Shadow Blessed (The Shadow Accords Book 1) (19 page)

As it faded, someone grabbed her shoulders and lifted her easily.

Carth resisted the urge to cry out. Doing so would do no good. Then Jhon set her onto the ground facing the A’ras, the same woman who had chased her through the city after she’d found the herbalist shop destroyed. Carth glared at him, unable to believe that he had betrayed her.

C
arth stared at Jhon
, who looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Why?” she demanded.

He arched a brow as he frowned. “You shouldn’t have come here. If he catches you—”

“This is her?” the A’ras said.

Carth couldn’t take her eyes off the A’ras and found her gaze drifting to the slender sword sheathed at her side. Where she’d been, along the water, she hadn’t been able to see it, but now… now the blade almost pressed upon her senses.

She resisted the urge to reach for the knife in her pocket.

“This is her,” Jhon said.

Carth needed to get away, but Jhon would know, wouldn’t he?

Only, there were other things that she’d discovered about her ability.

Reaching for the shadows, she started to sink into them.

The A’ras stepped toward her, reaching for her sword.

Jhon darted toward Carth.

She couldn’t wait. As she relaxed into the shadows, she jumped.

The last time she had done the same, she had managed to jump much farther than she’d thought she should. This time, the jump carried her over the A’ras. She cleared the woman’s head and landed close to the small wooden building.

Carth ran.

Jhon called after her, but Carth didn’t hesitate. Instead, she pulled on the shadows, for the first time feeling them coalesce around her as she moved, managing to maintain the connection as she ran. But it was more than running. She flowed within the shadows, a part of them in some ways. The jump had been a part of the shadows, using the insubstantial power from within the darkness to carry her beyond Jhon and the A’ras.

At the building, she had started to weave around the side when she heard a familiar voice.

“Taryn?” she whispered.

Carth slammed into the door, pressing through it, all while holding on to the darkness. Wrapped as she was in the shadows, she easily kicked the door open and ran into the room.

And froze.

Taryn wasn’t the only person here.

Carth lost control of the shadows. They drifted away from her, quickly easing back into the night.

Had Jhon known?

She spun, pulling the knife from her pocket as she faced the doorway. Jhon stood watching her, the A’ras woman behind him. Carth was surprised to see that her sword remained sheathed.

“Why did you do this?” she whispered to Jhon.

“This is not what you think.”

“That’s your answer?” Carth snapped. “This isn’t what I think? What is it, then?”

Jhon stepped to the side. “This is about why you came to Nyaesh.”

“Why I came… I came because my parents brought me here.”

“They did,” Jhon said.

Carth couldn’t take her eyes off the woman. She stood outlined against the night, and Carth realized the ribbon in her hair was the maroon of the A’ras. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword. “Why would you pretend to help me?”

“I have been helping you,” Jhon said.

Carth risked looking over her shoulder at the three children huddled there. Taryn met her eyes, but the others looked away, frightened.

“Helping
me
? It looks like you’re doing the same as the others. What is it about the children of the city?”

When she looked back to Jhon, she noted the angry glint in his eyes. He managed to mask his emotions well, so for him to show such emotion made her nervous. “Power converges here, Carthenne, power that many would like to harness. I hadn’t known about it until you brought me to the docks. I have you to thank for revealing what they intend.”

“You’re working with the A’ras!”

“As you would have.”

Carth shook her head. “I never would have worked with the A’ras. My parents—”

Jhon’s eyes softened, only a little. “Brought you to Nyaesh to work with the A’ras. They were in contact with Avera—”

Carth couldn’t stop shaking her head. “The A’ras
killed
my parents!” She held the knife out in front of her and her hand trembled. “I saw what happened to them! I was there when the A’ras killed my mother!”

The woman took a step toward Carth, and Carth jabbed at her with her knife. There was little she could do to protect herself if the A’ras attacked her, but she would try, even if it meant using the A’ras weapon against her.

The woman raised her hands.

Carth froze. Would the A’ras use her magic on her?

“We did not harm your mother,” the woman said. “Another did.”

“I was
there
!”

“You saw what came after. You were to be tested. Your mother came to us, wanting you trained. After what happened in Ih-lash, and the fighting with Reshian, she wanted you to be trained. But entry to the A’ras is difficult, even for those educated within Nyaesh, and you were an outsider. Few were willing to offer testing; fewer still expected you to pass. She thought to teach you more before the testing.”

“No. I saw what happened. I saw my mother—”

“You saw what Felyn did to your mother,” Jhon said.

Carth shivered at the mention of his name. Felyn had been there the day her parents were killed—the one who had dispatched three of the A’ras as easily as if they had no magic, and the man Carth had sought for weeks after her parents died, hoping she could ask for his help in getting revenge.

