Sea of Shadows

SEVENTEEN

Moria ran into the forest chasing her sister. She could still make out Ashyn and Tova’s forms, but they were getting fainter.

Blast it, how could they be pulling away? Ashyn wasn’t nearly as sure-footed as Moria, and Tova was as graceful as a newborn calf.

Daigo glanced back, his yellow eyes glowing. Then he let out an unearthly wildcat scream.

“Well, they ought to hear that,” Moria murmured. “Stay there,” she called, as loudly as she dared. “I’m coming.”

Her sister seemed to stop. With every few steps, Moria would lose sight of Ashyn, and her heart would pound, but then she’d catch sight of her again.

Then, without warning, she plowed into something. Her hands hit soft, sleek fur.

“Daigo? Blast it! Don’t do that.”

He didn’t chirp an apology. Moria moved up beside him as he stared at the pale forms of Ashyn and Tova.

“Ashyn?” Moria called softly.

No reply.

A little louder. “Ashyn?”

The figures just stood there.

What if that’s not truly Ashyn? What if she’s become…?

Her mind refused to finish the question.

But why else would Ashyn run into the forest? In all the time Moria had been chasing her, she hadn’t paused to wonder that.

Moria crept forward, gaze fixed on her sister’s face. She could see the shape of it but not the features. Not enough to know that it was still her sister’s true face.

“Tova?”

Daigo let out a soft snarl, as if also calling the hound.

Even if her sister couldn’t hear them, Tova should, but he stood straight and unflinching at Ashyn’s side.

Daigo and Moria skirted a dead tree. As they rounded the roots, the figures of Ashyn and Tova disappeared behind it. Then Moria stepped out the other side and—

They were gone.

Moria shoved through the dense woods, squinting into the darkness until Daigo stopped and nearly tripped her again. He glanced over his shoulder, not at her, but behind them. Then he backtracked. Moria hurried after him. This time when he stopped, she halted in time. He looked up at her and made a noise deep in his throat.

They must have passed the spot.

“Where are they?” she said, her voice echoing.

Daigo grunted and started into the forest. When Moria tried to follow, he growled softly, telling her to stay. As soon as she stopped moving, the silence prickled at the back of her neck, as if someone was creeping up behind her. She spun and saw nothing.

She strode to the nearest tree, rammed her dagger into her belt, and grabbed the bottom limb. She swung up from branch to branch, not slowing until there weren’t any more that would hold her weight. Then she stretched out and peered down to see…

Nothing. She saw nothing.

Moria’s boots squelched in mud. She could not see well in the ink-gray night, but she could make out obstacles before she smacked into and stumbled over them. There were no trees in this barren strip. There were rocks, though, and the gurgle of water, so faint it was as if a tiny underground spring was trying to hide beneath the stagnant, fetid water.

She walked to a large rock. There was a smaller one attached, like a baby on his mother’s back.

“We’ve been here before,” she said, casting an accusing glare at Daigo. “I thought you were leading us out.”

He harrumphed, as if to say, What do you expect? I’m not a tracking hound.

They needed to find out what had happened to Ashyn. Moria had no idea what she’d seen—a hallucination, a phantasm? It didn’t matter. What was important was that it had not been Ashyn. She had to get back to the village to find her sister… but they were lost. Hopelessly lost.

Moria collapsed on the rock. Daigo put his front paws on her knee, the dampness of them seeping through her breeches. He rose until he was looking her in the eye, his whiskers tickling her cheeks.

They said the Wildcats of the Immortals possessed the spirits of ancient warriors. Moria had never given that much thought. She tried not to, if she was being honest. It seemed demeaning to be trapped in the body of a beast and bonded to a mortal girl.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” she whispered. “Even if you were a great warrior, there’s nothing here for either of us to fight.”

He sighed, his breath warming her face. Then he backed off her and looked around. As he did, his gaze stopped on something behind her. She turned to see a dagger stuck in the shallow streambed, point up.

Moria took off her boots, unwrapped her feet, and stuffed the silk into her boots. Then she rolled up her breeches and stepped into the stream. It was like breaking through winter’s ice on the cistern, and she bit back a gasp as she walked.

The blade was buried up to the collar. When she crouched and reached into the water, her fingers brushed something oddly soft. Then she felt the ridges of the carved handle. She yanked. The dagger flew up… with a hand wrapped around the haft.

Moria fell back, splashing as she landed on her arse, icy water shocking her again. A man’s hand still clutched the dagger’s haft. An arm was attached to the hand. A dark-skinned arm covered in tattoos. When she made out eyes in the inking, her breath jammed in her chest. She was sure of what she was looking at—the nine-tailed fox. Then the design became clear. A dog’s head. The Inugami clan.

It was Orbec. A substandard warrior from an elite family. He’d been sent to Edgewood to toughen up, and he’d stayed there by choice. It was easier in Edgewood, where his tattoos meant something and where no one expected him to be more than average. He was above average in one skill, though. Throwing a dagger. He’d been the one who’d taught Moria.

Moria stood there, looking at his body. I let the commander send him into these woods. I got them all killed—everyone in my village. I was supposed to protect them, and I was underground, entertaining a convict, throwing daggers at a wall.

That was the fact she’d been struggling to ignore. That the shadow stalkers came and the Keeper was not there to stop them. That her village—her father—died because she wasn’t there.

I failed.

