Reign of Shadows

  “I am a friend. Such a good friend that I’m making this decision for your own good.” He rustled through his things, slipping a jacket over his tunic, continuing on as though there was nothing to say on the matter. He would think that. He would think that I was totally at his mercy to go where he directed. “We’ll talk more about this when I get back,” he said in a softer voice.

  “Oh, will we?” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat and chafed my hands up and down my arms as though suddenly needing the warmth. “I thought the decision was made. For my own good? Is that not what you said?”

  He exhaled an audible gust of breath. As though I was a burden. A great weight upon his shoulders that he must endure—and that stung and pricked at all the raw and sensitive parts of me that yearned to be free and strong. Didn’t he understand by now that I was as independent as he was and not someone who must be cared for as one cared for a pet or child?

  When I left home, I’d told myself Sivo let me go because he thought I was strong enough, smart enough to survive in this world.

  I had believed that. I still did.

  And yet Fowler didn’t. His doubt of me crept in, undermining my own faith. He made me feel vulnerable and scared beyond what was right. A little fear kept you alert. Too much left you crippled.

  “Let’s not do this, Luna. Not now.”

  “No,” I said, surprising even myself at the firmness of my voice. “I want to do this now.”

  His sigh sounded tired. “Is it so very wrong of me? To want to keep you safe?”

  “It’s wrong if it’s what I want—”

  “To die?” he demanded. “No. That is wrong. That’s selfish and—”

  “Only the selfish belong in this world. Isn’t that what you said? I’m only doing my part.”

  I heard his swift intake of breath. For a moment I regretted flinging his own words back at him like that, but then I thought about the multitude of girls being killed across Relhok. Because of me.

  “I’m trying to stop him and save lives. How is that selfish?” I pressed, gentling my tone as I stepped closer. The heat from his body radiated toward me. “It’s my life. Mine to do with as I see fit.”

  “I promised Sivo and Perla—”

  I scoffed at that, knowing how much he had resented that promise. At least in the beginning. “I appreciate your dedication to keeping your word, but Sivo and Perla will never know. They’ll live out their days convinced that I’ve reached the Isle of Allu. They’ll never know any differently.”

  His hands closed on my arms, each finger splayed wide, a burning imprint that seared me through the sleeves of my shirt. A pulse beat in his broad palms, thrumming directly into me, merging with my own racing heart.

  I dragged in a shuddery breath, thinking I would forever feel those hands on me, an indelible mark long after this—whatever this was—had ended. And it would end one way or another. Either he supported my decision to leave or I was leaving without him. Preferably with him, but I’d cope either way.

  “But I’ll know.” He hauled me closer and I went forward with a breathless squeak. “I’ll know.” He was close, his head dipping, bending toward mine.

  I lifted my face up, seeking, unable to stop myself even though I knew this would likely end with fresh torment. He’d almost kissed me before. I was sure this would end the same.

  “Luna.” My name sounded pained coming from him.

  He brought me closer, crushing me against him, our bodies fused until I felt every hard line, every dip and hollow and contour of him. The pressure of his hands on my arms deepened, lifting me slightly until I was on my tiptoes.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded in a voice I couldn’t even recognize as my own.

  “What does it look like?” His lips were on mine then, grazing the sensitive flesh while he rasped, “For every day of my life, I will know. And I will mourn you.”

  He didn’t give me a chance to respond. He deepened the kiss.

  I shrugged my arms free of his and looped them around his neck, clinging desperately, following some untapped instinct. I stood on my tiptoes and pulled his head closer. It was like a floodgate had opened. Everything poured out of me, all the longing and hope I’d ever felt. Every dream I ever had I unleashed into this kiss.

  The poetry in my mother’s books wove through my mind. This was nothing like the emotions suggested in that stilted language. I thought I understood the secrets behind the words that Sivo and Perla had read to me—how a single kiss could brand a person—but I didn’t. Now I knew that the reality was so much better. So much more intense. Now I felt it all: the singe of his mouth slanting on mine, the increasing pressure, the growing need, the friction that spread to my very toes.

