Shadowplay

familiar and ordinary transformed in a single night.

Right here, in this room, is where Father told us the story about Hiliometes and the manticore. A tennight ago she would have sworn she could never forget the smallest detail of what it had felt like to huddle in the blankets on their father’s bed and hear the tale of the demigod’s great battle for the first time, yet here she was in the very chamber and suddenly it all seemed vague. Had Kendrick been with them, or had he gone to bed, intent on going out early in the morning with old Nynor to catch fish? Had there been a fire, or had it been one of those rare, truly hot summer nights on M’Helan’s Rock when the servants were told to leave all but the kitchen fire unlit? She couldn’t remember anything but the story, now, and their father’s exaggeratedly solemn, bearded face as he spoke. Would she forget that one day, too? Would all her past vanish this way, bit by bit, like tracks in the dirt pelted by rain?

Briony was startled by a wriggle of movement at the edge of her vision—something moving quickly along the skirting board. A mouse? She moved toward the corner and startled something out from behind a table leg, but before she had a chance to see what it was it had vanished again behind a hanging. It seemed strangely upright for a mouse —could it be a bird, trapped in the house? But birds hopped, didn’t they? She pulled back the wall hanging, strangely apprehensive, but found nothing unusual.

A mouse, she thought. Climbed up the back of the tapestry and it’s back in the roof by now. Poor thing was probably startled half to death to have someone walk into this room—the place has been empty for more than a year.

She wondered if she dared open the shuttered doors of King Olin’s bedroom balcony. She itched to look back at the castle, half-afraid that it too would have become insubstantial, but caution won out. She made her way back through the room, the bed naked of blankets, a thin powdering of dust on every surface, as if it were the tomb of some ancient prophet where no one dared touch anything. In an ordinary year the doors would have been thrown wide to air the room as the servants bustled through, sweeping and cleaning. There would have been fresh flowers in the vase on the writing desk (only yellow ragwort if it was late in the season) and water in the washing jug. Instead, her father was trapped in a room somewhere that was probably smaller than this—maybe a bleak cell like the hole in which Shaso had been imprisoned. Did Olin have a window to look out, a view—or only dark walls and fading memories of his home?

It did not bear thinking about. So many things these days did not bear thinking about.

“I thought you said he had barely eaten,” Briony said, nodding toward Shaso. She held out the sack. “The dried fish is gone. Was it you? There were three pieces left when I saw last.”

Ena looked in the sack, then smiled. “I think we have made a gift.”

“A gift? What do you mean? To whom?”

“To the small folk—the Air Lord’s children.”

Briony shook her head in irritation. “Made a gift to the rats and mice, more likely. I think I just saw one.” She did not hold with such silly old tales—it was what the cooks and maids said every time something went missing: “Oh, it must have been the little folk, Highness. The Old Ones must’ve took it.” Briony had a sudden pang, knowing what Barrick would have said about such an idea, the familiar mockery that would have tinged his voice. She missed him so fiercely that tears welled in her eyes.

A moment later she had to admit the irony of it: she was mourning her brother, who would have poured scorn on the idea of “the small folk”...because he was off fighting the fairies. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose,” she said to Ena. “Surely we will find something to eat in Marrinswalk.”

Ena nodded. “And perhaps the small folk will bring us luck in return for the food—perhaps they will call on Pyarin Ky’vos to lend us fair winds. They are his favorites after all, just as my folk belong to Egye-Var.”

Briony shook her head in doubt, then caught herself. Who was she, who had fought against a murderous demon and barely survived, to make light of what others said about the gods? She herself, although she prayed carefully and sincerely to Zoria every day, had never believed Heaven to be as active in people’s lives as others seemed to think— but at the moment she and her family needed all the help they could find. “You remind me, Ena. We must make an offering at the Erivor shrine before we go.” “Yes, my lady. That is right and good.”

So the girl approved, did she? How kind of her! Briony grimaced, but turned away so the girl did not see. She realized for the first time that she missed being the princess regent. At least people didn’t openly treat you like you were a child or a complete fool—out of fear, if nothing else! “Let’s get Shaso down to the boat, first.”

“I’ll walk, curse it.” The old man roused himself from his drowsing nap. “Is the sun down yet?”

“Soon enough.” He looked better, Briony thought, but he was still frighteningly thin and clearly very weak. He was old, older by many years than her father—she sometimes forgot that, fooled by his strength and sharpness of mind. Would he recover, or would his time in the stronghold leave him a cripple? She sighed. “Let’s get on with things. It’s a long way to the Marrinswalk coast, isn’t it?”

Shaso nodded slowly. “It will take all the night, and perhaps some of the morning.”

Ena laughed. “If Pyarin Ky’vos sends even a small, kind wind, I will have you on shore before dawn.”

“And then where?” Briony knew better than to doubt this strong-armed girl, at least about rowing a boat. “Should we not consider Blueshore? I know Tyne’s wife well. She would shelter us, I’m certain—she’s a good woman, if overly fond of clothes and chatter. Surely that would be safer than Marrinswalk, where...”

Shaso growled, a deep, warning sound that might have issued from a cave. “Did you or did you not promise to do as I say?”

“Yes, I promised, but...”

“Then we go to Marrinswalk. I have my reasons, Highness. None of the nobility can shield you. If we force the Tollys’ hand, Duke Caradon will bring the Summerfield troops to Blueshore and throw down Aldritch Stead—they will never be able to hold off the Tollys with Tyne and all his men gone to this battle you tell me of. They will announce you were a false claimant—some serving girl I forced to play the part of the missing princess regent—and that the real Briony is already long dead. Do you see?”

“I suppose...”

“Do not suppose. At this moment, strength is all and the Tollys hold the whip hand. You must do what I ask and not waste time arguing. We may soon find ourselves in straits where hesitation or childish stubbornness will kill us.”

“So. Marrinswalk, then.” Briony stood, struggling to hold down her anger. Calm, she told herself. You made a promise—besides, remember the foolishness with Hendon. You cannot afford your temper right now. You are the last of the Eddons. Suddenly frightened, she corrected herself. The last of the Eddons in Southmarch. But of course, even that wasn’t true— there were no true Eddons left in Southmarch anymore, only Anissa and her baby, if the child had survived his first, terrible night.

“I will attend to the sea god’s shrine,” she said, speaking as carefully as she could, putting on the mask of queenly distance she had supposed left behind with the rest of the life that had been stolen from her. “Help Lord dan-Heza down to the boat, Ena. I will meet you there.”

She walked out of the kitchen without looking back.

2. Drowning

In the beginning the heavens were only darkness, but Zo came and pushed the darkness away. When it was gone all that was left behind was Sva, the daughter of the dark. Zo found her comely, and together they set out to rule over everything, and make all right.

—from The Beginnings of Things, The Book of the Trigon

Despite the rain hissing down all around, spattering on the mossy rocks and drizzling from the branches of the trees that leaned over them like disapproving old men, the boy made no effort to cover himself. As raindrops bounced from his forehead and ran down his face, he barely blinked. Watching him made Ferras Vansen feel more lonely than ever.

What am I doing here? No power of the gods or earth should have been able to lure me back to