Her legs gave way and she fell to the ground, shaking and gasping for breath. Daigo yowled and rubbed against her, but she barely noticed. She tried to cry, to let it out, but no sound would come. She just kept shaking.

When something struck her hand, she looked to see Orbec’s dagger on the ground. It was an ancestral blade, with the stylized dogs engraved along the handle. Daigo bent and nudged it toward her.

“I don’t want—”

He snarled, cutting her off, then glowered at her, telling her to stop being dramatic. Gather her wits. Take action.

He nudged the blade toward her again.

Fight. That’s what he meant. You missed your chance before. Take it now. Fight back any way you can.

She took the blade. Then she put on her wraps and boots.

EIGHTEEN

“The sun.” Moria laughed. “The sun, Daigo. It came.”

He grunted and walked behind her, prodding as if to say, Yes, yes, that’s all very nice, but it won’t come down here and rescue you, will it?

That’s when she noticed blood on the rocks.

The blood drops continued over the rocks. Then the drops became smears, as if the wounded had fallen. Furrows were raked in the soft ground by the creek. Someone dragging himself along. Near death but trying to escape it.

When she rounded a boulder, she saw a man’s body downstream, his arms over his head. A sword lay beside one hand. His hair was in braids. His forearms were covered with tattoos.

There were only two guards with braids and ink. She’d already found one and left him in the stream.

“Gavril,” she whispered.

Daigo leaped over and started nudging Gavril’s corpse. She wanted to call to him. Tell him to leave the body. She’d had enough—enough of looking upon the spirit-fled corpses of people she’d known, people she had cared for. There is a point when the mind says, I’ve had enough. Strike me again and I’ll shatter.

She took a deep breath and walked slowly toward him. Daigo nosed away his braids to show a gash in the back of Gavril’s head. Moria took a moment’s pause to brace herself, then she bent and laid her hand on his inked forearm, and—

She yanked her hand away and bit back a yelp.

Gavril’s skin was warm. She pressed his hands to his upper arm, as if there might be some sorcery in the tattoos that warmed the skin. When her ice-cold fingers touched warm flesh, her hands flew to his neck. She felt a pulse. A strong one.

Daigo huffed as if to say, I told you.

“Yes, yes,” she muttered.

While she’d been trained in battle healing, Ashyn was much better at it. Moria had spent most of her lessons grumbling that in a battle, she was supposed to be on the front lines with the warriors, not tending to the wounded. That was woman’s work, and it seemed that’s why she was being trained in it—a sign that they might give her a blade, but they didn’t truly expect her to be much use on the battlefield. So to prove them wrong, she’d thrown her focus into fighting instead of healing. A foolish choice, motivated by pride.

She dragged Gavril by his tunic to drier ground. Daigo tried to help, but when she snapped at him for ripping Gavril’s breeches, he stomped off, offended. As she reached the edge of the mud, it seemed to make one last effort to to keep Gavril, and she had to dig her boots in, hands wrapped in his tunic, and heave—

Gavril’s arm shot out and struck her, the blow so unexpected she let go as he scrambled to his feet, his hand going to his empty sword scabbard. Only as he pulled out his dagger instead did he look up.

He stopped. He squinted. He brushed a hand over his face, smearing mud.

“Moria?”

Beside her, Daigo chuffed and rolled his eyes. Who else would bother? he seemed to say.

Gavril staggered up, dagger raised. “You’re a spirit.”

“A spirit couldn’t have hauled your arse out of the mud.”

“You followed us.” He cursed under his breath. “You child. Your duty is with the village, Keeper—”

“The village is—”

“Your duty, one you’re far too immature and foolish to—”

She whipped her daggers as all the fear and the grief poured out again. They whistled through the air, one on either side of Gavril, no more than a hand’s span away, embedding themselves in trees.

“The village is gone,” she said, her voice thick with rage and tears. “Everyone’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“Dead and turned into shadow stalkers. Now go on back to the village. Do your duty. Bury them. And then tell me what a foolish child I am.”

His mouth worked. Nothing came out. Then he shook his head sharply and retrieved his fallen sword. As he pushed it into its sheath, he said, “You’ve drunk infected water. You’re fevered—”

“I’m fine,” she snarled. “The villagers are dead. My father is dead. Turned into—” She inhaled fast. “He’s gone now. I freed him.”

“Freed him…” Gavril stared, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend her meaning. “If you thought you saw shadow stalkers, then I’m sure that was terrible, but your father cannot be dead.”

His eyes held something she’d never seen there before. Genuine concern. His voice was soft, and she wished he would shout. She wished he would snap and yell and call her a foolish child again, because somehow this was worse. Giving her hope where there was none.

“My father is dead. I watched him rise as a shadow stalker and try to kill me. I expelled the thing from his body, and then I ran through my village and there was nothing but bodies and blood, and that was no nightmare.”

“Then why would you come back into the forest?”

“Because my sister—” She inhaled. “I thought I saw Ashyn and Tova, and we followed, but they were some sort of phantasm.”

She steeled herself for Gavril’s arguments, but he only stood there, an odd look on his face.

“A phantasm of your sister led you into the forest?”

