Shadows (3 page)

“He's a lunatic,” Keltan said, then stopped, flustered. “Um, not for asking you to dance. Fine thing to do. I'd do it myself. But not when I was half-frozen on a strange shore.”

“Mental confusion is one of the effects of loss of body heat,” Ethelda said.

“Royal Korellian Navy,” Edrik said slowly. “That's . . . unexpected.”

“You've heard of it?” Hyram asked.

Edrik put the coat down on the back of the chair. “I must go talk to the Commander,” he said. “And organize that retrieval party.”

“Isn't Catilla coming herself?” Grelda said sharply.

“She's not feeling well today,” Edrik said. “One reason I was close at hand when your granddaughter came looking for me. My grandmother had asked me to fetch you.”

“Is it . . . ?” Grelda said, her eyes on his face.

He nodded once, without expression.

“I'll go at once,” Grelda said. She glanced at the sleeping stranger. “Once we get the hot water bladders on him, he'll recover quickly. But he'll probably sleep for hours.”

“Hyram, Keltan, stay here,” Edrik ordered. “One of you come get me the minute he's awake. The other keep an eye on him. I'll be in the Commander's quarters.” He followed Grelda out.

Asteria came back in with three bloated pig bladders in a basin. “Armpits and groin, Grandma said,” she said cheerfully. She gave Mara a sideways look and a wink. “Want to help?”

“No, thank you,” Mara said hurriedly, blushing again.

Asteria laughed. Ethelda pulled back the blankets, Asteria placed the bladders between the youth's legs and under his arms, and the blankets went back into place. “There,” Asteria said. “Nothing to do but wait. And I'd better get back to chopping those herbs.” She swept out through the red curtain.

Ethelda glanced at Mara. “Will you still be coming to talk to me tonight?”

Mara nodded. She had been meeting with Ethelda every two days since she'd returned from the mining camp. Catilla had commanded Ethelda to teach her how to use her magic more safely, but since they had no magic to practice with, the sessions had become more a mixture of history lessons and counseling. “Yes,” she said. “I have . . . something important to talk to you about.”

Ethelda's left eyebrow lifted, but she simply nodded once, and then went out.

That left Hyram, Keltan, and Mara alone in the room with the unconscious Chell. “My father knows something about this ‘Royal Korellian Navy,'” Hyram said. “I could see it in his eyes.”

“Still don't believe in other lands beyond the seas?” Keltan teased. Hyram had been known to call tales of other lands nothing but children's stories.

“We don't know he's from beyond the sea,” Hyram said stoutly. “He might just be from farther up the coast. Maybe there are people north of the mountains.”

“Nothing up there but frozen wasteland,” Keltan said.

“And maybe the Lady of Pain and Fire,” Mara said.

Keltan snorted. “That's about as likely as a mysterious hidden kingdom we've never noticed before. She's a myth!”

No, she's not
, Mara thought.
She's what I could become.
But she didn't want to tell them
that
. Instead she moved closer to the sleeping stranger and looked down at his white-gold hair. “I've never seen hair that color before. Have you?”

“Only on an ear of corn,” Hyram said. He sounded grumpy. “You're not going to make a habit of this, are you?”

Mara glanced at him, puzzled. “Of what?”

“Fishing handsome young men out of the sea. You've got me. You don't need to go looking.”

“What do you mean, she has
you
?” Keltan said. “Don't you mean she has
us
?”

Mara rolled her eyes. The two boys were the best of friends . . . except when it came to her. They'd already had at least one fistfight over her. If she even
looked
at one of them too long, the other got jealous. And if she went so far as to hold one's hand, or give the other a hug . . .

One of these days I'll kiss one of them just to see what the other one does
, she thought. Her mouth quirked at the thought.
But which one?

That was the problem, wasn't it? She liked both of them. But she wasn't sure she was ready to
kiss
them. Or . . . other things.

Well, not yet.

“Stop it,” she said out loud. “I don't
have
either of you.”

Hyram leered. “Don't you mean you haven't ‘had' either of us?”

“She better not have,” Keltan growled.

Mara sighed.
Boys
, she thought. She looked down at the golden-haired youth.
He looks nice
, she thought.
Awfully pale. But kind of handsome. And that hair . . .

