The Shadow’s Edge (The Chanters Novellas #2)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

T he dungeon reeked of silence and death.

In the depths beneath the palace grounds was a windowless block of cells, kept purposefully away from the rest of the prison. The old stone walls had been reinforced over the years, and even in the darkness, the magic wards glimmered faintly for any who cared to notice them.

Isabel Algerin cared to notice them.

She kept her distance on the narrow, darkened staircase as two guards in the red and green of Medira unlocked the door, far enough back so that they couldn’t see her. Even so, the stench of foul air and human odor from the warded cell block washed over her.

Her body coiled with tension as she waited for the first guard to move through the doorway, and then the second, before slinking down the final steps behind them. The edge of her tunic brushed against the guard’s arm as he turned to haul the door shut, and for a moment, he hesitated, his eyes struggling to focus in the darkness.

She flattened herself against the wall, willing herself to fade away. The guard frowned.

“Everything all right, Estes?” the other guard called from farther up the row of cells.

“Yeah.” Estes shook his head. “I thought I saw something is all. This place can really get to you after a while.” He squinted again, his frown deepening, but turned to follow his colleague.

Isabel exhaled and waited until the guards with their dim lanterns of enchanted orb fire reached the end of the cells before peeling herself off the wall. That had been far too close.

She could become a part of the darkness as easily as breathing, slipping through shadows where no one could find her. It was a magic she hadn’t known others couldn’t do until the women of the village back home in Rendra had begun to whisper loudly about shadows and the reprobate souls who made deals with them, telling their children to run whenever Isabel came out to play. Isabel roughly pushed the memory away.

The prisoners were at the bars of their cells now, scrabbling for the bowls of slop and tankards of water the guards shoved through a slot at the bottom of the bars. Isabel already knew that there were twelve men in these cells, most of them young, most of them able to wield magic, and all from the Inetian empire north across the sea.

She knew what had happened in the Malathi pass in the southeast of Medira a few weeks before. Mediran soldiers had raided the enclave of Sorothi chanters where these men had been hiding. Half a dozen of them had been killed. But for the members of the enclave, it had been either capture or death. They had betrayed the emperor of Ineti and were planning to use the chanters’ forbidden magic to assassinate the emperor and put one of his sons on the throne.

It had been a stupid plan, one that had predictably ended in disaster when the novice Inetians had let their magic erupt out of control, tearing a rift in the fabric of the world. If left unchecked, a rift of that magnitude had the potential to crack apart, creating a gateway into the realm of shadow and allowing unspeakable horrors to cross into their world.

And now, in the cells across from her, were the Inetians—criminals and traitors to their king.

One prisoner’s slop half-spilled onto the dirty floor. He gave a strangled cry, his fingers scrabbling uselessly for it before it soaked into the stone. Anger surged in her gut. No living thing, let alone a human being , should be kept in a place such as this.

Isabel kept to the wall, her lips pressed together in disgust, as the guards rounded the corner and handed out meals to the cells on the other side. One of them had left his lantern on a low table at the end of the row, and it cast a sickly orange glow around the space, sending grotesque shadows lurching up the walls.

Her fingers moved unconsciously to the dagger at her belt—it was a short, sharp blade with a black leather handle etched with a golden bird. It had been a gift from Cassandra, Isabel’s boss and the head of the queen’s intelligence network, before Isabel had left Rendra with instructions to keep an eye on the captured Inetians. The Mediran king was not known to be lenient to his prisoners, even ones who had information that pertained to Medira’s security.

“This dagger was given to me in a time of need,” Cassandra had said as she’d pressed it into Isabel’s hand. “I hope it helps you when you need it most.”

Isabel had felt the wards woven through the knife before she’d reached for it, and she’d realized with a start that Cassandra, with all her ability as the queen’s shadow, hadn’t known about them. The wards had spread over her fingers and wrapped up her arm, a comforting presence, whispering of protection and strength, just as they did now.