  I lifted trembling hands, spearing my fingers through his hair, reveling in the silky locks filling my palms. He slanted his mouth one way, then another, as though he couldn’t get enough. I cupped his cheek, enjoying the sensation of his hard jaw under my fingertips as we kissed.

  “I like that,” he growled. “You. Touching me.”

  I shivered. Did he know how badly I had wanted to touch him? More than just those few times? Every day since we came together I had craved this, yearned to feel him but scared to reach out. I had worried that he would turn from me and I would be left feeling more alone than before.

  I knew how soft his lips could be, but I had no idea how they could consume me. I was lost in his mouth on mine, in the sensation of his hand holding my face as his fingers dove into my hair.

  He crouched for a fraction of a moment, wrapped his arms around my waist, and lifted me off my feet until we were perfectly aligned, my mouth level with his. He started walking.

  I tightened my arms around his shoulders, hanging on. I gave the smallest gasp when he backed us into a wall, but that didn’t stop the kiss. No. He didn’t slow down. His mouth was thorough, soft and hard and hungry. I felt him everywhere. And this was just a kiss. Leaving him would ruin me.

  A thump sounded outside the door. “Come on, boy! They’re heading to the lift. It’s time to go.”

  My mouth lifted from his at the sound of Mirelya’s rusty voice. Our breaths crashed between us. I held his face, my thumbs tracing small circles on his warm cheeks.

  After a long moment with Fowler’s arms still wrapped around my waist, he said in a voice that stroked a shiver down my spine, “That’s why you can’t go. Princess.” He brushed back a tendril of hair off my face. “I’m going out on that lake and when I get back we’ll continue to Allu.” He paused as though he wanted that to sink in for me. I didn’t have the heart to fight anymore. I said nothing, but my resolve only deepened.

  I would go to the capital with or without him. I had to.

  “Fowler!” Mirelya’s voice boomed from outside our room, all patience gone.

  He lowered me back down to the ground and dropped his hands from me. He strode from the room without another word.

  I stood in that same spot for a long moment, stupidly staring into the dark of my mind, still as a stone until I jolted to action. Pulling my cap from my pocket, I tugged it back over my head, as if that helped hide my gender. Feeling suitably disguised, I followed him out.

  “I’ll look after her,” Mirelya was assuring him in her creaking voice, sitting somewhere to the right, presumably at the table.

  I snorted, finding a bit of irony in that. This ancient woman, nearly as blind as I was, would look after me? Her bones cracked every time she moved and there was the odor of decay about her.

  “Thank you, Mirelya,” Fowler said.

  “Watch yourself out there, boy. There’s more than kelp in those waters.”

  Cold seeped into my bones. “What do you mean? Is it very risky?”

  “It’s no simple task,” Mirelya allowed.

  “Well, no then.” I turned in Fowler’s direction. “You can’t go. You’re nothing to them. They care nothing for your life. You’re expendable to them. One of many to be lost for their purposes—?
?? I strode across the room, my fingers finding and latching onto him, curling into the worn leather of his jacket. I had been so caught up in my insistence to return to Relhok City that it hadn’t occurred to me that they might force him into a dangerous situation.

  “Luna.” His hand closed over mine. “I’ve survived this long. This isn’t going to be the end of me. It would take more than a lake to kill me.”

  He lifted my hands off him, his warm touch no less firm for all its gentleness. My hands dropped to my sides, empty.

  “I’ll be back,” he assured me.

  “I don’t want you to go.” There was no wavering in my voice. It rang solidly. I needed for him to be safe and well. I needed him not to go off into whatever danger waited in that lake.

  Suddenly I understood his insistence that I not go back to Relhok City. I understood because I felt the very same way. I wanted him safe, and he wanted the same thing for me, but I wouldn’t tolerate it of him.

  But his life didn’t equal the death of an entire group. Mine did.