“Yes, and don’t tell me I was sleep-blind. I never went to bed. Ashyn and I were at the cells with the captive, Ronan. I went up and… I found what had happened to the village. To my father. I saw Ashyn and Tova running. Daigo saw them, too.” She looked at Gavril. “He’s a Wildcat of the Immortals. My bond-beast. If I were fevered or running from a nightmare, he’d know it. Now I need to get back to the village. I need to help Ashyn. I left her in the cells and I can only pray she’s still there, safe, and—”

“Moria…”

Her back tightened as he used her name. Call me Keeper, she thought. Shout at me. Curse me. It suits you better. This…

It feels like pity. You called me a child before. Now you’re treating me like one.

“Your breeches are wet.”

“What?”

He eased back on his heels. “You’ve gotten wet in the stream. You should dry off. Build a fire. Rest a little. You’re tired. You haven’t slept since the Seeking. You’re cold and you’re wet and you think you’ve seen—”

“I have seen.”

He coughed, as if physically choking back a response, then winced as if the cough hurt his head. “All right. But whatever has happened, you need to get through this forest, and for that, you must be dry and rested. Let me build you a fire.”

She looked up at him. His words were kind, but his face was unreadable, as if he was struggling to be nice. Why?

Because he needed her. He was lost and wounded.

“I can’t stop,” she said. “Ashyn—”

“Whatever has happened, Ashyn needs you to get out of this forest. You can’t do that if you collapse of exhaustion. I’ll start a fire. It’ll take a moment. Wash that mud from your face. You’ll feel better.”

NINETEEN

Gavril had gotten the blaze going faster than she expected. She didn’t see what he’d used—he’d put it away before she arrived. Now he poked at the fire to get it higher, but it was as if the dense forest devoured all the air. It was still blessedly warm. Daigo agreed, curled up so close he’d singed his fur.

“The path was still clear enough for me to lead them to where the other guards perished,” Gavril said. “Levi—his body—was gone. I saw something moving in the woods. I saw those blasted boots of his and someone called his name. And then…” Gavril gripped the hilt of his sword. “There was a scream and I didn’t see anything until they had Levi on the ground. But it wasn’t Levi at all. It was…”

“A shadow stalker.”

He grunted. “That’s what the others said. They killed it… or expelled it, I suppose. Then the forest erupted with smoke and shadows. It wasn’t like with Levi. There wasn’t even time to scream.”

“Levi was their decoy. They’re predators, not mindless—”

“I don’t know what happened. I was at the back with Orbec. The shadows fell on everyone and… Orbec told me to run. I saw an arm in the fray, and I grabbed for it and…” He stopped, his gaze unfocused, trapped in the memory. “By the time I pulled, that’s all there was. An arm. Orbec dragged me out of there. We ran. It felt like cowardice, and I know…”

He trailed off then. Moria knew his father had been exiled for cowardice. Instead of ordering his men to retreat, he’d supposedly escaped alone under the cover of sorcery.

Gavril poked the fire with a stick. “We found the stream. And then the shadows came and fell on Orbec. I ran to help him, but I slipped. I hit my head on the rocks. When I woke up, he was dead. I knew I had to get away, in case he came back as one of them. I crawled until I passed out.”

After a few moments of silence, he said, “You’re wrong about the village.”

“Can we not talk about that?”

“You seem upset—”

“Seem upset? My village is gone. I know you didn’t care about anyone there—”

His eyes darkened. “Of course I cared. I lived there for—”

“No, you existed there. You made no effort to get to know—”

“Shhh.”

“Are you shushing me? I—”

He lunged and grabbed her, his hand clamping over her mouth.

While the temptation to bite him was overwhelming, this did seem an extreme measure to stop her talking, and thus suggested something else was wrong. Also, he smelled. Of filth and sweat and blood. She didn’t want to discover what he tasted like. When he relaxed, she peeled his fingers away.

“I heard something,” he whispered.

She glanced at Daigo, who seemed not to have noticed his Keeper being grabbed and silenced. Something else occupied his attention. Something in the forest.

Gavril quickly put out the fire. Daigo’s tail was lowered, swishing. His whiskers were pricked, his pupils dilated. One ear was flattened, the other forward. Uncertain, listening. He looked back at her. He wanted to investigate, but he’d like her to follow.

She nodded and nudged him forward. When Gavril caught her tunic, she half lifted her blade. Then she pointed it at the forest and began easing forward, crouched behind her wildcat.

Behind her, Gavril made a noise. A rumble, almost like a growl. He didn’t stop her, though. When a twig crackled, she looked back to see him following. She motioned for him to stop. He pretended not to notice.

When they reached the forest’s edge, she heard something moving in the undergrowth. The sound was soft. Was that how shadow stalkers moved?

Daigo had stopped, muzzle lifted, nostrils flaring. She raised a finger. Yes, the wind was blowing their way, meaning Daigo could smell whatever was out there.

His nose kept twitching, like a dog’s. His body language had changed little. Apprehension. Concern. He smelled something. He thought it might be a threat, but he wasn’t sure.

He started forward, slower now, slinking. She did the same. The noise continued. It sounded familiar. Like rats in the hay barns. The scuttling of their feet over the boards and through the dry straw.

Daigo stopped again. His growl rose, then he choked it back. She slid up beside him.

His tail whipped against the back of her legs, as if in warning. Come closer, but stay low. Behind them, Gavril crept forward. When he snapped another twig, whatever was out there squeaked.

She slid along, staying as low as she could, making her way through the cluster of trees between her and the noise. She passed the largest and—

She stopped and stared. Daigo slunk up alongside her. Gavril snaked up on her other side. When he saw what she did, he exhaled a curse. Then they all just crouched there, staring.

