Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) (4 page)

He rode out with the builders himself to
oversee the maintenance of the defenses—an important piece of our
lives here, on the border of Ismir. The peace of my childhood had
been hard-fought and hard-won by the Duke himself, but whatever
memories he might have had, looking over the place where he had led
his men to battle and glory and death,

were hidden deep beneath his habitual
scowl.

He would work through the dinner hour with
the record-keepers, the stewards, the guard captains, leaving his
chair empty in the great hall—though we served a dinner to it in
any case, and the cooks made rich meals fit for a feast, to
celebrate his presence there.

The Lady presided over these meals like a
queen, calling for wine and music. She had done her hair very fine
under her headdress, I noticed, and she wore gowns with gold
embroidery and all her jewels. She had dressed the little Lady
Miriel finely as well, although Miriel’s hair was allowed to tumble
over her shoulders. The girl was wearing velvets and silks, even
little chains of gold and silver at her waist and pearls at her
neck.

On the last night of the Duke’s visit, I was
serving wine to his soldiers, and so was standing by the little
side hallway as he came into the hall. I knew, from creeping
partway up the stairs to his tower chamber, that he had been
discussing the increasing number of raids on our outlying villages,
and I thought he looked tense. He looked up as he came into the
hall, a figure in all black, hidden in the shadows at the edge of
the room, and only I saw the look of contempt on his face as he
observed the high table.

Later Temar would tell
me,
sometimes one moment can give you the
whole key to a person
. I did not know
enough yet to have the whole key to the Duke, but this moment gave
me one of many keys. It reminded me that he was a man, a man who
could be spurred to anger like any other. For now, I saw that
although the Duke publicly observed every pleasantry that a brother
should, he loved the Lady not at all. More so, she was distasteful
to him, worthy of no respect.

And I saw that the Duke’s eyes flicked from
the Lady, posturing and smiling, to Miriel, who sat quietly at her
side. He watched his niece carefully, as if he would see everything
about her from the curve of her cheek, from the set of her
shoulders. He looked at her as he looked at his stone walls and his
guard towers: something in the making, something to be
perfected.

And then he looked over at me, and I shrank
back against the wall.

“
What are you doing
here?”

“
Wine?” I offered, and I
held out my pitcher.

He stared at me for a moment. “Are you sure
about her?” he asked, and I realized that Temar must be standing
out of sight in the hallway. I craned my head to look.

“
Very,” Temar said, and he
gave me a smile. “You should eat, milord.”

“
Yes.” The Duke narrowed
his eyes at me and strode away to the high table, and Temar shot me
a wink before following. I smiled after him, and then went to
refill the soldiers’ cups, for they were shouting for more
drink.

Later that night, as I shared the day’s
knowledge with Temar, I asked him, “Why am I to study with the Lady
Miriel’s tutors?”

“
To see what you can
learn,” Temar said easily.

“
But why?” I persisted. “No
one tests the other servants. Why me?”

“
That’s a very good
question,” Temar said. “Keep thinking on it, little
one.”

“
But
why
?” I asked. I felt my face warm
when he smiled at me, when he called me by a nickname; but I had
the sense that I did not want him to think of me as a child. He
only laughed at my frustration, and I flushed.

“
What if I were to lie to
you?”

I was shocked. “You wouldn’t.”

He looked very serious, more serious than I
had ever seen him before. “Wouldn’t I?” His face softened. “You
must learn to find things out without ever asking what you are
after. I know you can do it, Catwin.”

I was warmed by his praise, but still
discontented. I looked down at my hands and nodded. Temar stood and
stretched.

“
Time for you to get some
sleep. I will see you in three months’ time.”

“
What?” I looked up, and
Temar smiled his easy smile. “Don’t worry. You will have much to
learn while we are gone. Study well, make your tutors proud.”
Before I could move to hug him, or speak to beg him not to go, he
was gone.

