Shadowblade Read online

  N. S. Mirage

  Shadowblade

  First published by Mirage Media 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by N. S. Mirage

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  N. S. Mirage asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  First edition

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Crimson and orange glazed the mountain, smoldering against the enclave. An ancient forest shrouded its walls and scintillated down the cliffs. Within the citadel, silhouettes of sparring initiates danced across a courtyard like dark, flickering flames.

  Dozens of girls swept across the tiles, their sleek movements radiating malignant grace. Only the clang of metal against metal punctured the stillness.

  Clang!

  Aeryn panted, blinking away the bead of sweat trickling down from her forehead. Her arms rang with the impact of Faelin’s sword deflecting her own. She gripped the hilt harder, its blade blazing silver under the withering sunset.

  Lost in the dance of swordplay, she scoured Faelin’s guard for openings. The drum of her feet across the ground, the rhythm of breaths in and out of her lungs, and the patterns of her and Faelin’s sparring had mesmerized and remade her. She was no longer Aeryn. She was a new creature, a being one with her blade, body, and skill in unleashing all three.

  She pressed forward, prying apart Faelin’s guard. Faelin defended, squinting against the sudden brightness. She stepped backward, her boots scraping across the ground. Dust plumed from beneath their feet and itched Aeryn’s nose.

  But then, something caught Faelin’s attention.

  ‘There!’

  Aeryn lunged. And abruptly, their dance broke off. The cadence vanished. The footsteps ceased.

  Aeryn frowned, skidding to a halt. Blinking, she dragged herself out of her immersion in the dance. She’d been preparing for Faelin’s answering defense, but it hadn’t come.

  Instead, shock and pain erupted in Faelin’s eyes. Coughs seized her body.

  Bewildered, Aeryn stared. What had happened? ‘Faelin glanced at something to the side,’ she recalled. ‘My sword slipped through her guard, and now…and now…’

  Blood stains fell across the courtyard floor in a wet splatter. It was a quiet noise, very quiet. But it was also foreign. It interrupted the cold clash of steel against steel around them. In moments, dozens of other initiates faltered in their sparring.

  The skid of footsteps across the sparring grounds dwindled to a whisper, then a hush. Soon, even the enclave’s sharp–roofed buildings and the pines fanning around the citadel walls held their breaths.

  Aeryn felt her eyes drift after the crimson spray, the smell of iron burning her nose. Ice struck her fingers. Soon, they lay around the hilt of her weapon, twinging with numbness. The sword in her hand dripped red.

  Faelin hit the ground. Dust drifted up into the hot air.

  As if she watched herself from the far-off Arcadian mountains, Aeryn saw herself raise her eyes to the man across the courtyard. Master Mercy stood there, as silent and still as the shadows their enclave’s members could tame to their wills. Her heart jolted.

  He was not only their enclave’s master, but a revered grand master across the Shadowblade’s nine enclaves. As far as the initiates were concerned, he was the voice of their clan. And now, his harshly etched features were as unreadable as the stone wall behind him.

  His eyes seared with the same dark intensity of a hawk’s. They trained on Faelin’s wound, unblinking.

  Aeryn’s face turned arctic. Her stomach bristled with icicles. She’d stabbed Faelin. She’d stabbed Faelin.

  ‘I didn’t mean to do it!’ She began to gasp, hard and fast. ‘It was an accident. I didn’t – I don’t know how I even-’

  Master Mercy glanced up and saw her looking. Then he saw the other horrified initiates, and something shifted in his eyes.

  Aeryn’s heart stuttered. “Master! Faelin - she’s hurt!”

  In an instant, he’d shifted through the shadows on the other side of the courtyard and reappeared in the shade beside her. Before more words could tumble out of her mouth, Master Mercy seized Aeryn’s shoulder in a large, wrinkled hand.

  She flinched, bracing herself for a backhand across the face. It was his preferred punishment.

