Blood and Shadow (The Mage's Gift Book 1) Read online

  Chapter 1

  On hands and knees, the black-haired youth peered into shadowy water, searching for his reflection. A ripple ruined the surface. When it settled, the wide pool offered an indistinct, ghostly image. Sherakai dan Tameko, youngest son of House Tanoshi and fourth in line to inherit the title of jansu, turned his head until he had a good view of the left side of his face. “It doesn’t look too bad,” he ventured. Cautious fingertips explored the swollen, purpling skin around his eye.

  “Not yet. Wait until tomorrow,” his companion predicted. Chakkan dan Maeda propped his hands on his hips. “You know you’re supposed to duck when someone’s throwing a punch, don’t you?”

  “I’d have never guessed.” A faint smile turned up one side of Sherakai’s mouth. He pressed a thick dollop of mud to the bruise with a heartfelt sigh. Whatever its appearance, it throbbed like a wild thing. “Imitoru is wonderfully fast, isn’t he?”

  “And undisciplined. He shouldn’t have hit you at all, but at the very least he could have pulled that punch when you didn’t duck.”

  “He wouldn’t have had to if I’d done it properly.” Eyes closed, he reveled in the cool of his compress. “It was an accident. Sparring practice isn’t embroidery, you know.”

  “Your brothers are happy to embroider you, and you know it,” Chakkan grunted. He took a seat on a low rock, brushing arching jade fronds out of his way. The leaves smelled like hay and secrets.

  Nestled within the rugged embrace of towering canyon walls, the waters of the Starglass lay deep and still. A swath of blue sky decorated the silken surface, the image framed by the jagged silhouette of encircling trees high overhead. The walls leaned inward. The shadows they cast bled into the reflected greenery until there was no telling where one ended and the other began. Here and there tiny lances of sunlight pierced the water but did not reveal the depth. The protection of the cliffs provided a lovely relief from the sweltering heat of high summer.

  “Tasan doesn’t.” In fact, Tasan rarely had time to practice with the men, let alone his youngest brother. Fourteen years separated the two, and his duties kept him well occupied. “But as you have all pointed out, I’ll keep getting black eyes until I learn to duck.”

  “You do other things—crazy things—and don’t get hurt.”

  “Don’t get hurt much,” Sherakai corrected with a grin and dipped his hand in the water to wash away the mud.

  Chakkan’s brows lowered. “Why can you throw yourself off the back of a running horse and still land on your feet, but you can’t get out of the way of a fist or a sword?”

  “I don’t want to fight,” he said, face dripping. “I want to ride.” When his friend didn’t answer, and the silence stretched out between them, Sherakai looked up. Chakkan wore a worried expression. Friends and playmates since they’d been toddlers, the two had no secrets. As close as the laces on a sandal, his father always said. “What?”

  “You know you’re expected to be a warrior like your brothers, your father, his father…”

  “You.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am not you,” he said mildly. “I am not them.”

  Chakkan threw his hands up, baffled. “You can’t just refuse. What would you do if you weren’t a warrior?”

  Sherakai wiped his hands on his pants and got to his feet. Brown and green stains marked his shins. With mud on his face and his long, dark hair coming loose from its elaborate braids he didn’t look like a noble. Neither did he look the part of the warrior. Slender as the proverbial reed, he lacked the height and the muscle of his companion. Chakkan had a year on him, and Sherakai dreaded a similar growth spurt. It would rob him of an important advantage when he raced the horses.

  “I would be Master of the Horse for the future jansu, whose other brothers will be off seeking fame and honor and horrible scars on the battlefield. Or I might go to sea,” he said, considering. Thank the stars, he need never be jansu himself. In the hierarchy of Alshani nobility, a jansu ranked below a ryoshi who were the heads of the Twelve Ruling Houses and answerable only to the king himself.

  “You’d have to leave the horses.”

  Sherakai beamed. “True! Horse Master it is, then.”

  Chakkan looked up at the cloudless sky. “Does your father know about this?”

  “Not yet.”

  “He won’t agree.”

  “Guess I’ll have to run away to sea after all.” He would miss the horses dearly, and his family as well, but he’d come back to them one day. The chance to see the world and explore far places ignited his imagination. “Who knows? Perhaps I might even command my own ship.” The idea brought a gleam to his green, green eyes. Alshan had no coastline or seaport for him to explore.

