Siege of Shadows: The Keeper Chronicles Book 3 Read online

  If the main tower smelled of safety, the library smelled of wonder. Tens of thousands of books on every subject imaginable. She wound around to her left to an open space filled with several tables. At one particularly wide one covered with a huge map of Queensland and their southern neighbors, the big form of Rett waited patiently. His distant expression cleared when he noticed Sini. A candle mounted on the wall next to him lit both his face and his feet which stretched all the way out the other side of the table. His dusty brown hair was beginning to grey, and he still wore the black Keeper’s robe he’d fit into effortlessly when they’d arrived four years ago. Sini had put her smaller one on twice, but both times it had felt too much like someone else’s clothes.

  Rett had no such problems. Of course, Rett never overthought anything. He was…different. An accident involving magic years before Sini had meet him had killed his twin sister and left his own mind damaged. He seemed aware of the fact that he was more like a child than a man, but content with it, all the same. His memories of his sister, who he’d been incredibly close to, were indistinct and confused. As far as anyone could tell, he felt only a nebulous sorrow about her, and Sini couldn’t decide if that was a kindness or its own extra tragedy.

  “A letter from Queenstown,” he said eagerly, handing her a small piece of paper filled with script. She sat in a chair opposite him. The nearby window gave no light yet and it was too chilly outside to open the door for extra light, so he reached forward and touched the wick of a candle sitting near her. A clear green light from his finger streamed onto the wick and it instantly, effortlessly, burst into flame.

  She spared an annoyed look at the cheerful flame. Despite Will’s early assurances, she never had learned to do magic without some assistance. Maybe there was a reason Rett fit in a Keeper’s robe better than she did.

  Neither Rett nor anyone else in the Stronghold could see vitalle moving. In fact, they only knew of one person in history who could—Keeper Chesavia—and she’d lived almost two hundred years ago. The Keepers found Sini’s abilities fascinating, and often had her watch when they manipulated energy, recording what she saw. They were endlessly fascinated by the differences in brightness and focus of the light, and the fact that each of them produced vitalle in a different color.

  She’d give up the ability to see the energy in a heartbeat, if it meant she could actually use hers to affect inanimate objects. Living things weren’t a problem. When she touched a person or an animal, the life energy in them was accessible to her. She could take vitalle out of them or put some in. She could even help their bodies heal, in a limited way. But inanimate things were utterly out of her reach—there was no path between herself and the object. When she’d been on the Sweep, the burning stones Lukas had made had helped her. He’d given her rings with gems that could create the path she needed. The Keepers, though, didn’t approve of burning stones, and even though Alaric had used some to save Evangeline, he didn’t like to talk about it.

  Sini tilted the note toward the flame but hadn’t even finished reading when Rett burst out with the expected question.

  “Does this mean they found Lukas?”

  She smiled at his unflagging hope. She’d met Rett and Lukas when she was twelve. The two men, also slaves on the Sweep, had become her foster brothers—protecting her and creating a bit of happiness amidst all the hardship. It was Rett’s greatest desire that Lukas come to the Stronghold and join the Keepers like he and Sini had. Nothing would dampen that: not the four years that had passed without this happening, not the fact that every Keeper was convinced Lukas had declared himself their enemy, not the fact that he’d flown away from the Sweep on a dragon. If Rett believed the Keepers were good, there was no room in his mind to comprehend anyone thinking differently.

  Sini did her best to protect Rett from the truth, but everything about Lukas was more complex than Rett could understand.

  “Let me read…There was a sickness in a flock of sheep along the southern border. A wasting disease that killed fourteen ewes and caused six lambs to be born blind before it stopped.” The words gave her a sour taste. “No one knows the cause or what cured it.”

  Rett grinned and bounced his feet, jiggling the tabletop. “That’s just like on the Sweep.”

  Sini nodded, the similarity not striking as happy a chord inside her. It was the disease they’d seen on the Sweep, or one incredibly similar. A rival clan had used magic to poison their sheep.

