Forest of Souls

by Lori M. Lee

  “I doubt that.” Eyebrow Tattoos bends over so that his hot breath assaults my cheek. “Shamans and deserters all deserve to meet the end of a blade.”

  The soldier behind me gives the knot a final, spiteful tug. Then she plants her boot into the back of my knee. My legs fold, and my knees strike the ground hard. Eyebrow Tattoos glares, probably hoping I’d fall on my face. He holds his bad hand tight against his side. The broken finger sticks out at an unnatural angle.

  I smile, and he backhands me. Pain bursts through my jaw. The blow nearly knocks me off my knees, but I recover my balance.

  “You should be begging me for mercy,” he growls and then backhands me again. My teeth cut the inside of my cheek, and I taste blood. I pretend to sway to disguise the movement of my wrists against the rope. I’ve gotten far worse than this.

  With a jerk of my head, I toss back the loose hair that’s fallen across my eyes. I spit blood onto his boots. His face goes tight with fury. There’s a kind of freedom in defiance, in being released from every restraint, every expectation. But I would gladly embrace those restraints again if it meant having my place with Kendara back.

  He bends over and snatches his dagger from the ground. He presses the dagger to my throat, beneath my left jaw. “Where’s your familiar, shaman?”

  “Probably dead from the rot,” one of the others offers. “She hasn’t used any magic yet. No familiar means no magic.”

  When I don’t respond, Eyebrow Tattoos’s gaze flicks back to me. “I should kill her. Queen Meilyr might grant me a title for it.”

  The soldier who tied my hands snickers, but the archer looks uncomfortable. I hold Eyebrow Tattoos’s gaze, unblinking. I wonder what he sees in my eyes, now amber like gemstones. Whatever it is, it unnerves him, because his hand quivers. My neck stings as the blade breaks skin. I grin, baring my teeth, which are bloody from my split cheek.

  Fear glimmers inside me, startling the smile from my face. Yet somehow, I know it isn’t my fear. I’m not afraid. I’m bitter, determined, and enraged. But not afraid—at least not of these soldiers. The sensation is more an echo of the emotion, not strong enough to truly take shape inside me.

  Saengo calls out, “Leave her alone!”

  All three turn to her. Although I’d prefer their hostility remain directed at me, I immediately resume the work of freeing my hands. I’ve lost count of the number of ways in which Kendara has tied me up and left me somewhere highly questionable.

  Although Eyebrow Tattoos watches his companions circle Saengo, he keeps his blade against my neck. The archer abandons his bow for closer torment as he fingers the feathers in Saengo’s hair. Her lip curls in disgust as the third soldier coils Saengo’s heavy black braid around her hand and jerks her head back sharply. Rage—and that inexplicable echo of her fear—brightens inside me.

  “Wyvern, is it?” the soldier says. “Once my friend there finishes with the shaman, you’ll be coming back with us to be tried as a traitor. You don’t deserve a braid.” She steps away, but only far enough to slice her sword through Saengo’s hair.

  Saengo’s shock ripples through me as her mouth opens on a soundless gasp. She reaches up, her fingers stiff with horror as they touch the blunt ends of her hair.

  “You didn’t need to do that,” the archer says, grimacing. Eyebrow Tattoos throws his head back with a guffaw.

  A chill spreads through me, all the fiery tumult of my emotions icing over.

  The rope binding me falls away. I grab Eyebrow Tattoos’s wrist, yanking his dagger a safe distance from my neck. His head whips around in time for me to bash my forehead into his face. His nose cracks as he falls. I wrench the knife from his slackened fingers, slam his good hand into the grass, and stab the knife through it, pinning him to the earth.

  The whole thing takes only a second. As he screams, I advance on the other two. The one who cut Saengo’s braid rushes me, drawing back her sword. I smash my knuckles into her throat before she’s even swung. She makes a harsh choking sound and instantly drops. Too late, the archer scrambles for where he’d carelessly tossed his bow. I beat him to it, stomping my boot against the wood and snapping it in two.

