Shadow Queen Read online

  ‘A bad dream,’ I replied, dragging myself up off the hard ground, every joint aching, stiff from absorbing the earth’s chill. The flames of my dream had left me weak.

  The explanation didn’t satisfy her. She gave me a heavy-lidded stare and turned away, every line of her back tense and watchful. ‘Try not to shout during them,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘You’ll bring Dieter’s men or the Iltheans down on us.’

  Fine by me, either way, though this time I said nothing by choice.

  The dream stayed with me all day. Had Dieter found me, or had I found him? Either way, the fire had been the key. If the link had been forged once, it could be again.

  That night I tried to replicate the details of the previous night as best I remembered them. I sat eastward of the fire, roughly four feet away from it, and I stared into its depths until I slid onto the ground and into sleep.

  I woke stiff and cold and aching, a crick in my neck and my left leg and foot numb. The disappointment at my failure was as sharp as blood in my mouth. It took three more nights, three more failed attempts, before I once again forged the link.

  The terrain had forced us further west than Roshi would have liked, and she worried about the Ilthean army. Increasingly, the look she turned on me was tight-lipped and pinch-eyed. Fear was edging her ever closer to confronting me, to blaming me for our detour. I kept my mouth shut and avoided her eye; the longer I could postpone an argument, the closer I drew to the army.

  When I slept that night, the fire was waiting for me. Once again I followed the trail, the link between my fire and his which brought me through the darkness and into his hearth.

  This time he stood with his back to me. My vision of him had barely focused before he turned and looked into the fire, his gaze striking through the depths of the flames to find me. ‘Matilde. I’ve a present for you.’

  Prepared for the struggle to speak, I willed myself to overcome it. My heartbeat pounded in my ears and strained my brow until I feared the skin might burst. But still I produced no sound.

  Dieter gave me a puzzled look. ‘Are you trying to speak, Matte? Is that why you keep gaping at me?’ he said, regarding me more closely, amusement making his eyes sparkle from their shadowed depths. ‘Ah, I see. This is Roshi’s doing.’

  Hope flared bright in me.

  ‘Didn’t she teach you how to talk?’ he said, his laughter dashing my hopes like a slap of cold water. ‘Rash, Matte, spying on me when you don’t know your arcana. I could turn them against you.’

  At a flick of his fingers the flames soared bright and hot. Sweat burst from my skin and I whimpered – but I doubt he heard it.

  He let the flames die back and I sucked in a great lungful of cool air. A figure lurked behind him, seated on the couch.

  ‘I warned you, Matilde,’ said Dieter, all his mirth chased away like clouds scattered before a curling wind. ‘Do you remember? One wrong move, I said.’

  A chill stopped the breath in my lungs. One wrong move against me, and I’ll finish what I started at Aestival.

  ‘I was prepared to simply let it go,’ he said, then paused, reconsidering. ‘Actually, no. I wasn’t. But I was prepared to wait. I had more pressing concerns, after all, than to chase a runaway. Except now you’re in my fireplace, plotting against me once more.’

  He held up a small glass vial and tipped it left to right. The dark fluid inside left faint pink smears on the glass as it moved. My blood.

  ‘I found the perfect use for it,’ he said, then looked over his shoulder, lifting one hand in a summoning gesture. The figure behind him rose and stepped forward, brown head twisted to keep heavy-lidded eyes fixed on Dieter at all times.

  At first I thought it a man, a great, beautiful man, with skin as dark as the loam and eyes black and bright as sloes. But no hair marred the sweep of his head, not even eyebrows. In their place he had heavy ridges, as if shaped by a careful thumb. He wore black trews and one of Dieter’s white shirts, unlaced at the throat. His feet were bare.

  ‘Well?’ Dieter raised an eyebrow in challenge. ‘How do you like him?’

  The flames and the panic had confused my vision. The stranger’s skin wasn’t completely unmarred: his brow bore three marks as familiar as the hollows of my heart, inked in black that sparked with red and blue and green highlights. I remembered the gritty, slick taste of the bloodstones as Dieter scribed those same symbols on my own brow.

  Emet.

  The stranger was a construct. Not a girl bound by the rules of one, this was a true golem. A creature made of clay and arcana and – I swallowed, hard – blood. My blood.