  Lukas had been the one to find a cure.

  “Lukas saved more sheep,” Rett said, his voice proud. “Who else could have?”

  Sini kept her eyes on the paper, trying not to let him see her disquiet. It was likely that Lukas was the only person outside the Sweep who could have healed them. Then again, a magical illness couldn’t get all the way from the Sweep to southern Queensland without infecting anything before this without some help. And it was likely that Lukas was the only person outside the Sweep who could have done that as well. What why? Maybe he was perfecting the cure? She wrinkled her nose at the idea of testing it on some poor villages’ sheep.

  She glanced at the map. Piles of similar notes were stacked along the southern border. It had begun last year with sightings—a red dragon flying over Napon and Coastal Baylon. Seeing as Lukas had flown away from the Sweep on a red dragon, and seeing as no other dragons were known to exist, Alaric had begun sending reports to the Stronghold of disturbing events along the southern border in an attempt to figure out what Lukas was doing.

  Then they’d received reports from spies embedded in Napon that Lukas had surfaced and was calling for the overthrow of Queensland, and the destruction of the Keepers. She’d managed to keep that fact from Rett’s notice for quite a while, now. Lukas had always said such things on the Sweep, but Rett seemed to have forgotten.

  Ever since, Sini and Rett had catalogued any odd events that Alaric sent them from the capital. There were plenty of problems they deemed natural, and unrelated to Lukas. More common sicknesses or poor crops after late spring frosts. But other events, although often small and isolated, were more difficult to explain. The ones she tracked most closely were like this one, connected to something she knew about Lukas, or something that might require magic. Animals with diseases that reminded her of ones from the Sweep, especially if they started and stopped mysteriously. Game found starved amidst lush vegetation. Small waterways that had turned bitter for a week, then cleared.

  The task of determining whether these were things Lukas was capable of was complex, though. He was certainly capable of the magic needed, she just didn’t know what his purpose might be. What was the point of killing off a few animals here and there? It didn’t fit the Keepers’ fear of a diabolical mastermind trying to destroy Queensland. The times Lukas had turned to violence in the past, he’d believed that one targeted strike of overwhelming force was better than widespread violence. These occurrences were too scattered and ineffective for him. Or maybe all of this was Lukas just practicing his skills to keep them honed.

  There was an irritatingly tall pile of notes stacked on the map along the southwestern country of Gulfind. Gold merchants from the mountain country had stopped traveling to Queensland since midsummer, and no one knew why. Sini could see no connection to Lukas, but Alaric insisted these events “felt important,” so she kept track of them as well.

  Sini had seen two gold merchants in her life. One had come through the slums when she was small. The man must have gotten lost on his way to the vineyards. He’d hurried his wagon past with an air of panic. Sini’s mother had spit at him as he passed.

  Another had come through the Sweep. That was unusual enough that Sini had snuck out with Lukas to see the man meet with Killien. He’d been fatter than anyone Sini had ever seen. The two men had sat for hours, talking about Gulfind and the lands the merchant had passed through. In the end Killien had traded two good horses for a piece of gold.

  “Killien doesn’t care about the gold,” Lukas had whispered to her. “He
only wants information. Gold is like poison. Those people in Gulfind live high in the mountains. All they have is gold. They have to travel to other places to buy food or they starve, yet they love the gold too much to leave it.” Her foster brother’s voice had dripped with scorn, and he’d plucked his grey slave’s tunic. “We’re slaves because we were captured. That gold merchant chose his slavery. It’s just his shackles are made of gold.”

  Rett interrupted her thoughts. “Lukas doesn’t know where we are. The Stronghold is hidden.”

  Sini nodded, agreeing for the hundredth time to those words. She set this new note along the northeastern corner of Coastal Baylon where it had happened and weighed it down with a small rock.

  “If he knew where we were,” Rett assured her, continuing along the same line of thought he followed whenever Lukas was mentioned, “he’d come.”

