Shadow Lost (The Shadow Accords Book 4) Read online

  “I can’t believe she’d do this,” Carth said, looking at the pool of blood. The air stank of blood and the foul odor of spilled entrails.

  “She snapped, Carth. Happens on the sea.”

  Carth should have worked with Dara more closely. She might have realized what was happening if she had, and she might have been able to head some of it off. She’d told her to go belowdecks and hadn’t expected Dara to attack the way that she had. For that matter, she hadn’t expected Dara to come aboard the ship in the first place.

  “There was no sign of slavers?” Guya asked.

  She shook her head. “Grain. Ale. Some wine. We’ll need to bring it aboard, along with him,” she said, motioning to the remaining sailor.

  “What do you intend to do with him?”

  She grunted. “What we should have done with the others. Let him go. We’ll get him to Lonsyn, or near enough, and free him.”

  “And the ship?”

  Carth debated what to do with the other ship. Without a captain and a crew, it made more sense to burn it like she had the dinghy, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  “I’ll beach it and row back out to you.”

  “You don’t have to do it yourself.”

  She looked over to the Goth Spald. “I think I do. You need to watch Dara and keep her from him,” she said, motioning toward their prisoner.

  “You could leave him on shore, too.”

  That might be better, she realized. Bringing him into Lonsyn would only open them up to questions, especially if she intended to release him. They could leave him belowdecks until they did, but she didn’t want to risk him getting free and setting others after them.

  “That might be best,” she agreed.

  Dara clomped up the stairs, her eyes slightly wide. She said nothing as she reached the railing and climbed back over to the Goth Spald. Guya followed, leaving Carth with the ship.

  The time she’d spent with Guya had trained her to handle it alone reasonably well. The sailor watched her as she took the wheel and started toward the shore. Guya followed close enough, but he wouldn’t come all the way into shore.

  “What’s the ship’s name?” Carth asked when the rocky shore came into view.

  The sailor said nothing.

  “If you want me to free you, tell me what the ship’s name is.”

  “Tempar.”

  The word carried something of old Ih to it, but Carth didn’t know the language well enough to recognize it. The man watched her as she turned the wheel, bringing them closer and closer toward the shore.

  “Where were you headed?” Carth asked, wanting only to break the silence between them while they sailed.

  “Lonsyn. Same as you, I imagine.”

  “Why did you slow and wait for us, then?”

  The man didn’t answer.

  Carth turned her attention to him from the wheel. “I know you were slowing. I saw it. So tell me why.”

  “We thought you might be someone else.”

  “What else?”

  He shook his head.

  There was no reason for him to be secretive, especially as she had essentially promised him that she would release him. If he went quiet, he risked his freedom more than if he shared.

  She thought about the supplies in the casks. They were for trade, and there was nothing particularly impressive about them. They might get them some traction, but in Lonsyn?

  None of that explained why the ship had slowed when encountering another… unless they were expecting a different ship.

  Carth looked up, scanning the horizon.

  There was nothing.

  She released the wheel and jumped from the Tempar back to the Goth Spald. Guya grunted in surprise when she reached him. “They were waiting for another ship,” Carth said.

  “Another? No reason to meet on the seas unless… oh.”

  Carth nodded. “That’s my concern too.”

  “Maybe Dara was right to take them out.”

  “Maybe. Are you interested in helping with this?” she asked.

  Guya let out a deep sigh. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I think we need to see what they were going to do.” He frowned. “It’s time for us to get a little information.”

  “How do you propose we do that?”

  She shrugged. “We’ll have to be someone else. We’re going to be the Tempar.”

  5

  Guya anchored up the coast, leaving Dara in control of the Goth Spald. There was a part of Carth that worried what Dara might do, or what might happen if one of the ships they intended to meet came across her, but she didn’t want Dara involved in this, not until she knew how she would react. It wasn’t easy to know how she might react. A few days ago, she would have expected Dara to have been reserved, but she no longer thought that would happen with her.

  They sailed on the Tempar, cruising along the coast but not moving with any real speed. Speed would have prevented them from detecting the other ship they intended to intercept, and they needed to be ready for it.

  “I don’t see anything,” Guya said, holding the spyglass to his eye.

  Carth didn’t either, though she used a different technique, twisting the shadows around the late afternoon so that she could clear the darkness. It was a trick only, one that gave her a slightly heightened sense of what might be cruising on the sea, but still a trick. There had to be a better way.

  “He claims they were meeting someone around here.” She motioned to the man lying bound to the mast. He stared at them but hadn’t said anything more. Carth suspected he hadn’t believed she would have risked herself on this meeting.

  “Lonsyn isn’t far. They could have sailed on…”

  That was a possibility, and as she played out that in her mind, she realized that it was more likely. If the other ship had come through and not found who they expected, they would likely have continued sailing on to the next port. There was no other option beyond here other than Lonsyn, not unless they wanted to cross the sea.

  “We’ll keep a watch,” she said.

  Carth made her way to the captive and crouched in front of him. She’d found holding one of her knives had the effect of drawing his attention, and made a point of running the flat of her blade across the back of her arm. If it intimidated him somewhat, it would be worth it.