  ‘I’ve named him Clay,’ said Dieter, his grin wolf-like. ‘He has only the one task, Matte: to find you.’

  Clay swung his head to stare into the fire too, and his eyes fixed on me. Abrupt and unpractised, a grin split his face. Not any grin – Dieter’s. Dieter’s with great white slabs of teeth and a tongue behind them red as a beating heart.

  ‘Matilde.’ His voice was like boulders shifting, like rocks rolled along a streambed by the current. ‘I’ll find you. I’ll carve out your heart.’

  When I swung a disbelieving look at Dieter, he nodded. ‘I warned you – remember?’

  I flailed backward and the room drifted away, shrinking and fading.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Dieter called mockingly.

  But the golem had a different message: ‘I’m coming to find you, little queen.’

  THIRTY

  I WOKE GASPING like a landed fish, the golem’s voice still ringing in my ears, the memory of Dieter’s grin cracking wide that clay-wrought face chilling the blood in my veins.

  ‘Bad dream again?’ Roshi asked, stoking sparks from the fire.

  I didn’t answer, my throat full of the taste of betrayal. Not only was Dieter not worried for me – he’d set an assassin on my trail. It wasn’t the action of a man who loved me. It wasn’t the action of a man even mildly fond of me. My stupidity and blindness tasted worse than the tea Roshi passed me.

  ‘Tilde?’ said Sepp, frowning. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I dreamed of Dieter,’ I said. ‘It was a true dream somehow. I was in the Turholm, in the fireplace of Grandmother’s old room. It’s now Dieter’s room.’

  ‘How were you in the fireplace?’ Roshi demanded, suddenly intent.

  ‘I don’t know. I fell asleep watching the fire here, and the next thing I knew the fire was in between me and Dieter’s room. Around me, too.’ No need to mention that this was the second time.

  Roshi pursed her lips. ‘You told me you hadn’t inherited the gift.’

  When I didn’t answer, she hugged her knees into her chest and said, ‘What did you see?’

  My hand rose to my brow, brushing the marks Dieter had put there. The skin beneath them felt no different, neither thickened nor stiffened nor raised, yet my fingertips tingled every time they touched the ink.

  Roshi noted the gesture and intuited what it meant. ‘He threatened you?’

  ‘He’s created a golem,’ I said.

  Their expressions told me the word was unfamiliar to them.

  ‘A construct, a creature of clay and will. It’s coming after me.’

  Sepp’s eyes widened.

  ‘Sepp.’ Roshi snapped her fingers, dragging his gaze to her. When she had his attention, she said, ‘This creature, it either left last night or, if we’re lucky, this morning. Unless it can fly it won’t find us right now, or today. We still have time.’

  Her words gave me no comfort. ‘Do we?’ I asked. ‘We’ve spent the last two days heading more west than south. We’re probably only three full days ahead of it. Can we reach the Ayrholm before the golem catches up with us?’

  Sepp buried his head in his hands. I wanted to do the same. My only reason for seeking out the army had been a foolish, irrational, heartsick desire to return to Dieter. It made no sense now – if he was so ready to punish me, I doubted I could convince Dieter of my innocence in this flight.

  ‘We have t
o seek the army,’ said Sepp, his voice strangely flat, fear stark in his eyes. I gaped at him, stunned by his sudden change of mind.

  ‘No!’ said Roshi. ‘If we head directly west now, we’ll only shrink our lead on the creature. We need to reach House Falkere’s stronghold. If we continue south, we still have a chance,’ she said, though her voice didn’t express any real hope.

  The canyons and gorges of the Dragonstail still barred our way south, and the Ayrholm lay deep in the heart of the Naris tribelands. How fast could the golem travel? Was the army too close to risk further travel west?

  ‘Maybe we should turn east?’ I hazarded. ‘Or venture into the deeps of the Dragonstail as far as we can, and hide?’

  ‘We need to seek the army,’ Sepp insisted. ‘We need bodies between us and the creature, and a shadow-worker besides. The Ayrholm is too far away.’

  ‘You’re coming to your senses just as Sepp loses his. The creature doesn’t know where we are,’ said Roshi, cutting me off when I tried to interrupt. ‘Trust me, cousin. Unless you specifically told Dieter where we were, he doesn’t know, and neither does the creature. We still have time.’