“That wasn’t him,” she said. “I saw—”

“You saw him attack the A’ras,” Jhon said. “Your mother was gone by the time they arrived. He’s been working with the Thevers, smuggling those with A’ras potential from the city. You would have been a valuable find.”

“Why?” Carth still clutched her knife and held it out, wanting nothing more than to stab the A’ras as she had stabbed the others.

“Because of who you are,” the woman said.

“No. I don’t believe—”

“There is no believing or disbelieving. Only what happened,” the woman said.

Carth shook her head, struggling with what they were telling her. Could her parents really have brought her to Nyaesh so that she could work with the A’ras?

Her father had taught her to fear the A’ras… hadn’t he?

Do not let them see you. There is power in hiding. Use the shadows.

His words drifted into her mind as if he were standing right next to her. Would her father have wanted her to work with them?

“Your mother sought our help in your education,” the woman went on. “There are many who come thinking that they can learn from the A’ras, but few actually manage it.”

Carth looked past the woman and focused on Jhon. “You taught me to hide from them!”

“I helped you find your ability. That is all I did.”

“That’s not what you did. You showed me how to reach the shadows and how to use that to conceal myself.”

“You already knew those tricks. I only allowed you to see the extent of what you were capable of doing. I am not shadow blessed, Carth of Ih-lash. I would not have been able to teach you what you can do, or how to advance your skills, but the A’ras can.”

It all still seemed too much. Jhon had helped hide her from the A’ras. He had explained what the A’ras intended, and how they used their magic. Why would he work with them?

She looked back at Taryn. It had to do with her, didn’t it? Whatever Jhon wanted had some connection to Taryn. Maybe not only Taryn, but to Stiv, and the others who had gone missing.

“Why do you have her here?” she demanded.

“They would use them,” the A’ras said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what is meant. You have seen him and seen what he is willing to do.”

“Felyn?”

“That is the name he uses in these lands.”

“Why? What does he want?”

“It is not a what so much as a who. The Hjan will stop at nothing to reach their goal.”

“And what goal is that?”

“They want—”

The A’ras spun quickly, cutting off what she might have said.

As she did, Carth felt a strange buildup, a pressure that both reminded her of when the A’ras used their magic and, at the same time, felt completely different.

Shadows swirled into the small room.

“He is here,” the A’ras said. She unsheathed her sword and darted into the darkness.

Jhon looked at Carth. “You should not go anywhere.”

He followed the A’ras.

The shadows receded from the doorway, like a fog rolling out, leaving the sea.

Carth turned to the others in the room. Taryn had remained silent the entire time, but the others did as well, almost as if they couldn’t or weren’t allowed to speak.

“Do you know why they took you?” Carth asked Taryn.

She shook her head, looking past Carth and out into the night. She shivered, though it wasn’t cold. “They didn’t take me. Rescued.”

“What do you mean? Kel said the A’ras took you.”

“Not them. I was trying to collect scraps. The other boy was there, and then… and then…” She sobbed, rubbing her fist against her eyes to wipe away the tears. “Then cold grabbed me. I couldn’t do anything. I was carried off.”

“Carried off by what?” If the A’ras and Jhon told the truth—which Carth couldn’t believe right now—then it had been Felyn and not the A’ras who had killed her mother.

“Carth?” Taryn said.

Carth focused on the other two with Taryn. They hadn’t spoken. Both were much younger than Taryn, reminding her of Stiv.

“Carth!”

“What is it?”

Taryn pointed past her, through the doorway.

Carth followed the direction Taryn’s pointing finger. A figure moved, coming closer.

Without thinking too much about it, she pulled on the shadows.

Everything changed. Sounds became more muted, but also heightened in some way. She felt the shroud fall upon her and jumped, leaping into the night toward the figure.

For the first time, she felt a sort of power surge through her. She flowed on this power, letting it carry her. She had done this before, she realized, when she had seen Jhon and the A’ras, but that had been fear driving her. This time… this time, she went out of anger.

Outside the small building, she remained wrapped in the shadows. What she saw nearly made her lose control of her hold.

Etan.

C
arth felt
the pressure of power on him, similar to what she felt around the A’ras.

Could Etan be using the A’ras power?

She raced into the darkness after Etan. The air had changed, carrying a hot current of violent energy on it. “What are you doing here?” She released enough of the shadows to reveal herself to Etan.

Etan hesitated. “Carth? You shouldn’t be here.”

Carth shook her head. “I think the same is true for you.”

Another surge in the power filled the air, almost like lightning building during a storm. Her skin drew tight in a rapid fashion.

Carth turned quickly, looking behind her, thinking she would see the A’ras there, but she did not.

