Shadow's End (Light & Shadow) (7 page)

“I’m…” I felt tears coming to my eyes, and realized that I had never cried in front of Miriel before. In front of Roine, in front of Donnett, once or twice during practice with Temar. Never in front of Miriel. I tried to hold the sobs back but I felt my throat ache with them and bent my head to hide my face. To my surprise, Miriel tugged gently on my arm and let me lay my head on her shoulder. I felt her arms around me, and the comfort of having her close.

“You survived,” she said tentatively, and I shook my head.

“He came for
me
,” I said thickly. “Not you and me, just me.”

“I should have saved you,” she whispered. “Like the time the man came for me, and you saved me. I should have saved you this time. I’m sorry.”

I sat up and wiped my eyes angrily on my sleeve. “Sometimes I wish my father had listened to my mother,” I said. “She said it would be kinder to kill me than let me live only to be betrayed.”

“Don’t say that!” Miriel was genuinely shocked
, and I swallowed and looked down. I had not even thought before speaking the words.

“It’s eating away at me,” I whispered my voice hoarse. I
t was true, but I realized that I had never admitted this, even to myself. “I thought perhaps it was over when we came here, but what if it follows me all my life?”

“Betrayal?” Miriel whispered, and I nodded.
She frowned, and then she reached out and squeezed my hand. “I’ll protect you,” she said seriously. “The next one, I’ll kill.” I laughed at the thought, and she shook her head stubbornly. “I mean it, Catwin. You’ve saved us both, time and again. You protect me. I need to protect you, too.”

“You don’t.” I shook my head, choking on my words
, trying to find a way to show her that she did not owe me this. Miriel had gone still for a moment, thinking. Now she twined her fingers with mine once more and tilted her head to look into my eyes.

“Are you well enough to walk?”

“Where are we going?” I was not sure I had the energy to escape once more.

“We’re going to the tavern,” Miriel said simply. “I’ve had enough of th
eir cowardice. I won’t stay like this, with you in danger here, and the country in danger in the west. We’re going to secure their help.”

“They might try to kill us.” My muscles were shaky; I was not sure if I could stand, let alone protect both of us. Miriel shook her head.

“Someone already tried,” she pointed out. When I smiled weakly, she added, “I don’t think the Merchant wants us dead, or Jeram. I don’t think most of the men want us dead, either. We’ll be safe enough, maybe even safer than here.” I nodded after a moment, accepting the grim logic, and looked around myself for a pitcher and a towel.

“I should wash.”

“No, we’ll go as we are. And here.” Miriel leaned over and pried the dagger out of Aron’s lifeless fingers. “Take this. Someone will recognize it. What are you looking at?” Slowly, I stood and went to the window, pried back the shutters so that the moonlight spilled over the object in my hand. A heavy blade, a pitted handle carved with interlocking circles. The blade, finely crafted, and the ripples of the metal.

“I’ve seen this dagger before,” I said softly. “The captain of the men who killed Garad—he carried its twin.” We stared at each other across the expanse of the room, unable to process the enormity of what we faced.
Aron, and the men who had killed Garad. Either—

N
o. I could not think of it.

“Hide that,”
Miriel said, suddenly superstitious. “Don’t let it see the light. Hide it.” Her jaw set, and she turned for the door.

“Where are you going?” I called after her, and she turned to look over her shoulder.

“The tavern, still. I don’t know what—that—means. But those men owe Heddred, and I am going to call in the debt.”

Chapter 7

It was hardly a struggle to escape the house. Jeram had stationed men outside the window, and they patrolled with purpose. Inside, however, the Merchant’s servants had long since gone to bed, thinking Miriel and me to be asleep. We crept down the hallways, ran quickly through the great entrance hall, and escaped out a side door, having only one patrol to avoid. I made a mental note that if we survived this, I would teach the men how to avoid multiple patrols. I even began to plan the lessons out, as well as I could—anything, to keep from thinking of what had just happened.

But as w
e picked our way through the darkness to the tavern, the thoughts began to creep into my mind without my volition. It took long minutes of silence until I could untangle the mess of anguish and understand what lay beneath: betrayal, but not of the human sort. I had thought, however foolishly, that when I came here I had outrun my fate, or that it was finally done with me. I was no longer a spy to a ruthless noble; I had begun to do something good, I had begun to believe in something that gave a purpose to my life.

I had believed betrayal
somehow could not follow me here; I had left my life behind, the Court and its intrigues seemed a lifetime away. But someone had come for me. They had sent an assassin here, to find me as I tried to build another life. And now I had nothing: no hope that I could have a life untainted by fear, no hope that I could turn myself back from an assassin to a girl. When the first false belief crashed down, all of the others came with it.

I walked in a daze, the darkness closing around me like a loving caress, shadows calling to a shadow.
Now I could see myself drawing closer to them. I had tried to stop the tide of darkness within myself, but it had been too late. I was slipping away. I had deluded myself into thinking that I could yet be a person like any other. I had killed, twice; I had killed without hesitation. No work for the rebellion, no good deeds, could reverse that. All my life, I would live with this, and it would eat at my heart until nothing was left, and I was a shadow, indeed. Was that what had happened to Temar? Was that why he always had such sadness behind his gaze?