  ‘But we don’t know how it hunts,’ Sepp argued.

  I remembered Dieter holding up the vial of my blood, and feared I did know how the golem hunted.

  ‘What if it can smell us over distances?’ Sepp went on. ‘What if it can taste the wind, or track us the way a bird tracks true north? How do we know it doesn’t fly? Matilde doesn’t know, not for sure –’

  Roshi grabbed him by his hair, jerking his head back. ‘You need to trust me,’ she said, cool as frost. ‘I’ll keep us ahead of this creature, I promise you.’

  I didn’t point out that it was a promise she couldn’t keep.

  She released him, and Sepp rubbed the crick from the back of his neck.

  ‘You work on breathing,’ Roshi said. ‘I’ll worry about everything else that needs worrying about.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘In,’ she said, ‘and out.’

  When he didn’t protest further, she rose, giving him a companionable squeeze of his shoulder.

  ‘First,’ she said, ‘breakfast. Then we walk. Fast.’

  We picked up our pace, walking quickly enough to trip and stagger over roots, slipping in the leaf-litter as we headed south and west through the forest. Midmorning, troubled by the pace Roshi was setting, I edged close to her. ‘Do you fear it will find us today after all?’ I murmured.

  She shook her head but didn’t answer directly. Reaching to move a branch out of her way, then holding it so it didn’t slap the pony trailing behind us, she said, ‘It would help if you could tell me aught of its nature. How does it hunt? How fast can it move?’

  I raised helpless hands. ‘It’s a magic wrought by the shadow-workers of the Amaer. I don’t know anything about the creatures or their abilities.’

  Except how to kill them, I thought before the brands on my forehead silenced the notion. I, for one, didn’t want to be close enough to the golem to touch its brow.

  That night I feared to fall asleep, feared slipping into dreams and hearing Clay crooning to me: Wait, little queen. But though his slab-toothed smile chased me throughout the night, it was fear and memory, not the same sort of dreaming as before.

  Which disappointed Roshi, come the morning. ‘We could have done with the knowing,’ she said, irritably kicking dirt over the fire. ‘Let’s get going.’

  She’d pushed us hard the day before, enough that she now feared the flank guard of the Ilthean army. Sepp strode beside the pony, clinging to her bridle and often leaning his head on the warm velvet of her neck. Although he’d suggested seeking succour among the Iltheans’ ranks, he didn’t appear to relish the prospect of meeting them.

  When I edged closer to the other side of the pony, touching the corded strength of her neck, Sepp didn’t look up and his hand stayed on the other side of the pony’s neck – it was like we were touching through a pane of glass.

  ‘You don’t have to stay with us,’ I said, careful to keep my voice calm and soothing. It was an offer I was making.

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘You could head east. Find yourself a village and vanish inside it. Who knows? You might be lucky and find one where none of this matters.’

  He hesitated briefly, then said, ‘My place is with you.’

  ‘Sepp.’

  He hunched his shoulders against my voice. ‘I won’t run from my place, Tilde. You are my Duethin, crowned or not. I’ll see you back on the throne in your own right, or I’ll flee with you to that village you think we can vanish into. But I won’t run from you, even if you dare the snake’s fangs.’

  My heart twisted. ‘I’m sorry I got you into this.’

  Finally he met my eyes over the pony’s neck. ‘I would have helped you flee even without Roshi.’

  Somehow, it didn’t ease the sharp edges of guilt lodged in my chest. The words bubbled up my throat: You were right was what I needed to say.

  ‘Why did you want to go back to him, Tilde?’ said Sepp, his gaze evading me. ‘He killed everyone we know. He took your throne from you, took your people and your country. He means to hand them over to the Iltheans!’

  ‘Not everyone,’ I said, thorns in my throat making it difficult to talk. ‘He didn’t kill me. Even when I gave him reason to.’

  Sepp’s sidelong glance burned with scorn.

  I couldn’t find words to explain how I’d come to twist and turn so thoroughly under Dieter’s power, until the only way out was to yield up even my heart.

  ‘I don’t want to go back. That’s all that matters now,’ I said at last.