That night, I dreamed that I walked through
driving snow, surrounded by the eerie whistle of a winter storm,
engulfed in white. I knew this wasn’t real; I had been out in
enough blizzards, securing the flocks and battening down the
shutters of the castle, to know the merciless bite of the wind on
my skin, the slow seep of water into my old boots. No, instead I
walked as if the wind could not touch me. I could feel nothing.

I craned to look about me, and could see
only hovels, unlovely little shacks, battered and leaning. The path
curved away and up, and I looked ahead: the castle, my home, rose
into the sky at the peak of the mountain. It was half-lost in the
swirling snow. White-out, I thought—a term I had heard the
guardsmen shout to each other. No wonder no one was about. They
were hunkering down, wondering if their supplies were lost on the
trail. As soon as the snow cleared, they would venture out to see
if any caravans needed help, and they would demand the goods in
return for aid.

A cry caught my ear, the wail of a baby. It
was coming from the shack near me, and after a moment’s hesitation,
I pushed open the door and went in. I knew that I was not truly
here, but habit ran strong, and I closed the door carefully behind
me, as Roine had taught me to do. In the little shack, a weak fire
burned in the hearth, and a woman lay on an old cot, a man at her
side with a baby in his arms.

“
Just hold her,” the man
pleaded.

“
No, no.” The woman was
wild-eyed. She looked so gaunt and so feverish that I wanted to
draw the man and the infant back from her; there was death in those
eyes. “I don’t want her!”

“
It’s over, now,” he
assured her. “It’s over, and we’ll get the healer. I promise,
you’ll be well soon. Just hold her.”

“
No!” She pushed him away
with her feverish strength, and fell back onto the pillows. The
baby was screaming at the top of its lungs, wrapped awkwardly in a
blanket. So small, I realized. Hardly any cause for the blood I saw
on the blankets.

The woman was shaking her
head; I could see her cracked lips still forming the words:
no, no, no
, over and
over. Her eyes were half-open, and I saw that they were the same
grey as the storm clouds of winter, an omen of the
blizzard.

“
Take her away,” she said.
“She’s…”

“
What is it?” The man held
the baby close to him and leaned over to hear his wife more
clearly. She whispered something and I could see his brow
furrow.

“
You don’t know what you’re
saying,” he said, but he looked worried. He looked down at the
bundle in his arms, her little face still screwed up, yelling.
“Please, rest. I’ll go to the castle now, myself—“ he cast a glance
outside at the blizzard, and I saw his lips move in a silent
prayer. It was foolhardy at best, and more likely it would be the
death of him. Then he looked back at his wife, and his face
twisted. He could not let her die. “Rest. Daniel will take care of
you. I’ll go now.”

“
Take her with you,” the
women rasped. “Take her, and leave her outside.”

“
What are you saying?” He
recoiled, but she reached over to grab his arm.

“
She’ll be betrayed.” The
woman’s voice had a sudden, awful clarity. “She was born to be
betrayed.” She had lifted off the pillows, but now she sank back.
She was shaking her head again.
No
. “Kinder to let her die now. See
how she cries…” She was slipping back into the fever haze. “Take
her,” she whispered.

With a start, I recognized the squalling
little bundle as myself. Even knowing this for a dream, believing
that this could not possibly be them, I took a step closer to look
at my parents: my mother, with honey-colored hair and grey eyes, on
the edge of death, and my father, with the strenuous leanness of
the poor, holding my tiny self awkwardly in his big, work-roughened
hands.

Was it possible that these were truly my
parents?

The man laid my tiny self carefully in a
cradle, out of reach of my mother, and he grabbed his hat and his
cap and hurried out into the storm, quite oblivious to my silent
presence. But when he was gone, I saw the woman’s eyes focus on
me.

“
Are you an angel?” she
asked, and after a moment, I shook my head. She was shivering, and
as much as I knew it to be a dream, I walked over to the bed and
pulled the covers more snuggly around her. Still, she shook with
cold; she was far gone. Her head lolled towards me. “Please…” she
whispered, and I leaned forward to her.