Ahead of me, Miriel strode purposefully, her bloodstained hands clenched, her back straight. She was muttering to herself, as she had once been wont to do when
she walked through the Palace tunnels to meet the King; she was rehearsing. In my mind’s eye, she had gone as bright and hard as steel, brittle and unbending. The change she had tried to push away was pressing back, insistent; it was consuming her. She was becoming light untempered by shadow, unsoftened by darkness. Beautiful, and entirely inhuman.

Across the windy fields, the lights of the town glittered in the darkness. It seemed so welcoming, I thought, that I was overwhelmed by a wave of homesickness.
I was not homesick for any place I had ever known, but for a home I did not have, would not have. We had run away, only to find that we could not settle here. We could not settle until we could outrun what stalked us—and there was no outrunning fate. I would never walk across the fields, seeing lights in the distance and knowing them for my house, knowing that my family waited there. I would never roam the earth and know that there was always a place for me to return to. I would spend my life as I always had: a stranger, a cuckoo’s child.

I followed Miriel and wondered how she could still believe in the rebellion now—now that we had seen what had followed us here. I wondered if I should slip away, leave her to lead the rebellion as she should do, and take myself and my fate away from her. Anyone who betrayed me, now betrayed the cause I held dear. I looked at Miriel’s profile, and could not bring myself to tell her; I held the pain close inside, and walked in silence.

Jeram always stationed men outside the tavern, men in filthy clothes who looked like sots and drunks, but who could fight as well as any, and sound an alarm. Tonight’s sentries straightened up as they saw us coming, and banded together to block our path, but they did not raise their cudgels. They knew that we had been imprisoned, and we should not be here—but we were not running away. We were coming to them, covered in blood, and they did not know what to do. They stared at us, sidelong, and at each other. I would have hung back, but Miriel only stopped when she was right in front of them, her chin lifted, her jaw set.

“Come with me,” she ordered. “Come inside. All of you will hear what I have to say.” She was shining so brightly, to me, that I fancied even they could see it. They followed her as if in a daze, trailing in our wake as we strode into the barroom. The men there, shouting to each other about armies and victory, quieted at once when they saw us.
I saw shock on Jeram’s face, but I could not have said if it was shock that we had been attacked, or shock that we had survived. He stood to face us.

“Not a word.” Miriel’s voice cracked across the room like a whiplash. To my surprise, Jeram sat. He did not command his men to kill Miriel as a traitor, nor did he throw his own knife. He only sat, and watched Miriel as she looked around herself, then stepped onto a bench and from there onto one of the tables. The men craned to watch her as she looked around at them, beautiful and disheveled, blood-smeared, furious.

“Who knew of this?” Miriel demanded. “Who knew there was a man coming to kill us tonight?” The men stared at her, open-mouthed and afraid. I scanned the room, and my heart sank: not one face was cloaked, not a single man was smiling, or frustrated. Aron had not acted alone, he had been sent—but not by anyone here. By whom, then? Miriel did not even seem to care. “Which of you helped him?” She pointed to the Merchant, who was sitting awkwardly in the corner. “Was it you? Aron was your servant.”

“It was Aron?” The Merchant seemed incredulous. “I told him to guard you, my Lady, no more. I swear it. It could not have been him.”

“His body is lying in my rooms,” Miriel spat. “Go see for yourself if you do not believe me.” She turned away from his shock and swept her gaze over the men; they hunched their shoulders under her scrutiny. “Is this what we’ve come to, then?” she asked them all. “Assassinations?” She gestured to me. “Gods help us, we thought when we joined the rebellion that we had found truer allies than this.”

“We did not know—“ Jeram began, and Miriel shot him a furious glare.

“You didn’t know? Your own men planning to kill one of our number, and you did not know? You’ve interrogated every man in this room, and you did not know that one of them was a murderer?” Jeram’s eyes narrowed, but Miriel was equal to it. She had faced down the Duke in his rages—this man did not frighten her. “This ends now,” she said. “This cowardice, this sneaking around, turning on each other like a pack of dogs. It ends. Now.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means,” Miriel said coldly, “that we are going to help our countrymen. We no longer stand apart. We no longer watch as our kin die at the hands of an invading force. You want to rule this nation?” She looked at the crowd, challenging each of them to meet her eyes. “Do you want that?” Slowly, they began to nod. “Then you
defend
it. If you think you’re so much better for the people of Heddred, you keep them safe. You protect them from those who would see them dead, or you’re no different from the nobles you say care only for riches. If you sit and watch, letting your people die so that you can turn on the army that defended them, you’re nothing but cowards.”

