A Threat of Shadows (2 page)

The ghost leaned closer.

“She’s dead,” it whispered.

Guilt stabbed into him, deep and familiar. He shuddered, grabbing the pouch at his neck, his mind flooded with the image of Evangeline’s sunken face.

Alaric slammed his palm against the rune on the trunk.

“
Uro
!” Pain raced through his hand again. He poured energy into the tree, willing it to burn. The bark smoked as he seared the rune off.

Out of the corner of his eye, pulses of white light appeared along the path ahead of them. He glanced at them, but the distraction had consequences, and the pain flared, arcing up each finger. He gasped and narrowed his focus back to the energy flowing through his palm. The pain receded slightly. The ghost stared a moment longer, then faded away. Alaric dropped his arm, leaving a hand-shaped scorch mark on the trunk where the rune had been.

“She’s dead.”

Alaric’s head snapped forward.

The trees ahead of him were full of ghosts, each a washed-out version of himself.

“Dead… She’s dead… Dead.” The words filled the air.

Alaric clutched the pouch at his neck until he felt the rough stone inside.

A ghost reached toward him. “She’s dead…” Its voice rattled in a long sigh.

Alaric spurred Beast into a gallop, trusting the horse to follow the trail. The whispers clung to them as they ran. Alaric shrank down, hunching his shoulders, wresting his mind away from the memory of his wife’s tired eyes, her pale skin.

The trees ended, and they raced out into a silent swath of grass, running up to the base of an immense cliff. Alaric pulled Beast to a stop, both of them breathing hard. Gripping the saddle, Alaric looked back into the trees. The forest was dark and quiet.

“I take it back,” he said, catching his breath, “the ghosts were worse than the wolves.” He sat in the saddle, pushing back the dread that was enveloping him. She wasn’t dead. The ghosts were just illusions. He’d get the antidote tonight. She’d be fine.

When his heart finally slowed, he gave Beast an exhausted pat on the neck.

“This path used to be a
lot
easier to follow.”

Chapter 2

Alaric turned away from the forest. Before him stood a short section of stone wall twice his height. The unusual thing about the Wall was that, instead of enclosing anything, it sat flush against the base of the Marsham Cliffs.

Ignoring the looming presence of the forest behind him, Alaric cast out toward the Wall until he sensed the stone with the vibrating runes. His left hand ached from the last two spells, but there was no point in having both hands sore. This time, he gathered some
vitalle
from the grass around him. With a grim smile, he pulled some from the nearest ghost-trees as well and lifted his hand toward the Wall.

“
Aperi
.” Pain burst through his hand like fire. He let out a groan as the stones shifted. An arch opened, revealing a dark tunnel boring deep into the cliff.

Alaric walked Beast inside and turned to look back at the trees. He caught sight of a milky white face, and his stomach clenched.

Alaric thrust his hand toward the entrance. “
Cluda.
”

This time, the shock raced all the way up to his elbow. Alaric gasped and clutched his arm to his chest as the opening of the tunnel sealed itself off, leaving them in blackness. He clenched his jaw until the pain faded. He should have used the other hand for that last one.

Alaric started Beast toward the bright moonlight at the far end of the tunnel, wishing he could use the
paxa
spell to calm himself.

In the calmness of the tunnel, the memory of Evangeline’s hollowed face flooded his mind again, followed by the familiar anguish.

He pushed that image away and drew out the memory of the night they had walked together along the edge of the Greenwood. She had peered into the woods hoping to catch a glimpse of an elf. He had explained that no one caught sight of an elf by chance, but she had ignored him, jumping at every flash of a bird or a squirrel.

He held that idea for a long moment. The way she had looked. The way she had been. The way she would be again.

He tucked the memory away and refocused on tonight. All he needed was to slip into the library and find one book. It should be easy.

Of course, the path should have been easy, too. The wolves and ghosts made no sense. Alaric had lived at the Stronghold for two decades and had traveled that path countless times. It had never given him trouble. It had never needed to. The Wall was more than enough defense for the Stronghold.

To anyone but a Keeper, the Wall would appear to be just an odd bit of wall sitting right against a cliff face. None but a Keeper knew how to open the tunnel, and the tunnel was the only entrance to the valley holding the Keepers’ Stronghold.

The obvious question was whether the Keepers had changed the path in the year since Alaric had stormed out, or whether Alaric had changed, and this was how the path had always treated strangers.

Beast nickered as the tunnel spilled out into a grassy field in a narrow valley. Ahead of them a tower rose, its white stones shining in the moonlight. The smells of the day lingered in the valley, bread and smoke and drying herbs, but this late at night, everything was quiet.

A glitter of light from the very top of the tower beckoned him. The Wellstone.

It tempted him to go up, to dive into the pool of Keeper memories that it held. It was the other option besides the book, the quicker option. He needed knowledge from Kordan, and Kordan had been a Keeper. He would have stored his memories in the Wellstone, just like every other Keeper for the last two hundred years. Certainly, the information Alaric needed would be there.

But the price to use the Wellstone was too high. Evangeline was safe for now. The reference Alaric had found about Kordan had mentioned a book, so he was here for a book.
Please let the antidote be in the book.

Alaric crossed the grass to the wooden front doors of the tower, bleached to grey in the moonlight and flung wide open as always. Alaric stepped through them into the heavy stillness of the entry hall. He ignored the lanterns sitting on the shelf next to the door, reluctant to disturb the darkness. Hopefully, he could find the book and leave without having to explain himself, or his long absence, to anyone.

On his left, the wall was dark with cloaks. Reaching out, he brushed his hand along the soft fabric. True Keepers’ robes, managing to be both substantial and light, might be the thing he missed the most.

