Shadowbound Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Shadowbound

  Book Two

  Shattering of the Nocturnai

  Carrie Summers

  Chapter One

  I DIPPED MY quill into the ink pot and pulled it out to watch drops of darkness fall from the tip. On the paper before me were one hundred boxes I’d drawn the morning after our return to Istanik. One hundred days, give or take, until Ioene’s storm season would begin. No ship could survive those waves; if I didn’t arrive with soldiers strong enough to defeat Mieshk before the storms lashed the island, everyone we’d left behind was doomed. Including Paono.

  And then, once Paono could no longer shield the nightstrands from her summoning, Mieshk would use their power to unleash a cataclysm.

  I put quill to paper, slashing through the fourth day. Ninety-six remained, and I’d accomplished nothing.

  Disgusted, I slumped against the back of my chair, its rough-carved rails digging into my spine. While sailing into the harbor aboard Zyri’s Promise, her nightwoven sail pulling us as if we ran before a gale, I’d never imagined it would be so difficult to rally support.

  The Trader Council hadn’t even agreed to see me. Captain Altak and Mistress Nyralit were busy explaining the failed Nocturnai to half the city. Raav had disappeared into his trader House to deal with his mother and brother.

  And I sat at home, laying plans with fading hope my efforts could succeed.

  Paono was counting on me. Though they didn’t know it, everyone in the Kiriilt Islands was counting on me.

  Something had to change; I was done being polite.

  But first, I had visits to make.

  Taking a deep breath, I rapped lightly at Paono’s nan’s door. Even though I’d seen her briefly at the waterfront when we'd returned, she hadn’t answered my knock when I’d tried to visit her the next morning. And I’d been so busy in the following days. Still, I felt guilty that I hadn’t tried harder.

  “Come in,” she called, her words followed by an eruption of coughing.

  I flinched—that didn't sound healthy. “Hi, Nan. Are you okay?” I asked as I squeezed the latch and nudged the door open.

  “Lilik!” The old woman’s face lit. Another hacking cough shook her, and she cleared her throat as she waved me in.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner. It’s been . . .” I trailed off. No excuse was good enough.

  “Sit, child!” She smiled, patting the armchair beside her rocker. Her eyes were still watering from the coughing fit.

  “The cough . . . is this new?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, waving away my question. “Just the damp spell we had last week.”

  Despite her attempts to sound forceful, I heard the airy weakness in her voice. I curled my toes inside my shoes. It was just like Nan to pretend nothing was wrong.

  Glancing around the room, I noticed that the lamps were unlit. Sunlight streamed through the single window, lighting a square of threadbare rug. For most people, that would be plenty of light, but not for Nan. As long as I’d known her, she’d burned lamps in dozens of colors, day and night. I used to go home with headaches from the smell of the lamp oils.

  “Hasn't anyone been helping you, Nan? I thought Paono hired someone.”

  I clasped the sea-opal pendant that Captain Altak had refused to accept as collateral for the coin he loaned Paono.

  “A healer and her daughter came every day at first. Checked on me and brought groceries. But I asked them to stop visiting so much. It’s tiring for an old woman to make conversation with strangers.”

  “What about Jaret?”

  She smiled. “A sweet boy. He visits sometimes. But I remember what it was like to be twelve. I only let him in when the weather’s too foul for play.”

  Or work, more like it. Jaret would never run off with friends when he could help Da with the business.

  I grabbed Nan’s hand. Her skin was tissue-thin over the bones. “Would you like me to light your lamps?”

  Nan’s lip quivered as she shook her head. “I’ve had them put out. It just doesn’t seem right for me to be surrounded with light while Paono is . . . while he’s up there in the long-night.”

  “Oh, Nan. I’m so sorry.” On the waterfront, I’d told her about Paono’s sacrifice. She understood—or, at least, she claimed to understand. But the situation was still my responsibility.

  She patted my hand. “It’s not your fault, Lilik.”

  “I’m going back for him, I swear. I’ve sat outside Trader Council Hall every day since we returned.”

  “I know. Katrikki told me.”

  Cold flooded my chest. “She was here?”

  Nan nodded, a hint of a smile on her lips. “Paono and a trader girl . . . I was surprised to learn he’d snared her. All these years, I thought the two of you would end up together someday. But, anyway . . . she seemed kind. Pretty.”

  I couldn’t believe it. How horrible was I? I’d taken her grandson from her, abandoned him leagues and leagues from home, and then I’d let a trader be the first to visit her.

  “It’s okay, Lilik. You’re busy. Katrikki said the Trader Council has been trapped in the hall well past their usual time to retire because the alternative is confronting you. They wait until you go home to cook for your da.”

  “It’s no excuse,” I said. “I’ve been too wrapped up in my problems.”

  Retaking Ioene was critical, but I still should have come here first. Nan deserved better.

  “You asked Paono to bring back stories about the Nocturnai,” I said. “Would you like to hear any?”

