James Clemens - Shadowfall

Dart did the same. Her head felt full of butterflits. The growing light of the dawn stung her eyes, and her stomach churned. The bounce and pop of the carriage over broken cobbles did not help settle matters.

Yaellin noted her unease. “Dart, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head, fanning the ache behind her eyes. A new twinge rose from her navel, a dull tugging as if her innards sought a way to escape her belly.

“I think she’s taken ill,” Laurelle said, taking her hand. “Her skin is cold.”

Yaellin reached over and felt her brow. His eyes narrowed.

Dart pushed his hand away. The effort narrowed her vision, sparking lights at the corners. The tugging throb behind her navel grew worse. A moan rose to her lips. She rubbed at her belly.

Yaellin kneeled before Dart.

“Something’s wrong,” Laurelle said.

Dart barely heard her. She curled in on herself, bent double in her seat. “Stop…” she gasped. By now, her navel felt as if it were ripping open. She hugged her arms tight over her belly, as if to hold her guts inside. She retched, but nothing came out.

“What’s wrong with her?” Laurelle asked.

The world darkened. Dawn receded back toward night. Dart slipped away to another time, another place. She had been in a wagon, then a boat.

Rocking, rocking, rocking…

All alone.

No, not alone.

She pictured a tiny form nested against her belly, nuzzling, suckling. Where it ached now.

“Pupp…” she moaned aloud. “No…”

Yaellin’s voice sounded far away. “What’s this delirium?”

“A creature. I saw it.” Laurelle’s words fluttered in and out of Dart’s hollow head. “… claimed… always with her.”

“And it’s still with her?” Yaellin hissed. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

“Gone…” Dart murmured. “Trapped by stone… wall…”

“The Eldergarden!” Laurelle exclaimed. “The creature must still be back there.”

“Trapped,” Dart gasped, knowing she had to make herself understood. But her world had gone black, laced with agony.

“Need…”

A hatch grated open, and Yaellin yelled, ordering the carriage stopped and turned about.

It happened too slowly. Dart faded, slipping into oblivion.

Then the carriage was around. Dart felt a syrupy warmth suffuse her. The pain remained, but it ebbed ever so slightly. The carriage trundled forward, heading back upward. Though Dart could not see it, she felt it with every strand of her being. The taut pull on her navel slackened. The world remained dark and painful, but she could breathe again.

Yaellin returned to her, his hand on her knee. “I saw the creature in your dream,” he said. “I never imagined it was still with you.”

“Saw it in her dreams?” Laurelle asked a question Dart was too agonized to voice.

“After I heard your tale of the shattered illuminaria,” Yaellin said, addressing Laurelle, “I thought Dart might be the one. Impossibly brought here, to the one place she must not be. I had to be sure. So I snuck into Dart’s room two nights back and cast a blessing of dreamsight upon her.”

Dart groaned. So it had been Yaellin. He had been in her room.

“I wakened her earliest memories. I saw my mother… my father

… stealing her away. I saw it all through her dream eyes. Even the tiny form of the creature.”

“Is it some daemonspawn?” Laurelle asked. “Was she cursed?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

Despite the agony, Dart heard the obfuscation behind Yaellin’s words. He knew more than he was willing to speak, but she did not have the strength to confront him.

“If it’s separated from her now, the loss must be causing her this pain. We must head back.” Worry etched his words.

The carriage continued back the way they had just come. Dart felt strength return to her with every turn of the cart’s wheel. The world slowly returned in shades of gray.

“Where will we go?” Laurelle asked. “Not back to the Eldergarden.”

“No, we can’t risk that. We’ll have to find someplace close to the castillion as refuge. Then I need time to think.”

“Where-?”

Something struck the side window, startling all. Dart lifted her aching head enough to look. A large bird perched on the window’s sill. It cocked its head one way, then the other. A raven.

Dart gasped and pulled away from it. Her most intimate fears were tied to ravens. She pictured another set of ravens, flocked above her, staring down. She again felt rough hands pinning her, hot breath at her throat.

The dark bird pecked at the window, drawing her back.

“It’s a messenger,” Laurelle said, pointing to the white tube tied to the bird’s foot.

Yaellin reached to the window latch, releasing the pane.

“No,” Dart moaned.

Ignoring her, Yaellin pushed the window open. The bird hopped to his arm. “Air blessed,” he said, noting the glow to the bird’s eyes. “Homed to me.”

“Is it from Chrism?” Laurelle asked, frightened.

“No. It bears the mark of Tashijan.” He pointed out the sigil painted upon its right wing. The raven breathed rapidly, panting through an open beak. “It must have been searching the upper city until the null blessing we cast faded.”

Yaellin worked loose the message tube. Dart still felt a deep unease at the raven’s black presence. She kept well back.

“This is the seal of the castellan of Tashijan,” Yaellin said with a frown. He broke the wax on the message tube and shook out the tiny scroll. He uncurled it and read the note silently. The raven took the moment to leap toward the window, wings snapping out.

Dart was happy to see it depart.

Finished reading, Yaellin rerolled the message. His brow had furrowed even deeper.“It seems we are not the only ones in flight this night. A meeting has been requested. It is with someone I trust… and my father trusted. It should be safe and may give us a place to hide that lies near Chrism’s castillion.”

“Where are you to meet?” Laurelle asked.

“At the Conclave,” Yaellin answered. He turned to the coachman’s hatch to inform him of the change.

Laurelle relaxed, obviously relieved to go to a place where she’d felt safe for so long. “Back to the school.”

Dart remained still. Yaellin spoke to the coachman, but all Dart heard was the flapping of raven wings.

“Darjon…”Tylar pushed up fromthe railing. his chest and shoulder burned from the two impaled crossbow bolts. Each breath tore his insides further, flaming his lungs.

The three Shadowknights rushed his position. The flanking pair dropped their bows and yanked swords free. The center knight, Darjon ser Hightower, swept at Tylar, his own blade held low and menacingly.

There was no artistry in the attack, no nobility. It was a brutal and swift ambush. Darjon must have anticipated Tylar’s escape from Tashijan, identifying the dawn flippercraft as a point of escape. Tylar recalled a similar ambush as he, Rogger, and Delia had fled the Summer Mount. Darjon had come close to killing Tylar then.

From the glow in his eyes, Darjon meant to finish what he’d started.

Kathryn rushed to block all three knights, swirling out with cloak and shadow. She met Darjon’s sword with a clash of steel.

“Kathryn…” Tylar called, tasting blood on his lips. He shoved from the rail. He had to go to her aid.

“Stay there,” she ordered stonily.

The other two knights closed upon them. Tylar dared not call forth his naethryn daemon. All along the wall and roof ran the intricate steel-and-glass mekanicals that flew the flippercraft. Even a brush of the daemon risked shattering and melting all to ruin, sending the craft to a flaming death.