Before he left, he would take one. He’d leave this thin, worn cloak behind, the one that wasn’t quite black and wasn’t quite right, and take a real Keeper’s robe with him.

He walked out the end of the hall, through the open center of the tower to the entrance of the library.

He paused near the door, hanging back in the shadows. The library was lit by glowing golden orbs tucked into nooks between the bookshelves. He could hear the scratching of a pen as a Keeper wrote somewhere deep in the library, but there was no one to be seen. He stepped up to the wooden railing in front of him and looked out into an immense circular room. Four stories below him lay a tiled floor with patterns swirling like eddies in a stream. Three stories above him, a glass ceiling showed the starry sky. A narrow walkway stretched around the room alongside age-darkened bookshelves.

If the Keepers could be relied on for anything, it was to record things. And then cross-reference that knowledge. Repeatedly. Alaric wasn’t sure where Kordan’s book would be shelved, but all of his works should be recorded in the Keeper’s Registry.

Alaric walked to the winding ramp spiraling along the inside of the railing, connecting each floor to the next, grateful for the thick rugs that muffled his steps. He climbed up two floors, still seeing no one, and made his way to the thick black tome that recorded the life’s work of each Keeper.

A puff of air breezed past him as he opened the Registry, as though the book was crammed with more knowledge than it could hold. It had always felt strange to hold this book, knowing that one day, there would be an entry in it under his own name.

Alaric flipped to the index. No listing for Kordan. He tried alternate spellings, but found nothing. He growled in frustration.

“That has got to be the most boring book in the library,” a voice said from behind him.

Alaric’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of the Shield’s voice. Silently cursing the thick step-muffling rugs, he turned to face the leader of the Keepers.

“You’ve been gone over a year, Alaric. Please tell me you didn’t come back just to browse the Registry.”

The tiny form of the Shield stood behind him smiling, his bald head barely above Alaric’s elbow. His clear eyes peered up at Alaric from below wooly white eyebrows. Alaric braced for questions, but the Shield just smiled benignly, displaying none of the accusation that Alaric expected.

“How did you know I was here?”

The Shield shrugged. “I’m so old that at this point, I’m bordering on omniscient.”

Alaric let out a short laugh, his tension releasing with it.

The Shield glanced down at the book in Alaric’s hand. “As any omniscient would ask, what are you looking for? And can I help you find it?”

Alaric almost said no, but though the Shield was not omniscient, the amount of knowledge contained behind those fluffy brows was astounding. He could save Alaric hours of research.

Alaric offered the book to him. “I’m looking for information on a Keeper named Kordan. He lived about a hundred years ago.”

The Shield weighed the words for a moment, and Alaric knew he was making connections and filling in blanks until he understood far more than Alaric had said. The old man waved away the Registry and turned toward the shelves. “You’re looking in the wrong book. Kordan was a Keeper, but after dabbling in some darker magic, he left the Stronghold and requested to be removed from the ranks of Keepers. He’ll be recorded over here.” He pulled another book off the shelf,
Histories and Works of the Gifted.
“Specifically, he’ll be under the
Magic-Capable, Affiliation-Unknown
section since he never aligned himself with any other group. He’s under Kordan the Harvester.”

Magic-Capable, Affiliation-Unknown. Alaric sighed.
I’m right there with you, Kordan.

“He has a town named after him,” the Shield continued. “Kordan’s Blight. It’s up near the foot of the Wolfsbane Mountains.”

“Kordan’s Blight? That sounds… ominous.” Alaric slid the Registry back into place on the shelf.

“Mmm,” the Shield agreed, flipping pages. “There wasn’t much of a town when he lived there, just a few homesteads. Kordan lived there for some time doing experiments. I’m sure you can guess that his time there didn’t end well. You know how local legends are. The memory of him stuck, and when a town did grow there, it inherited the name. Ahh, here it is.” The Shield set his finger on a paragraph then looked up at Alaric with a searching look.

“So… you came back looking for information on a Keeper, and you decided to come down here. To the library…”

Alaric didn’t answer the unspoken question.

“…when we have a Wellstone upstairs which holds all of Kordan’s memories.”

“I’m not using it,” Alaric said flatly. He wouldn’t pay the Wellstone’s fee. He wouldn’t share with it all his memories since the last time he used it. The memories of meeting Evangeline, of when she was poisoned, of the things he had done to save her and the dark days since. “My memories are my own. I’m not interested in sharing them with the Wellstone so they can be studied and analyzed.” His voice came out sharper than he had intended.

The Shield considered him for a long moment. “Then it is safe to assume you don’t intend to stay.”

Alaric let his eyes run over the books in front of him. Shelves and shelves of annals, a running history of Queensland kept by the Keepers for the past two hundred years.

“But I need you back at court,” the Shield said when Alaric didn’t answer. “The queen needs you back.”

“I can’t.”

“Queen Saren needs a Keeper to advise her.”

“Send someone else.”

“Who?” The calmness in the Shield’s voice cracked. “Who here has the strength to travel two days to the palace, then keep up with the pressure of life at court?”

The answer to that was obvious. There was only one other Keeper young enough to travel. “Send Will.”

“Will never came back from the Greenwood. It’s been over a year, and we’ve received no word.”

Alaric looked sharply at the Shield. Will should have only been gone a couple of months. He was in his thirties, barely younger than Alaric. He’d been like a brother to Alaric since they had joined the Keepers twenty years ago.

“Well, let someone else read some books and take over,” Alaric snapped.

“If all Saren needed was books, I’d send her books. But I don’t even have another Keeper who can piece together history and politics and answers the way you can. No one else who can draw out the important parts of history and make it useful.”