  “It will have to wait until tomorrow,” she said, stifling a cough. “I’ve already sat up longer than I should have—been napping in the mornings lately.”

  My brows drew together. Nan had never complained about being tired before. In fact, Paono and I used to wonder how she managed. She never seemed to stop moving. Mending. Knitting. Reading. I’d often wondered whether Nan would ever slow down.

  “I’ll come right after dinner,” I said. “I swear it.”

  Abruptly, she fixed me with a gaze so intent that a shiver crawled across my skin.

  “Lilik, if you don’t get results from the traders, have you ever considered . . .”

  “Considered what?”

  “You have more friends than you realize among the gutterborn. Your success at the nightcaller trial got people thinking. There are many who now believe we ought to stop asking for trader permission to get what we want.”

  “But I need ships, Nan. Soldiers. Enough to deal with Mieshk’s followers while we go a
fter her.”

  The coughs finally escaped her chest, rattling like a lid on a boiling kettle. While Nan bent over her knees, I rushed across the room and ladled a tin cupful of water from her ewer. Once the coughing stopped, she nodded thanks and accepted the drink.

  She cleared her throat. “Ships and soldiers. Yes, well, that’s true. And both those things belong to the traders. I certainly wouldn’t suggest that you consider the fairness of that arrangement . . .”

  “What are you saying?”

  She waved away my question. “I’ll see you tomorrow, child. After dinner. And good luck with the traders.”

  Chapter Two

  AFTER CHECKING THE position of the sun—I had time—I hurried through the streets to Captain Altak’s shore quarters. His rooms filled most of the second story of the building; I jogged up a narrow staircase to the hall outside his door.

  “Enter!” The captain answered my knock without hesitation, his low voice vibrating the wood inside the walls. When I stepped through the door, I stopped short upon seeing Raav reclining on one of the benches. At the sight of his full lips and dark eyes, all my insecurities about our differences came thundering back. My words of greeting deserted me.

  Raav nodded acknowledgment of my arrival, face unreadable. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t indifference. Did that mean I was right to worry? Had he realized what an idiot he’d been during his brief attraction to a gutterborn?

  “Haven’t seen you in a while, Raav,” I said, my tone sharper than I intended. But maybe I had a right to be upset. After all, we’d been back for four days, and he’d made no effort to find me. Then again, it had taken this long for me to look in on Nan . . .

  He flinched, and I immediately regretted my tone.

  “Can we talk later?” he asked.

  Without meeting his eyes, I nodded then smiled a greeting at Mistress Nyralit. Elegant as always, she lounged on another couch.

  “So, how fares the hero of the Nocturnai?” Captain Altak said, his eyes teasing. I could tell he sensed the awkwardness between me and Raav and was trying to lighten the mood. It didn’t work.

  Sagging into an upholstered armchair, I sighed. “The traders are avoiding me.”

  “The Council is stubborn,” Mistress Nyralit said. Nyralit, I reminded myself. She’d asked to drop the title of strandmistress during our voyage home. I assumed the change was because of what we’d learned about nightforging. By training generations of nightcallers, she’d helped condemn thousands of souls to eternal imprisonment. I didn’t blame her for wanting to forget.

  As if sensing my thoughts, her fingers wandered to the nightforged chain that coiled around her wrist. Imbued with the magic of a nightstrand, the iridescent bracelet remained fixed to her without the help of a clasp.

  Unable to resist, I lowered my walls, extended a thread of perception toward the chain. As with Paono’s pendant and the sails aboard Zyri’s Promise, I sensed vitality in the bracelet but couldn’t speak directly with the soul. As I withdrew, the emptiness in my head was a reminder of everything—everyone—I’d left behind on Ioene.

  I thought about the spirit bound within the chain. Nyralit's nightcalling talent meant that she was a descendant of the Vanished. The imprisoned soul could take comfort in that bond, at least.

  “Paono is alone up there,” I said. “And the storms are coming.”

  “We know,” Captain Altak said. Where Nyralit and Raav lounged on cushioned benches, he sat in a stiff-backed chair, carved with ornate symbols relating to the sea. Ever a captain, even when quartered in his chambers in Istanik.

  “Frankly, Lilik, it’s worse than you realize,” he said. “The Council is considering forming a new Nocturnai. They insist that we can’t possibly survive without replenishing the nightforged weapons.”

  “What?” I sprang to my feet. “Don’t they understand what nightforging does?”

  As I spoke, I felt a scratching at my mental barriers. Faint, but insistent. Startled, I ran my eyes over the room. Since leaving Ioene, I’d had no contact from the aether, but I’d kept the walls up around my mind anyway. Better to feel as if the lonely silence were my choice.

  The scratching came again, a sensation so like Peldin’s attempts to contact me that my breath hitched.

  Tentatively, I lowered my walls. Above the mantle, a pair of nightforged daggers were mounted in a velvet-backed frame. Forged during the centuries when the Nocturnai produced more art than weapons, the blades were made of nightforged steel, folded and pounded so that the layering highlighted the iridescence in the metal. Gold wire wrapped the hilts, and the silver-wrought guards ended in graceful filigrees. One blade was longer than the other, around the length of my forearm, whereas the shorter could slip into a boot holster.

