by Lori M. Lee
“And who will corroborate such a story? Queen Meilyr? If she’s truly marching on the grasslands, then no one would trust her word. No one will trust the word of any Evewynian.” Theyen, suddenly weary, rubs a hand over his face. “Whether what you say is true or not, the fact remains that without Ronin, there is no one to enforce the peace treaty.”
“You’re wrong. There’s me.”
“Only a fool overestimates their own ability,” he says, echoing something he’d said to me once before.
I stiffen my spine, chin lifting. “I did what I had to do, whether you understand or not.”
Tension braids the space between us, a tangible thing that tugs on all my senses. At last, he brushes past me toward the bone palisade.
“Come on,” he says curtly. “I can’t open a gate on the castle grounds. Something to do with the webbing that keeps the trees at bay, although it may no longer hold without Ronin.”
“Yandor is still—”
“I’ll come back for your beast tomorrow night. There’s no time.”
I follow wordlessly and only hesitate a moment when he reaches for my hand and pulls me through the shadow gate.
We arrive to chaos. Queen Meilyr attacked early.
The grasslands are alight with burning tents and the clamor of flashing weapons. I immediately draw my swords.
“I must find my clansmen and ensure they escaped this madness,” Theyen says. He extends his hand. “If you truly believe you can stop this war, then do it. But I can no longer offer my help, either as your friend or as a Kazan Hlau.”
Throat tight, I take his hand and shake firmly. “Thank you, Theyen.”
His bright multicolored eyes linger on our hands for a moment, his expression indecipherable. Then his gaze lifts to mine. “For as brief as it was, I enjoyed your friendship. Goodbye, Sirscha Ashwyn.”
He sets off through the mayhem, his tall figure disappearing behind black smoke billowing from a burning caravan.
Screams ring out behind me. A figure of roiling flame hurtles through the battle, blasting soldiers off their feet. Crackling grass and a streak of black mars the ground in its wake. The fire fuses into a human form with brilliant red armor. A Nuvali sun warrior.
I head in a different direction, where the faint tether connecting me to Saengo leads. Dread sinks its teeth into my heels. Her candle continues to sputter and fail. With the source of the rot gone, why isn’t she getting stronger?
My feet pound over scorched grass. Leaping into the midst of soldiers, I disarm one after another. If they’re lucky, these poor fools will remain unconscious for the remainder of the battle and survive.
Smoke stings my eyes as I reach the ruined sprawl of the Evewynian camp. The fighting is sparse here, the thick of the battle farther west, where teeming bodies scream and stab and fall. But even here, I’m surrounded by the sounds of the dying, the screech of weapons, and the roar of drakes. Magic stirs in the distance as a violent tempest flings soldiers high into the air before sending them crashing to the earth.
At least fighting directly outside the Dead Wood means the shamans won’t have access to their familiars. How long is it supposed to take before the trees wither? By now, the Soulless’s body should be ash and embers. The souls are no longer tethered.
The flash of a captain’s armor catches my eye. I cover my nose as I hurry past two burning tents. Prince Meilek is mounted on a drake, fending off a swordsman. He’s no longer wearing a soldier’s uniform.
His drake snarls, sharp teeth flashing as it snaps around the swordsman’s arm, crushing the bone between its powerful jaws. The swordsman screams, flopping into the grass. Prince Meilek spots me an instant later.
“What are you doing here?” he shouts, riding over. “Did you turn back?”
I shake my head. “I made it to the castle.”
Confusion knits his brow, but he doesn’t question me. “I warned everyone I could, but my sister arrived earlier than expected.” He squints through the melee. “She attacked before everyone could rally their forces. I haven’t seen Ronin yet, though.”
“And you won’t. I killed him.”
He shakes his head as if he misheard. His brown eyes quickly take in the state of me, like Theyen did—the fresh blood streaking my arm and leaking from my thigh, as well as Ronin’s blood, which stains the front of my shirt.
“You’re not going to reprimand me as well, are you?” I ask.
“I haven’t said a word,” he says without inflection.
