Casting Shadows, page 29
part #4 of The Magicsmith Series
Upon the divan lounged a woman with cerulean skin and long falls of curled hair that faded from indigo to teal. Unlike most court fae I’d seen, Shedraziel left her hair loose; it fell over her shoulders and draped her curves. She wore a translucent cream-colored gown that slithered and slipped over her skin when she shifted positions.
The brownie I’d seen earlier knelt on one knee beside the divan. He held the silver tray steady before him—a table for his mistress. She plucked one red morsel off the pile and popped it into her mouth.
Bile rose to the back of my throat as I recalled the blank expressions and unresponsive forms of the people in the corral and the simmering pot on the fire.
On the far side of the mock court a man leaned against one of the pillars. I couldn’t make out his face, but I recognized the green sash he wore. He’d been Pimm’s companion at the Winter Festival, and he’d taken particular pleasure in my humiliation.
Beside him, a malnourished teen painted a monochrome sunset upon a large canvas. He smeared a streak of bright red with his fingers. He didn’t seem to have any brushes. I blinked and frowned. He didn’t seem to have paint or palette either. Then I saw him reach for his wrist. He lifted a dark glob on his fingers and splattered it across the foreground with a flick of his hand.
Two children spun through my line of sight, breaking my fixation on the thick, red paint that wasn’t paint dripping down the canvas. The dancers—a boy with pale-green skin and hair that resembled gnarled bark, and a girl who looked to be a mortal teenager—moved together, but never touched. They danced for the entertainment of their lord and captor, and where they passed, bloody footprints decorated the white marble.
At the farthest end of the mock court stood the musicians.
Nearest me was a short, round fae with a body like a brown balloon and a mop of coal-black curls. Fur covered his legs, and his cloven hooves clicked against the marble when he moved. Trilling notes drifted from the pan flute pressed to his lips, and his chest swelled and heaved like a bellows to keep the flute from falling silent even for a moment.
Beside him sat a woman with skin the color of sea foam and greasy gray hair that matched the faded rags hanging from her shoulders. A pair of delicate horns grew from her forehead and curled above her ears. Across her lap lay a stringed instrument from which she coaxed a wide range of notes in rapid succession, alternately pounding the strings with a felted hammer and strumming them with her wickedly long nails.
The final musician was tall and willowy, with straight black hair that trailed to her waist. Her right arm blurred as she slid a black-haired bow over a battered violin. Her fingers flew over the strings. Blood dribbled down her hand and arm from split fingertips, dripping from her elbow. She wore a pair of faded jeans that ended mid-calf in a tattered hem. Her pale-pink shirt fell short of covering her abdomen and was worn so thin the fabric was nearly transparent.
The girl turned, tracking the motion of the dancers who swirled past her.
A wave of nausea swept over me. The violinist was far older than the eleven-year-old I’d come to save . . . but her face was a younger version of Emma’s.
I took a deep breath and forced my muscles to relax as I studied the girl. May had grown taller, but it looked as though she’d been stretched without adding any new material. Her cheeks were sunken, her limbs thin, and her eyes bore the same hopeless, glazed quality as the children in the animal pens. But she was not beyond recovery. Not yet.
I glanced over my shoulder. Had Haru gotten the remaining kids to safety? Were he and Chase headed back, or were they captured by Bael when they crossed the portal? Even if Bael hadn’t arrived yet on the other side, I had no idea how long the handful of moments it would take to pass the kids off to Emma and Mica and get back through the portal might take here in Shedraziel’s nightmare realm. I was not mentally, emotionally, or educationally prepared to do that math. Somehow, I’d missed calculating time differentials between realms as a college course.
I sighed and turned back to Shedraziel’s grotesque court.
Gaining a name had been a safety precaution—a measure of protection should Shedraziel get hold of me. It was by no means a guarantee that I could stand against her if I was foolish enough to challenge her flat out.
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was a desert. My throat constricted over nothing.
Looking at Shedraziel and her puppet prisoners, fear gripped me. The thought of being a slave to another’s will, a helpless passenger in my own body as I had been while enthralled to Merak, made my blood freeze. What good would a fae name be in the hands of a mortal mongrel like me?
I imagined the mirror me from my naming trial gesturing back the way I’d come, offering me the exit. But this time my quarry was not a phantom from my past, but a promise to the family I’d built. To the future I wanted. This time, turning back wouldn’t just be letting go. It would be giving up everything I’d been fighting for.
This was my choice. Kai’s voice echoed in my head as it had off the walls of his prison cell in Bael’s dungeon. What kind of knight would I prove myself to be if I ran away?
I was no knight, but I was starting to understand where Kai was coming from when he chose to face his sentence. We all made choices to either protect or abandon what was important to us, and those choices changed us, defined us. My father went to war to fight for his beliefs, misguided though they might have been. He tried to build the future he wanted. My mother ran from her past and her memories and spent her life adrift. The past and the future were two roads stretching out from every person, in every moment, and we each had to choose what mattered most to us.