The thing was a little larger than the rats in the barn. It had the same humped form and snakelike tail, but otherwise it was like no creature she’d seen. Long, brown fur stuck up in every direction. Its eyes were huge and grotesquely bulbous. Fangs jutted down below a misshapen jaw. When it rose onto its hind legs, she saw long, curved claws. She could smell the thing, too, a rank odor that made her stomach churn.

It started toward them, head bobbing as it snuffled, teeth gnashing. Daigo sprang.

The thing rolled into a ball, and its fur seemed to shoot from its body. Moria lunged on top of Daigo, her eyes closed as she shielded him. The “fur” rained down like arrows. One jabbed her hand like a needle. Daigo yowled as another struck him. She heard Gavril’s boots as he thundered past. A noise, like a snarl of rage. Then a high-pitched squeal.

Moria opened her eyes. Gavril stood over the beast. His sword skewered it.

“Don’t move,” he said when she started to rise.

There was a long, dark pin stuck in the back of her hand. She looked to see more embedded in her tunic, hanging there harmlessly.

“What are those?” she asked.

Gavril pulled his sword from the creature. “If you don’t know, then you shouldn’t have leaped out. Were you going to protect your cat’s life with your own?”

“It’s the same thing.”

He snorted. “You don’t believe that superstitious foolishness, do you? That your lives are bonded? My father said—”

He stopped abruptly. She’d never heard him mention his father before.

Gavril bent and fingered the long needle embedded in her hand. “It’s called a quill. It’s barbed, and if you move when I’m pulling, it’ll only make it worse.”

“What did your father say?”

He worked at the quill. “Just that my grandfather once met a Keeper whose bond-beast died in battle. She was fine.”

“She lived?”

“For a while. Then she took her own life. Apparently, she decided that would make a more tragic tale. You ought to appreciate that.”

“Perhaps that means we don’t die if the other does, but we cannot bear to go on living.”

Another derisive snort.

“So you’ve seen those things?” she said.

“Quills? Yes. In the south there are creatures that bear them on their tails. But that’s not the same beast. It’s…” He glanced over at the dead thing. “Not like anything I’ve seen.”

“Sorcery,” she whispered. Then, “Oww!” as he jerked the quill free.

“I told you to be still.”

“It must be sorcery,” she murmured. “To make such a creature.”

“You’re as superstitious as an old nanny. Sorcery didn’t make such a creature. Necessity did.”

“Necessity?”

“Quills for protection? Jagged teeth for tearing? Claws for climbing? Large eyes for seeing in dim light? That makes the beast perfectly suited for living in a place like this.” He eased a quill from her tunic. “Anything new is frightening to the superstitious mind. There are villages in the south that have never seen a Northerner. They would think pale skin and red-yellow hair a sign of sorcery. Your coloring is a product of your climate. As are your slow wits.”

She twisted to snarl a protest and yelped as a quill jabbed into her side.

“Didn’t I tell you to be still?”

She swore there was a lightness in his voice. Nothing pleases him so much as mocking me.

She glared at him. “If you’re book-read enough to know why my skin is pale, then you know that Northerners’ wits are not dulled by the cold climate.”

“True. Your sister seems bright enough.”

She resisted the urge to shoot her fist at him, and lay there, still on Daigo, fuming quietly.

Yes, that was the typical view of Northerners. Slow thinking, slow moving, lazy, as if they had ice in their brains and their veins. Her father had made himself wealthy using that to his advantage as a merchant. It worked best on the lower castes, those who’d never met people beyond the empire’s middle realms. For Gavril, highborn and court-raised, such a belief would be as quaint a notion as her superstitions. He was goading her, and she was foolish for letting him.

As for the beast, it could indeed be an adaptation to an inhospitable environment. The exiled boy—Ronan—had survived the winter. He must have eaten something.

When a distant branch cracked, Moria’s head snapped up. Daigo shot an accusing glare at the dead creature, as if it had brought friends.

As they listened, Moria heard the distinct clomp of boots on hard earth. She started to ease forward, but Gavril grabbed her collar and whipped her back so fast she gasped. He shoved her hard, pushing her to the ground.

“Down!” he whispered, as if she had some choice in the matter.

She hit the earth with Gavril practically atop her back as he held her there. When she opened her mouth, he slapped his hand over it.

“Quiet and stay down.”

She wrenched his hand off. “If you want me to do something, try asking—”

“Shhh!”

He glowered, but there was fear in his eyes. Genuine fear. He leaned against her, hand between her shoulders, pinning her there, and she could feel the thud of his heart.

He thinks it’s shadow stalkers.

They lay in a cluster of trees, nestled in undergrowth now. Daigo stretched out, his gaze fixed on the distant source of noise. She could still hear the clomp of boots, the rhythmic sound broken only by the occasional rustle of dead leaves or the crack of a twig.

How many are there? It sounds like an army.

An army of the dead.

TWENTY

Moria shivered. Gavril’s hand rubbed between her shoulder blades. She glanced over at him, startled. His gaze was fixed forward, straining to see whatever was coming, rubbing her back absently, as if in reflex to her shudder. When he realized what he was doing, he stopped and scowled, as if it was her fault he’d shown a moment’s kindness.