“Please just … wait to do so. I’ll tell you everything later. Where’s Saengo?”
Prince Meilek jerks his head for me to follow and then steers his drake away. He doesn’t go far. A wagon lies on its side nearby. Upended barrels and crates rest in piles, their contents scattered across the grass. Hidden behind the crates, curled into the corner of the wagon, is Saengo.
A soldier hurtles from the haze of smoke, weapon swinging. I raise my swords, but he stops when he recognizes his prince as my companion.
“Soldier.” Prince Meilek stares him down until the soldier lowers his sword. “Gather who you can and return to Evewyn.”
I leave the soldier to the prince and rush to Saengo’s side. Her face is flushed red with fever, her hair soaked through. The blue veins have spread over her jaw and up her cheeks, bright and menacing.
“No,” I whisper, smoothing away strands of dark hair from her forehead.
Behind me, the soldier stutters, “Y—Your Highness.”
Something glints at the edge of my vision. I look up to see the soldier bow deep just as an arrow pierces clean through his throat.
A second arrowhead flashes in the smoky dawn light. I leap in front of Prince Meilek, my swords snapping the second arrow in half before it can pierce his chest. Prince Meilek jerks back, watching the soldier slump into the earth. A Nuvali sun warrior thunders up on a dragokin, another arrow nocked and pointed directly into Prince Meilek’s furious face.
“Stop,” I shout, pointing my swords at her. “He isn’t your enemy.”
Jewel-blue eyes narrow in distrust. She regards me first, the unmistakable evidence that I’m a shaman. Then she studies Prince Meilek and the gold circlet fitted against his dark hair. “The Evewynian prince who warned us?”
“Yes,” I breathe, lowering my swords. “He—”
A low groan interrupts me. Abandoning the sun warrior, I return to Saengo’s side. I gently cup her face. Her eyes are unfocused, her pupils tiny pinpricks. Her breaths are thin and hoarse. Tremors of anguish rock through me.
She can’t die now. I defeated Ronin. I burned the Soulless’s body to extinguish whatever power still connected him to the Dead Wood.
“How can this be?” the sun warrior asks. She’s dismounted and is now peering over my shoulder. “She has the rot.”
“She’s not going to die,” I say out loud, but the sun warrior gives a curt, pitying shake of her head.
“There is no cure for a broken soul.”
I gather Saengo against my chest, clutching her body as my magic clings to her fragile soul, fighting to hold on. Pain wrenches beneath my ribs, a hollow echo of what she must be feeling. Tears slip down my cheeks, spattering against her flushed skin.
I wasn’t able to heal her before, not with the Dead Wood still steeped in the Soulless’s poisonous magic. But with the source of the rot gone, it would have to work now, wouldn’t it?
I won’t let her die. Not again. Closing my eyes, I touch my forehead to her burning one as my craft awakens. The Soulless’s power still courses through me, a wildfire burning through my bones. It fuels my magic as I take hold of her soul.
Saengo gasps, back arching, her nails gouging my arms. I barely feel it. My magic traces the cracked edges of her soul, learning its warmth, its strength, its will to live. Her soul responds, reaching for me through our connection. She is my familiar, my conduit, which means she has access to my magic. I throw that connection wide, letting my magic pour into her, sinking into all
the little fractures of her soul, sealing the splinters like mortar over stone.
Light explodes between us, so bright it sears through my closed lids. The torrent surging through Saengo glows radiant, her body shining like sunlight trapped beneath her skin.
Then warm fingers touch my face. I startle back. Saengo smooths away my tears, but more fall as I shake in disbelief. I open the collar of her tunic. The rot isn’t gone, but it has diminished into a tiny bundle of thin blue threads at the center of her chest.
It’s a temporary fix. She isn’t healed, maybe because I’m not a proper healer. But for now, it’s enough. She’ll live.
“The soulguide,” the sun warrior whispers behind me. Her face goes slack with awe. Others have gathered behind her, shamans and shadowblessed alike, drawn by the beacon of our bond. “The soulguide! She’s here! She stopped the rot!”
