The Shadow’s Curse (11 page)

‘Her,’ said Aelina, jumping on the word. ‘So you know it’s a woman?’

Raim nodded. ‘I think so. When I was with my grandfather, we used memory tea to try to unlock my recollection of that moment. It didn’t work, but I remember seeing her hands – a woman’s hands.

‘And since then I’ve seen fleeting glimpses of her.’ His hands clenched into a fist, his nails digging into the flesh of his palms. ‘Normally just before I’m about to get hurt – like when I tried to save my friend from her fall and suffering the same fate as you, Mhara. Or when I almost fell myself and Draikh wasn’t strong enough to help me. I looked up and saw her white dress. But I’ve never seen her face. I suppose she has saved me on several occasions. Although it never felt like it.’

Mhara tapped her finger on her lower lip. ‘So she only appears when you are in danger? I think I know who the woman is. And how you can meet her.’

‘You do?’ asked Raim, hope exploding in his chest. But just as he spoke, Draikh’s voice filled his head.

‘She won’t come.’

What? How do you know? Have you known who it is too? All this time?
Raim felt betrayal stab in his chest.

‘No!’ reassured Draikh. ‘She hides from me.’

Mhara continued, oblivious to their conversation. ‘Raim, the only way I can convince her to reveal herself is if you send the other shadow away.’

Raim shared a look with Draikh.

‘I don’t think you should do that,’ said Draikh. ‘It might be a trick.’

I trust Mhara. If she thinks she can convince the other spirit to come out, if I can find out what my promise was once and for all . . . that has to be worth it.

Draikh was agitated. He shook his head and swirled around Raim. ‘She has never protected you when it was needed. I don’t trust her.’

I’ll be all right. I can defend myself. Take Tarik with you.

‘Are you sure?’

Do it.

Draikh flew to where Tarik was still propped up by the wall.

‘If you follow the tunnel further down,’ Aelina said to the shadow, ‘you will find another room, run by the Council. They will be able to heal Raim’s brother.’

Draikh took Tarik away, who was too dazed to protest. Raim caught sight of Mhara watching them leave with a strange expression on her face. He tried to see it through her eyes: Tarik would look as if he was supported by a swirl of darkness.

When Draikh was gone, Raim felt sick to his stomach. It was as if a limb had been removed, and it made him feel vulnerable and alone. He was suddenly much more alert to the fact that he was wearing nothing but his loose-fitting tunic and trousers. No armour. No weapon.

Mhara would not be pleased with me
, he thought. No good Yun would ever be so unprepared. He had been leaning on Draikh and his own sage powers like a crutch.

And suddenly, he knew that Draikh was right. This had been a trap. And he was going to pay for his recklessness.

Before Raim could react, every woman in the room started moving towards him. There were bright flashes of light as metal objects appeared from behind their backs. Long objects, with sharp tips. Spears.

In unison, they pointed their weapons at Raim. And then they walked towards him.

‘Draikh!’ Raim roared out loud and in his mind, in case the shadow was still close enough to hear him. He retreated towards the hole in the wall they had come through. But Aelina blocked his path with a small dagger and an apologetic look on her face. The women pressed upon him with their spears, tightening the circle around him.

He turned and ran at Aelina, hoping she was not trained to fight. But she stood firm. He dodged the knife she was holding and grabbed at her wrist, causing her to drop the weapon. But the other women were also closing off the retreat to the passageway. ‘Draikh!’ Raim screamed again, and he looked around frantically. His shadow was too far away.

Above the fracas, Mhara’s voice echoed around the room. ‘His life is in danger! We will kill him!’

Raim pivoted round, hopeless and helpless as the spears surrounded him, a sea of metal and wood. He took a step backward, only to feel the tip of a spearhead dig into his spine, so sharp it split his skin and drew blood; when he tried to move forward, there was another spear at his neck. He stood stockstill. He barely dared to breathe.
They’re not going to kill me
, he kept saying to himself.
They want something from me.

‘Still not enough? This is not a bluff.’

He had no idea what Mhara was trying to accomplish, but whatever it was, it wasn’t working.

‘Kill him,’ Mhara said.

The woman holding the spear against his neck snarled, and she thrust forward with all her might.