  “When were you to meet?” she asked again.

  He stared at her with a baleful gaze. “Kill me or leave me, Reshian.”

  It was the first time he’d spoken in several hours. Carth considered that a slight victory. “I’ve told you, I’m not Reshian.”

  He sniffed. “You use the shadows like the Reshian.”

  “And I use the flame like the A’ras,” she said, pointing her knife toward her and drawing power through her mother’s ring as she pressed outward. Heat built, nothing but the slightest amount, just enough for him to know that she could push on it. She wrapped it around him, not with the same subtlety or strength as someone like Invar would have managed, but more than she ever would have done prior to discovering the way she could use her mother’s ring.

  His eyes widened slightly. “A’ras. They wouldn’t let you leave.”

  “They didn’t want me.” She slipped her knife back into the sheath at her waist. “Now. When were you meeting them?”

  His gaze shifted. It was brief, barely more than a flicker, but she saw the way his focus turned to the setting sun.

  “Dusk?”

  It would be a dangerous time, but had the advantage that anyone who might get too close wouldn’t see what they were doing. A perfect time for slaving.

  “Kill me or—”

  She struck him on the side of his head, and he slumped over. “Release you. I know.”

  Carth sighed and stood, holding the handle of her knife as she stared out over the sea. She saw nothing to tell her that any other ships were out there.

  Guya shook his head slightly. “We’re not getting anything here. They might not ev
en have come this way, Carth. Lonsyn wouldn’t be as sympathetic to the slavers as places farther to the south.”

  “We’ll give it a little longer,” she suggested.

  Guya shrugged and turned his attention back to the bow.

  Carth stood at the railing, holding on to the shadows. As she did, she realized that she had been cloaking the ship, even if unintentionally. Pulling on the shadows in this way created layers of darkness around them, and there was enough growing darkness that she could pull everything around her into it.

  They continued to sail and the sun began settling on the horizon, a glowing ball of orange and red filtering through the thick clouds. It was beautiful and peaceful. The sun hit the water, then disappeared, leaving only the streaks of color.

  She felt pressure on the shadows.

  There was no other way to describe what she detected. Something pressed upon the connection she held, as if trying to part the shadows.

  If this was the other ship they expected, she didn’t want to obstruct them from reaching them. Carth eased back on her connection, letting it fade away from her, disappearing slightly. She held on to it, clinging to the edge of the shadows.

  Had she created a barrier of some kind?

  She hadn’t known the shadows could work like that. She’d seen A’ras masters use the flame in such a way, but she hadn’t had the same education with the shadows. Everything she did with them she had learned on her own. Likely there were things those much more experienced using the shadows would be able to teach her, if only she could find them. That had been the purpose of sailing for the Reshian with Jhon before she’d been stranded in Odian.

  “See it?” Guya asked.

  He held the spyglass up to his face and stared through it, looking toward the south.

  Carth took the glass from him and peered through it. At first she saw nothing, but she added the connection she had to the shadows and let them guide her. She had detected something on the sea, and if she could only follow where it was…

  There.

  A twin-masted ship with a wider hull than the one they were on parted the waves as it sailed toward them. Wide maroon sails caught the wind, reminding her in some ways of the A’ras sash they wore as markers of rank. Carth noted two people on the deck, and another hiding within the crow’s nest.

  “I see it. How did you see it first?”

  Guya’s eyes narrowed. “You sail long enough, you begin to see the way the currents work.”

  “Sounds like they’re alive.”

  “In some ways, they are. The entire sea is alive, and we’re just traveling on her.”

  “Her?”

  Guya smiled. “Aye, the sea is most definitely a woman. You get too arrogant, you try to push too hard, and the sea will crush you. If you give her enough respect, she’ll take you on a ride you’ll never forget.”

  Carth shook her head. “Sailors can be disgusting.”

  “Some can,” he agreed.

  They closed in on the other ship. She maintained her connection to the flame, holding it burning deep within her. Not only to the flame, but to a trickle of shadows as well. If needed, she could surge through them.

  They caught a wave, and their captive groaned.

  “Damn,” Guya said. “Need to get him below so they don’t see we’ve got someone tied up.”

  Carth quickly cut the ropes holding the captive to the mast, leaving his wrists and ankles bound, and carried him below. She drew on her shadow magic to clear the darkness and tucked him onto one of the bunks, securing his wrists to the rail, before running back up to the surface.

  The other ship was near enough that she could see the faces of the other sailors.

  These were all dark-skinned people, their faces so deeply tanned and weathered as to be almost brown. They wore long pants bound at the ankles, and the two she noted on the deck wore shirts opened to reveal their chests. She flicked her gaze to the crow’s nest and was surprised to note a woman there. She wore clothes much like the men’s, though her shirt was tied closed.

  “You’re not Urnash,” the nearest man said.

  He had his hand on the hilt of his sword, and his brown eyes swept over the surface of the ship. Carth had scrubbed the blood from the deck as much as she could, but there was still some staining. She hoped it wasn’t too obvious and that they didn’t ask many questions. With the growing dark, it should pass.

