me in danger. But last night . . . I was still so angry. It twisted everything I was feeling.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself. We all make mistakes,” she said. “There’s no avoiding that.”

  He smiled grimly. “Like you did when you thought you were saving my life.”

  Ara blanched, and he swore under his breath.

  “Ara . . . I’m sorry. That’s exactly how I don’t want to be with you. What I can’t afford to be as a Loreknight. It’s why I’m trying to apologize. I promise that’s the last remark like that I’m going to make. I’ve got to let this anger go.”

  Unclenching her jaw, she said, “It’s all right.”

  It wasn’t. Though he didn’t say the words, what Ara heard was I’m letting you go.

  “No, it’s not,” he insisted. “I do want to be your friend. I promise to do a better job of it.”

  All she could do was nod while her heart shouted its objections as Teth moved Dust away.

  Forcing her thoughts from the ache in her chest, she turned her mind to what had taken place in the Gash, and before that the Tangle. She’d come to believe each place was not simply a trial, but also a lesson. A lesson that was about both the past and the future.

  Ara felt as though she was living in a tapestry partly woven, but she could begin to see threads coming together to tell a story. A story of greed, brutality, and loss that in return demanded not retribution, but healing.

  A broken people, a broken land.

  The Gash offered the starkest example of what the Vokkan conquest had cost Saetlund. Scorched earth where nothing would grow and the water was poison. Spirits of the slaughtered haunting the empty earth each night.

  While they had made a conscious choice to traverse the Gash in hopes of avoiding any imperial encounters, Ara’s bones quivered with the knowledge that she had been required to bear witness to this place and fully grasp the horrors that had been visited here.

  The reality of such an abomination stood in blatant opposition to the trial she’d faced in the Tangle and the wisdom she’d gained there. She’d been required to counter madness, and the wanton devastation that had been wreaked upon the Gash embodied the madness of bloodlust and hate.

  She strove to pass the giant python in peace rather than allowing fear to goad her into violence. And it had been the words of a hunter that helped her understand what she needed to do.

  I hunt only to eat and kill only when attacked.

  To hunt was not to destroy. Those who honored Wuldr lived in balance with nature.

  Ara’s instincts told her that the Vokkans hadn’t waited to be attacked or provoked in any way before ravaging the Vijerian jungle. Nor did she think they’d stopped to collect and eat what they’d killed while undertaking their mission of fire and blood.

  Gazing across the Gash, Ara let the present moment fade away while the past rose up to take its place. The earth remained scorched, but it was still smoking. Carcasses, blackened and bloating, were strewn across the ground, and clouds of insects hovered in the air, thick as fog. The stench made Ara choke, forcing her to pull herself out of the awful vision.

  The lesson here was not simply to comprehend what had happened, but to realize what it meant for the future. To make clear what she and the Loreknights would ultimately face. The Vokkan army was massive, its strength nearly incomprehensible, but soldiers were not the greatest threat to their cause. Nor were the wizards. Nor even the emperor himself.

  It was the god.

  The god from whom the founders of the empire had taken their name.

  Vokk the Devourer.

  Ara shuddered. This truth had been waiting in the back of her mind, ready to spring forth. And the Gash had made everything terribly clear.

  Unlike the people of Saetlund, the Vokkans had never abandoned their god. They existed by the power and for the glory of Vokk. Always hungry, Vokk drove his people forward, from continent to continent, claiming and consuming until nigh all the world was his.

  He had promised his brothers and sisters, the gods of Saetlund, to leave their people in peace. But he did not, could not. His hunger was as great as it was endless.

  The Resistance might only be concerned with defeating an army, but the Loresmith and her companions could only win by quelling the god’s destructive hunger. By stopping the ravening of the world.

  But how?

  The Loreknights of legend had driven back invasion after invasion, army after army, but none had faced a god. Ara didn’t know if it was even possible for humans to defeat a divine being. Yet there could be no denying that the empire would only fall when its god was brought to his knees.

  Despite the warmth of the day, Ara pulled out her cloak and drew it around her shoulders. Chills chased through her limbs as her conclusions overwhelmed her. She’d completed two trials, she’d learned from the gods, but nothing she’d experienced had offered the means to face and overcome an immortal being.