You’re always so angry, as hard as you try not to show it. Furious at being sent here, to guard this forest—the insult of it.

That tramp-tramp vibrated through the earth. The thunderous drumbeat of an army on the move.

It was a line from many a tale, but Moria herself had never heard the sound. The empire had been at peace ever since the desert hordes were vanquished in the war that had sent Gavril’s father here.

But now, listening to the drumbeat of footfalls, the line came to mind, as did an image from another tale. The army of the night. A thousand shadow stalkers raised by a hundred sorcerers, long before the Age of Fire. The dead rose, and they moved across the land like a plague, killing army after army, the warriors falling, only to rise again. An unstoppable force.

But it had been stopped. By the warriors of the North on their snow dragons. They’d ridden over the battlefields and blasted ice on the shadow stalkers, freezing them so the armies of the living could shatter their corpses with a single blow, giving the shadow-stalker spirits no place to hide.

It was a story often singled out as proof that bards’ tales were foolish nonsense. People would laughingly debate which part of the story was the most ludicrous: shadow stalkers, snow dragons, or clever Northerners. All three were equally mythical beasts.

As the footfalls drew closer, Moria calculated the distance to the stream. Could they outrun them on more open ground? In legend, shadow stalkers were relentless, moving with speed, yet never running, as if their broken bodies couldn’t quite manage that. But they had a second form, too—the fog, their spirit form.

She moved her lips to Gavril’s ear. “Would you fight shadow stalkers? If they’re in manifested form?”

“Of course.” He looked offended and a little bewildered, as if there was no question.

“Good. If they come this way and there are fewer than it sounds, we’ll fight.”

He frowned. “You think those are shadow stalkers?”

“Don’t you?”

He turned his gaze forward again. “It sounds like boots. But the search party is dead.”

Or it was… and is risen again.

As the footfalls grew louder, the drumming lost its rhythm and became scattered boot clomps, as if distance had made it sound synchronous. Fewer feet than she’d thought, too. Perhaps a half dozen men.

“It was near the fresh stream,” a voice said. “I heard a girl talking, then a shriek.”

She began to rise. Gavril’s hand on her back slammed her down.

“It isn’t shadow stalkers,” she whispered. “They don’t speak—”

“Shhh!”

“It must be guards, from the village. They’re searching—”

“Shhh!” His lips came to her ear, warm breath filling it, his voice harsh with anger. “Be still and be quiet, Keeper. For once.”

Another voice, from the forest. “Do we even know this is the way to the fresh stream? Liam has already led us astray once.”

Moria knew all the guards by name. All the villagers, too. There was none named Liam.

“Do you want to try leading us through this forsaken place?” a third voice said. “You should thank the spirits I’m here.”

They heard many accents in Edgewood, which drew guards from all corners of the empire. She’d only heard this particular one once, from a tradesperson. It was a guttural accent, not soon to be forgotten.

So who were these men? Not a rescue party. Even if someone from the village had escaped across the Wastes, it would be many moons before help returned.

“I told you I heard a girl’s voice singing,” the first voice was saying again, as the others complained about tramping over rough terrain.

“I think you’ve been away from women too long,” another replied. “You’re hallucinating. Next you’ll see a pretty maid skipping along the stream.”

“Mmm,” another said. “Is she swimming in the stream, too? Unclothed? If he is imagining that, I don’t blame him. It has been too long. They should have let us loose on that village before—”

“Enough.” A man she hadn’t heard yet, his voice quiet but firm. “All of you. If one of those guards lived, we won’t hear him with all your jaw flapping.”

Gavril shifted, his hand on her back, his leg tensing over hers. On her other side, Daigo squirmed closer, too, leaning against her, one paw resting on her outstretched hand.

“Don’t move,” Gavril whispered in her ear. “Whatever happens, don’t move.”

It’s not like I could anyway. With you and Daigo practically on top of me.

She made a noise of agreement. Gavril eased back. Then he let out a curse. He looked around frantically, and began wriggling out of his tunic. She didn’t avert her eyes. He’d told her not to move.

He winced as he tugged it over his head wound. Then he handed it to her.

“Cover your hair.”

“What?”

“Your—” The crack of a twig, telling them the men were almost on them. Gavril cursed and grabbed her hair, twisting it up over her neck, then slapping the tunic down over it. He adjusted it until her face was shadowed under the folds.

Moria lay still and tried not to breathe too deeply. She could smell the tunic. It wasn’t pleasant. However, the brief sight of Gavril without it had been quite nice, so she remembered that and ignored the rest.

She saw a flicker of movement through the trees. Then all went dark as Gavril fussed with the tunic, pulling it farther over her face. She waited until he turned away, then tugged it back enough to see again.

The men were, it seemed, not coming directly toward them, but off to the side, taking a clearer path. Still, as a figure took shape, Moria lowered her chin to the ground, her face better hidden by the tunic’s shadow. She’d pulled her hands into her own tunic. Gavril had tucked his forearms under him. Even Daigo had slitted his yellow eyes. No flash of color would betray them.

She could see figures now. Five of them, heading for a gap in the thick forest. They stepped into the light, and she watched them troop past, single file. Strangers, as she expected. Men from all corners of the empire, skin tones ranging from the light brown of oakwood to nearly black. One man’s head was shaven. Another wore warrior’s braids. The last man was the palest, with hair the color of copper.

