Slight and Shadow Read online

  The shelf of rock that jutted out from Arabath made a natural port, and the people of the Kingdom had been visiting it for centuries. They flooded in from every region, eager to spend their coin on the fine jewelry and glassware that the desert craftsmen were famous for.

  They were so famous in fact, that Baron Sahar had stolen all of the best craftsmen straight out of their shops. Now he kept them locked in his mines deep in the eastern sands, where he forced them to work as slaves. His wares cost him nothing to make, and he sold them at exceptionally high prices. So Sahar had been living comfortably in his wealth for years.

  But Kyleigh planned to change that.

  Once their ship was tied to the docks, they were finally allowed off. Kyleigh had only ever seen Arabath from above — she’d never actually set foot in it. So she was surprised when a horde of merchants flooded the docks.

  They swarmed the ramp, gathering so thickly that she had to elbow her way through them. They called out in the Kingdom’s tongue, shouting high and low around each other, trying to be the voice that stood out from the crowd — though their accents were so thick that most of what they shouted sounded like gibberish.

  Kyleigh pulled her hood over her head as she wove her way between them. She was determined to be careful, this time. Her long stay in the mountains hadn’t dulled the King’s memories: Crevan had already sent his army after her once, and if she was spotted in Whitebone, he would certainly do it again.

  Last time, her foolishness had cost them the life of Garron the Shrewd. It was a mistake that haunted her sleep, a mistake that had made her realize just how fragile the lives of her companions were — a mistake that she would never make again.

  So Kyleigh planned to keep her face hidden until they were well away from Arabath, out in the solitude of the desert.

  As they filed off the ship, the merchants crushed in. Kyleigh shoved her way through them, dodging the various glittering trinkets they shoved under her nose, and balling her fists so they couldn’t press anything into her hands. The stale odor of sweat and human filth hovered in the small pockets of free air; whatever array of spices the merchants had consumed for breakfast still clung to their breath and clothes.

  She heard Jake cry out behind her and had to grab him around the wrist to keep him from getting swept away. After a few minutes of shoving and weaving, they popped out on the other side.

  Silas wasn’t behind them, and Kyleigh was afraid that she was going to have to go back in after him. But then Jake spotted him standing up the path. He was balanced on his tiptoes, his neck craning in interest above the crowd. His pants were tighter and a good inch shorter than they’d been before.

  “What did I tell you about changing shape in public?” Kyleigh said when she reached him.

  He looked away from where he’d been sniffing the air and fixed her with an unconcerned look. “That it’s important that I not be spotted. And I wasn’t.” He pulled down on the seam of his breeches and grimaced. “Though I wish now that I hadn’t changed. Things are beginning to get … crowded.”

  While Kyleigh had been too sick to do much of anything, Silas and Jake had made good use of the journey south. Jake thought he might be able to create a spell that would keep Silas’s clothes from ripping every time he changed, and Silas was happy to let him experiment. They practiced late at night, and where the merchants couldn’t see them. The first couple of attempts caused Silas’s trousers to burst into flame — and left the end of his tail smoldering.

  But Jake eventually figured it out … well, mostly. Silas could now change shape without losing his clothes, but they shrank a bit every time. By now, the hems of his trousers were almost to his knees, and the buttons of his shirt were strained tight.

  “Must I wear them?” he whined, scratching piteously at his collar. “I could travel much faster bare.”

  Kyleigh waved a hand at the crowd. “Do you see anybody else running around the way Fate made them?”

  “Well … no —”

  “And if you did, don’t you think people would notice?”

  “Perhaps,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “And if we get noticed,” she pointed behind him, to where a cluster of guards were making their way towards the docks, “they’d probably want to have a chat with us. Of course, by a chat I mean that they’d string us up by our toes in the Baron’s dungeon and burn the truth from our lips with red-hot coals. Is that how you’d like to spend your first trip to the desert?”

  He glared at her.