  I wanted him to forget about going out on that lake. I wanted him to wait until midlight and then continue on his journey to Allu as he’d always planned—as he had always intended from the moment we first met. It was his plan before we met. It was his plan after we met. It would be his plan no matter what happened to me.

  I swallowed against the bitter taste in my mouth. Whether I was with him or not, he would eventually see that. As long as he survived. As long as nothing happened to him out on that lake.

  “We need the supplies. There’s no choice. I have to do this.”

  Strange that he would use my same words.

  There was a rustling as he lifted his pack, and the familiar whisper of his bow and sheath of arrows as he picked it up from where it rested near the hearth. “I’ll be back.”

  Then he was gone.

  I felt his absence even though his tread fell silently. It was an ache as keen and sharp as the point of a knife’s blade at my skin.

  “Come, girl, you can help me with laundry.”

  “Of course.” I fell into step behind her and tried not to think about Fowler and where he was headed.

  “You well? You’re hardly moving.”

  “I’m fine.” I shook off my sluggish movements. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because your man might not return, that’s why.”

  The words struck me like a slap. I swallowed back the lump rising up in my throat. “He’s not mine. But he’ll be back.”

  I shoved down the rest of my fear and convinced myself that this was the truth. Fowler had been on his own for a long time. This wouldn’t be the end of him.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  THE LAKE STRETCHED like an endless sea. Our creaking wagons stopped at its banks with a groan of grinding wheels. I stared out at the water in the muted midlight. The light spilled brighter through breaks in the clouds as if the sun itself wanted to touch the lake’s surface.

  My heart lifted for a moment. It was the most sunlight I had seen in years. A fractured memory rippled across my mind. Giggling with my mother outside, my small hand tracing her pretty face while she loomed over me, her chestnut hair gilded in the sunshine as she smiled down at me. Such a rare thing that smile, and nearly as blinding as all that light washing over us.

  “Come.” Glagos snapped out the command. “Can’t gawk all day. Time is waning and we need to be on the water.”

  I shook off the cobwebs of memory and hopped down from the wagon. The sooner this was done, the sooner I’d get back. Back to Luna.

  I didn’t like leaving her. Even if Luna was disguised, there was a bounty on her head and that fact gnawed at me. The sooner we put Ortley behind us, the better I’d feel.

  I had kissed her. I knew I should regret it, but I didn’t. I could only think about getting back to her and doing it again. Maybe if I kissed her enough she would forget about going to Relhok City and turning herself in to the king.

  I followed the others, gathering nets and tools from the wagons and walking down the stretch of dock to the moored boats, three in total, rocking gently on calm waters.

  “You’re with me.” Glagos waved me after him.

  A near dozen of us clambered aboard boats—three or four to each one. We pushed off. I wasn’t stupid enough to take Glagos’s insistence that I join him as a compliment. I was the newest arrival to Ortley. He was the leader. He had to keep a close eye on me.

  I settled in the middle of the boat and took up an oar. The boy beside me did the same. He was no more than fourteen with reed-thin arms and I wondered how well he functioned when he looked fit to expire from hunger. Apparently the boy didn’t eat his fair share of the kelp he fished out of the lake.

  We rowed, falling into an easy rhythm, our oars slicing water. Glagos studied me as I worked, rubbing the scar on his face pensively, looking for weakness. I held his stare. With a sound that was part snort and part laugh, he looked away to assess the lake. The other boats fanned out, a lantern in each, bobbing on the current and spilling light into a wide circle on the dark waters.

  Midlight gradually slipped away and night returned. I inhaled the familiar darkness, the musky earthiness that signaled the return of the dwellers. I scanned the shoreline. No sign of them yet, but they were out there.

  “What? Worried they’ll swim for us?” Grinning, Glagos followed my gaze. “They won’t.”

  “I wasn’t worried.”

  “Good then,” Glagos murmured. “Let’s have it.”