  Sini kept her face down, the thought a dull ache. “Maybe. He doesn’t know the Keepers like we do. He thinks they’re…” She paused, unwilling to repeat Lukas’s words. Manipulative and impotent. Too weak to even protect those of us who should be Keepers from being taken—right out from under their noses. If I ever have the power, I will see them rooted out and destroyed.

  She’d never bought into the hatred of the Keepers that plagued the Sweep, and after four years of living with them, it seemed ridiculous that anyone could think poorly of them. But Lukas had embraced the hatred fully.

  “He thinks they’re bad?” Rett waved the idea away. “We’ll tell him the truth.”

  She looked up at his eternally optimistic face and let it bolster her own hope that he was right. “We’ll certainly try.”

  The door to the outside opened, letting in a bit of hazy dawn and a breeze that made the pinned-down notes flutter. The candle next to Sini flickered. She tried to get her finger next to it fast enough to bolster the energy before it went out, but the breeze snuffed it into a useless ribbon of smoke. The door swung shut and the map in front of her faded to darkness. She gave a low, exasperated growl.

  “Help you, Sini.” Rett touched the wick and it burst back into flame. He looked so pleased with himself that it dissolved a little of her irritation.

  “Thank you.” She glanced behind her at the approach of an older man with a perfectly combed white beard and an immaculate Keepers robe, even though he was probably returning from feeding the chickens.

  Sini froze. The essay.

  Keeper Mikal was one of her two tutors. While the other, Keeper Gerone, believed learning should be mostly a wild, student-led game of exploration, Mikal held more formal views—on everything. Including that essays should be at his door before dawn on the day they were due. Sini’s current paper was sitting up on her desk next to that fat, obstinate candle.

  He glanced at her with a slight crease in his brow and she gave him a smile that felt like a wince. “Good morning, Mikal.”

  “Good morning. Did you finish compiling that information on Napon?”

  “I did.” She bit her lip to keep from adding that it had been the most boring thing she’d ever read. “And I wrote a comparison of the two recent dynasties relating to the exports of linen.” Which had been even more boring.

  But the worst part had been the exercise where she was to make a small piece of linen float using only vitalle and record her attempts. Mikal insisted on giving her these exercises—exercises that should be simple for a Keeper—in the hopes that someday she’d be able to complete one of them.. All three ways she’d tried had been utter failures. Last night’s frustration rolled back into her. How was one supposed to get energy into something as dead as the air or a piece of linen?

  “Modern or classic form?”

  “Classic, fully annotated. And I added an appendix including a discussion of two quotes I found from Flibbet the Peddler about Naponese linen.” Because even linen was interesting if Flibbet wrote about it. She’d spent hours copying his colorful, whimsical writing and doodles into her own journal. Like all the books written by the eccentric peddler, this one skipped from one topic to the next. She’d learned about bathing habits of ancient rulers (rubbing with dry dirt), the diet of the desert cactus beetles (scorpion eggs), and that Flibbet’s favorite color was green.

  She thought, for just a moment, that Mikal might be impressed enough to raise an eyebrow.

  Instead he merely looked at her expectantly. “Did you move the linen with the vitalle?”

  She hesitated. “No.”

  “Hmm.” The sound might have been disapproving or a mere acknowledgement. “And where is this masterpiece?”

  Sini’s gaze flicked out the window. It was definitely past dawn.

  “It’s on my desk, quite close to the linens on my bed which I now know are Naponese in origin.” She forced a bright smile in an attempt to counter his disapproving expression.

  “I called Sini to come here early,” Rett interrupted. “It’s my fault.”

  Mikal’s face softened slightly at the words. The fact that the man was unfailingly kind to Rett almost made up for his frustratingly strict adherence to rules. Almost.

  “I’ll bring it to you right after breakfast,” Sini assured him.

  “Or you could get it now.”

  “Stop plaguing the girl,” a voice from above them called. Keeper Gerone walked down the ramp from a higher level of the library. His robe was permanently floured from his work in the kitchen, and starbursts of wrinkles creased the skin by his eyes. A smile peeked at her through his fluffy white beard. “You know she did the research, and you’ll be impressed when you read it.”