  “Healers!” he thundered. “Come, immediately!”

  Aeryn’s hands trembled and her grip on her sword loosened. Part of her melted with relief, but another part burned with shame. She shouldn’t worry for herself at this very moment.

  She tumbled onto her knees before Faelin, the hand gripping her shoulder sending pain jabbing throughout her arm. “Faelin,” she heard herself rambling. “Faelin, I’m so sorry. It will be alright. You’ll be alright! You’ll be fine, you can heal, you can - you’ll be alright-”

  The hand clutching her tightened.

  Vaguely, she recognized a sense she’d honed for years fluttering, strummed by an unheard whisper. It was akin to detecting temperature and pressure: anything cloaked in shade, shadow or darkness seemed to scintillate with degrees of heat or cold. The darkness vibrated as new shadows glided through it, sending ripples through what was normally a still lagoon. It was a telltale sign that the healers shifted toward them.

  “They’re coming,” she still babbled, “they’re coming.”

  “Initiate.”

  “You’ll be alright. You can heal!”

  “Initiate Aeryn.”

  Her head turned to him with a will of its own, summoned by years of discipline and obedience.

  Master Mercy scrutinized her, then bent down until he’d drifted inches from her ear. “She won’t survive.”

  What?

  “The wound is mortal,” he continued as her assurances withered into a croak. “Nothing more can be done.”

  Aeryn’s heartbeat roared in her ears. “She can heal,” she heard herself rasp. “We all can!”

  All members of the Shadowblade possessed preternatural abilities. Apart from their sway over the darkness, their unearthly strength, speed and hearing had earned them the outside world’s fear. Their healing abilities were no less potent.

  “Our abilities are not infallible. The healers will only prolong her pain.” A pause. Then Master Mercy pointed to Faelin. “Make it quick.”

  “I…pardon?”

  “Make it quick,” he repeated, his gravelly voice hardening. “A kill should never be messy.”

  Clank!

  Her longsword had dropped to the floor.

  “Pick it up!”

  Her body obeyed before her head registered that she held the sword in her hands again.

  “Now, make it quick.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t! I’m sorry, I should have hesitated-”

  Slap!

  Aeryn reeled to the side but an instant later, she snapped her head back into position. Her eyes prickled with tears. She was stunned. Not because he’d hit her: Master Mercy had earned his iron
ic name for good reason. It was because he’d used the preternatural strength and speed their brethren possessed against her. This wasn’t a reprimand. It was a punishment.

  Her eyes welled. She didn’t dare let the tears shed. She had never been punished before, and she didn’t want a second hit.

  Master Mercy whispered, “Never hesitate. Hesitation is restraint. Hesitation is weakness. A warrior should never feel ashamed for serving at their highest for the enclave.”

  “For the enclave,” the other apprentices intoned.

  Their low voices ghosted throughout the courtyard like rustling phantoms. They rippled into the shadows cloaking the colonnades and slithered onto the nearby awnings.

  “And hesitating now,” he told her, “will cost Initiate Faelin.”

  Aeryn swallowed.

  A pool of shadow beneath the nearby pine tree quivered. Shade plumed upward, shaping themselves into that of a woman and a man. The healers had arrived.

  A low hiss escaped the man’s lips as he spotted Faelin’s wound, while the woman bolted toward her.

  Aeryn’s knees shook with relief. ‘Hurry,’ she urged, dreading to hear Master Mercy command her to ‘make it quick’ again. ‘Hurry!’

  With frantic care, the healers gathered Faelin up in their arms. Soon, the three vanished into the gloom. Only a crimson stain lingered in Faelin’s place, glistening across the tiles and seeping into the cracks between them.

  Quietness descended upon the courtyard. No one moved. No one breathed.

  “Master?” A wisp of a voice trailed out of the crowd, belonging to a blonde girl named Ciara. “Will she be alright?”