Her gaze flicked down the row of cells. They were small, hardly long enough for a full-grown man to lie down in—not that there was any bedding of any sort. Her jaw clenched. The sounds of men eating had slowed, and many of them had slumped back down to the cold, damp floor. But the man in the cell nearest her was standing just behind the bars, his arms slack at his sides. And he was staring directly at her.

Isabel’s heart gave a sudden thump. He couldn’t see her. She knew that—even if it looked like he was staring at her.

He was young, maybe only a little older than her twenty-one years, with golden brown skin and broad shoulders. His black hair curled around his ears and down his neck, and she could tell that he’d once been muscular but that he’d lost some of that tone in his weeks down here. His tunic was dirty and torn at one shoulder, and an unkempt black beard crept along his jaw.

He took a step closer to the iron bars, and his eyes narrowed.

He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t. Not down here, in the dark, where her magic worked best.

“Who are you?” the man said, his voice carrying the lilt of an Inetian accent .

In a flash, she darted across the darkness to the wall beside his cell, her knife in her hand. The protective wards surged over her fingers and twined up her arm. She poised, ready to incapacitate him if he raised an alarm to the guards.

“How can you see me?” she hissed.

The man snorted. “Should I not be able to?”

“Who are you talking to, Karim?” The man in the cell beside him was at the bars now, peering curiously into the darkness. Relief washed through her as his gaze passed right over her. He couldn’t see her.

Her attention snapped back to the man in the cell. He was watching her carefully, his eyes flickering with interest. “To a shadow, apparently,” he said without breaking her gaze.

Isabel matched him stare-for-stare, daring him to expose her to the guards. Her magic didn’t work when someone knew she was there. If he pointed her out, she would be done for.

“This damn place,” the other man muttered.

The man in the cell—Karim—waited until the other man slumped to the floor before he spoke. “So, who are you then? And what in the name of the emperor are you doing here?”

“I might ask the same of you,” Isabel hissed .

His brows rose. “You want to know why I’m here?”

Her chest tightened in annoyance. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I didn’t mean anything,” she said, hating how petty her words sounded. “Of course, I know why you’re here.”

He let out a sardonic laugh. “I suppose everyone in this damned place does.”

She glared at him. He was a traitor to his country, one who dabbled in dark magic. She would not feel sorry for him. “You’re not supposed to be able to see me,” she said again.

“I gathered as much.” He leaned toward her from behind the bars, one hand coming up to grip the rough metal. “We don’t seem to be getting very far here.”

She could hear the guards coming back around the corner now, the glow from the enchanted orb fire bobbing along the ceiling as they approached. They’d finished delivering the last of the meals. She stepped away from the cell, willing herself to disappear again.

Karim kept his eyes on her, barely squinting in the darkness, as if he could see her clearly despite the dimness—despite her magic. She raised her dagger and did her best to glare at him, to instill the idea that if he said anything, his life was forfeit .

His eyes snapped to the dagger in her hand. A surge of magic rose from the wards in the knife, and she almost gasped at the suddenness of it.

Karim started, his eyes widening. “Where did you get that?”

“What?” she said before she could stop herself. The guards were getting closer. She had to move, to follow them, to slip out behind them before she got stuck in here.

“That dagger,” he said.

Her fingers tightened on the knife. She didn’t like his interest in it. “What about it?”

“It’s mine,” he said. “I made it.”

“You made it?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. That claim was...ludicrous. There was no conceivable way he could be talking about the same knife.

He opened his mouth. Something prickled along Isabel’s neck, and then the world turned to a searing flash of white. For a moment, all was still. Then the world came crashing back in with a powerful roar, like a colossal crack of thunder after lightning.

Isabel was thrown back against the wall, and she gasped, her head cracking painfully against stone. The knife would have skittered from her hand if it weren’t for the surge of power from the wards twining around her arm and clamping her fingers around it .

She blinked desperately to clear the afterimage the flash had burned into her eyes, briefly pressing her fingers to her ears to still the ringing. As she focused on the darkness, she saw the guards sprawled limply on the floor by the door, the lanterns of enchanted orb fire shattered on the ground and flickering grotesquely against the stone.