She reached down and brushed a wet strand out of the stranger's face, then suddenly realized silence had fallen in the room. She glanced up to see Hyram and Keltan looking at her with identical expressions of narrow-eyed suspicion. “What?” she said.

And then the stranger moaned, coughed . . . and opened his eyes.

Mara, caught with her hand on his forehead, froze for a moment, then snatched her fingers back as though his cold wet flesh had burned her. The youth blinked up at her sleepily. “Pim?” he said. “Is that you?”

Who is Pim?
Mara thought. It wasn't a girl's name . . . at least, not in Aygrima. “No,” she said. “I'm Mara. I found you on the beach. Do you remember?”

“Mara?” The boy frowned. “Mara . . . the beach?” His eyes almost fluttered closed again, then snapped open. “Beach. The boat. Boat capsized. All of us, in the water. Trech . . . Bariss . . . helped me . . . but so cold . . .”

“He talks funny,” Hyram said. “‘Boot cahpsized . . . soo kahld,'” he mimicked.

“I'm surprised we can understand him at all,” Keltan said. “If he's really from beyond the sea . . .”

“Hush, both of you!” Mara said. She knelt beside the bed to bring her mouth closer to the youth's ear. “Do you know where you are?” she said.

His eyes fluttered again. “Aygrima,” he said. “Kingdom of magic . . .”

And then his eyes closed and he fell back into unconsciousness.

“‘Kingdom of magic'?” Hyram said. “Who calls Aygrima
that?
”

“He does, apparently,” Keltan said. He gave Hyram a look. “And aren't you supposed to be running off about now to tell your father he's waking up?”

“He's not awake, he's asleep,” Hyram said, but he was already getting to his feet. “All right, all right, I'm going.” He gave the prostrate youth a sour look, gave Keltan an even sourer one, and went out.

“I thought he'd never leave,” Keltan said.

Mara got up from her knees and sat beside him on the bed next to the stranger's. She shivered.

“You're wet through yourself,” Keltan said. “You should take off your clothes.”

Mara gave him a look, and he threw up his hands with a laugh. “I didn't mean
that
!” Then, as though compelled by honesty, he added, “Well, not
entirely
. But seriously, you need to put on something dry.”

“I will,” Mara said. “But I want to be here when he wakes up for real.”

“At least wrap this around you,” Keltan said, grabbing one of the blankets she'd brought in earlier, one they hadn't put on Chell. He put it around her shoulders and tugged it tight around her. “Better?”

“Better,” she said, and gave him a smile. “Thank you.”

“I live to serve.” They sat in silence for a moment, staring at the youth. “What did you say his name was?” Keltan asked after a minute or so.

“Chell,” Mara said.

Keltan snorted. “Chell? What kind of a silly name is that?”

Mara gave him a withering look. “Says the boy who's named after the Autarch's horse?”

“Well, yeah, but that's, you know . . .” his voice trailed away.

“Different?” Mara finished sweetly.

“Exactly!”

“Well, so is he,” she said. “Different, I mean.”

Keltan said nothing, although somehow he managed to be grumpy about it.

For ten minutes they silently watched the stranger sleep. Then the red curtain swept aside, and Edrik came in, followed by Hyram. Hyram's eyes narrowed at the sight of Keltan and Mara sitting on the bed, but then swung to his father as Edrik said, “Has he said anything else?”

“No,” Mara said. “He fell asleep again.”

Edrik frowned. “If he woke up once, he's ready to wake up again. And I want some answers.” He leaned down, gripped the youth's shoulders through the blankets covering it, and shook him. “Wake up, Chell of the Royal Korellian Navy,” he said. “Wake up, and give an account of yourself.”

The youth groaned. His eyes flicked open and this time focused. He blinked. “Who are you?” he asked. “Where am I?”

Edrik grunted. “The classic questions,” he said. “But I think I get to ask mine first. Who are
you
? And where did you come from?”

The boy hesitated. Edrik's hands tightened on his shoulders. “The
truth
.”

“I . . . I already told
her
,” his eyes flicked to Mara. “My name is Chell.”

