Shadow Queen - By Deborah Kalin Page 0,93

anima he gave them is sacrilege.’

‘If you won’t help, don’t disturb the silence,’ snapped Sidonius. ‘I’ll not have you handing her excuses to refuse me – she’s not in the position. As for you, lady, if I lose one more man to those creatures, I’ll take payment out of your own hide when all this is settled.’

‘Keep a civil tongue in your head when you address me, General,’ I retorted, the words putting starch in my spine. ‘Making threats you can’t follow through is a fool’s practice.’

I didn’t delay, however, immediately edging nearer the ramp. But the night was too dark; even closing the distance didn’t improve the view. I drew Achim to my side. He came reluctantly, pulling against my grip. If it weren’t for Roshi directly behind him, he would have stopped altogether.

‘The general spoke true,’ he said, when we halted. ‘I’ll not kill those creatures. Think carefully on what you undertake, my lady – destroying a golem brings a burden with it. You will owe their mechaiah the anima you have stolen from him.’

‘I owe my husband more than a little stolen anima,’ I muttered, the foreign word strange in my mouth.

I wondered what hold Achim had over Sidonius that he could refuse the general’s demands. Perhaps, when the time came, the Amaeri shadow-worker would come in useful in my struggle against both brothers. I tucked the thought away; there was no time now.

‘Stop your moralising,’ I went on. ‘You were happy enough to build a bridge which would lead to the deaths of Turasi men and women, and you’d lift your hand against them quickly enough if those golem hunted you.’

‘They do not.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Which means you can help me figure out how to do … whatever I did last time.’

He turned surprised eyes on me. ‘You don’t know?’

‘I wouldn’t be asking if I did.’

A terrible cry drew my attention to the ramp. One of the golems gripped an Ilthean by the throat, crushing his flesh. The crack of his neck breaking caused the soles of my feet to tremble.

‘Now, Achim,’ I said.

He closed his eyes and held his breath, but he acceded. ‘Empty your mind. You must be calm. You’re not calm.’

‘You’re not hurrying,’ I said.

‘You need to find the quiet within, where you can listen to the voice of the mechaiah.’

I choked on a rising rush of panic. There hadn’t been any quiet within when I fought Clay, and there wasn’t any now.

Roshi touched my forearm, her fingers warm, her eyes so compelling I couldn’t look away.

‘Think of the earth beneath them,’ she said. ‘What does it feel like?’

As I stared into her eyes, the earth sent a tingle up my spine. Suddenly it was as if I could sense every single grain in that thrice-cursed ramp, rubbing each against the other, and the vortices and sippets of air threading through them.

‘Earth can ebb and flow like a wave on the shore,’ murmured Roshi. ‘It can reach for the sky, or open wide its maw and swallow us whole.’

‘Call the men off,’ I whispered, frightened to lift my voice lest I break the tender thread connecting me to the earth.

‘The men, General. Call them back!’ Achim cried across the night.

A fluting summons disturbed the night, causing the Iltheans to break free and back down the ramp, desperately trying to fend off the golems who dared follow.

The last soldier jumped off the ramp. This was my chance, while the Iltheans were safe but the golems still stood upon the ramp. Closing my eyes, I clutched at the thread connecting me to the earth, sending my will plummeting down it.

The ground rumbled, a great roar building like a leviathan surfacing, then it split open, releasing its pent thunder with a blasting breath of sulphur and rot. Excess earth flowed away from the lip of the maw but, caught in the centre of the eruption, the golems and ramp tumbled into its depth, swallowed without trace.

Still I didn’t release my hold, though it was like clutching a filament of silk under water. The pressure of the displaced earth pushed at me until my ribs creaked with every breath. The connection transmitted tiny sounds back to me, the sensation like a plucked lute string, telling me the golems had fallen to the bedrock.

I turned my face skyward and let go, and the earth rushed back in like a tidal wave, crashing and foaming, closing over the gaping hole as if it had never been.

The connection broke with