  I retrieve the sword Eyebrow Tattoos dropped. My eyes pass over the stump of Saengo’s braid. That braid, and the attached feathers, meant more to her than mere rank. It was evidence of her defiance, her refusal to bow to her father’s demands and the duties of her station. With one cruel act, they stripped her of everything she accomplished these last four years.

  “Stop!” the archer shouts, glancing wildly from me to his incapacitated companions. “Queen Meilyr will have you locked—”

  An arrow strikes the earth between us. I startle back, recognizing immediately the silver and black plumage on the arrow. The Queen’s Guard.

  “Hold your fire!”

  I jolt at the voice, sucking in my breath. A company of Blades bursts through the trees, led by a familiar figure—Prince Meilek Sancor, captain of the Queen’s Guard and the queen’s younger brother.

  FIVE

  In moments, we’re surrounded by a half-dozen riders, their arrows drawn.

  Prince Meilek breaks away from his circle of Blades. I immediately drop to one knee, bending low so that my forehead brushes my pant leg. His mount’s clawed feet sink into the soft earth as he approaches. I risk a glance up through my lashes. The triple-horned stag of House Sancor is emblazoned across his black chest plate. An embellished gold pin secures his black hair at the crown of his head, the ornament indicating his royal blood.

  He takes in the scene, making me excruciatingly aware of how this might look. How are we to get out of this now?

  Prince Meilek nudges his mount forward, his expression unreadable. The soldier I punched in the throat is similarly bent over one knee in deference. She’s still wheezing, which gives me a small measure of grim satisfaction. As does Eyebrow Tattoos lying facedown in the grass, whimpering.

  To the soldiers, the prince says, “Pick yourselves up and get back to the Valley. I’ll deal with you later.”

  They rush to obey, pausing only long enough to unpin Eyebrow Tattoos from the ground. He screams pitifully.

  When they’ve gone, Prince Meilek glances at the top of Saengo’s bowed head and then to her braid lying nearby. Finally, his brown eyes settle their full attention on me. I quickly lower my gaze again. It would be inappropriate to meet the eyes of a royal.

  “Stand,” he commands.

  Tensing against the pain, I slowly rise. I keep the stolen sword lowered at my side. His Blades’ arrows are still trained on me.

  With him on the back of his pearl-scaled dragule, I’m eye level with his hip. Two sashes are cinched around his waist in an elaborate Evewynian knot denoting his rank.

  Prince Meilek says nothing. I don’t know this version of him, the captain rather than the prince. Although he’s only two years my senior, as overseer of the Prince’s Company, he was a common presence during my years there. I can still recall the light pressure of his hand guiding mine through a difficult sword form, or his encouraging nod before an exam.

  Besides Saengo, he is also the only other person who knows I am one of Kendara’s pupils. After I graduated from the Prince’s Company, our paths crossed primarily outside Kendara’s door. Still, in all the brief moments in all the years that I have known him, I’ve never stood before the captain of the Queen’s Guard. I have little idea what to expect.

  “An officit reported two missing wyverns yesterday,” he says at last.

  I don’t respond to this. We can’t exactly deny that we abandoned our positions with the supply delivery, but neither will I blithely confess guilt. I rub my tongue against the cut on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood again.

  “In addition,” Prince Meilek continues, “a falcon arrived late last night with troubling news. A teahouse burned down, reportedly due to an attack by shamans.”

  To have reached us so quickly, he must have ridden out from the Valley of Cranes. He was meant to be
there when our party arrived with the supplies.

  Nearby, Saengo stares down at her feet. Her nostrils flare with each inhalation. She’s wary of him as well, but beneath the wariness is concern.

  Although I don’t understand how I can possibly know this, her concern is only for me. I know it in the same way I know that the sun will set in the west, the leaves will fall in autumn, and that Saengo died last night. Before, with those soldiers, I thought maybe these remnants of emotion were from seeing Saengo mistreated, but that’s not the case. Her emotions burn low like a candle flame. I feel its heat, the way it sputters and flares and sways, without needing to see or touch it.

  This new connection alarms me, possibly even more than the fact we’re surrounded by Blades ready to kill us at a single gesture from their captain.