Raim’s eyes were wide open and his heart pounded in his chest. Only one face flashed in his mind’s eye: Wadi. He would never see her again now.

‘No!’ There was another scream, another voice. There was a flash of white and Raim saw the woman who’d been about to kill him go down in a crumpled heap. Panic broke out among the other women. A blur of white sped around the circle, disarming the women, twisting their arms until they cried out in pain, and dropped their spears. One brave woman attempted to thrust at him from the side, but the blur of white was there in an instant, jamming the butt of a spear it had stolen into the woman’s stomach. The shadow then sped toward him, picked him up and flew him above the women, so close to the ceiling Raim could almost reach out and touch the rafters. He had been saved.

Mhara began a loud, slow clap. ‘See? That wasn’t so hard,’ she said.

‘How dare you do that? How dare you provoke me!’ said the shadow holding Raim.

But, it wasn’t a shadow. It was the form of a woman – the woman in white he had spotted on several occasions before, but had never fully seen. The mysterious other shadow he had always known had been there, but who had never appeared to him. He could look into her face now, and he recognized it.

‘Tell me, Raim, who do you see?’ asked Mhara from the floor below.

‘I know her from Lazar,’ said Raim. ‘They have a statue to her there. Her name is . . . Lady Chabi.’

Mhara’s expression softened. ‘A statue? How fitting. Well, Raim. That is the woman who gave you your scar.’ She held her hands up to the shadow of Lady Chabi. ‘You can put him down now. I won’t harm him.’

Raim couldn’t help the frown that appeared on his face. ‘You . . . why?’ Who was this woman who had caused him so much pain and torment when he should be at the pinnacle of his life?

She turned to him, her face so young and beautiful. The statue had not been able to do her justice. ‘I had to.’

‘Raim,’ said Mhara, and he turned his attention reluctantly back to her. ‘Say hello to your mother.’

‘Bar the doors. I want no one from outside the faction to find us here,’ said Aelina.

The shadow of his mother had brought him down to the ground, where Raim now rested on a single bended knee, his knuckles against the ground. He wanted to pound the stone beneath his fist, cause some kind of scene, but he knew it would do no good.

Raim looked up at the shadow-woman, the Lady Chabi – his mother. He had waited such a long time for this moment: the moment when he would finally discover what his promise was, and why he had made it.

But now that he was in front of her, he found himself speechless.

It was Mhara who spoke first. ‘I’m sorry, Raim, but I knew I had to put your life in real danger for her to appear. It was the only way.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Raim said. ‘All this time, you’ve been here . . . you could have told me what I needed to do.’

‘No, I couldn’t,’ said his mother.

Draikh burst through the wall at that very moment. ‘Raim! Are you hurt?’

‘And
that
is the reason why,’ she said. ‘Not when you have
him
whispering in your ear, corrupting you every moment!’ She pointed an accusing finger at Draikh.

‘Me? As you are perfectly aware,
I
am the one who has saved Raim on many occasions when
you
couldn’t be bothered. Remember the behrflies? I am more loyal to Raim than anyone.’

‘More loyal than to
yourself
?’ she spat. ‘I hardly think so.’

‘Enough!’ Raim shouted.

Mhara stared at him in alarm. ‘What is happening?’

Raim threw his hands up in the air. ‘She says she won’t tell me anything because of Draikh – she doesn’t trust him.’

Mhara raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, of course she doesn’t.’

Now it was Raim’s turn to feel surprised. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I think it’s time you heard the entire story, Raim. And Aelina can help me fill in the blanks, as she knew your mother too.’

‘You did?’

Aelina nodded. ‘She was one of us, once.’

She gestured to a low table in the far corner of the room. Raim didn’t want to sit – he wanted to stand, fight, anything but sit around and listen – but he knew that was vital for him to do. He gritted his teeth and followed Mhara and Aelina to the table.

‘All this time . . . what does she want from me?’ he asked, slumping onto the bench. His head fell into his hands.

‘The woman you know as Lady Chabi – the spirit behind your scar – was born into our Baril faction known as the Council,’ began Aelina. ‘The Council was formed for a single purpose: to restore the rightful leader of Darhan to the khanate.’