A man wearing a plain gray cloak stood facing the door into the small hut.

Carth didn’t have to see his face to recognize him. How much time had she spent searching for him, only for him to find her here, of all places?

She started toward him, but Etan grabbed her wrist, pulling her around.

He was stronger than her and bigger, and he forced her to face him. “You go up there and you will die.”

She pointed the knife at him. “Is this because of you? Did you bring him here?”

Etan blinked and thrust his chin forward in defiance. “This is your fault. You were the one who brought attention to us. We got along just fine before Hal brought you in. But then you had to go and sneak off with too much. You weren’t satisfied with coins.”

“I never took anything but scraps.”

“Scraps. Some of us want more than scraps. Safety. And the Thevers promised it to me.”

“You think that’s safety? After what you saw with Stiv? And the boy before me?”

“You can’t understand. I’m in with the Thevers now. You can be safe. Let him do what he needs to do and then he’ll go. That’s what they told me.”

“And you believed them?” Carth asked.

“I—”

The A’ras appeared, keeping him from finishing.

She came on a flash of light. Power burst from her with force, sending Felyn sliding across the ground.

He looked over at the A’ras with a lazy smile. “You think to attack me alone?”

“If I must.”

Felyn flickered forward. Carth had no other way of describing what she saw. He stood in the doorway, and then he didn’t, appearing next to the A’ras.

She swung her sword toward him, but was not fast enough to hit him. Felyn managed to block her sword, doing so with the same laziness as his smile.

“You will fall like the others.”

“The Hjan can die too,” the A’ras said. “The body we found proved that much.”

Felyn’s eyes narrowed. “That was not A’ras. That was—”

Jhon appeared.

Carth blinked. He hadn’t been there before. How would he suddenly just appear?

“Ah. I understand now,” Felyn said. “C’than thinks to intervene. I thought dispatching the last Ih-lash threat would end it.” He looked at the A’ras. “As well as others who thought they should intervene. I think I have demonstrated how little the A’ras can do to stop the Hjan.”

Carth’s heart raced. Felyn
had
attacked her parents.

Hot anger surged through her as she gripped the knife.

Etan grabbed her arm but she shook him off and started forward.

Jhon saw her moving and shook his head.

She ignored him.

This man had killed her parents. Had killed others in the city. She didn’t know what he intended with Taryn, but she was tied to it as well. Carth would not let that continue.

Jhon seemed to realize that he would not deter Carth and unsheathed a slender sword that she had never known him to carry.

She began to pull on the shadows, wrapping herself in them.

Etan gasped but she ignored him, letting the darkness surround her.

The A’ras looked over at Carth, eyes narrowing, and then she attacked Felyn.

She moved more quickly than the other A’ras Carth had seen. Power surged with her, filling the air with energy, leaving Carth breathless. Jhon added his attack as well, slashing with his sword, dancing in a way she had only seen from sword masters.

Neither were fast enough.

Felyn struck with a furious violence.

Carth stood frozen. There was nothing she could do to stop Felyn, just as there would have been nothing her parents could have done. This man and his attack were more than any of them could withstand.

Jhon grunted. Blood spilled over his hand where Felyn struck him.

The A’ras pressed forward, but a resigned expression crossed her face.

Carth had to do something. She had her knife, but she also had the shadows, even if she hadn’t mastered moving with them.

For her parents, she had to try.

Carth gathered them to her, wrapping herself tightly.

“No,” Jhon said as she neared. “Just run. You might be the last—”

His voice came to her as a muted sigh, and she ignored him. She could no more leave than she expected to be able to do anything to stop Felyn.

When the darkness filled her, she released it.

This time, she flowed with it.

Carth held her knife, and when she reached Felyn, she stabbed, pressing all of her anger, all of the darkness that she’d summoned, into the knife and the attack.

It struck his arm, nothing more than a glancing blow.

Felyn turned to her. “Ah…
this
is what I have searched for. I feel it now, the energy you control. It is raw, but…”

He glanced at his arm before looking back at Carth. She’d lost her shadows in the attack, no longer able to hold them and no longer hidden by them.

Felyn swung his sword, but it moved slowly. Carth stumbled back from him, tripping over her feet in her attempt to get away.

In the sliver of moonlight, she could trace the dark lines running up his flesh, moving like ink tracing beneath his skin and racing toward his face. She had seen it before on the man in the street.

Felyn’s eyes went wide.

“Release this!” he demanded. His voice was thready, but power radiated in the command. He stalked forward, and then staggered, reminding her of what had happened to the man who had attacked Kel.

Jhon caught Felyn’s sword as it swung toward Carth. One hand clutched his side. “She has no control. There is only one release.”