  “Saints,” Chakkan complained, and shoved his hand through his own hair. Cropped short in the way of the lower classes, braids didn't catch his fingers. “You know you can’t do any such thing.”

  “Who will stop me?”

  “Honor. Loyalty.”

  Sherakai rolled his eyes. Dragging his shirt off over his head, he dropped it on a rock. Boots and pants joined it. He made his way on sure feet across boulders he’d crossed uncounted times. Without a pause, he knifed into the water, surfaced a few yards out, and swam across the pool. Broad as a barn, it offered plenty of room for exercise or play. The cool water washed away the grime of the practice ring and eased the strain of overworked muscles. Stories claimed that if one surrendered a small token of personal value to the pool, they would discover their path to peace. Sherakai and Chakkan weren't the only ones to dive in search of those tokens. A trinket so blessed might grant all sorts of wishes or visions, but the Starglass kept her treasures and her secrets far beneath the surface.

  “Have the mages of air and water not already explored the depths?” he’d once asked his mother.

  “It is forbidden,” she replied.

  “And the lawbreakers?”

  “They have their reward.”

  She had not explained further, but something in her expression had kept him from pressing for details. It did not keep him from searching, though, whenever he had the chance. While taking from the Starglass was forbidden, it didn’t mean one couldn’t look at the riches she protected. Taking a long, slow breath, he sank into the dark water.

  “Sherakai!”

  Down, down he went. Brilliant shafts of light speared the gloom but did little to relieve the darkness. He had never found the bottom, even when he’d used a pole to extend his reach. He’d touched nothing but Chakkan’s indignation. A pole was cheating; and if he happened to find the ever-elusive palm of earth that cradled the pool, he might not like what he poked down there. Like all boys, they had to scare each other with tales of monsters, wraiths, and shades. Sometimes the stories were so good they had to dare each other to go into the pool again.

  Floating in the silence, a finger of apprehension trailed up Sherakai’s spine. It served him right, he thought, for dwelling on that nonsense. Deliberately, he swept cupped palms upward, keeping his position a little longer. When his lungs burned for air, he reversed direction, kicking his way upward again. Head tipped back as he breached the surface, water streamed from his face. He sucked in a deep, sweet breath. The light made him blink, then squint.

  “Sun and moon and stars!” Chakkan exploded. Poised at the edge of the pool, shirtless and bootless now, he expelled a harsh breath. “Don’t scare me like that again. I’m done. You hear?”

  Sherakai’s mouth formed a tentative smile. “Was I down a long time?”

  “The longest. Ever.”

  “Really?” He licked sweet water from his lips.

  “Yes, beetle brain. I swear you’re either a sog or a puffer.” He dropped to one knee to scoop a wave of water in Sherakai’s direction.

  The youth only closed his eyes. He couldn’t get any wetter. “Even if I were, are you allowed to call me such insulting bynames?” A sog was a water mage, a puffer manipulated air.

  “I’ve called you wo
rse.”

  “Like beetle brain? I feel a swoon coming on.” He lay back in the water, one limp wrist draped over his forehead. Between slitted lids he saw Chakkan make a face, trying not to smile.

  “Go ahead and swoon, princess, I’m not coming in to save you.”

  “Then come in to swim.” Surrendering his pose, he floated lazily. A fallen fir tree across the top of the canyon captured and held his attention. The trunk stretched out straight as an arrow. Or a bridge. It had not been there before. Bare along a good part of its length, a tangle of branches blocked passage halfway across. That did not make it completely useless. He swam to the edge of the pool and heaved himself out. Water dripping from his body made the rock slick. He reached for the pants Chakkan handed him and dried his feet. Tossing the clothing aside, Sherakai stood and surveyed the surrounding walls critically.

  “What?” His friend’s brow crinkled with suspicion.

  “Did you see that?” he asked, pointing up at the tree.

  Chakkan’s gaze followed. “It must have fallen in the storm the other day.” He paused. “Is it important?”

  “It’s a challenge.” Anticipation gleamed in Sherakai’s eyes. “Are you coming?”

  “You’re going to climb up there and then—what, jump?”

