Shadow Queen - By Deborah Kalin Page 0,40

ease with which Dieter sat his horse, and the smiling arrival of Janek, told me his loyalty had shifted.

Janek bowed to Dieter as he dismounted, then cast me a nervous glance.

Mindful of the lesson I’d learnt when I tried to reveal Dieter’s arcana to the Skythes, and weary of games I couldn’t win, I kept my mouth shut and ignored Janek’s welcoming patter. The temptation was strong, however. If I could only reveal Dieter’s use of the shadows, Janek’s loyalty would flip faster than a jackknifing hare.

First I had to free myself of the hex which bound my tongue.

As Dieter’s soldiers dismounted, they resolved into two distinct groups. The smaller group were clearly guests. They waited, reins in hand, to be informed of their billet.

The larger group tied their mounts to hitching rails with the ease of homecoming before greeting the women and children who rushed towards them.

‘It’s fortunate you won me the Skythes as allies,’ murmured Dieter, taking my elbow and smiling down at me. ‘Now I can release these men back to their homes for a spell. Between you and me, they were getting a touch fractious.’

My answering smile was a sickly, pale creature with roots reaching all the way down to my tight-knotted stomach. We continued on, Janek still babbling away, this time about the meal he’d prepared. ‘You’ll find some of the sauces familiar,’ he said, turning to me with an ingratiating smile, ‘since the Turholm’s chief cook is the daughter of one of my thralls.’

‘You mean Leise?’ I asked.

He nodded. What was it Leise had said? My family were wiped out by your mother’s people. Do you see me wailing over it?

‘I know that look, Matte,’ Dieter said. ‘You’re puzzling again. What is it this time? You always notice meaning in such small details.’

‘Sometimes, Dieter, I think you’re the only totally honest person I know,’ I said.

Surprise wiped the humour from his face. ‘That could almost be a compliment.’

‘Let’s just say I’m reassessing the value of frankness,’ I said.

Dieter laughed. It wasn’t his usual mocking tone but a clean, hearty sound.

With Dieter on one side and Amalia on the other, I sat down at the table of a man who’d pledged loyalty to my House yet given aid to overthrow it. The thought was enough to make my head spin and I sprang back up, the legs of my chair scraping on the stone floor. Conversation stilled as faces turned my way, though Amalia kept her nose buried in her cup.

‘If you’ll excuse me,’ I said, a quaver in my voice. ‘I need fresh air.’

‘Of course,’ said Dieter and summoned Mathis and Gunther to escort me.

Once out of the room I picked up my skirts and ran back through the corridors until I burst out into the courtyard. Twilight had turned it into a place of purple shadows and secret breezes. Despite the breadth of space, it seemed too narrow, closing in on me until I couldn’t draw breath.

Seek the high places, Shadi had said.

My eyes snagged on a watchtower in the centre of the western wall. Squat and blocky, it was still the highest structure in the holding. A plain, iron-bound oak door opened into the tower’s base, stairs looming dark behind it. They stretched endlessly ahead of me, winding up and around, step after step, so that climbing them was like a mantra, lulling me into a daze. But when I reached the top and crept out onto the turret beneath the open sky, a brisk wind slapped my face, waking me with a start.

It was then that I glimpsed Roshi, perched in an embrasure as if falling couldn’t hurt, leaning out over the depths like some awkward, wingless heron.

Mathis and Gunther ground to a halt behind me. I made a gesture of dismissal and they retreated back into the shelter of the stairway. After all, I couldn’t escape, and Roshi they judged no threat either, since my mother’s people had clearly shown their preference for Dieter.

Stepping up to the battlements, I rested my palms on the cool, gritty stone. Below and behind me lay the sprawling, random slopes of the holding’s roofs. In front of me, sharply demarcated by the thick battlement wall, the silent plains stretched into the darkness. Janek’s farmers must have had permission to pasture their herds on those grounds, for more than a single flock of sheep milled around the tower’s base.

I pulled the collar of my gown tighter, and looked up at the sky until the sensation