Sea of Shadows (10 page)

Moria

Seventeen

M
oria ran into the forest chasing her sister. She could still make out Ashyn’s 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, splashing as she landed on her backside, 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. The shadow stalkers had come and the Keeper had not been 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

“T
he 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 her 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 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—”

All the fear and the grief poured out again, and she whipped her daggers. 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 stopped 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 from exhaustion. I’ll start a fire. It’ll take a moment. Wash that mud from your face. You’ll feel better.”

Nineteen

G
avril 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 reddish-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.