  “Saengo Phang,” Prince Meilek says, to which Saengo can’t help but stiffen her spine. “Your cousin, Jonyah Thao, was found near death outside the teahouse.” His gaze shifts to me. “And the owner reports a girl matching your description, Sirscha Ashwyn, arriving shortly before the attack. Yet rather than return immediately to Vos Talwyn to report the crime, you fled. What am I to think?”

  It sounds like he’s already decided. I wish I could see the expression on his face.

  “I’ll need you to come with me for questioning.”

  “Those shamans attacked us,” I say, flushing at my boldness. “We barely made it out alive.” I point to the clothes I discarded earlier, lying in a pile near Yandor. “Your Highness,” I add hastily.

  Prince Meilek speaks gently. “If that’s true, then you’ve nothing to fear.”

  I have everything to fear, but I only make a jerky motion at my face. He must know what I mean.

  I would prefer the officits’ malice to his pretty promises. At least at the Company, I knew where I stood. There was honesty in their cruelty. With Prince Meilek, his manner grates because I know better than to trust his words. He has a way of putting people at ease, but I’m familiar with the tactic. I was never very good at it.

  Prince Meilek dismounts. On reflex, my fingers tighten around the hilt of my sword. I force my arm to relax, for the blade to remain firmly pointed downward. As Shadow, I would lay down my life for him. After all, he is still my prince. But to die in defense of him isn’t the same as bowing my head and handing over my life.

  “No harm will come to you if you’re innocent.” He gestures to my sword. “So long as you give me your word that you won’t impale any more soldiers.”

  “Why would you trust my word?”

  “Because you trusted mine once.”

  My chest tightens in remembrance. In my second year at the Prince’s Company, when I was twelve, an officit took a switch to my hands for the perceived indignity of defeating him in a spar. I couldn’t carry a sword for days. Prince Meilek found me nursing my hands in the garden fountain. He’d taken the washcloth, mottled with blood, and tended to my knuckles with a gentleness that I have never forgotten.

  “I’ll have the officit replaced,” he’d promised.

  With five arrows aimed at my heart, the prince could easily order us trussed up and delivered to the queen. Instead, he chooses diplomacy. He might present himself as a man of honor, but experience and Kendara’s tutelage have taught me that everyone has an ulterior motive.

  Still, I don’t know what to do besides concede and wait for the right opportunity to present itself. The sword slips from my fingers, hitting the ground with a dull clang of metal.

  He snaps his fingers at his Blades, who promptly put away their bows. “They won’t run,” he says, and the edge of warning in his voice is very much the captain’s. “Will you?”

  I cross my arms. “Nowhere to run.”

  “Good. A chase would have ruined both of our mornings.”

  Prince Meilek allows us to finish gathering our things. The Blades crowd in, giving me no opportunity to speak with Saengo. As soon as we’re saddled, we set out through the trees, riding two abreast.

  Although Saengo rides at my back, I don’t need to see her to reassure myself of her safety. That connection between us lingers even now, the flame of her worries a constant heat at my back. My hands tighten around Yandor’s reins. What did I do to her? To us?

  Yandor makes a deep, grumbling sound, sensing my anxiety. I pat his neck in reassurance, although the contact helps to soothe my distressed thoughts as well.

  Now that I’m not at imminent risk of being shot, I consider the thick growth in this part of the forest, which could be to my advantage. Unfortunately, so long as Prince Meilek remains with our party, my options are limited. And I can’t risk Saengo getting caught in the cross fire. I won’t make that mistake again.

  I mentally sigh and take stock of my captors and their mounts. I’ve never seen dragules this close before. Dragules and drakes are both bipedal species of drakonys.

  Every part of Prince Meilek’s dragule proclaims his status. Its scales are white with an iridescent pink shimmer. Its head is wide and thorny, its snout shorter than a drake’s. Gold-plated armor molds to its body from above its flat nostrils, over its brow, and all the way down its neck. Four shining black horns curve out from its head, tipped in gold and painted with beautiful designs to accent its custom armor. Savage companions in battle and symbols of high status, dragules are reserved only for reiwyn and Blades, Evewyn’s warrior elite.