The men gaped. These were strong men, men who had defied the soldiers and the spies sent to frighten them, the nobles determined to rule them. They had left their families and their homes to come here and join the rebel forces. They had been called rabble, traitors, scum—but never, never had they been called cowards, and certainly not by a young girl.

“It is not cowardly to choose your battle,” Jeram said, the only one who would dare defy her. Miriel looked over at him, cold as ice.

“If it were your children who stood in the path of the army, how would you call those who could help you, but would not?” He had no answer, and she knew it. “Could any of you look those mothers in the face, women who saw their sons murdered and their daughters raped, farmers who saw their fields burned, and tell them that you did what was right? Any of you?” The men looked down, aside, afraid to meet her eyes. Miriel waited for a moment, then held out her hands, pleading. “But that’s not how it has to be,” she said. “We can help. Catwin has taught you how to fight hand to hand
and with weapons, you can disarm their sentries, spoil their rations. You can stop this force and aid Heddred.

“I ask that you do this freely,” Miriel called out, “for love of your country and your people. Jeram has told us that any decision of the rebellion must be unanimous, and so it shall be. Those of you who would sit out this battle, who would hide on your farms and hope that Kasimir’s army is stopped by those braver and stronger than you are—you may go. No one here will stop you. Go home. You have your chance, now. Those who stay—you are with me. You pledge that you will do what is best for the people you hope to govern.”

There was a silence. It stretched until I began to doubt, terrified, that Miriel had swayed a single mind. All of these men would go home to their wives and their children, the rebellion would live on in the hearts of bitter men who hated Miriel, and resented her hope for a treaty. I cast a look over my shoulder.
Push the tall one aside, grab Miriel, get her out the door. You can move quickly enough that they won’t catch you. Cut the tether on the black horse outside, and the roan, and ride.
And then, unmistakable, I heard the creak as the men rose to their feet.

“I’ll go with you
,” said one of the farmers.

“And I.” His son, barely a man, stood proudly at his side.

“And I.” I looked over to the bar and saw the innkeeper hoist a tankard to Miriel.

“And I.” The men rose to their feet, raising their mugs and clapping; their words swelled to a chorus, a dozen voices, men slapping each other on the back, others cheering, and Miriel smiled before holding her hands up to the throng to silence them.

“That is not all,” she called. “I will not forsake my mission. Before we march, we will agree on a treaty, and I will have it signed for you. I will make sure that the King himself grants you the rights you seek, and that they are enshrined forever more in the laws of Heddred. Your children, and your children’s children, will live in the world you have pledged to build today.”

They yelled their approval, they stamped their feet and whistled, blinded by her beauty, swayed by her words,
hearing and believing in the conviction that shone in her face. I looked up at her and smiled, forgetting that I was a woman marked for betrayal, forgetting that what awaited us now was battle and the threat of the Court. For a moment, everything melted away and I saw only Miriel, her face radiant.

She turned and held out her hand to Jeram, that he might climb up beside her and receive their applause as well, and he, silent at her triumph, accepted her hand and raised it into the air. He had a wry smile on his face, he was a man who knows that he has been overruled
. And yet, despite himself, his mistrust was fading. He helped her down from the table and the three of us huddled together.

“A man—he truly came to kill you?” I looked into his face, and saw fear. He did not like the thou
ght of assassins in the fold. His concern was genuine, none of the telltales of lies in his demeanor. I deemed him innocent of our attempted murder, at least.

“Yes,” I said shortly.
I remembered Aron’s words, and shuddered.
Just you,
he had said.

“And you killed him?” He eyed me sidelong, and when I frowned at him, he shrugged. “You know weapons, lad, but I’d never have figured you for a killer.”

“Well, I am,” I said shortly. Any good humor I might have felt had disappeared; gone in the memory of blood spilling over my hands, Aron’s last breath hot on my face. “I’ve killed before, another man who came for her. And I’ll kill anyone else who tries, too.”

“We should go,” Miriel said, diplomatically
, breaking in before Jeram could comment on my threat. “There is much to prepare, and we will all need our sleep. Jeram, I would like you to come with me, to confirm that it was indeed Aron who attacked us. And the Merchant will need some comfort, I think.” As we walked back across the fields, the promise of summer warm in the air, Miriel, drew me aside.

“Are you alright?” she asked, so soft, so normal that I blinked at it.

“No.” Miriel only nodded.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said slowly. “I wonder: when the rebellion has triumphed, when this is all over—is that the ending, the balance that tips?”

“What if it is?” I was too weary, and too defeated, to care.

“It would mean that your betrayal would end then,” Miriel said simply. “Whoever it is, whatever it is that has you marked—that might be the end of it.” I stopped and looked over at her, caught between happiness and fear.

“You think so?”

“I do.” Miriel held out her hand and we started walking again. “And I did mean what I said earlier. I’m going to kill whatever this is that’s hunting you.”

“You can’t kill anyone,” I said, and she looked sharply at me. “I don’t mean that way. Well, a little bit. Do you even know how to kill someone?”

“Knives are sharp,” Miriel said drily. “I think I could figure it out.”