  I returned my gaze to the lake. The water gleamed like black, shimmering glass. It was not the typical dark. The usual darkness was like staring into a black pit. There was no gloss or shimmer to it. No wink of anything buried in its depths.

  We didn’t go too far from the shoreline. “The kelp doesn’t grow like it did in the old days,” Glagos grimly remarked. “Might have to dive a bit deeper for it.”

  “How far down is this kelp? Last time I checked I still need to breathe.”

  The boy snickered at my joke. “Take a deep breath before going under. It helps.”

  “That’s it? That’s your advice?”

  “Good advice as any.” We dropped anchor and the boy lifted his sword, taking position at the helm.

  I removed my boots and stripped down to my trousers. The boy grinned at me as I shivered in the chilly air. “Wait until you hit the water. It will wither your insides it’s so cold.”

  Glagos stepped over the seat and grabbed my wrist.

  I jerked at the contact. “What are you—”

  His fingers squeezed. “Hold still.” He looped a strip of leather about my wrist. A set of shearers hung from one end of it. “The blades are strong,” he said. “They’ll slice through the kelp like ribbons . . . and anything else you might come across.”

  I winced but uttered no complaint as he tightened the strap around my wrist. His gaze moved from me to the water. I tossed the shears once in my hand, catching them. I clenched the worn leather, flexing my fingers around the grip.

  I followed his gaze to the water, his earlier comment not lost on me. “What else might I come across?” I asked.

  He stared at me again, his expression mild. “We’re not the only ones who like to feed on the kelp.”

  A bleak smile twisted my lips and a short bark of laughter escaped me. Perhaps I had uttered a lie to Luna after all. Perhaps surviving the lake wouldn’t be the simple matter I insisted.

  “You find that amusing?” Glagos murmured.

  “That I would survive this long only to die swimming in a lake for kelp? Yes. It’s amusing.”

  The young boy tossed me the net. I caught it in one hand. “Don’t forget that. You’ll need it.”

  I looped the strap over my head and across my chest, securing the net at my hip, testing the opening where I would stuff the kelp.

&n
bsp; I looked at Glagos. “It might help if I had an idea of what I’m up against?”

  “Hard to say. Since the dark-out, the lake life has evolved to survive.”

  “Haven’t we all?” I muttered dryly.

  The boy nodded. “The eels are particularly nasty. Big as a boat, some of them. But you’ll see them coming at least.” He laughed. “They make this popping sound followed by bursts of light.”

  Splashing could be heard in the distance as the other divers hit the water. I exhaled and studied the shore. The horizon bounced before my eyes as the boat bobbed. I’d promised her I’d be back tomorrow.

  Almost in reminder, I spotted several dark dwellers trudging along the edge of the lake, their hunger a palpable thing as they looked in our direction, no doubt drawn by the lights of the lanterns. They stood sentinel, their bodies pale smudges against the dark.

  As long as they stood there, we weren’t getting off this lake until next midlight. Gazing out at the dwellers, I vowed that this wouldn’t be a pointless risk. Leaving Luna. Coming out here. I wasn’t leaving Ortley without the necessary supplies

  I faced Glagos again. “I’m ready.”

  “Here.” I took the contraption he offered me, turning it over in my hands. It resembled a pair of spectacles except with a leather strap that went around my head. “It’s dark down there,” he explained. “Darker than it is up here, but occasionally an eel will offer you a flash of light. When that happens these will help you see.” I tapped the edge of one lens.

  “Tortoiseshell,” Glagos added. “Should keep water from leaking in and allow you to see.”

  I tugged them on, wincing at the tight and uncomfortable fit around my eyes.

  “Once you fill your net, we’ll be ready at the side of the boat to swap it out for a new one. The more you haul, the more you keep. Good luck.”

  With a nod, I swung a leg over the side. I plunged into the frigid depths, opening my mouth wide in shock. Water filled my throat and nose. Bad idea. I broke the surface, sputtering and choking on the silty water.