  I wonder if Yandor would be able to outrun it. Drakes are larger, not as lean, but he also isn’t weighed down by absurdly elaborate armor.

  “Blades,” I murmur with a soft snort.

  Prince Meilek glances at me and then back at his Blades. “I agree they can be rather sullen, but what specifically has you irritated?”

  I lower my head. I hadn’t intended for him to hear.

  “Is it the capes?” He flips back his own, letting the material catch the air and billow out behind him. “Rather inconvenient, really, but they’re excellent for making dramatic exits.”

  In another situation, I might have laughed. Now I only glower at the trees in our path. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I was making an observation.”

  “Please enlighten me.”

  “The owner of the teahouse would have told you there were three shamans last night, and only two were accounted for. With a company of five Blades and three soldiers, your main objective would have been the shaman who escaped, not two fourth-year students.”

  He cocks his head at me, appraising. “I see now why Kendara speaks so highly of you.”

  At the mention of Kendara, I stare stonily ahead. “Does she really?”

  The thought fills me with joy and a dangerous, fragile hope.

  “Constantly.” He sounds almost embarrassed by the admission, although I can’t imagine why. “I feel as if I ought to know you already.”

  “I don’t know me,” I say softly, remembering my reflection, wearing a stranger’s eyes. For Kendara to speak so freely with him, she must trust him implicitly.

  I’m unsurprised, though. When they’re together, Kendara’s face and voice soften in a way they never have for me. I’ve seen enough mothers speak to their children to recognize that Kendara and Prince Meilek share a similar connection. He was only two years old when she first joined the Evewynian Court as Shadow to his father, so it makes sense that they would form such a bond.

  I’ve always envied him for having Kendara’s love, when I could barely earn a kind word. There’ve been times when I thought she might love me, but she was always quick to dispel the notion. The day I began my training, I gifted her a bouquet of flowers in what I hoped was a gesture of my respect and gratitude.

  “We are not friends,” she told me, tossing the flowers over the edge of her balcony. “We are not family.” I was no longer a child, nor a student, nor even a girl. If I was to succeed, I must become a shadow stretching unseen into the descending night. And when necessary, to be a knife in the dark.

  From that moment on, every step I took was to bring myself clo
ser to that goal.

  Now, unless I find a way to restore my place with her, I will be none of those things. Not a soldier. Not the Shadow. Just a girl, once again, with no true name.

  “Since you’ve proven to be sharp as well as observant, tell me: What did you gather about the attack?” asks Prince Meilek.

  I press my lips together and consider what, if anything, to say. Given his relationship with Kendara, I can’t come up with a good reason not to tell him the shamans had been targeting the Shadow. Besides, it’s in my best interest to gain his trust and prove that I wasn’t involved.

  I tell him about the shaman with the crossed swords. “She needs to know it was a trap.”

  “I’ll ensure she’s informed and that measures are taken to protect her.”

  I nod, reassured. Kendara will be fine. In addition to the arsenal in her tower, she never goes anywhere without her favorite weapons at her waist—two dual swords that she’s never allowed me to touch. She’s even named them: Suryali and Nyia, after the sun and moon.

  “The shaman either stole the brooch from the true informant or deceived the queen and planned the meeting as an ambush all along.” Probably an attempt to weaken the queen’s power by taking out her master spy and assassin. “Were you able to question him yet?”

  When only silence sits between us, I glance over, keeping my gaze on the prince’s chin. He has warm, lightly bronzed skin, a strong jaw, and full lips. Back in the Prince’s Company, those lips had nearly always been curved into a smile. Now, although his expression remains neutral, his hesitation sparks a realization.

  “You haven’t caught him.” An angry knot of disbelief forms in my gut. My hands clench around Yandor’s reins. Why would Blades be south of the teahouse if the shaman hadn’t been caught yet? Assuming he intends to escape into the Empire, north is the only direction he would head.

  “I sent a search party of Blades north,” Prince Meilek explains. “But I couldn’t disregard the possibility that he’d go south to Vos Gillis. A large port city makes it easier to disappear. I sent others ahead without me, but once you and Saengo are seen to, I’ll continue that way. It’s possible he’s already been apprehended.”