Felyn swung again, power pulsing from him, but Jhon caught it again. Felyn staggered and then fell to his knees.

The A’ras stepped forward. “We could learn much from him,” she said to Jhon.

“We will learn nothing. The girl has strength, but no control.”

Felyn dropped to the ground. His body trembled and thrashed. The blackness consumed his exposed skin, covering his face and hands.

“Some would consider his loss a shame,” the A’ras said. Looking past Jhon and toward the hut, she shook her head. “I am not one of them.”

Felyn stopped twitching.

As he did, shadows seeped away from him.

Carth could not see them, but she could feel them.

Had she somehow used the shadows to kill Felyn?

The A’ras woman turned to Carth. “You will have questions. Your parents were right in bringing you to us. There is much you can learn.”

Carth shook her head, looking at Jhon. “I don’t think I can.”

“You can learn to control the flame. That is why they brought you here. That is how you stopped him,” the A’ras said, looking down at Felyn.

The flame? Carth didn’t understand. All she knew was that she was
not
blessed. Would someone blessed be able to use power to harm another? Would she be able to kill?

She looked away from Felyn and saw Etan standing near the shore with his shoulders slumped. As angry as he might be, he had cared about Kel. If nothing else, Carth knew that. But he had sided with the Thevers, and he should face punishment.

“I don’t know what I am. He took my parents before I could learn,” Carth said. After everything that had happened to her, she knew she wasn’t blessed. Not with her parents’ death, and losing Stiv, and nearly losing Taryn. She had no blessings.

The A’ras touched her shoulder, her hand warm and her grip gentle. “You may be of Ih-lash, Ms. Rel, but you are also something more.” She met Carth’s eyes, holding her gaze a moment. “Your mother was right to bring you to us. If you would like, you may come and learn.”

“Learn what?”

The A’ras smiled. “To control your power. To be more than what you are. To become one of the A’ras.”

* * *

C
loaked in shadow
, Carth stood outside the Wounded Lyre, listening to the steady rhythm of music coming from within. Etan had returned, and though Carth thought he deserved punishment for what he’d done, the A’ras did not want to draw any more attention to Felyn and the others like him. She could still hear Kel’s excitement at seeing Taryn again. He wouldn’t have felt the same for her, she didn’t think. Through the windows of the tavern, she saw that Hal still lived, and her heart sung for that fact, but she couldn’t enter, maybe not ever again.

“You look troubled.”

She looked up, surprised by how quietly Jhon had appeared. There were more secrets to him than she understood, but those were answers she would learn in time.

“I… I’m losing another home.”

Jhon nodded solemnly. “You were never meant for that home, Carth.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “It seems I was never meant to have
any
home.”

“Your parents brought you to Nyaesh for a reason.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “That’s the problem. I have to take it on faith that they wanted me here, and that they wanted me to learn from the A’ras, when they never said anything about that. They never told me anything about why we came to Nyaesh.”

“Ih-lash faded, Carth, and they could not remain. Have you never wondered why they wandered?”

“I never knew.”

“The Hjan hunt those with power and claim those they can. The children they want. Many were born to the A’ras, or to Reshian, and they would use them. If that fails, they destroy the rest. So many of your father’s people suffered.”

“Only my father’s?”

“I think your mother had a different heritage, or you would not have the potential to learn from the A’ras.”

“They can’t teach me about shadows, can they?” She hadn’t seen any of the A’ras ever display anything like a shadow ability.

“Not the shadows—you must keep that to yourself for now—but they are a start.”

“Only a start? What does that mean?”

“That means that it is a start,” Jhon said. “You will learn more in time, but you must make the first move, and then there will be others.” He smiled at her, and it transformed his face, this time making him seem much older. “I believe you are familiar with the order of things like that?”

Another game, only this time, her parents wouldn’t be there to teach her.

She watched the tavern as the door opened. Kel stood in the doorway, searching the night, but he wouldn’t be able to see her where she stood.

Her heart hammered and sadness gnawed at her stomach.

She could release the shadows and return to the tavern… but she would never learn what more she could do, or what she could be.

“I’m scared,” she told Jhon.

He patted her on the shoulder, a gesture that reminded her in some ways of her father. “We are born to fear change because it hurts, but this change, I think, will lead you to something greater. When you are ready, I will take you to them.”

Carth watched the tavern until Kel stepped back and closed the door. She sighed, releasing the shadows as she breathed out. What else could she do? She couldn’t remain here and collect scraps, not when she knew she could be something more. Neither of her parents would have wanted that for her.

Pulling her gaze away from the tavern, she started along the street toward the palace, and the A’ras, and the first move in a new game.

* * *

G
rab book
2 of The Shadow Accords trilogy:
Shadow Cursed
.