  “I cannot be impressed by something I cannot see.” Mikal said. “There is no reason to be wasting time on this map. It has been obvious for years that Lukas is working, not necessarily productively, on some scheme to harm Queensland and the Keepers. It is just as obvious that tracking all this isn’t accomplishing anything.”

  Rett’s shoulders sagged, and Sini bristled.

  “They’re doing good work,” Gerone said, before she could speak. “Not everyone’s as cynical as you.”

  Mikal shook his head. “The young generation is lazy.”

  “She referenced Flibbet!” Gerone threw his hands up. “That’s not lazy, that’s innovative.”

  “What it is, is late. When you are back to assigning her work, she can turn in everything tardy and crumpled for all I care.”

  Sini pressed her lips together. If only Gerone were back to leading her studies instead of embroiled in some strange project with the Shield involving the library roof.

  Mikal turned back to Sini. “I’ll wait here while you get it.”

  “She can get it later,” Gerone said. “The Shield has a question for you about that dull paper you wrote on metalwork in Napon.”

  Mikal frowned. “I expect the essay at my door as soon as possible,” he told Sini. Without waiting for an answer, he crossed over to Gerone and walked past him up the ramp. “Metal strengthening is a fascinating subject.”

  “Then why did you write about it in such boring terms?” Gerone asked. He grinned at Sini and Rett and followed Mikal, who was explaining about alloys and tension.

  Rett looked after the two old men with a miserable expression. “Are we wasting time on this map?”

  “No,” Sini assured him. “Mikal was just…feeling grumpy. The Keepers want to know what Lukas is doing, and we’re the ones who know him. It’s not obvious what he’s doing or why. It’s important to keep up on the map.”

  He dropped his eyes to the table. “Did I make you forget to give Mikal your research?”

  She laughed. “That paper is the most boring thing I’ve ever written, and Mikal should be thanking us both that his morning wasn’t ruined by it.” She set her hand on Rett’s huge one. “Always call me when there’s news. This is important.”

  She pushed away thoughts of Mikal and turned back to the map. This latest report was definitely about Lukas. She tapped her fingers against her lips, studying the blank space on the maps where the
moors lay. Where was he headed?

  “Lukas would like it here,” Rett said. “We are safe here, and he always tried to keep us safe.”

  She nodded, not bothering to answer. Once Rett got started on this train of thought, it would be a few minutes before they could talk of anything else.

  His voice dropped. “Like that time he told Killien he broke that shelf of burning stones instead of you?”

  She winced at the memory of Lukas’s whipped back. She’d had such poor control over the sunfire then, constantly destroying the delicate stones she and Lukas worked with.

  That was one thing she was better at now. The Keepers had spent patient days teaching her ways to control the energy from the sun that none of them could even sense. What she’d never been able to do was all the things the rest of them could. Simple things like lighting candles or moving air were utterly beyond her power. She could never find a path between living things and any object that wasn’t alive.

  Even after all this time, if Lukas were to come here, he’d still have to do so many things for her. The thought was more bitter than she’d expected.

  “If you could’ve healed then as well as you can now, he’d have been better by morning,” Rett said.

  “If I could have healed well then, Killien would have found me much more useful.” She paused. Maybe he wouldn’t have. “Although healing cuts isn’t particularly impressive.”

  “I think it is,” he assured her.

  His face was so sincere she couldn’t help smiling at him. “I’m just frustrated today about…” It was too much to explain to Rett. The irritatingly impossible exercise with the linen, the way she couldn’t move vitalle for the simplest things. “About lighting candles,” she finished.

  Rett looked at her kindly. “I’ll always help you, Sini.”

  She patted his hand. “I know you will.” She turned back to the map, ready to talk about something else. The notes along the southern edge hinted at a pattern to Lukas’s movements, and this latest event continued it.