I’d come to save the children. I promised I wouldn’t return without May. For better or worse, I’d made my choices. The only question that remained was whether I was strong enough to see them through.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed to my feet. Shoulders back and head high, I strode across the empty space surrounding Shedraziel’s court.
Though the odds were against me, I wouldn’t give up. I would fight for the future I wished to protect, and the people I wanted in it.
Chapter 29
“WELL, WELL.” Shedraziel sat up on her divan and swung her long blue legs around so her feet rested on the floor. “I was wondering if you would come out on your own.” She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the rusty sky. “From the flutter of your heart, I thought you might flee.”
I forced myself to keep walking, to keep my expression blank, though the realization that she’d known I was there the whole time was like a bucket of ice water dumped on my head. If I’d chosen to run, would she have hunted me down? Or simply let me go to wallow in my own cowardice and shortcomings?
A cruel smile curved her lips. “I’m pleasantly surprised.”
I stopped just before my feet crossed the line where black gravel pressed against white marble.
“I’ve come for the children,” I said. My voice was strong and steady. It sounded nothing like how I felt.
“Then you shall have them,” she said. “For as long as they last.”
She plucked another juicy morsel from the silver tray and popped it into her mouth.
I glanced away and tried not to gag as the meat passed her lips.
Elliot was no longer leaning against the pillar, but neither did he seem concerned by my arrival. He watched me with slitted yellow eyes, a sneer on his lips. The painter continued to paint, the dancers to dance, and the musicians to play. May had not missed a single note, nor did her expression change. Her blank stare drifted over me without recognition.
I looked back at Shedraziel, who swallowed, then licked the tips of each dainty finger.
“Come here, child,” she said. Her voice held a musical quality that put the nearby minstrels to shame, and I found my boot on the marble before I realized what was happening.
I pulled my foot back from the white line and set it solidly on the gravel.
I have a name, I reminded myself. I am my own person. I don’t have to do what she says.
Her eyes narrowed, her deep green gaze focused on me. One arched, indigo eyebrow rose.
“I said, come . . . here . . .” Her fingers coiled shut one at a time—a trap sliding closed over her palm—and as each joint curled, her pull grew stronger. Her fist closed, and it felt as though her fingers gripped my heart rather than empty air. I struggled to breathe. Then she leaned forward and I felt myself falling into the green abyss of her eyes. “Alyssandra Blackwood.”
Her power slammed into me.
I swayed, feeling my control slipping away. I clung to the name I’d fought for and found, praying it was enough to keep me afloat in the storm, but even as I chanted it in my mind, I lost sight of it . . . of me. I was drowning in the tsunami of Shedraziel’s will.
My foot moved again. I strained against the motion, tensing my muscles till they screamed. Sweat beaded on my forehead. I bit my lower lip hard enough to break the skin.
My boot came down on the line, bridging the gravel and marble. Not exactly a loss. My weight shifted. My other foot rose.
Again I strained. My body shook. My foot came down.
A sob escaped me as my boot touched down entirely on the white floor. I wasn’t strong enough. Even with the added protection of a true name, my will was no match for Shedraziel’s magic.
If I give up . . . I die . . . and every choice that led me here will have been for nothing.
My teeth ached under the strain of my clenched jaw. My eyes watered. Cold sweat drenched my back. My whole body vibrated as Shedraziel and I played tug-of-war with my muscles.
She shifted in her seat and the corners of her mouth turned down slightly.
At least I’m making her work for it. But the thought was cold comfort as my heel lifted away from the gravel and I moved one step closer to my doom.
I might fail. But I wouldn’t give up. I wouldn’t do her work for her.
Three steps and I was ready to collapse. My muscles twitched and cramped as though I’d run a marathon. I was lightheaded with exhausttion. When the call came for the next step, I used the last of my energy to stop it dead.
I wavered on one foot, the other frozen precariously in the air. Shedraziel’s power bombarded me like waves against a rocky shore, eroding my will.
My control cracked. My leg started to move again. I wasn’t strong enough. But just as Shedraziel’s will surged to victory, the memory of James’s voice flared in my mind.
So long as I hold your name, Shedraziel cannot command you.
My every cell seemed to come to attention, singing with his words. Where Shedraziel and I struggled, James dominated. For the first time, I fully realized the terrifying power I’d given him. The power to control me. His word was law, etched in my very soul.
Now do what you must, and come back to me.
James’s remembered command shattered Shedraziel’s hold, and I found myself in control of my own panting, shaking body once more.
Now that I wasn’t struggling for every breath, I was able to think. Pushing aside thoughts of what James’s new authority might mean for our relationship, I focused on Shedraziel. Her pull was still there, but like the call of an impulse buy at the grocery store. I could resist. But then what?
The power to enthrall is not her only weapon.
Controlling me was only the beginning of what she could do. When she realized I wasn’t in her power, the battle would begin in earnest. Even carrying Pimm’s pilfered weapon, I didn’t relish my chances against one of the best swordsmen in Enchantment. And that was assuming she didn’t set Elliot, the brownie, or the brainwashed children on me. What if Shedraziel fought through May, using her like a puppet?