“And you're in the Royal Korellian Navy. Yes, I heard.” Edrik released him and straightened. “But you'll forgive me if I find that hard to believe . . . since the Sea Kingdom of Korellia sank beneath the waves four centuries ago.”

Mara, Keltan, and Hyram exchanged startled looks.

“I assure you, it did not,” said Chell. His voice sounded stronger now. “Not literally, at least. Though I suppose, figuratively, that's not a bad description of what happened . . . to Korellia, and all the other kingdoms.”

“Explain,” Edrik snapped.

Chell shook his head. “Look, I'll gladly answer all your questions and explain who I am and why I'm here . . . but do we have to do it this way? It's a bit awkward discussing ancient history when one is naked in a bed—” His eyes flicked to Mara, who looked away, “—with bladders of hot water under your arms and on your . . .” he let his voice trail away.

Edrik gave a quick nod. “Very well. If Grelda gives you leave, you may get up and get dressed.” He looked at Keltan. “Fetch the Healer.”

Keltan scrambled to his feet and hurried out. To Hyram, Edrik said, “He looks to be about your size. His clothes won't be dry for hours. Fetch him some of yours.” Hyram scowled, but followed Keltan.

Edrik glanced at Mara. “You should go get some dry clothes of your own.”

“I'm fine,” Mara said.

“I insist,” said Edrik, and his tone made it clear that she had no choice but to obey. She let the blanket slide from her shoulders onto the bed, got up, and went to the red curtain.

Glancing back just before she went out, she saw the strange young man's eyes following her.

“I Have to See My Father”

“I
T'S NOT FAIR,” Mara said, sitting in the Grand Chamber that night, pushing redroots around on her plate. “I found him. They should have let me be there while they questioned him.”

“You make him sound like a stray puppy,” said Alita. “He's not yours.”

She and Simona were the only ones at the table with Mara. Hyram had been sent out on evening patrol and Keltan had probably scraped the very redroots Mara was pointedly not eating—much as she liked them—since it was his week for kitchen duty. Prella . . .

Prella was the other reason Mara was pushing her redroots around instead of shoveling them into her mouth. Prella had come in with Alita, taken one look at Mara already sitting at their usual table, and gone off to sit with Kirika who, as usual, was sitting by herself at a table near the door instead of joining the others. That was good in a way, Mara thought; the dour, prickly Kirika had warmed up to, and
opened
up to, Prella far more than any of the rest of them,
mostly out of guilt at having almost killed her with a spade
, Mara thought, then felt her own pang of guilt for being so uncharitable. But she knew the main reason Prella had gone to sit with Kirika
tonight
was that she had hurt the other girl's feelings badly in the Mask workshop.

I have to apologize
, Mara thought. She gave Prella and Kirika a sideways glance. They were leaning toward each other, heads almost touching.
I should go over there and do it now
. And she honestly was about to, except just at that moment Simona, in response to Alita, said, “I wish he was
mine
. He's cute.”

“How would you—” Mara began, and then broke off, because she had followed Simona's gaze and seen what she'd seen: Chell, entering the Grand Chamber with Edrik and Edrik's beautiful black-haired wife (and Hyram's mother), Tralia. Though dressed in what were definitely not Hyram's best clothes (in fact, judging from the patches, not even his second- or third-best), the strange, slim young man stood out in the Chamber with his pale face and white-gold hair.

“Well, he's not a prisoner,” Alita said.

“Looks more like an honored guest,” Simona said. Her voice had a dreamy quality.

Mara gave her a disgusted look, then turned back to follow the stranger's procession through the Grand Chamber, heads—including Prella's and Kirika's—turning as he passed, to the tables at the far end where the highest-ranking members of the unMasked Army typically gathered, presumably to discuss important matters over dinner.

Matters too important, apparently, to involve Mara.

Well
, she thought,
I've got my own important matter to discuss
. And before she was even fully aware she was doing it, she found herself on her feet and following Edrik, Tralia, and Chell the length of the Grand Chamber. “What are you doing?” she heard Alita whisper behind her, but didn't look back.

As the trio seated themselves, Chell was the first to see her, and her heart, oddly, skipped a beat as his face split into a huge grin. She felt herself echoing that smile with one of her own. “Mara! My rescuer!” Chell said. “Come and join us!”