  ‘Of course she will.’ The words scalded the back of Aeryn’s throat, but couldn’t break past her mouth. ‘We were sparring only moments ago. She can’t leave us like that, so suddenly!’

  This had been a mistake. A horrible, monstrous mistake. And mistakes could be fixed, couldn’t they? Especially if they happened to a member of the Shadowblade!

  Cradling that frail flame of hope inside her chest, Aeryn turned to their instructor. Barely aware of what she was doing, she took a step toward him and stood there, waiting - begging - for him to tell her she was right. He was a great grand master, a hero not just to their enclave, but to all the Shadowblade’s. He’d slain the untouchable, defeated the invincible and seen the unthinkable. There wasn’t a single trainee in their enclave who didn’t aspire to be like him. Aeryn, his prized pupil, was no different. If he told her Faelin would live, it would be so!

  For a while longer, Master Mercy regarded them. Aeryn held her breath, ready to hear him tell her that this was a misunderstanding, that he’d exaggerated the seriousness of the wound, that he’d done it to stress the dangers of swordplay to the initiates. Instead, when his voice rang throughout the citadel, she choked.

  “Look at what happened to Initiate Faelin, initiates. Look!” As he swept his attention across the faces of the twenty shocked girls around them, he gestured to the stain. “Initiate Faelin failed to block a blow. She was sloppy. She was unfocused. This awaits those who refuse to devote themselves entirely to the warrior’s arts.”

  Warmth drained from Aeryn’s cheeks. Around her, her peers stirred with the same shock, fear and uncertainty.

  “Initiate Faelin wasn’t strong enough to defend herself,” Master Mercy proclaimed to the trainees. “Thus, she earned her fate.”

  “But,” Aeryn stammered. “Master..?”

  “Death is an inevitable aspect of the warrior’s path. Even the greatest is only one mishap away from the grave.” His eyes bored into her. “Do you disagree?”

  “No-”

  “It was Initiate Faelin who couldn’t defend. Am I wrong?”

  Slowly, Aeryn shook her head. “No, Master.”

  “Then she has no one but herself to blame for her own failings.”

  “I…”

  “So it is her fault she is in this state. Isn’t it, Initiate Aeryn?”

  “That’s…”

  “Isn’t it?”

  But Faelin was her friend. This couldn’t be right?

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Y-yes?”

  “Say it again. And this time, make sure it isn’t a question.”

  “Yes.”

  “‘Yes’, what?”

  Aeryn didn’t dare look at the stain. “Yes. It was her fault.”

  Her own words were acid in the back of her mind, in her stomach.

  “And you simply excelled in your training. For whom?”

  “For the enclave.”

  More echoed whispers of the phrase fluttered around her.

  Something between a grimace and the smallest of smiles curled his lips. “Indeed, Initiate Aeryn. ‘For the enclave’. An admirable devotion. One befitting all those honored in the Hall of Masters. Remember: there is no higher loyalty nor calling than to this clan.”

  She jammed her lips together, trying not to burst into either tears or screams. She all but rattled with the mingled fury and helplessness flaring inside her. Both were reactions Master Mercy would say were foolish, perhaps even treasonous.

  Aeryn wanted to say something. Wanted to do something. But she couldn’t. She didn’t even know what she’d say! ‘How could I say that about Faelin?’ half of her wondered, even as the other lashed out at her for having the arrogance to question a grand master. He had to be right. He was the voice of the enclave. And the enclave was always right.

  “Continue with practice!” Master Mercy barked at everyone. “Initiate Aeryn, you will spar with Initiate Ciara hereafter. Think no more on this.”

  She still couldn’t decipher his expression. Unbidden, a thought welled in her mind that made cold sweat break across her palms: If she had been in Faelin’s place, would he forget her just like that as well?

  Movement at the edge of her vision drew Aeryn’s attention. Ciara approached, visibly sickened. She glanced from Aeryn to the stain and back.

