Chapter 28
Calamity
The Shadowshard bounced against Nashala’s chest as the horse beneath her clopped along the Queen’s Road.
For the four days of travel since Nashala’s victory, Calamity hadn’t been able to take her eyes off the pendant.
Something about it felt wrong; ominous, even.
Maybe it was her own recent experience with necklaces of questionable power, or maybe it was intuition.
Either way, she didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust her – Nashala.
She’d brought up her concerns to Yorick the night after the tournament.
They’d all decided to stay in the same room whilst they had the Shadowshard, and Yorick and Calamity sat back-to-back – Calamity watching the door, and Yorick watching through the window on the side of the room – reliving the day together.
It had been stressful, but exhilarating, too.
They rarely pulled off their elaborate plans so successfully.
“It’s lucky Josse bet on the minotaur that last round,” Yorick said for the third or fourth time.
Calamity knew she should just agree and let them pass into silence again. But she could hear both Liam and Morgana snoring, saw Eden deep in a trance in the corner, and could see the steady rise and fall of Nashala’s chest, so now was the moment to bring it up.
“I don’t think Nashala should have the Shadowshard,” she whispered. Yorick turned away from the window to look at her.
“She won it,” he whispered back. “She’s the only reason we have it right now. Why shouldn’t she carry it?”
Calamity shook her head. “I don’t trust her. Don’t trust it.”
Yorick sighed. “Calamity, I get it. But you’re the one who brought her here, which you were able to do because of a secret you kept from all of us.”
Her cheeks burned, and not in a magical way. “Yeah, because I should have introduced myself as Trulnuroth’s daughter. ‘Hi, I’m the Princess of Pandemonium, but don’t worry. I wish I weren’t.’”
“No,” Yorick said, turning fully towards her now, “I get that. But we’ve known each other for so long. Fought back-to-back for years.”
“My lineage is no secret,” Calamity said, pointing to her horns. “Everyone knows on sight that I’m from demon descent. It’s not abnormal for people like me to be secretive about their families. Especially those of us that are trying to do good.”
Yorick offered her a soft smile. “Yeah,” he said, “I understand that. But you’ve got to be a bit more welcoming to Nashala. The rest of us have chosen to trust her. Why can’t you?”
Now, on the Queen’s Road just outside the Capital, Calamity wondered if maybe Yorick was right. Maybe she should welcome Nashala with open arms and take her willingness to help at face value.
But Nashala hadn’t been trapped in that totem against her will. She’d been actively serving Trulnuroth. And whilst Calamity was far less superstitious about her father than the average person, she was also more familiar with his power. And she couldn’t take her eyes off his monk just yet.
* * *
Except for when Nashala met Calamity’s eye as they rode, at which point she snapped her gaze to the nearest bush and began whistling. Very casual, she told herself. Not suspicious at all.
“You don’t trust me.”
Nashala’s voice came from surprisingly close by, and Calamity turned back around to find her riding right alongside, their legs almost touching. It made her jump.
“Huh?”
“You keep watching me as if I’m going to summon your father in the middle of the road.”
“I do not,” Calamity said with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t be so self-centred.”
“Don’t be so me-centred,” Nashala retorted.
“Listen,” Calamity said, tugging on the reins so that her horse stopped. Nashala did the same.
Calamity was sick of holding back her concerns.
Yorick was wrong; Nashala’s secrets and hers weren’t the same.
Nashala hadn’t earned their confidence, no matter how well she’d fought in that arena.
“I don’t trust you. Just weeks ago, you were serving Trulnuroth loyally enough that he sent you to protect me.
So why would I believe that you’ve stopped just because you’re still here? ”
“You shouldn’t,” Nashala said, and Calamity reeled back in surprise, causing her horse’s ears to twitch.
“I … I shouldn’t?”
Nashala shook her head. “I didn’t exactly put in my notice when he put me in that totem. But that doesn’t mean I’m not trying in earnest to help you.”
Calamity’s mouth set into a hard line. “So, if he came back now and asked you to leave with him, would you?”
She expected a firm yes – a level of certainty she’d come to expect from Nashala. But instead she saw, maybe for the first time, a true wavering of nerves. Nashala’s stoic expression dropped, her lower lip retreating slightly into her mouth as she worried at it, her hands tightening on the reins.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered, so quietly that Calamity had to read her lips to know what she’d said.
“Why not?”
Nashala shook her head, thinking. “I like fighting with you all. For you all. You’re fighting to root out evil, and that’s … noble.”
Calamity swallowed a hard lump in her throat. “How can you say that when you’ve spent your life intent on perpetrating that evil?”
The corner of Nashala’s mouth tugged up in a small smile.
“I don’t know,” she said again. “All I do know is that, where working for Trulnuroth felt productive, doing this feels … good.” She said this last word with reverence, as if the concept of goodness were new to her entirely. For all Calamity knew, maybe it was.
“Well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” she said. “This is just a fetch quest for the guild. Those guys we were fighting when you showed up? They’re the real baddies.”
Nashala nodded. “Good. I’m glad to help.”
Then she turned her horse back around and trotted after the others, leaving Calamity wondering if she’d been wrong about Nashala all along, or if she was being played like a fiddle.
Either way, only time would tell. But she chose to believe this supposed display of evolution, at least for now.
Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to choose to trust in the good in people, even if they’d come from the unlikeliest of places.