The words ripple across the battlefield, carried on columns of smoke and blades of grass, building from a series of whispers into a resounding chorus that rolls across the grasslands like a thundercloud.
The voices converge into a war cry as the Nuvali rage into battle once more. The earth trembles beneath the unleashing of crafts and the charge of their armored dragokin. Sellswords and soldiers flee before the renewed onslaught, terrified by the shamans’ sudden fervor.
I look away, unable to bear the sight of Evewynians being cut down. Saengo pulls at my arm, and I help her sit up. She’s weak, but the healthy flush of her skin has returned.
Smiling through my tears, I hug her to me and rest my forehead against her shoulder. I listen to her breathe against my hair, strong and sure, our connection shimmering between us like a lifeline.
“They’re retreating,” Prince Meilek says quietly. He watches his men flee, pain straining the skin around his eyes, his jaw clenched tight. To his sister, he is a traitor to his family, his friends, and his country: a prince without a kingdom, a truth that must rend him in two.
I suspect a part of him longs to join his men. Evewyn is where he belongs. And with Queen Meilyr’s plans in ruins, her wrath will be devastating. His people will need him.
I want to say he did the right thing and that I will help him however I can, should he challenge his sister for the throne. But instead, I say nothing. There will be time later to consider what must come next.
His gaze lowers to mine then, and when our eyes meet, his face gentles. “You did it,” he says.
The crowd around us grows as Prince Meilek helps Saengo and me to our feet. As I stand, the Nuvali and even many Kazan cheer. Their shouts of victory reverberate into the early morning sky. Some bow, words like “suryali” and “soulguide” passing their lips and settling uncomfortably over me.
I am not what they believe, and they can’t know the truth. Not yet. History has proven what the fear of a single craft can yield. Although I’m still coming to terms with what my abilities might mean, I have proven to myself the measure of my worth. Someday, I will prove it to them as well.
TWENTY-SIX
When the dead have been seen to, Nuvali servants escort Saengo and me to a private tent at the eastern edge of the grasslands.
They mention something about their lord, but I don’t recognize the name. Or if I do, I’m too mentally and physically exhausted to make the connection. All I want is to close my eyes and forget everything that’s happened this day.
There’ve been questions about the conspicuous absence of a particular Spider King. His servants and soldiers have already been rounded up for questioning. No one has asked me anything directly yet, so I’ve offered no answers. But it’s not something I can avoid for long.
By now, the fire will have been extinguished and Ronin’s body discovered at Spinner’s End. The staff is likely in a state of complete panic. Ronin must have had a steward to manage the castle in his absence, but how long would they wait before sending out falcons with news of their lord’s death?
So far, the Dead Wood remains largely intact. Although I’ve spotted lights glimmering from within the dark of the trees, giving me hope that the souls might be breaking free, doubt continues to scratch at my thoughts.
Saengo is asleep the moment her head touches her pillow, and I’m glad. As soon as we’re able, I’ll have a light stitcher or flesh worker look at the remains of the infection and determine if it can be healed. For now, every healer still alive is too busy tending to the wounded, and I don’t want to pull them away from their work.
I’d like nothing more than to follow Saengo into sleep, but the constant prickle of worry keeps me awake. The Soulless’s magic lingers beneath my skin, molten fire as discomfiting as it is intriguing, and just as strong as when I first opened myself to it. It should have faded or weakened by now, surely. I don’t know what it means that it hasn’t.
There’s a light cough outside my tent and then a tentative, “Sirscha?”
I rub my eyes and sit up on my cot. Most of the tents that weren’t burned down had to be erected again. I glance at Saengo’s prone form. Although the courtesy is unnecessary seeing as she’s out cold, I leave the tent to speak outside.
Prince Meilek smiles faintly as I join him. It’s well after dark, but hardly anyone has gone to bed. Too restless or too uneasy. Too haunted.
