Spellscribed Tales: First Refrain (12 page)

“Any Sha’hdi can bend shadows to cover herself.” Devinia corrected. “But I thought it would be better if I could bend to be like the shadows. So I was trying really hard one day and I was holding my breath and then there I was!”

Ashrava frowned. “Ah,” She said. “I see now.”

“Did… did I do something wrong?” her daughter asked, worried.

Ashrava shook her head slightly. “No, child. You learned something, but it can be dangerous if you continue to use it incorrectly.”

“Oh…” Devinia said, crestfallen.

“So I will teach you how to do it properly, okay?” her mother continued. “Every night before bed, whenever I’m home.”

Devinia smiled again, excitement thrumming like electricity through her. “Really?” she exclaimed.

Ashrava nodded, but her expression was stern. “However, you cannot use it while you’re playing with the other children. It isn’t fair for them and they don’t learn anything if you do that.”

“Oh… okay mother.” Devinia replied. “I can still run, right?”

Ashrava smiled. “Sure. Try to think of it as you giving them a fair chance.”

“I can do that!” Devinia replied, beaming. “If I’m that good, doesn’t that make me the hunter, since I’m leading them around?”

Ashrava’s firm expression softened a feather more. “Yes, dear.” She replied, her eyes glimmering. “It makes you the predator.”

From that night on, until she was too old to play games, Devinia never hid when it was her turn to be the prey. She stood out where the other children could see, and outran them almost every time. In the evenings, when her mother was not out abroad working, Ashrava would teach her how to correctly meld into shadows. Those nights were the best ones of her life.

* * * *

Devinia watched two seasons of change pass and each time the season approached, Prav would argue with his wife. He wanted her to retire from the dangerous work. She was approaching three hundred years, a time where many venerable assassins had long since retired to more simple pursuits, if they lived that long. There was always a chance an assasin could be killed while on duty, and Ashrava had been injured more and more often during the last decade.

The fight never came to screaming; not even voices were raised. Yet every day, the tension of the house rose. Devinia was the only child still living in the home, and she could tell things were getting bad when she would have to take care of all the household duties on her own. Though shaken, Devinia hoped that things would sort themselves out soon enough.

Then, one night while Devinia was sleeping, her mother swept in and woke her with a start.

“Get dressed and grab the bag I packed for you.” Ashrava commanded, shaking Devinia’s shoulder. All the lights in the house had been extinguished, and only her eyes could pierce the darkness.

She slipped out of bed and went to her closet. Inside was a stand mirror for which the frame had been grown instead of carved. Because of the pitch darkness, though she could see, there was no reflection in the mirror. While still reflective, there was nothing it revealed except a pair of golden cat eyes staring back at her.

She reached for the small light crystal her mother had put in the closet, but Ashrava caught her hand. Looking up, she saw her mother shake her head slightly. Frowning, she turned back to her clothes.

Slim and slender, Devinia hadn’t even grown into her full height yet. Just under five feet, she was pretty but indefinite, with no definition of curve
nor muscle, she could be confused for an elven boy just as easily as a girl. She was nearing her growing period, which happened between twenty and twenty two.  Her father, as a silk weaver, had made sure her wardrobe was well stocked so she had plenty of adult clothing prepared in advance.

She dressed quickly, confused but afraid to ask her mother any questions. Ashrava was wearing her civil service gear and smelled of blood. Her face was tight, drawn into a mask of emotionless focus. Devinia had seen her mother make that face before, when she thought that Devinia wasn’t looking. It was her expression when she thought a fight was going to start. It was the face she made when she was called in to do a contract.

Since Sha’hdi fashion trended towards the blacks and grays, Devinia didn’t have much clothing that couldn’t be stealthy. She avoided clothing with hanging adornments and shiny embellishments. Thus dressed, she pulled her shoulder length blonde hair together and bound it from her face with a simple black ribbon.

Devinia pulled the bag out from under her bed and slipped it onto her shoulders. She looked over to her mother and nodded. The room was
pitch black, but the two of them could see clearly they were alone for the moment. Ashrava opened her mouth to speak, but froze.

A faint tick of something hard touching wood came from the other side of the bedroom door. Devinia looked to the door and back at her mother. She had disappeared.

The doorknob silently turned, and the door slipped open just enough to let a lithe, masked figure into the room. Devinia backed away as quietly as she could, hoping that her pack wouldn’t make enough noise to give herself away. The assassin looked over the bed and scanned the room. She had golden eyes; the gold burning in defiance of the muted colors of the dark. She spotted the girl immediately.

“Ah… already dressed and ready to go.”
The voice purred. Devinia thought she had heard the voice before. “Where is your mother?”

Devinia shook her head.

“Pity.” The assassin said, drawing a long, thin blade barely wider than one of her delicate fingers. “I had hoped to take care of her without waking you, but since you’re now awake… I am sorry, honey. But if you lay back down on the bed, I promise I will make it quick and painless, okay?”

Devinia trembled in fear, but shook her head. “No.”

“No?” the assassin pouted. “I’m offering you a gift, child.”

She did not hear Ashrava drop down behind her.

“Am I your target?” Devinia asked.

“No, honey.”
The intruder whispered. “Your mother… she took a few jobs carelessly in her old age… made some enemies. I’m afraid our house has to remove her from service.”

Ashrava stepped up against the assassin’s back, her hand clamping down on her mouth. Devinia heard the sound of something metal cutting into flesh, and a sharp intake of air from the intruder.

“I may have made enemies, but that’s no longer your concern.” Ashrava whispered.

The assassin slipped to the floor, the thin blade falling to the ground and embedding into the wood. Ashrava guided the body down, and peeled the mask off her face.