  The longer of the daggers seized my attention, compelling me to move closer.

  “Lilik?” Nyralit asked as I shuffled forward. “What is it?”

  “The dagger . . . It’s . . .”

  Before I could finish, I heard a male voice in my mind.

  Zyri? Zyri! You’re here!

  “Who . . .?” I whispered. Something about the voice was so familiar.

  But you’re different. What happened to you, Zyri?

  My knees buckled when I realized why I recognized the voice. The boy had lived in my dreams for weeks. I staggered back into the cushioned chair, staring at the dagger that held the soul of Zyri’s lover, Tyrak.

  “Tides,” I mumbled.

  What? Zyri? Are you okay?

  Raav slipped to my side, kneeling so close that I felt the warmth of his body. Memories of Tyrak mixed with the sensation of Raav’s nearness, and abruptly I felt as if I were spinning. I planted my hands and slammed my walls into place, hating to shut Tyrak out but unable to deal with the storm of emotions pounding me.

  “Your dagger spoke to me,” I whispered as I looked at Captain Altak.

  “What?” he asked.

  “The nightforged spirit.”

  Captain Altak stood and approached the mounted daggers, a faint smile on his face. “What a wonder. I bought these off a foreign merchant, if you believe it. Apparently, one of the traders’ mercenaries deserted. Sold the weapons off at a tenth their value in order to get rid of the evidence that he’d abandoned his contract. Always thought it was a peculiar whim of fate that brought them back to a captain of the Nocturnai.”

  “Lilik? You’re pale,” Raav laid a hand on the arm of my chair. I forced myself to meet his eyes, briefly, before turning back to the captain.

  “Zyri knew him,” I said quietly.

  Nyralit swooped down in front of me. “In what way?” she asked.

  “They were . . . close.” I couldn’t say more without losing my composure. Tyrak and Zyri’s love had been so intense. Because I’d possessed Zyri’s memories, it still felt fresh to me. Especially the tragic end.

  At the sound of heavy footsteps, I peered around Nyralit to see Captain Altak removing the dagger from its mounting.

  “Then it sounds like fate has another quirk in store for this blade,” he said, holding the weapon out. “I’d planned to reward you richly for your position on the Nocturnai. Not everything turned out as we’d hoped, but this is the least I can do.”

  I looked at him, brows drawn together.

  “Take it,” he urged.

  I shook my head. “I don’t even want to think about what you paid for it.”

  “It’s just money. I always seem to find more. Think about it, Lilik. This boy has been trapped in a dagger for hundreds of years. And now he’s found someone he can talk to. Better, he’s found someone who once held the memories of a . . . friend. We can never atone for all those souls we nightforged. But I can’t possibly keep this when I could help him be less alone.”

  My words were lost in the caverns of my heart. Looking closer at the blade, I imagined the centuries Tyrak had dwelt within it. The things he’d seen.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” I said at last.
r />   “Unnecessary. I couldn’t justify keeping it even if I were a greedy sort.”

  Swallowing, I thinned my walls, just enough to allow my emotions to bleed into the dagger. I wanted Tyrak to know how deeply he’d affected me, and that I’d only shut him out because I’d been overwhelmed.

  “We have much to talk about,” I whispered.

  You aren’t Zyri, are you? he asked, a desperate edge to his voice.

  “Yes and no. It’s complicated. You’ve waited so long . . . I’m sorry to ask for just a few hours more.”

  I’d wait for you for eternity, he said. You know that, Zyri.

  I pressed my lips together and forced my walls back up. I felt the pain of parting like a cold fist around my heart. Swallowing, I met Raav’s concerned eyes.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Lip trembling, I nodded. “I will be.” After a moment, I cleared my throat. “I should get to Council Hall.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Raav said. “It will give us a chance to catch up.”

  At this, a meaningful look passed between Captain Altak and Nyralit. Her lips twitched toward a smile. When I shook my head at Raav’s offer, everyone seemed shocked.

  “I have to hurry,” I said. “And I need to get myself together. I can’t go in there without a good plan.”

  If I walked into Council Hall feeling like I did now, I’d never have the poise I needed to convince the traders to support me. Regardless of my feelings about Tyrak or Raav, right now I had a duty.

  Raav looked away. I knew I’d hurt him by my refusal, and I laid my hand over his. “Tonight?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’ll come find you.”

  I gave his hand a squeeze before standing. “Wish me luck,” I said.

  “Good luck, Lilik,” the captain said as I slipped out the door.

  Chapter Three

  WITH THE DAGGER tucked into my satchel—I couldn’t think about it, not yet—I climbed the stairs leading to the council hall’s entrance. As usual, the heavy doors, carved of dark, ancient wood from distant shores known only to trader Houses, stood closed. Guards watched from either side. Though I stood just paces away, neither of them men spared me a glance.