  She patted his cheek. “I didn’t think so. Now, let’s find you some more comfortable trousers.”

  They bought Silas a few more changes of clothes at one of the shops along the beach — and Kyleigh made sure they were especially itchy — before they wandered deeper into Arabath.

  “Remarkable,” Jake murmured as they wound their way through the narrow streets.

  He had his journal opened and was already scribbling madly with a stick of charcoal. Though Jake was a clever creature, he seemed incapable of doing two things at once: in less than a minute, he’d already run into the back of a parked wagon, bruised his hip on a fruit stand, and nearly tripped over a wandering dog. Once, he’d been so focused on his notes that he’d made a wrong turn — and Kyleigh had to turn back to retrieve him.

  “It is remarkable,” Silas agreed. His golden eyes flicked every which way, and his nose never stopped twitching. For all of his talk about human weakness, he seemed rather interested in them.

  Kyleigh had a difficult time not smiling as she watched him. She remembered her first trip through a human market, and all of the excitement of discovering something new: the many strange scents, the colorful tones of chatter, and the way the humans’ faces moved. Their faces always seemed to be moving — and every slight twitch in their features carried a different meaning.

  Setheran had begun to teach her what all of the expressions meant, but she never got a chance to finish the training. There was a lot about the humans that she still didn’t understand, and on more than one occasion, it had gotten her into trouble.

  Nevertheless, it was nice to have something new to learn. Kyleigh might’ve been old to the earth, but she was still young to the ways of men.

  It was obvious that this was Silas’s first time out among so many humans. Though she didn’t know everything about them, Kyleigh knew a few things — and she knew Silas could get into trouble if she didn’t keep an eye on him.

  A woman slid past them, and his nostrils flared to catch her scent. Several brightly colored flowers were woven into the dark tresses of her hair. They gave off a sickly sweet aroma, and Silas leaned in to sniff them as she passed.

  Kyleigh had to grab his collar to keep him from burying his nose into her hair.

  “But there aren’t any flowers like that in the mountains,” he said, his eyes following after her. “I only wanted to smell them.”

  “Still — you shouldn’t touch women who don’t belong to you. If her husband is anywhere nearby, you’ll be in trouble.” Kyleigh bit back a smile at the confused look on his face. “Her mate,” she explained.

  “Stupid human customs,” Silas said, with no small amount of disdain. “The females of my species aren’t tied to anyone. They may go from one mate to the next as often as they wish.”

  “Well, we can’t all run around with our tails on fire every spring — otherwise there wouldn’t be any great cities like Arabath,” Kyleigh quipped. “We’d all be living in caves and treetops.”

  “Boldly spoken, from the dark,” Silas growled back. His gaze dug into the shadow of her hood. “You’re lucky that I can’t find your eyes to glare in.”

  “It does seem a bit darker than the average hood,” Jake agreed. There was a smudge of charcoal on the end of his nose from where he’d had it buried in his journal. “I’ve often wondered about it. Is it magicked?”

  Kyleigh shook her head. “A whisperer made it for me.”

  Jake’s spectacles slid down as h
is eyebrows climbed. “Whispercraft,” he murmured, and his mouth hung open even after he’d said it. “That must’ve cost you a fortune.”

  She shrugged, smiling at the memory. “Not as much as you’d think. The craftsman owed me pretty severely.”

  Silas stopped in the middle of the path, and Kyleigh had to leap to the side to keep from running into him. “Do you smell that?” he hissed, his eyes closed tightly.

  It only took her a moment to catch the scent: meaty flesh roasting over open flames, thick skin packed full of spices — and crisping perfectly in the morning air. Kyleigh’s empty stomach rumbled after it. Now that she was on firm ground once again, her appetite came back with a vengeance.

  Silas took off at a run, with his shoulders arched forward and his neck bent on the hunt, and Kyleigh followed him without thinking — leaving Jake to tag along behind them. It was only after they arrived at the meat vendor that she heard the poor mage panting loudly, and realized that she’d let the smell of food get the better of her.