For someone from Edgewood, accustomed to new guards and traveling merchants, the diversity was expected. It wasn’t until she truly thought about it that the regional variance seemed odd. If these men were responsible for somehow raising the shadow stalkers, it would make sense for them to come from the same area. A strike against the emperor meant one region in revolt.

Is that what you think this is? A strike against the emperor?

I don’t know.

What also startled her was their manner of dress. Or, more aptly, their swords and daggers, given their manner of dress. They wore the heavy boots favored by guards, and similar sleeveless tunics, leaving their arms to swing a blade freely. Two had cloaks over their shoulders. Their breeches were simple and more form-fitting than was the fashion.

While guards were allowed to commission their own clothing, there were severe restrictions on color and cut, so they would present a uniform image. These men’s clothes came in a variety of shades and cuts. Moreover, that clothing was filthy and ill kept, tears left unmended, boots scuffed and worn. Their own appearances were just as unkempt—with untrimmed beards and unshaven faces. If any guard showed up in such condition, he’d be on toilet-cleaning duty for a moon.

“Mercenaries,” Gavril whispered in her ear. “Hired blades.”

Moria had heard of such a thing. Not every warrior in the empire lived in a barracks, of course. That would hardly befit members of the highest caste. The guards they saw in Edge-wood were usually from low-ranking families.

Other warriors owned property or became warlords or climbed the ranks in court itself. But there were those of lower ranks who had no hope of property or position and no interest in service. They hired their swords to whoever would purchase them.

The stories she’d heard about mercenaries were not flattering. True warriors considered them a stain on the caste; warriors were supposed to serve the empire. Mercenaries served only themselves. Perhaps even worse, they did not follow the warrior code.

Sometimes bards would sing heroic songs of the lone warrior, the blade without a warlord, a noble and dashing hero. Looking at these ragged men and hearing them talk, Moria would now place those stories alongside those of snow dragons, as products of a romantic—or optimistic—imagination.

The men filed past. Moria craned her neck to follow, making note of everything from their faces to their clothes to the cut of their weapons. The last part was, unfortunately, most impressive. Whatever care they neglected to give their bodies and garments they seemed to have paid to their weaponry. Their swords were clearly new—not ancestral blades—but they were the highest quality. True and strong steel, free of the adulterated metals and nicks and scrapes one saw on the purchased weapons of the lower-born guards.

They had more than blades, too. Two mercenaries bore bows. Another had a quiver of darts. Yet another wore a whip coiled on his belt. True warriors were forbidden such weapons; they were left to hunters and farmers.

Today the goddess showed some modicum of mercy, and the men continued on to the streambed. She could hear them sloshing and slopping in the mud. She and Gavril had walked on the firmer ground, but she still tensed, certain they’d spot a stray footprint.

The mercenaries split up, going both ways along the stream. Then came a cry. A body had been spotted.

Moria strained to listen as they seemed to decide Orbec was newly dead, and that’s what their comrade had heard—the warrior shouting or cursing, and then his death scream.

She listened as the footsteps retreated the way they’d come—after the mercenaries had stripped anything useable from Orbec. Still, she and Gavril stayed where they were until Daigo nudged her and rose, meaning even he could no longer hear the men.

Moria plucked the tunic from her head as they crawled out and stood. She handed it to Gavril.

“You ought to wear a hood,” he said. “Something to cover that hair and skin. I don’t know how you Northerners survive outside your land of ice and snow.”

He pulled his tunic on. She watched. He didn’t seem to notice, his gaze distant, looking toward Orbec’s body.

“I took his dagger,” she said.

“So I saw.” Still no expression.

“I thought I should. It’s an ancestral blade. I’ll return it to his family.”

He nodded curtly. “Good. Might as well use it, too, while you have it.”

Was he mocking her? His voice lacked the edge that usually crept in when he did.

“I wasn’t sure if I ought,” she said. “It seemed wrong, but it also seemed wrong to leave it. What does the warrior’s code say?”

She expected him to snap some retort. But he only shrugged.

“Nothing specific. You acted out of respect. While carrying another warrior’s sword is forbidden, the code allows for necessity, too, under the circumstances. You’ll honor his memory. They—” He hooked his finger toward the departed mercenaries. “They’d sell it to the first merchant they found.”

“What were those men?”

“Mercenaries,” he said, as he turned in the direction of the stream.

“You said that. I mean what are they doing out here? They mentioned the village. They must be connected with what happened—”

“We don’t know what happened. But if you stop talking and start walking, perhaps we’ll live long enough to find out.”

TWENTY-ONE

As they’d hoped, the stream ended at the swamp, less than a hundred paces from the canyon wall. The very air seemed different here. Warmer. Easier to breathe. Daigo bounded ahead, leaving them clamoring to keep up.

When Moria reached the canyon wall, she put her hands on it outstretched, eyes closed, as if communing with its spirit. She expected Gavril to make some sarcastic comment. He only mumbled that they ought to get into the village while there was still light to see.

They walked along the wall, Moria keeping one hand on the cold stone, until they reached the opening. Gavril stood at the base of the first tower, peering up as if he expected to see someone there.

“It’s empty,” she said. “Everyone is—”

“This guard tower is empty,” he said and strode ahead into the village proper.

She wanted to be wrong. She prayed to the spirits that she was. Prove that she’d exaggerated the danger. That people had survived. They’d been sleeping or hiding, and they were alive and fine.