  Aeryn couldn’t hold her gaze. She gripped her sword hilt harder, Master Mercy’s proclamation that it wasn’t her fault ringing between her ears. She wanted that to be true, and she hated herself for it.

  Eventually, she dragged her head up and forced herself to look back at her new training partner. Ciara offered a weak smile, but Aeryn could barely distinguish it through the wet blaze in her eyes. Instead, she stared after the shade the healers and Faelin had disappeared through. Master Mercy had said Faelin wouldn’t survive and that she’d suffer because of Aeryn’s hesitation to obey. Was that what was happening right now? Was this truly the last day they’d ever sparr together?

  ‘I’ll see her tonight,’ Aeryn told herself, even as fear leeched the heat from her body. ‘I’ll see her at the evening meal. Like always.’

  But she knew she’d seen Faelin’s gasps fade.

  ‘She will heal.’

  And Faelin had barely moved.

  ‘Someone will help her.’

  Someone had to help her.

  ‘Someone.’ Aeryn blinked away her tears. ‘Anyone.’

  * * *

  Five years later, Aeryn stood in the Hall of Masters. She twisted her hands, anxiousness scraping its cold dagger-tips beneath her skin.

  The Hall was a dim chamber carved from wintry stone. Shadows shrouded the ceiling and pooled in the corners. Etched across the walls, lineage lines laid bare hundreds of years of forbearers. Each one had worked for the enclave, killed for the enclave and died for the enclave. Before them, only the amber glow of candles at the statues’ feet lit the vast room.

  Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Her heart drummed against her chest, so loud she feared it would echo in the silence.

  A twinge of pain shot through her balled fists. She winced, yet, as twisted as it was, she almost welcomed it. The pain distracted her from the reminder of her impending Initiation, the startled eyes of a long-dead girl and the cold gaze of a master. ‘It was her fault,’ she had said. ‘It was her fault.’

  Aeryn clenched her hands, forcin
g them to still. Looming above her, Calixta the Unseen’s statue trapped her in its cool shade. Candlelight cast sharp, darting angles against the figure. They crept around its face and lurked around its eyes. Its gaze stabbed Aeryn with the same flat intensity in Master Mercy’s gaze during the training accident. The statue seemed to watch her.

  “Stop it,” she ordered herself in barely a whisper. “Stop it. You’re being foolish.”

  She dug her nails into her palms. For her entire life, she’d pushed herself to the limit in her training, hurdling toward her Initiation day with open arms. But in the last year, something had changed: her Initiation instead clawed over the horizon. It crawled toward her with each passing night, grasping and hungry.

  ‘Hesitation,’ Master Mercy had told her, ‘is weakness.’

  It was a will at war with itself, and it had slain many valiant servants of the enclave. She knew this. And she’d been told what happened to Faelin had been her own fault. So why wouldn’t this indecisiveness in herself - this flaw - die?

  ‘You’re a fraud,’ guilt accused. ‘The enclave founded their hopes on quicksand.’

  ‘I am not,’ she snapped back at it.

  ‘Disloyal.’

  She gritted her teeth.

  ‘A liar.’

  Air whistled behind her.

  Aeryn spun around and snatched the flying apple before it could smack her in the head. “Ciara, really? We’re in the Hall of Masters!”

  Walking toward her, Ciara laughed. “I’ll get you one day, Aeryn! What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Ciara. The Hall. The honored place of all the great masters?”

  “Yes, yes, I know.” She sighed. “I’m sure the statues are terribly offended by my irreverent apple-throwing.”

  “Shouldn’t you be even slightly ashamed?”

  “Why should I when I have you to be ashamed for me? Always so perfect and dutiful, O future Grand Master Aeryn. Master Mercy would skip in delight if he heard you now.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. Quietly.

  Ciara strolled to her side and peered up at the statues. Almost all of them were carved as women, simply because their enclave trained only girls. Some of the other enclaves trained only boys.