  THIRTY-ONE

  WE CAME TO the forest’s tattered edge by early afternoon, hesitating to go any further. Open plains stretched before us all the way to a river, and from the moment we stepped out of the forest we’d be all too visible, and all too vulnerable – Dieter’s golem behind us, the Iltheans before us, and both as likely as not to kill us on sight.

  Roshi scanned the plains and the treeline on the river’s far bank for movement, while the sun moved a finger’s width across the sky.

  ‘Okay,’ she said eventually, gesturing us forward. ‘Slow and steady. We’re villagers on the move, no more.’

  The sun beat down, baking the filth crusted onto my skin and clothes. The prickle of Clay’s pursuit itched at my nape. Anticipation of attack drove sweat through every pore. A hawk’s sudden keen as it coasted above us made me jolt like a startled rabbit; the old pony only twitched an ear.

  ‘Calmly now,’ said Roshi, though her shoulders were tight and she scanned around us constantly.

  Sepp murmured a mantra under his breath. When I edged close enough to hear, I wished I hadn’t. ‘Ravens and the shieldmaidens of Turas protect us,’ he was whispering, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him. ‘Don’t let the creature or the Iltheans kill us.’

  I moved away until I could no longer hear him, though I could still see his lips mouthing the prayer.

  Another hawk keened and I jumped again. Swinging my eyes skyward, I caught a sliver of movement off to the side. Fear bolted through me as a shadow rose from the grasses less than a half-mile distant. I stood, mesmerised, as a dark head appeared. It wore no grin now, and Dieter’s crisp shirt had been replaced by a duller one. A rich, cloying scent of loam reached us and its black eyes locked on me across the grasses.

  ‘Roshi!’ I shrieked.

  She and Sepp turned as one then froze at the terrifying apparition. We all stood unmoving, overwhelmed by the danger.

  Clay rose to his full height, relinquishing any pretence at camouflage and leaned forward, bracing against the air as if it were a solid force. Then he sprang into a run, every footfall thudding through the ground, moving as fast as a surfacing earthquake.

  ‘Run!’ cried Roshi, finally galvanising us.

  I burst into a wild sprint, blood and breath pounding through me in time with the tremors of Clay’s pur
suit. Sepp raced after me, hauling the pony into a canter, his face white and drawn.

  Wait for me, little queen. I’m coming.

  Slewing back to glance at me, Roshi’s gaze darted to Clay. I dared not look, putting every ounce of strength I had into each stride, kicking at the ground faster, faster, faster –

  It wasn’t enough. Clay snagged my hair, jerking my legs from under me. I went down heavily, the breath slamming from my lungs, the sky bursting into white light above me.

  I rolled onto my back, but he was coming too fast, hands outstretched, hungry for my throat.

  I kicked, my feet finding his belly, but it was useless. The impact merely cracked back through my knees and jarred my teeth. Clay didn’t even flinch, though it did make his leap turn slightly awry, and I heaved my shoulders to the side as he landed, his hand slamming across my chest like a rockfall. One of my ribs cracked in a burst of white lightning.

  Roshi came at him over the top of me, knife raised, hair flying like a banner. Clay lifted his arm to face her attack as I scrabbled at the earth, tearing fingernails and fingers and grasses and earth until they all seemed one. Inch by inch I dragged myself forward.

  Clay reached after me, but Roshi drove the knife down, aiming for the soft join of neck to shoulder. He batted her away as if she were a feather. Deflected, her knife sank deep into his bicep, releasing a waft of his earth scent. The cut stayed open, revealing small dark creatures squirming through his flesh like worms. It didn’t seem to trouble him.

  Roshi landed badly, an ankle rolling beneath her.

  A hand strong and implacable as mud seized my ankle then, dragging me back, reversing my hard-won escape. I rolled and kicked, and this time my foot found his face. The ball of my foot smeared some of his slab-white teeth down the back of his palate, and he jerked away with a gagging snarl. But still he didn’t release me.

  Spitting dark blood, he wrapped a hand around my calf and dragged me closer. I dug my fingers into the ground, but it tore in furrows, affording no purchase.

  ‘Hello, little queen,’ the golem said, with a grin made hideous by broken teeth.