Edrik turned his head sharply toward him. “No,” he said. “I'm sorry, Mara, but the Commander has ordered that we not discuss—”

“I'm not here to ask anything about Chell,” Mara said. She turned resolutely away from him. “I need to see Catilla.”

Edrik frowned. “The Commander is not well,” he said. “Is it urgent?”

“It's about . . . what I've been ordered to do,” Mara said, some belated sense of caution reminding her that she knew nothing about Chell and so perhaps should not be too open in his presence. “I need to discuss with her how I am to proceed.”

Edrik chewed on his lower lip, a nervous reaction Mara could never remember seeing from him before. “All right,” he said at last. “I'll arrange it as soon as possible. I'll send word. Now if you'll excuse us—”

“Please,” Chell said. “May she not join us? I promise I will be discreet in what I say. But I would like to thank her properly for saving my life.”

“The Commander—” Edrik began again, but Mara got support from an unexpected quarter.

“Edrik,” Tralia said. “Let her stay. I hardly think letting her eat with Chell will pose a threat to security. We're both right here.”

Edrik glanced at his wife. “Well . . . all right,” he said, reluctantly.

“Thank you!” Mara said to Tralia, who smiled at her.

Chell moved over to make room for her beside him on the bench on his side of the table.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him as she sat down.

“Perfectly all right now,” he said. His accent was still strange, but easier to understand now that it was not slurred by the chill that had almost claimed his life. “Thanks to you. If you had not happened to walk that way along the beach, I would have fallen where I fell and either frozen to death or been carried out to sea by some rogue wave like the one that capsized my boat.” His face turned grim. “And drowned all the rest of my party. As I would have drowned, had not two of them boosted me onto the boat's hull. I tried to pull up others, but the cold took its toll so quickly . . .” He fell silent.

Mara swallowed a sudden lump in her throat, thinking of those gently bobbing corpses on the beach. They had had names, families, lives. They had been Chell's friends. She managed a tentative smile. “Good thing I was feeling restless, then.”

Chell swallowed hard himself, then managed a small smile in return, a smile that revealed dimples in each cheek that made him look even younger. “A very good thing indeed.” He glanced up. “Ah! They're bringing food. I'm starving.”

Mara looked up, too.

Keltan, hurrying toward them with a tray containing clay plates and bowls, almost stumbled when he caught sight of her, coming within a hair's-breadth of dumping his whole steaming load on Tralia's head, but he caught himself and instead placed the tray on the table, shooting Mara one astonished—and more than slightly outraged—look before turning away. While Edrik, Tralia, and Chell helped themselves, Keltan returned with a bottle of wine and three clay mugs, which he slammed down onto the table with rather more force than was necessary.

Chell watched him go, then glanced at Mara with an amused expression. “A friend of yours?”

“Sort of,” Mara mumbled.

“Just sort of?” Chell leaned closer. “He looks jealous to me,” he whispered teasingly. “Boyfriend?”

“No!” Mara said, more loudly than she intended, and felt her face flame with embarrassment. At that moment she could cheerfully have stabbed Keltan to death with her butter knife.

Chell sat back. “You're not eating?”

“I already ate,” Mara said.

“Wine?”

Mara shuddered. “No, thanks.”

“We discourage the younger ones from drinking wine,” Tralia said conversationally. “Although I daresay they manage it anyway.” She gave Mara a wink, and Mara, whose first experience with wine just a few weeks before had been humbling, looked down.

Why did I come over here?
she thought miserably.
They treat me like a child. Even after what I did in the mining camp.

What I could do right now . . .

She suddenly felt the power all around her, the magic in all the bodies crammed into the Grand Chamber at the height of the dinner hour, feeling it strongest from Edrik, Tralia, and Chell. She could draw that power to herself, show them she was no child, show them she was to be taken seriously . . .

She swallowed hard.

“I . . . I think I'd better . . .” She got to her feet. “I promised Ethelda . . . meet with her . . .”

Chell stood, too, and bowed to her courteously. “Then a good evening to you, fair lady,” he said. “And my thanks again for the rescue.” He glanced at Edrik, who had remained seated, stoically shoveling food into his mouth, and Tralia, who gave her husband a slightly exasperated look before smiling at Mara.