“Aunt Mera?” Devinia asked, her voice cracking.

“Come, daughter.” Ashrava whispered. “We need to get out of here.”

“Where’s father?” she asked in reply.

Ashrava’s face hardened again. “He’s… He can’t come with us anymore.”

“Oh.” Devinia could feel tears burning in her eyes, but rubbed them away with her shirt sleeve. “I’m ready.”

“You showed me you could shadowmeld last year, didn’t you?” Ashrava
asked, her eye on the door. While wrapping one’s self in shadows to hide was a common Sha’hdi use of magic, melding into them, giving one’s form to the shadow was an advanced trick and was difficult to accomplish, much less master. Devinia had practiced it relentlessly after she had been taught the basics, to try to impress her mother.

“Yes mother. I’ve kept practicing like you asked me to.” She replied.

“Good. I am going to create some light and we are going to have to shadowmeld the whole way. Can you follow me?”

“I can try, mother. I… I can do it.” Devinia admitted.

Ashrava pulled a small chalky white stone from a pouch at her belt. “Do it now.” She commanded.

She squeezed the stone until she felt it give. With one smooth motion, she yanked open the door and threw the stone. Knives rained through the opening and Ashrava jerked back out of the doorway.
The room beyond, their relaxation room, burst into brilliant white light as the stone crumbled on the floor. The illumination caused four women in black leather to recoil, covering their eyes against the sudden assault upon their senses.

Devinia focused on melding into the shadows and had managed to do so in a few seconds. The world became hazy, indistinct. Only the areas covered in clearly defined shadow seemed real;
and she was not yet skilled enough to see what was going on outside of the shadowmeld. She could tell there were shrieks of pain, some movement around her, then her mother sunk into the shadows next to her.

Together they fled, Ashrava leading the way while Devinia struggled to keep up. Moving through shadow was far faster than running, but it was only possible within contiguous pieces of shadow. Thankfully, the Lands of the Southern Moons didn’t ever see much sun, so lights were placed in the streets and buildings throughout.  They were able to flee the house through the open back door, slip over the roots of the next house, and make it nearly two hundred yards before Devinia was unable to maintain her concentration. She burst out of the shadow mid stride, and she kept running.

Salthimere was a large country, split almost perfectly even into two halves. The northern half, closest to the lands of humans, was the Land of the Suns. There the Suo’hdi were most numerous, as their more positive outlook irritated the practical and far more grim Sha’hdi who lived in the southern half. The change was visible just from looking at the architecture. Most of the buildings in the Land of the Moons were made of dark, leafless wood. They were naturally formed using elven life magic to have plenty of outward spreading branches along the rooftops in twisted, interwoven patterns. They greatly cut the light of the suns down to just a glow that suffused the city during the day. Home and shop owners decorated their homes with patterns of varied cloth hangings and crystals that glowed in pretty colors.

The Sha’hdi in the streets at that time of night courteously stepped out of her way, able to see the desperation in her face. It was a normal enough occurrence; if she was fleeing this fast, it had to be for a good reason. Any perceived interference in something that could be a contract killing would then make the interloper another target. She ducked behind a storefront sign and tried to catch her breath.

Ashrava slipped out of the shadow the sign cast in the street lights, and touched her daughter’s shoulder. “Come, we move faster in the dark.”

Devinia panted, trying to keep her panic and fatigue from overwhelming her. “It’s really hard to follow you, mother.”

“I know.” She responded, looking around cautiously. “But you have to try.”

“Is it true?” Devinia asked her mother. “Is our own family trying to kill us?”

“Yes, my daughter.” Ashrava said. “But we only need to evade them long enough to gain an audience with the Matron of a different house. If I can, I’ll see they keep you safe.”

“But mother, what about-” she started to ask.

“We need to go.” Ashrava commanded, melding back into the shadows.

They fled again, diving into deep shadow and shifting through pools of darkness like eels cutting through an inky sea. Her mother led her to a small park plaza along the outer limits of the city. Their wildland, called
Fiorache’Sora
, awaited them at the edge of the plaza. A circular stone formed a viewing platform where citizens could sit and enjoy the gloom of the
Fiorache’Sora
while taking part in public activities.

Unfortunately, a ring of lights illuminated the cleared land like a wall to anyone seeking to cross in shadows. Even the canopy of interwoven branches had been grown away from the outlying forest, ensuring nothing could cross from the woods into the city using shadows cast by the branches. Some elves in charge of city defense would patrol the city canopy, cutting down any branches that grew too close.

“The Forest of Night Eternal.” Ashrava told her, leading the two to the end of the plaza. Only two dozen yards away, the first of the grand trees soared up into the sky, hundreds of feet tall and more than thirty feet across with dozens of spindle-like branches jutting out in seemingly random patterns. Only the branches near the top had leaves, the rest were bare. The trees only got taller and thicker the deeper into the forest one went. Some of them were tall enough that one could fall from the top, and if somehow they missed every branch on the way down, they would still have quite some time to consider their demise.

“We’re going there?” Devinia asked.

Ashrava glanced down at her with a frown. “Are you scared?”

“Yes.” The younger admitted.

Ashrava hesitated a second before replying. “Good. It will keep you alive.” She whispered.

Devinia felt, rather than heard, the presence of someone else on the plaza. She started to turn her head, but her mother reached out and grabbed her shoulder before she could do so.

“Don’t.” she replied. “When I say so, run into the forest, shadowmeld and go as deep as you can. I’ll find you and take you to somewhere safe.”

Devinia could tell now there was significantly more than one new presence in the plaza. Her mother must have known of their arrival many seconds before her. Ashrava pushed her shoulder suddenly.