Raim lifted his eyes to Draikh, who looked uncomfortable, his mouth set in a firm line. ‘But Khareh is the rightful heir of Darhan,’ said Raim. ‘He was chosen by all the warlords.’

With surprising swiftness, Aelina stabbed the tip of her dagger into the wooden table. The spirit of Lady Chabi glared at Draikh, her eyes saying far more than words could. ‘No. That is what Darhanians have been led to believe, but it is not true. The last true Khan of Darhan was also the last true sage – Hao.’

That name rang a loud bell in Raim’s brain. Puutra-bar had told him about Hao in Lazar: he was one of the final sages to use his
own
spirit to provide his sage powers, not relying on a broken oath. ‘He was the one who sealed Lazar with the pass-stones,’ said Raim, rubbing his chin.

‘Yes. After the great battle in Lazar, which saw it burn to the ground and the passage through the mountains sealed by magic, Hao returned to Darhan. That’s when he discovered someone else had risen to take his place. Oghul-khan. The great-great grandfather of Batar-khan. He lay in wait to ambush Hao when he emerged from the tunnels, and Hao was killed. His people never knew what happened to him, and no one was able to avenge his death.

‘The Council was formed at the moment by Hao’s former Protector, a great Yun warrior. She knew a great secret that not many knew: that Hao had a child, and that his bloodline had to be protected at any cost, until the moment when he could take back what was rightfully his.’

‘There was a problem though. Hao’s Protector did not know where the child was, and she died before she could find him. But before she died, she passed the knowledge of Hao’s secret child down to another woman in the form of a promise-knot. The Protector’s vow became the next woman’s oath, and so the generational promise was born.

‘Ever since that moment, one woman has been chosen to guard that generational promise and to continue to search for Hao’s bloodline. And we, the Council, have grown up around that woman to support and protect her from harm.’

Raim stood up quickly from the bench, the sound of wood grating against stone echoing in the large, cavernous hall. ‘If I can accept this – and I’m not sure I do – I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.’

Mhara jumped up too. ‘Your mother, she was the last woman to bear this promise.’

‘And she was the one who carried the promise when we thought we had found the bloodline,’ said Aelina. ‘
Generations
of searching were finally coming to an end. But the only way we could really know we had found the right blood was if we also found the stone: the pass-stone that Hao had with him when he left Lazar. Your mother entered the tribe we had identified as holding the bloodline, befriended them, and found the stone.

‘That was where she found your father.’

‘My father?’

‘Yes. If Sola had ordained it, he might be the Khan right now. But we were unaware that Batar-khan’s people were tracking us the entire time. They hatched a plot to slaughter the tribe.’

‘I was able to get a warning to your mother before it happened,’ said Mhara. ‘She had once been my friend. I owed her that.’

‘The rest of the tribe was not so lucky,’ said Aelina. ‘The last blood of Hao was wiped out in an instant. Or so we thought. But your mother knew better.’

‘You cannot hear this, Raim,’ Lady Chabi spoke then, and his eyes darted to her face. Aelina noticed him staring at the shadow and stopped talking.

‘I have to hear this – this is answer I’ve been searching for!’

‘No, you don’t understand.
He
cannot hear this!’ She pointed at Draikh. ‘He will kill you if he finds out the truth. He’s treacherous and ruthless, just like the rest of his kind.’

‘
My
kind? How many times have I saved Raim’s life? I am the one who has been keeping him safe!’

‘Wrong! Twice I have had to save him when you could not or
did not
. You keep trying to get him killed!’

‘Enough!’ cried out Raim, tired of being caught between the two bickering haunts. Whatever his blood was, it boiled with rage at the woman’s accusations of Draikh. He turned to her. ‘If you had appeared to me in the first place and told me what to do, this never would have happened!’

‘It wasn’t supposed to happen!’ The anger she felt agitated the entire room, and even Mhara and Aelina shied away from the shadow. The spirit closed her eyes, and when she spoke again, her voice was calmer. Softer. ‘Your first oath, when you came of Honour Age, could have been to anyone else and all would have been fine. But you chose Khareh.’

Raim gritted his teeth, his fingers curled into tight fists. ‘So you always meant to make me an oathbreaker.’