As promised, he’d gone back for Phaut. Her body is to be returned to her family for a proper burial. I recovered her sword as well, abandoned near the stream. Her loss is a splinter lodged in my heart, the pain sharpening when I consider that for all my supposed power, I could not save her.
“Are you well?” I ask quietly. He’s spoken very little all day.
“I’ll be fine. Am I keeping you up?” He drags his fingers roughly through his hair. The sweat and dirt from the day’s labors make the already tousled strands stand on end.
“No. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
His gaze flickers downward, shadows and emotions playing about his mouth. “Let’s sit.”
I follow him to a nearby campfire. Two shadowblessed huddle in the grass near the fire. While they stare at us, they don’t speak.
“Have you thought about what you’ll do now?” he asks, voice soft to keep the shadowblessed from eavesdropping. I doubt they can hear us, anyway, over the low crackle of the flames and the murmur of other voices.
“Probably head to Mirrim.” I sit with my knees pulled to my chest. The clothes I’m wearing are too big, but I couldn’t stay in the shirt still stained with Ronin’s blood. “We might even get an audience with the emperor.”
The idea is intimidating. I’ll have to be so careful with what I reveal about my craft. Once, I’d been convinced that to be anything of worth, I needed to be the queen’s Shadow. I believed it so wholly that even now, even knowing that my worth will never be tied to what others make of me, it’s difficult to completely silence the old fears.
I don’t know that I’m ready to have every eye in Thiy focused on me, but I can’t deny it’s also a bit thrilling. Without Ronin or the Dead Wood, the kingdoms must learn to coexist without an intermediary. I could have a hand in helping to shape that future.
“Then I wish you safe travels,” Prince Meilek says.
I stare at him. “I assumed you were coming with us. You can’t be thinking of going back to Evewyn?”
“I haven’t decided. But I can’t go to Mirrim. I’m useless there, and my people need me.”
“Your sister will kill you,” I say.
He smiles gently and with such quiet confidence that I want to believe it isn’t just a well-practiced facade. “I have no intention of allowing myself to be killed. But I can’t protect my people from the other side of Thiy.”
“Actually, you can. As far as I’m concerned, you are the voice of the Evewynian people. And their voices will be needed if the other countries decide to retaliate.”
So far, the Kazan and Nuvali have remained civil in the aftermath of the attack, mostly ignoring each other. But I’ll be glad when the camps disassemble and return to their own kingdo
ms. An alliance won’t come easily, and Theyen’s assertion that either country could attack the other is all too possible.
I wish I could speak to him, but Theyen has made clear his intent to avoid me. I can’t blame him. But true to his word, once night fell, I found Yandor waiting for me outside my tent.
“I doubt my voice will be welcome in such discussions,” he says. “Nor any Evewynian’s.”
“I’m Evewynian.” My fingers tighten into a fist. “And they’ll listen to me.” At least, I hope they will.
Silence settles between us. In the distance, the lights within the Dead Wood have grown enough in number that people have gathered along its border, just beyond the reach of the branches. Relief begins to trickle through me.
Suddenly, unease seizes my insides. From within the Dead Wood, the souls flicker oddly. They wink in and out of existence, like candle flames lit and then smothered, one by one. Frowning, I begin to stand.
The ground quakes. I tumble sideways, grabbing Prince Meilek’s shoulder as he braces himself on the ground. Conversations screech to a halt, silence descending on the camps. Power ripples over the grasslands like a physical blow, nearly knocking me backward. Sparks fly from the campfire, spilling smoke and cinders.
I know this power. It resonates inside me.
Prince Meilek stands, pulling me to my feet as well. All heads turn as one toward the Dead Wood. A great moaning rises from the dark mass, louder and louder as if all the souls are shrieking at once.
And suddenly, I understand what Ronin meant when he said it was only his power that could keep Thiy safe.
Ronin defeated the Soulless, but he hadn’t killed him. Perhaps he’d been unable to. So instead, Ronin contained him within a cocoon, injecting him with venom not to preserve his body but to keep him asleep, trapped in a deathlike state for centuries.
Until I freed him when I killed Ronin.