  “Aye, not Urnash,” Guya said with a shrug. He stepped toward the rail, walking with a dangerous sort of gait. “Urnash thought he’d take our cut and split. Instead, he’s the one who got split.”

  They hadn’t discussed how they would explain the captain’s absence, but Guya played it perfectly. He added the right amount of menace to his words, making it convincing. Had she not known him as she did, she would have believed that he would have killed Urnash.

  “The deal was with Urnash.”

  Guya shrugged again. “Maybe. You don’t want to trade, we’ll take the grain and the ale on to Lonsyn.”

  The other man’s eyes narrowed. “If you were with Urnash, you would know you came from Lonsyn. Why would you return?”

  Carth could see Guya hesitate.

  It was too long. The sailors pulled crossbows out and aimed them at Guya and Carth.

  The ship had come from Lonsyn? She thought of the supplies, realizing that they had missed something. Where were they heading?

  She looked at the railing, then out over the sea. Something was wrong.

  Carth didn’t know where the ship had been headed, but if it really had come from Lonsyn, this wasn’t what she’d thought it was. It was worse.

  She glanced to Guya, barely taking her eyes off the crossbows. “This might get ugly.”

  “Where you going? Don’t leave me to get bolts through me.”

  “I won’t. And you won’t.”

  Carth jumped across the distance between the two ships. When she landed on the deck, she went rolling. The nearest sailor, one who appeared to have ink smeared on his chest, dropped his crossbow and quickly unsheathed his sword. She jumped in, pulling the shadows towards her, wrapping them around her like a cloak. Darkness settled around her. She slashed out with her knife, catching him in his stomach. She pressed the shadows out with the attack. They crawled through him, quickly darkening his skin.

  The man grunted and fell forward.

  Carth stood and searched the deck of the ship for the other sailors. The woman in the crow’s nest had started climbing down with a crossbow in her hand. Carth leaped towards her, pressing out with the shadows and pulling on the S’al flame as well. As she did, she caught the woman’s wrist with her knife and sent out the power of the flame. The woman convulsed and then stopped moving.

  The remaining sailor was gone.

  Carth looked around but didn’t see him. She raced towards the stairs leading below decks. Everything here was dark. There was a bitter scent, that of incense or medicines burned, scents that she had smelled before, though the last time had been when she was a child working with her mother. Her mother had dabbled as an herbalist and had large collections of spices and leaves and oils, all of which she’d used for different concoctions for healing. These were used for a different purpose, one with a foul undertone.

  She pulled on the shadows, removing the darkness.

  Carth gasped.

  Bodies were splayed around the hold. She counted nearly a dozen, all injured and bleeding. Someone whimpered in a corner, and she turned to them, but she was too late. The sailor sliced this person across the throat, spilling blood onto the floorboards of the ship.

  Carth jumped towards him in anger, knives unsheathed, pressing shadows and flame through the knives. The sailor moved quickly, taking blood from the woman he had just killed and smearing it across his chest and back. Muscles rippled beneath his flesh.

  He changed before her.

  She had no other words that would describe what she saw. Where he had been a thinner man, ropy with muscle, now he was
large, more muscular even than Guya. He grunted and leapt towards her, two swords unsheathed. He attacked with an unexpected violence.

  Had she not had her training with the A’ras, she would have stood no chance. As it was, even with her training, she had only her knives, and he had a longer reach.

  Carth jumped back, tripping over a dead body. She scrambled backwards and her hand slipped in a pool of blood.

  “The Reshian think they can attack now?” There was a hint of eagerness in his voice. “We have waited for this.”

  “I’m not Reshian.”

  As she said it, Carth pulled on the shadows, wrapping them around her so that she cloaked herself, sinking into the shadows.

  Pressure pushed against her cloaking. She crawled backwards, using the shadows for strength and power. To this, she added the flame magic as well.

  With shadow and flame, she sent her magic coursing through her—and through the knives. It struck him in the chest, throwing him backwards. There was no need for finesse, no need for anything other than brutality. It was a good thing, as Carth was only capable of brutality. She had not mastered the subtler parts to her magic.

  The man shook himself as he studied her, a dark smile playing across his face. Casually, he leaned forward and touched his hand to the pool of blood from the women he’d slaughtered, bringing his hand to his mouth before running his tongue along his palm. His eyes closed and a sick satisfied expression crossed his face.

  He rippled again.

  Somehow, he was drawing power from the blood of those he sacrificed. If she remained, she would be his next victim.

  Carth pulled on the shadows and the flame, pressing through her mother’s ring, through the knives that she carried, and sent this combined power against him.

  Magic struck him and threw him backwards.

  Knowing there wasn’t much time, Carth searched for anyone else who might be alive, looking at the captives. None lived.

  Holding on to her magic, she sank into the shadows and slid towards the stairs, climbing them quickly. At the top of the stair, she created a barrier using the flame magic that burned inside her.

  Chaos greeted her on the deck of the ship.