  It was impossible.

  Ara put her heels to Cloud until she took the lead of their group. She kept her gaze on the way ahead, trying to push her gloomy thoughts aside. It was better not to think at all.

  20

  They reached the abandoned Vokkan fort at dusk. Though its worn timbers and rusting hinges signaled years of neglect, the structure remained largely intact and looked sound enough from the outside.

  Teth called a halt when they were still a good distance from the gates.

  “I’ll scout first. It’s best to make sure no one else has already decided to camp here.”

  He handed Ara Dust’s reins before he slunk across the barren ground toward the fort then disappeared around one side. Several minutes passed before the gate groaned as it was pushed open. Teth stepped out and waved to them.

  “You’d better come in!”

  There was something pinched about his voice that Ara didn’t like. It wasn’t fear or a warning, but as if he’d been deeply annoyed by the fort.

  Ara led the group forward. Teth had opened the gate wide enough to let the horses pass. When she rode inside, Ara was startled by the flare of torchlight.

  Teth wasn’t alone. Four other people waited inside the fort: two men and two women. One stood alongside Teth; the other three flanked the first. They bore the torches.

  “Loresmith!” The first man hailed her with a slightly mocking note in his voice.

  Something about the sound was familiar, and it took her only a moment to place it.

  “Your Majesty.” Ara dismounted and walked up to the Low King of Fjeri. Garbed in all black, Lucket cut a fine figure in meticulously tailored coat and trousers, a strange sight amid the ruined fort. His silver hair and neatly trimmed beard gleamed in the torchlight.

  Teth silently glowered at his adoptive father.

  “How nice of you to finally join us.” The Low King of Fjeri smiled slowly. “We expected you yesterday.”

  Ara returned his smile stiffly. “Why are you here?”

  Lucket’s eyes danced with amusement. “Straight to business, is it? I was hoping we could at least have a drink first. My associates and I have had time to make the barracks slightly more hospitable than we found them.”

  “We can get to drinks after you explain yourself,” she replied.

  Teth failed to completely cover his explosion of laughter with a coughing fit.

  Ara knew Lucket wasn’t the type of man accustomed to explaining himself, but she didn’t care. She and her companions had been through too much of late to indulge Lucket’s humor.

  Something unpleasant flashed through his gaze, but he spoke serenely. “I
f we must.”

  “Aren’t you going to introduce your friends?” She gestured to the man and women standing behind him.

  “No.” He looked over her shoulder at the silent watchers, giving Ara the impression that Lucket’s followers wouldn’t engage with her or her companions unless ordered to. “But you will introduce yours. I’m aware you’ve lost one, and I know you’ve gained another, but it seems you’ve added yet one more. How interesting.”

  Nimhea came to Ara’s side and fixed a steely eye on Lucket.

  Not missing a beat, Lucket bowed flawlessly. “Your Highness. It’s a genuine pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  He gave no indication of being startled by or even interested in her bandaged face except to say, “I trust you are well.”

  She ignored his words, instead asking, “You’re one of the supposed Low Kings I’ve been told about?”

  “There is nothing supposed about it, Princess Nimhea,” Lucket replied smoothly. “My name is Lucket, the Low King of Fjeri.”

  “You instigated the deal with the Resistance to help us,” Nimhea said.

  He spared a glance at Teth. “I have to give some credit to this one. The idea was his, but I took it to the other Low Kings, and together we agreed on the partnership.”

  Lahvja appeared at Nimhea’s side, resting a hand on her arm. “They’re not as bad as you imagine. I promise.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” Lucket said to Lahvja. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. You’re a bit of a mystery.”

  A playful smile appeared on Lahvja’s lips as she curtsied. “That’s the way I prefer it, Your Majesty.”

  Tilting his head as he regarded her, Lucket said, “Eni’s Children are always the soul of graciousness. It’s a shame, what’s happening.”

  A sinking sensation settled beneath Ara’s ribs.

  Lahvja’s smile vanished. “What do you mean?”

  The Low King dropped his amused tone as his gaze moved over each of them in turn. “The reason I’ve intercepted you—partly, at least—is to bring news I decided was best delivered in person.”