Her call hadn’t eased any, so she still thought she could win our struggle for dominance.
When the next impulse to step hit me, I let it pull me forward. Now that I had the choice, being dragged forward wasn’t nearly so scary. I wanted to go to Shedraziel, to get as close as I could. Close enough to strike before she knew what was happening.
As my feet shuffled forward, I unfocused my eyes and forced my jaw to relax, mimicking the glazed expressions of the children still dancing around the court.
“That’s it,” Shedraziel crooned when I’d crossed three quarters of the distance between us. “Stop there.”
The pull to move eased, so I let my weight settle evenly in place.
She turned to Elliot. “You said she was weak.”
“You disagree?”
“She put up more of a fight than I expected.”
“Mortals burn bright,” he said. “But they can’t sustain it.”
Shedraziel’s laugh was like chimes in a tornado, high and wild. She stood and walked closer to me, stopping just out of striking distance.
“You won’t be needing that.” She pointed to Pimm’s sword. “Drop it.”
The blade rang against the stone floor.
“Good girl. Do you have any other weapons?”
I shook my head.
“Let’s be sure,” she said. “Clothes off.”
I hesitated for a second, then slipped off Mica’s borrowed coat and let it fall to the ground. The oversized orange sweater joined it. I stepped on the back of each boot and pulled them off. Keeping my expression carefully neutral, I unzipped my pants and slid them down my legs. The air was neither warm nor cold against my skin, but I shivered.
Shedraziel walked a slow circle around me as I stripped, and I struggled to keep the humiliation off my face.
Let her believe she’s won. Wait for her to drop her guard.
My sword was on the ground. The only other weapon I saw was hanging on Elliot’s hip. Shedraziel seemed to be unarmed.
Turning my focus inward, I tugged at my magic. The amount of power inside me wasn’t enough to create a sword, or even a dagger. Not on its own. And I couldn’t risk a struggle with the demons who seemed twined with the other energies I could call. I’d have to stick with something small. Something subtle.
Slowly, carefully, I funneled magic into my index finger.
“That’s enough,” Shedraziel said from behind me.
I froze, hands on the hem of my shirt. Had she sensed my magic?
She stepped closer, her breasts pressing against my back. Then she reached around so her arm lay across my throat. She dragged one tapered nail over my cheek.
I held my breath, clamping down on the urge to react.
She rested her chin on my shoulder and smiled at Elliot. “Were you enjoying the show?”
He cleared his throat and looked away, scowling. “Even for a mortal, this child is far from beautiful.”
“Then why were you blushing?”
“Due respect, but this is hardly the time for—”
“Perhaps you weren’t,” she cut him off. “It’s so hard to tell with that complexion of yours.”
Now the greenish tinge of Elliot’s skin really did take on a blush of red, though I doubted the shift had anything to do with me.
Shedraziel turned so her lips touched my ear. “You mustn’t judge Elliot too harshly,” she whispered. “He takes what comfort he can from tormenting the likes of you to ease the sting of his own shameful origins.”
Elliot’s scowl shifted to something resembling fear. “My lady—”
“Lord.” The single word was spoken with a voice like iron.
Elliot’s chin dropped to his chest. “Apologies, my lord, but I don’t see why the girl need know any more about me.”
She pressed her cheek to mine and looked directly at Elliot. “He doesn’t want you to know he’s part goblin.”
Shame and anger warred on Elliot’s face. If not for the fact that I hated his guts, I might actually have felt sorry for him. Why was Shedraziel teasing him like this? Weren’t they allies?
I flexed my finger, testing the shape of the magic I’d gathered, but I didn’t dare glance down. I was forging by feel, like shaping clay with my eyes closed.
Just a little more.
Shedraziel stepped away so abruptly I nearly fell into the space she left. “Mongrel though he is, he’s fae through and through. Which is more than I can say for you.” She sauntered back to her divan and sat down.
I silently cursed the distance she’d put between us. I needed to be close for any hope of success.
She leaned back, crossing her long, blue legs. “Mongrel is too plain a term for you.”
From inside her gown she pulled a length of chain. A small, silver locket swung at the end. A stylized letter “A” was engraved on one side.
My breath hitched. I barely stopped myself from darting forward to snatch back the necklace I’d lost in Enchantment—stolen from my room during the Winter Festival.
“Imagine my surprise when Elliot brought me this,” she said, gaze fixed on the locket as it spun slowly at the end of its chain. She flipped it open.
I couldn’t make out the details of the picture inside, but I knew it well enough. Six-year-old-me smiling at the camera, wrapped in my father’s arms. Etched into the opposite side was the last promise he made before he walked out of my life forever: I’ll give you the world.
“I knew about your connection to Bael, of course. But Darius?” Her wild laughter broke out again. When it subsided, she licked her lips. “How delicious. Do you suppose Bael knows yet?”
It was a struggle to keep the confusion off my face. My father’s name had been Darren Carter. He didn’t have any siblings, or even cousins, that I was aware of. So who was Darius? Had she made a mistake?