“
What?”

“
You need to take her
away,” she pleaded with me. “My daughter. She’s cursed. She was
born to be betrayed, and when it happens…” Her voice trailed off
and I leaned closer still.

“
What?” I asked urgently.
“What will happen?”

“
The balance…tips,” the
woman whispered. “Endings.” She was fading away from me. “Promise
me…” she whispered, and, with a start, I woke soaked in sweat,
throwing the blankets from me and heaving for breath. Roine,
already awake and at work, looked over at me curiously.

“
Bad dream?”

“
Strange dream.” I sank my
head into my hands. “I saw the day I was born.” Roine put down her
work and came over to me, kneeling beside my cot.

“
What did you
see?”

“
It was only a dream,” I
said, irritable in the wake of my fear, but she shook her
head.

“
You dreamed of the
prophecy,” she guessed.

“
I saw my mother. I
thought.” I shook my head. “I mean—I know I didn’t.” She only
watched me, and I swallowed. “She said, I would be betrayed…and the
balance would tip. It would end things.” The words, so prophetic in
my mother’s feverish rasp, half-obscured by the howl of the
blizzard, were ridiculous now. I shook my head again, to clear it.
“It’s nothing. It means nothing.”

“
She said the balance
would
tip
?’”
Roine clarified, as I got up and began to move about the room. I
cast an annoyed look at her over my shoulder.

“
In the dream, she
did.”

“
And end
something...”

“
Yes,” I said impatiently.
“It was just a dream.” She did not respond, and I looked over at
her. She was gazing at me, as sadly as I had ever seen her.
Repentant, I ran over to give her a hug. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean
to be rude.”

“
I know,” she said, into my
hair. “Go get some breakfast. You’ll need to go to your lessons, if
you’re to go to court.”

“
I thought you said we
weren’t going,” I said, surprised. I felt a flush of joy at the
thought of going after all, of seeing someplace new, of seeing
Temar’s smile again.

“
Things change,” Roine said
simply. “Go now.”

Chapter 4

The cane whistled through the air before it
struck, and I tried to keep from wincing. I had learned to hate
that moment, just before the pain. I had learned to hate the moment
before it, too, when I saw the teacher’s eyes narrow and his arm
tense. Both of these were just as bad as the moment when the cane
fell, and the pain blossomed out from it, stinging the skin, aching
in the parts of me that were already bruised.

But each paled in comparison to the next
thing that I knew would come: a breathless little giggle, only
partly suppressed, from the Lady Miriel. Every time I was struck
with the cane, for any mistake real or imagined, she would laugh: a
little titter she could not entirely hold back. As I gritted my
teeth against the pain, she bit her lip against a spiteful peal of
laughter. Whatever it was that the Lady had told her about me,
Miriel was my sworn enemy; she reveled in my failure.

And there could be nothing from me, no sign
of anger or resentment. A harsh word to her had once earned me a
cuff about the head and a lashing at the post in the
courtyard—although Roine had pleaded for the use of a tawse, so as
not to break my skin. I had learned from that, but I had found that
a silent glare earned me another hit with the cane, and even the
appearance of displeasure would make its way back to the Lady, who
would have her revenge.

“
My daughter’s tutor tells
me…” she would say, her fingers clutching at the arms of her chair,
her back ramrod straight, and then would come the punishment: a
beating, or no supper, extra duties in the kitchens at night so
that I was yawning in the morning and beaten again for
rudeness.

As often as not, the Lady watched these
punishments, her eyes narrowed and the corners of her red-painted
mouth curved in a smile. The first time she watched, I found myself
seized by a desire not to show her my pain. I bit my lips against
the whistle and crack of the rod, and I gripped the edge of the
chair I was to hold, but in the end I heard my own whimper in the
silence, and—even with tears blurring my vision—I could see the
Lady’s smile grow wider.