  “Sorry, Jake —”

  “You might’ve just told me that you were hungry,” he gasped, planting his hands on his knees, “instead of setting off like that. I thought we were being chased!”

  “It won’t happen again,” Kyleigh promised. She was more than a little embarrassed by the way she’d acted. They were buying their food, not killing it. She shouldn’t have let Silas goad her into a hunt.

  She looked up to chide him and saw that he was already standing at the meat vendor’s table, watching as he turned a fresh leg of goat over a small fire.

  “Easy with the roasting, friend,” Silas said, his eyes on the meat.

  The vendor smirked at him. He turned the leg twice, barely searing it. Then he handed it over. He looked rather shocked when Silas tore in.

  “I’ll have mine the same way,” Kyleigh said, when she saw how much Silas was enjoying it. “And we’ll buy all the salted meat you have prepared.”

  Most of what the desert folk ate came from the earth. There weren’t many creatures that could survive the punishing sun, and so they usually did without meat. But Kyleigh couldn’t do without it: her dragon half needed red flesh, and could survive on nothing else.

  The vendor wrapped up their supplies without a word. Kyleigh wagered it would last them about a week — provided she could keep Silas out of it.

  When the vendor handed over her barely-seared leg of goat, he watched as she bit into it. She could see his disgust clearly out of the corner of her eye, but paid him no heed. She was enjoying the spices immensely.

  “And what about you?” the vendor said, turning to Jake. His accent was not as heavy as some of the others’ had been. “Perhaps you would like yours a little bloody?”

  Jake wrinkled his nose. “No, I’d very much like the blood cooked out of it, thank you.” He watched the vendor work for a moment, then he drew out his journal. “How did you come to learn the Kingdom’s tongue, if you don’t mind me asking? Have you lived in Arabath all your life?”

  The vendor shook his head. “Many of the tribes speak this language. We have hundreds of our own, and none would give up his native words to learn those of another. Your King’s tongue belonged to no one, and so we agreed to learn it.”

  “I see.” Jake’s brows shot up, and he began to scribble furiously. “And so the tongue that was foreign to them all became the language that united them. Does that sound about right to you?”

  He shrugged. “I do not care — so long as I am paid.”

  While the vendor finished roasting Jake’s meal, Kyleigh kept eating. She’d just tore off a particularly juicy hunk of flesh when Jake tapped her frantically on the shoulder.

  “Huh?” she grunted.

  He bent down to her ear. “Don’t look now, but I think we’re being watched.”

  Kyleigh looked anyways.

  He was right: a group of four desert men hung near a shop across the street from them. They had scarves wrapped about their heads and swords strapped to their hips. Their dark eyes blinked out unabashedly from their wrappings. They didn’t seem to care that they’d been spotted.

  “I think they mean to kill us,” Jake hissed.

  Kyleigh could feel their dark intentions even from across the path. It oozed out between their crossed arms, stabbed at her from the danger in their stares. “Yes, I believe they do … eventually.”

  “Well, shouldn’t we — I don’t know … confront them?” Jake muttered. He snatched his food from the vendor impatiently and pressed some coin into his hand.

  Kyleigh wasn’t too concerned about their followers. Granted, travelers did have a nasty habit of disappearing in Whitebone. She imagined it would be fairly easy to hide a body in the sand. But disappearances were bad for business, and Baron Sahar had done much to curb bandit attacks in recent years.

  Now Arabath was thick with his guards. There seemed to be a pair of them for nearly every street. They patrolled the city openly, with the gold sun of Whitebone branded across their chests. Everywhere they marched, their eyes were peeled for mischief.

  Kyleigh knew the desert men wouldn’t risk attacking them in Arabath. So she told Jake to ignore them, and led her companions on with their chores.

  They bought two weeks worth of spice rice from a vendor down the street. Silas made a face when Kyleigh handed him a sack filled with the bright red grains. “This is for prey, dragoness. You can’t expect me to carry what I’m not going to eat.”