There was a hiss, and the acrid scent of sulfur wafted faintly through the air.

“Get out of here!” Karim hissed from behind the cell door. There was an urgency to his tone that hadn’t been there before. “You don’t want to be here for this.”

Air heaved suddenly into Isabel’s chest. He was right. Whatever was happening, whatever magic was being worked, she did not want to be there for it. “What about you?” she asked.

“What about me ?” he said incredulously. “There is no ‘what about me’. I’ll be right here when this is all over. He’s here for us. But I’m not going with him. And I’d suggest you get out while you still can.”

Isabel’s eyes flicked to the guards lying prone on the ground. She could see the ring of prison keys on the closer one’s belt. There was another flash from the other side of the cells, and a few of the men cheered raucously. Her heart gave a thud .

“Hey!” Karim called as she pushed away from his cell. His voice sounded suddenly young, like a little boy scared of the dark. She paused, though she knew she really, really shouldn’t. “If I’m still here when this is over, tell the woman who gave you that dagger to get me out. She owes me.”

Cassandra. “We’ll see,” she said, casting him a final look. His eyes were wide in the darkness, and she couldn’t help but feel a tug of sympathy.

Another flash, this one just as the end of the row of cells, spurred her into motion. She leaped to where the guards had fallen, her steps sounding overly loud even in the rumbling darkness. The men in the cells were shouting now, and a white light cast strange shadows across the stone. Across the walls, the wards were shimmering and sparking in an eclectic, angry red. Fear split her gut. What in the name of the Archer was happening? No one had ever broken through the old wards. Power like this wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

She almost tripped to a stop beside the guards. Estes’ eyes were open, his gaze unseeing. Just minutes ago, he had been a living, breathing person with a whole life before him. Her stomach churned. What kind of power could do something like this ?

A shout sounded behind her, and she scrabbled for the key ring at the guard’s belt and yanked it off with a clink.

The door loomed before her, heavy and wooden, riddled with wards that she doubted the guards had known were there. These were cracking and red too, spreading like wildfire. She rifled through the keys, her fingers shaking, as she tried them one at a time.

The first one rattled in the lock but didn’t turn. She grunted in frustration and tried the second. This one didn’t even fit. She shoved the third key in.

“Let’s go! Let’s get out of here!” a prisoner shouted.

She fumbled with the next key, until finally, it turned in the lock. With a desperate cry, she heaved the door open.

She clattered up the steps, hardly daring to look behind her. Whatever was going on back in the cell block was worse than the guards she might come across ahead.

She rounded a corner and darted into an alcove stacked with unused bows just as a group of soldiers clattered down the stairs, short swords drawn, their sticks of orb fire held high. She didn’t think swords would be of any use down there.

When they’d passed, she started back upward. Her chest was heaving, and Isabel did her best to slow her steps as she climbed, willing herself to blend into the shadows when she could, and passing with her chin raised confidently when she couldn’t. No one stopped her, not with the alarm of an escape sounding down below.

With a final desperate push, she thrust out of the putrefying darkness and into the cold air of a cobblestone courtyard. She blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. The back of the Mediran palace rose serenely above her with its elegant white-stone towers and marvelous stained-glass windows that glinted in reds, golds, and greens in the midafternoon sun.

A cool wind whipped against her face as she leaned against a fence at the side of the courtyard. She couldn’t get the way Karim had looked at her out of her head, his face suddenly boyish and scared—couldn’t stop thinking about his plea for help.

She closed her eyes, feeling the soft bite of the wind on her cheeks.

Karim’s words echoed through her mind again: “I’ll be right here when all this is over.”

He hadn’t seemed to think he would escape like the others. And more insanely, he’d said he would stay . But why?

As more soldiers rushed for the prison, Isabel forced herself upright, pushing down the fear that still pounded through her. None of that mattered right now. She had to get away from the prison and disappear into the palace, into her fabricated life as a scribe for the Rendran ambassador to Medira. She had to find Lady Salandris, the ambassador, and warn her about what had just happened.

Because when news of the escape did reach the king, it wasn’t going to be pretty.