“Run along, then, dear,” she said.

“Sure,” Mara said. “'Bye.” She walked away as quickly as she could, ears burning, certain that if she looked back she'd see Chell, Edrik, and Tralia laughing at her as she went.

She didn't look back.

Simona and Alita's eyes tracked her as she approached—and then passed—their table. Prella looked up as she neared, and then immediately looked away again. Kirika barely glanced at her, her face stony.

Keltan angled across the floor with a laden tray as though intending to intercept her, but she quickened her steps to avoid him, emerging into the quiet dimness of the Broad Way a moment later. There she paused, wrapping her arms around herself and pressing her back against the stone wall.
What's wrong with me?
Drawing magic from other people . . . it was
wrong
, it was
evil
, and it
hurt
—hurt worse than any other pain she had ever experienced. It should be the last thing she ever wanted to do again. And yet, day after day, she felt the urge to steal others' magic. Day after day, she pushed that urge away, but it always came back . . .

...and it was getting stronger. Just now, in the Grand Chamber, stung because she felt she'd been treated like a child, she'd come perilously close to giving in.

And if she gave in once . . . would she ever be able to stop?

Ethelda
, she thought.
I must see Ethelda
.

She hurried across the Broad Way. The stairs she climbed led up to the girls' room on the second level, but carried on past that to the third level, where Ethelda had been given quarters down at the far end. The Healer opened the door at once when Mara rapped, and ushered her into the small room beyond, furnished with bed, chair, table, and chest. A cozy fire burned in the small hearth, and a white-painted shutter on the single slit-like window kept out the wintry sea air.

“I thought you'd forgotten,” Ethelda said. A small woman with blue eyes and a round, pleasant face, she smiled as she spoke, leeching any possible sting from the words.

“Something reminded me,” Mara replied. She stepped into the room, and Ethelda closed the door behind her, her expression concerned.

“What's happened?” Ethelda said, taking a seat in the chair by the table.

Mara sat on the edge of the bed and poured out what she had just felt. “It was the strongest it's ever been,” she said miserably. “I felt hurt, and embarrassed, and angry, and I wanted to . . . I wanted to show them, to prove to them I'm not a child, to show them I'm powerful . . .”

“But you didn't,” Ethelda said quietly. “You resisted.”

“Barely.”

“It doesn't matter if you ‘barely' dodged a sword stroke or dodged it by a mile, you still dodged it,” Ethelda pointed out.

“But what if I don't dodge it next time?”

A candle burned in the middle of the table; Ethelda reached out and passed her hand back and forth through the flame, too quickly to get burned. “Mara,” she said at last, “the fact is . . . I don't know how to help you.”

Mara's stomach twisted. “What?”

Ethelda pulled her hand back from the flame and stared at her open palm for a moment. “You have reached the limit of my knowledge.” She closed the hand into a fist, then opened it again and drew it back to her. She looked up into Mara's eyes, her expression grave. “You are Gifted, in a fashion that is rare . . . not
unique
, perhaps, but almost. I know what you can do . . . but I don't know how you do it. I do not know how you draw magic from others. I do not know what it means that you can see and use all ‘colors' of magic at will, or what is truly possible with that kind of power. I do not know a great many things.”

“But you're the Master Healer of Aygrima!” Mara cried. “If
you
don't know—”

“I
was
the Master Healer,” Ethelda said, a hint of sharpness in her tone for the first time. “And I know a great deal about the use of magic for healing. But I have never had to heal, or help, one with your abilities . . . or problems. If I were in the Palace, I would delve into the ancient books in the Library . . . but I do not have access to the Library. All I have is the knowledge I have managed to sequester in my own brain over the years. And that is depressingly little.”

Mara felt cold, though the fire blazed as hot as ever in the hearth not six feet away. “But . . . what do I do? How can I learn to control these . . . urges? What if I can't? I'll start hurting people. I might kill someone again. I might—”

“Might, and might, and might,” Ethelda said. “Might is not the same as ‘will.'” She raised her hands in a placating gesture. “I know. That is still no guarantee that ‘might' won't
become
‘will.'” Then she spread her hands. “Mara, all I can say is . . . resist.”