Kelley Armstrong: Sea of Shadows

The children cheered, but the show wasn’t over. They went quiet as Moria pulled a dart from her cloak. She turned around and threw the dart over her shoulder. It flew straight through a scroll and pinned it to the wooden sanctuary wall.

The children whooped and cheered. Ashyn shot her sister a grin. Moria smiled and went to retrieve her prize.

“Leaving an offering is a sacred act, Keeper,” said a deep voice behind them. “It isn’t a child’s game.”

Ashyn winced as Gavril Kitsune stepped from behind the children, but Moria only said, “Yes, it is a sacred act, and so I honor the spirits by demonstrating the skills I have developed for the protection of my village.”

Ashyn swore she heard the whispery chuckle of the ancestors.

One of the older boys turned to Gavril. “The Keeper protects us from the spirits of the damned. Like your father—”

Moria laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder, silencing him. Gavril’s mouth tightened. One could think he was reacting to the insult, but Ashyn suspected Moria’s defense bothered him more.

When Gavril first came to Edgewood, the village had recognized the uncomfortable irony of sending a young man to guard the forest where his father had been exiled to his death. They’d tried to welcome him. But Gavril was as hard as the lava rock of the Wastes. He did his job and asked for nothing, expected nothing, gave nothing. Still, he wasn’t rude to the villagers… with one exception—the person who’d been the most outraged by his predicament and had tried most to befriend him.

Gavril goaded Moria, challenged her, and caught her when she was up to trouble. Moria forbid Ashyn to complain. “It’s practice,” she’d say. “He pokes at me and insults me and watches me, and I learn to be tougher, quicker, and stealthier.”

Now Gavril walked close enough to Moria to make Daigo growl. He towered above her by a head, his dark braids brushing her head as he leaned over to whisper to her. His muscled arms glistened with sweat, as if he’d just left his morning drill. The perspiration made the green eyes on his nine-tailed fox tattoos glitter.

“Remember what I said,” he murmured. “If you try tomorrow, I’ll do it. I swear I will.”

Moria’s hand tightened on the dart. “I don’t need to be told twice.”

“I just want to be sure we understand each other, Keeper.”

“What’s going on?” Ashyn said.

Gavril didn’t even look at her. “This is between your sister and me.”

Unrolling her fortune, Moria walked toward Ashyn. She glanced down at the paper then stopped midstep. It was only a moment’s pause before she wrapped her hand around the tiny paper, her expression neutral. But Ashyn noticed.

“It’s a curse, isn’t it?” Gavril said, striding to catch up with her.

Ashyn braced for his next words. He’d say she deserved it after disrespecting the spirits with her performance. Instead, he swung into Moria’s path and said, “Go put it on the statue behind the sanctuary.”

Moria’s brows shot up. “Is that an order?”

“Now is not the time to take a curse—” Gavril began.

“I’m not going on the Seeking. That has been made very clear.” She gave him a look. “If I accept my good fortunes, then I must also accept my curses.”

“Ashyn, tell her to put the curse on the statue.”

Ashyn jumped at the sound of her name. It was quite possibly the first time he’d ever said it. And definitely the first time he’d looked straight at her. She decided she much preferred being ignored. His eyes were discomfiting enough. Green. A rare color in the empire. Kitsune eyes, her father said, the mark of Gavril’s illustrious family. A sign of sorcery, others said, whispering old stories about how the Kitsunes first gained their power.

“You know I won’t, so don’t ask.” Moria took Ashyn’s arm. “Everyone’s waiting inside. Father keeps peeking out. We’re late.”

As they walked to the door, Moria glanced over her shoulder. Ashyn did the same and saw that the children were still there, quiet now, their faces tight with concern. They’d overheard enough to know Moria had picked a curse.

“What are you waiting for?” she called to the children. “You know what happens if you see the rituals.”

Silence answered her.

Moria reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of coppers. “Huh. Seems I have extra. What should I do with this?”

That got a few smiles and whispers, but most of the faces stayed solemn. Moria opened her hand under the fountain water. Then she clenched her fist around the wet coins.

“Grant me a boon, oh spirits,” she said. “Twice-bless these coins for the children. May they have nothing but good fortune until the Seeking is done.”

Wind rustled through the fortune scrolls, making them whisper, as if the spirits themselves were replying. Moria kept one of the coins and threw the rest to the children. As they scrambled after them, shrieking, she tossed the remaining copper to Gavril.

He made no move to catch it, letting it fall, clinking. Then he turned on his heel and marched away.

Ashyn’s knees ached. Which was exactly the wrong thing to be thinking about in the middle of a spiritual ritual, and it only made her feel all the more ill prepared to lead the Seeking tomorrow. This was not the first ritual she’d ever done—she’d been assisting Ellyn since she was old enough to recite the words. It was not even the first one she’d conducted alone— lately, Ellyn had left the minor seasonal rituals to Ashyn, only coming back in the spring for the Seeking. And yet Ashyn was not prepared. She simply wasn’t.

The Seeking rituals took the longest by far, and her knees always ached from the cold stone floor by this point. In the past, any guilt at fussing over discomfort had been mitigated by the knowledge that her participation didn’t matter. She’d do better when Ellyn was gone.

How? she wondered now. Had she expected that her knees would miraculously toughen as she passed her sixteenth summer? That the endless chants would suddenly flow without stammers and stutters?

When something brushed her hand, she jumped, eyes flying open.

“Shhh.” Moria laid a hand on her shoulder.

Her sister held out a cloth, and Ashyn thought she’d read her mind. She was about to refuse—she wasn’t allowed a kneeling pad—but then she saw the bowl of steaming water.

“It’s time for your purification.” Moria kept her voice low. The others—the governor, their father, and the shrine caretaker—had retreated outside long ago, but might still be close enough to overhear.

Ashyn shook her head. “I need to finish the Song for the Fallen first.”

“You did,” Moria whispered. “You started it over again.”

Ashyn’s cheeks warmed and tears prickled. I can’t do this. I truly can’t.

“I’m sure no one noticed,” Moria whispered. “I only did because I woke up when you got to the interesting part.” Ashyn knew Moria hadn’t truly fallen asleep, but the thought made her smile.

As Moria helped with the ritual bath, Ashyn tried to cleanse her mind as well. She opened her mind to the spirits— all the spirits. While the ancestral ones of the village were her primary concern, there were many, many others. Spirits were everywhere, inhabiting everything—spirits of hearth and fire, of wind and rain, of plant and beast. She did not hear those. They were not the sort that spoke. There were other human spirits, though, ones she might hear, if they passed her way. The hungry dead. The lost and the angry.

Like the spirits in the forest. The forsaken. The vengeful—

She inhaled so sharply that Tova lifted his head and whined.