As Moria passed through the gates, she stared out at the dark, silent village and knew she’d not been wrong. She wanted to drop to her knees and weep. Ashyn would. Moria stared out, dry-eyed, and felt…

A little less than human.

When Gavril returned with lanterns, she knew he’d seen no sign of life. He’d be quick to tell her otherwise, to prove her wrong.

I wish you could. You may forever afterward call me a child, a careless girl who flits after butterflies. Just prove I was mistaken.

They continued on, walking side by side to the barracks. Gavril stopped inside the door and shone his lantern about. Moria headed straight for the ladder down to the cells. The top hatch was open. The guard’s chair at the bottom was empty. So, too, was Ronan’s cell. She ran her light over the walls and down to the floor. There were no signs of blood or struggle. Daigo stalked up and down the hall, then grunted in satisfaction, as if reaching the same conclusion.

“They’re gone,” Moria said as Gavril came down the ladder.

He did his own inspection. Then he said, “They’re not gone, Keeper. They’ve left. Of their own volition.”

He glanced over, as if expecting her to argue, but she only nodded before heading back to the ladder. She didn’t ask what he’d found upstairs. Again, he’d tell her if it was good news.

They went out. He followed now, letting her and Daigo lead the way.

She should go home. That wall in her head quivered at the thought, but she pushed on. It would be the first place Ashyn would go.

They found blood just past the barracks, where the public buildings ended and the private homes began. A pool of crimson with an empty spot in the middle. A spot where someone had lain… then risen again.

They were about to pass the blood when Daigo stopped. His nose was to the ground, sniffing something. He lifted his head and grunted, calling Moria back.

She shone the lantern light on a bloodied print. A massive paw.

“Tova,” she whispered.

There was another, fainter print heading away.

“They passed here,” she said. “They saw the blood. Tova stepped in it.”

Daigo rolled his eyes. Dogs. Such clumsy beasts. Moria managed a half smile and slung her arm over his neck in a quick embrace. When she stood, Gavril was there, looking relieved.

“See?” he said. “I told you—”

“Stop telling me,” she said. “Please.”

“I’m only—”

She looked up at him. “Do you think I want to be proven right?”

He had the grace to dip his gaze and waved her on.

She began searching houses as they reached them. The doors were unlocked. That wasn’t unusual in Edgewood, where people only latched doors when a trade wagon was in town. Last night, though… After what happened in the forest? They would have locked their doors.

The first house was empty. So was the second. In the third, they found death. A woman, so bloodied and torn that Moria couldn’t be sure who it was, and preferred not to struggle to recall.

When Moria turned to leave, Gavril was blocking her path. She thought he was going to give some explanation for what they’d found, but his gaze was fixed on the corpse. She circled past, and he made no move to stop her. Only when she reached the road did she hear his boot steps behind her.

They found more bodies. More blood where there were no bodies. Sometimes the condition of the corpses meant Moria could pretend it wasn’t someone she’d known all her life. Other times, there was no doubt. Faces so familiar she knew them even in the half light. Faces fixed in looks of agony and horror, each one chipping a block from that wall, letting her feel a little more.

Most who remained were women. A deliberate choice, she was sure. That’s why they found no guards. The warriors been killed and had risen again, as had the other able-bodied men.

Building an army.

The men had risen and their wives… Moria knew that the men were responsible for the corpses she’d found. They’d risen, possessed by shadow stalkers, and slaughtered their own families.

But the children…? That’s what she didn’t understand. There were no children. She was blessedly glad not to find them horribly murdered, like their mothers. But what had happened to them? Had they died and risen again? Perhaps the older boys, even the older girls. Yet they were all gone, down to the baker’s daughter, barely able to toddle.

Again, she had to brush past Gavril in the doorway. He’d been better after the first house, but now he seemed frozen in the baker’s home. She pushed on. The next house was hers. When she neared it, her head started to throb. She rubbed the back of her neck. It didn’t help. Nothing would help but getting past this.

As she pulled open the door, she heard a soft flutter, like the wings of a moth. She lifted the lantern and saw a note pinned to the door with a needle. A note in her sister’s handwriting.

Moria grabbed it and smoothed it as she turned to sit on the front stoop, lantern perched on her lap, light leaping over the paper.

“They’re safe,” Moria whispered to Daigo, sitting beside her. “Ashyn and Tova. They’re safe.”

He chuffed, as if this was never in question. She looked up to tell Gavril but found herself staring into the night.

She hurried back to the baker’s house and strode into the bedroom to see the baker’s wife on the floor. She was turning to leave when she spotted Gavril. He stood in the corner, his back against the wall, lantern out, staring at the body.

She walked to him. She wanted to comfort him. But she didn’t know the words, and even if she did, she didn’t think she could speak them. In refusing to accept her account of the massacre, he’d denied her any comfort, and she could not find it in herself to offer some to him. Ashyn would.

But Ashyn isn’t here. All you have is me, and I can’t grant you anything that you wouldn’t grant me.

“We need to—” Moria began.

“I knew her.”

“You knew all of them.” She heard the snap in her words and wished she regretted it. She didn’t. She wanted to shout at him. To pound at him. They’re dead. My village—our village— they’re dead. Do you see that? Do you finally see it?