  “The rice will keep long after the meat’s gone bad. If we run into trouble, you’ll be glad you have it.”

  “But —”

  She spun him around by the shoulders and stuffed the rice into his pack. “You’ll carry what I give you, and that will be the end of it — or I’ll make an end of you,” she added, when he started to protest.

  He clamped his mouth shut, though his eyes still glowed with a haughtiness that was every bit as insolent as a sharp retort.

  As they moved on towards the edge of town, Kyleigh spotted a date vendor settled under the shade of a tree. She was a middle-aged woman dressed in a beautiful blue frock. The gold threads woven into her garb branched out delicately from the hems; they shimmered in the sunlight while she packed their dates.

  She held the sacks out to Kyleigh, but when she reached to take them, the woman grasped her wrist. “You are being followed,” she whispered. Her eyes darted over Kyleigh’s shoulder, where the four desert men were feigning interest in some merchant’s baubles. “I know those men — many travelers have died by their hands. You would do well to hire a guard.”

  Kyleigh was taken aback by the woman’s kindness, and smiled at the concern on her face. “Thank you for telling me.”

  She paid with the last of their coin — silver worth more than three times the price of the dates. And the woman was so stunned that she didn’t think to protest until they’d already disappeared into the market.

  *******

  Arabath’s back gate was actually only half a gate: one high wall protected the entrance to the Baron’s highway, but the rest of the desert was left unprotected.

  The highway was the only safe path through the desert, a natural shelf of rock that followed the path of the Red Spine. It wound from one end of the region to the other, keeping travelers safe from the perils of the burning wilds.

  Rolling hills of sand stretched endlessly to the south and east. They shimmered against the rising sun, dancing excitedly as the heat warmed them. There was no wall set against this land, because there was no point in guarding it: only fools wandered out into the open desert.

  “You’re certain that you’ve traveled this way before?” Jake whispered, as they made their way purposefully towards the border.

  Kyleigh sighed. “Yes, I’m certain.”

  “And you know where you’re going, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  She’d crossed the desert so many times that she thought she might’ve been able to do it blindfolded. Granted, that had been ye
ars ago, back when she’d traveled alone hadn’t cared if she was spotted. Now that there were other lives depending on her, she was determined to do things carefully — even if that meant taking the long way around. She wouldn’t take to the skies unless she had no other choice.

  But even though Kyleigh could see things better from above, she didn’t think she’d have any trouble leading her companions across the desert. Aside from a few villages scattered here and there, the land was completely empty.

  How difficult could it possibly be?

  Jake was silent for a moment. She could hear the squeaking of his sweaty palms as they twisted about his staff. “Remind me again why we can’t take the road?”

  Kyleigh glared in the direction of the gate. “Baron Sahar’s highway is lined with forts — and each has its own price for passage. Merchants have lost a great deal more than their coin, along the way. Besides, the guards aren’t likely to let me pass through like this,” she said, tugging on her hood. “The minute I’m uncovered, they’ll know who I am … and our welcome will wear out very quickly.”

  “Ah, I see,” Jake said, though he still looked rather put-off about it. “So you’re certain you’ll be able to navigate across —?”

  “Yes,” Kyleigh said, throwing up her hands.

  “Well, I only ask because people are starting to stare!” he hissed.

  A number of small huts littered the rocky outskirts of Arabath. Desert folk milled around the tiny homes, stoking their fires and going about their chores. And many of them were staring.

  Their gaping didn’t seem to make Silas uncomfortable at all. In fact, he stared back with interest. “Why do they live out here, when there are far better dens in there?” he said, pointing back to the city.

  “These are the un-favored,” Jake mumbled. When Silas looked at him curiously, he brushed the sweat from his nose and tried to explain. “The culture of the desert revolves around the sun — they call it Fate’s Eye, and believe that the sun favors some of them more than others. The favored ones live inside the city, while the un-favored must live on the outskirts.”