“She brought our bread,” he said. “Every day. When she had honey cakes, she always kept one for me. ‘In your father’s memory,’ she’d say. She remembered seeing my parents’ wedding, when she was a child. There was a parade, and my father waved to her, and my mother tossed her a honey cake. She remembered that.” He paused. “She was kind to me.”

“They all were. You just didn’t care to notice.”

He dipped his chin, and she did feel guilt then, just a twinge.

“They’ve taken the children,” she said.

His chin shot up, gaze swinging to her. “What?”

She lifted the note. “It’s from Ashyn. She’s with a few others. They’re following men on horseback who took the children. A girl saw me with them. Or saw another phantasm, I suspect.”

“I don’t understand.” He looked at the baker’s wife. “It’s all… I don’t understand. This isn’t… Something’s gone wrong.”

“Yes. Our village is gone. The women massacred, the men turned to shadow stalkers, the children stolen. I believe that qualifies as ‘something gone wrong.’”

She expected her tone to rouse him to anger, to slough off his shock. But he only stared at the dead woman.

“We need to go after my sister,” she said. “Find her.”

“Yes.”

“And we need to tell someone. Out there. Warn them.”

“Tell… ?” His voice faded to a whisper. “Yes, I suppose that’s all that can be done. My duty…” He swallowed. “Tell someone. Warn them.” He pushed to his feet so fast Daigo jumped. Then he turned on Moria, and in a blink, the old Gavril was back, his face stone, his eyes harder still. “Let’s see that note.”

TWENTY-TWO

Moria left Gavril there, reading Ashyn’s note. She got as far as the street before he came after her.

“Where are you running?” he said, striding up beside her.

“To find my sister, obviously. Find her, find the children, warn someone. That’s the plan, isn’t it?”

He swung in front of her. “It’s not a half day’s jaunt, Keeper. Night has fallen. It will be just as dark until morning, so there’s little point in rushing. We’ll need more lantern oil, fire-starter, warmer clothes…. My cloak is in the barracks and you need yours. If you can recall where you dropped it.”

“I know exactly where I dropped it. At home, where it lies in my dead father’s hand. It’s still there, I’m sure. Where he tried to kill me and I had to kill him. I will freeze before I go back for that cloak.”

As she spoke, the annoyance fell from his face and by the time she finished, she saw…

Empathy. Shared pain and understanding and contrition. She saw that and she turned away.

“I’ll find something at the barracks,” she said.

“Can you go into your father’s shop?” His voice was low, the undertone of compassion making her anxious, and she wanted to brush it off. Make him angry again.

You fault him for being unkind in your grief, and you fault him for being kind. What do you want, Moria?

“If you don’t feel you can go into his shop, I will,” he said. “But that is the best place to find supplies.”

She answered by veering in that direction.

Gavril suggested she tell him what she needed from the shop. His tone said he would see it as no sign of weakness if she stayed out. She still saw weakness in the choice. Moreover she saw a lack of respect for her father.

He’d been proud of his shop. Proud to be a merchant. The empire would have let him take on a higher-ranking position in Edgewood. He was the father of the Keeper and the Seeker. He ought not tend shop. Yet he did, and while Moria knew he enjoyed his profession, it was also a quiet rebellion. The empire had cost him his wife and could have cost him his children. Now they’d “allow” him to rise from his caste-bound occupation? No, they would not. He wouldn’t risk rebelling loudly, as Moria would, but he did so with a quiet resolve that seemed so much braver. She would honor that bravery by going into his shop for the last time.

The mental wall stayed up as she went in, and she was glad. It let her look around the familiar tables and shelves, inhale the familiar scents, and commit it all to memory. She started gathering everything they’d need along with packs to put it in.

Her father’s entire selection of clothing fit on one shelf. There was a separate room given to the raw materials—furs and leathers and fabric and buttons and clasps and threads and baubles. The people in the empire viewed ready-made clothing as emergency wear only. It might be cheaper, but only because the tailor fashioned it from ends and scraps. The one cloak they found was for a man—too large, made of patchwork leather without fur.

“You’ll need a sleeping fur if you take that. Otherwise, you’ll freeze. The deeper you go into the Wastes, the colder it gets.” Gavril looked around. “Does your father keep orders anywhere? Perhaps something waiting to be picked up?”

He did. While it might make sense for a person to buy the raw material and take it to a tailor, that wasn’t how it worked. A tailor was an artisan, two castes above a merchant. He ought not soil himself with matters of trade. So the merchant gave him the order and materials, then sold the finished item back to the customer, and returned a portion of the cost to the tailor. Which meant that the tailor was still selling his goods—just to the merchant instead of the client—and losing money in the bargain. A ludicrous arrangement to Moria, though it seemed perfectly reasonable to everyone else.

She took Gavril to where her father kept commissioned goods awaiting pickup. There were no cloaks. Nothing that could substitute either. She was about to take the plain leather one when Gavril said, “Moria?”

He held out a parcel wrapped in paper. On the top of it, in block writing, it read: This is NOT your Fire Festival gift, Moria, so do NOT peek in it.

It was her father’s writing. Gavril put the parcel in her hands. She opened it carefully, as she’d never opened a gift in her life. First the string. Then the paper. She laid the parcel on a table and opened it to find… a cloak. A magnificent butter-soft leather cloak with a removable fur liner.

As she lifted it, a note fell to the table. In her father’s neat, precise handwriting, it read:

Moria read the note twice. Then she dropped to her knees and she wept. Finally, she wept.