  “Yes. It’s perfect, don’t you think?” He drew his finger back and forth through the air, tracing the shape of the log. “We should have thought of it a long time ago and put our own tree there.”

  “No! Have you lost your mind? That’s got to be as high as the roof of the keep.”

  He still wanted to do it. Sherakai saw it in his face and in the way he stood, indecisive and jittering his fingers against one leg.

  “We’ve climbed up and jumped before—” he began.

  “Not that high!”

  “—and the water’s deep.”

  “And if you break yourself?” Chakkan shot back.

  “Are you afraid?” Sherakai countered, chin lifting.

  “I’m afraid of what your father will do if I let anything happen to you.”

  A grimace distorted Sherakai’s fine features. He struck one finger against his companion’s broad chest. “You’re no fun anymore. Ever since you entered the guard you’ve been serious and careful. You’re not even a real soldier yet!” The jabbing finger became an elegant, dismissive wave. Turning on his heel, he started for the sheer rock wall.

  Chakkan’s hand on his shoulder spun him right back around again. Sherakai used the momentum, bringing his forearm across his body and up to knock away the hold. He shoved Chakkan’s hand down, completed the circle, then sprinted away. Lessons in self defense hadn’t been completely in vain. What he lacked in size and bulk he made up for in grace and speed, a fact that confounded his family and his teachers for the way it so often deserted him in the practice ring.

  “Kai, wait!”

  He’d made the climb scores of times. He didn’t stop until he could stand safely on a jutting shelf out of Chakkan’s reach. His swift ascent left pebbles and the previous year’s decaying leaves tumbling in his wake. The stones plinked into the pool and disappeared. A single green leaf, heart-shaped, rocked back and forth on the surface. Sherakai watched it, then his gaze went to Chakkan.

  On the first steppingstone, Chakkan shaded his eyes against the brightness of the sky. “I’ll come, but you have to let me jump first.”

  Angry words died on Sherakai’s lips. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, considering. Irritation and a budding sense of betrayal chafed at him. He was usually willing to either take turns or play a choosing game to decide the outcome. He wanted to jump first. And if he did manage to get seriously hurt, then it would be good to have Chakkan handy to save him. “No, just wait there.”

  He shook his head. “I’m supposed to watch out for you, Kai, keep you safe.”

  A soft grunt greeted that announcement. Chakkan was expected to pursue an apprenticeship and a career. His father had been a member of the Tanoshi Guard. It surprised no one when Chakkan chose to do the same. “I wondered how long that would take.”

  “It’s always been that way.” Sincerity and belief threaded his companion’s voice, his countenance.

  “I liked it better when you got into as much trouble as I did.”

  Chakkan had the good grace to blush. “I still looked after you.”

  Sherakai could remember several occasions when his companion had kept him from doing something fatally foolish. He had thought the older boy smart and clever. And, while that remained true, the purposeful protecting shed a new and rather unflattering light on their relationship. “We are friends because my father tasked you with my welfare?”

  “No.” Chakkan blinked in surprise, then one brow twisted up, a sure sign of his anger. He punctuated the air with a stabbing finger. “No, of course not, you idiot. I’ve been in trouble with you more times than I can count. You think I had to do that? Oh no, my friend. I could have left you to get out of your messes all by yourself. I could have run to your father or your brothers so they could go save your scrawny hide while I cadged pastries from Cook in the kitchens. Did I do that?”

  Chakkan made it sound as if the two of them were in trouble all the time and that Sherakai held sole responsibility. He opened his mouth to defend himself, but Chakkan had not finished blasting him yet.

  “No, I did not! I stuck with you because I like you, because I like the things we do.” He shook his head once, hard, and his jaw knotted. “It’s just—life can’t be all fun and games, Kai! We have to grow up.”

  A dozen scathing retorts flashed through his mind. Does that mean you’re too old to have fun anymore? Well, don’t let me hold you back, old man. I never made you come along. His brothers had no trouble at all roughhousing with each other—and him—teasing, daring, challenging. Clearly age hadn’t ruined their lives. You’re not growing up, you’re old already.

  Instead, what came out of his mouth was, “And your idea of growing up is to be the first one to jump off that log and into the pool?”

  Chakkan glared at him for a long time. “I’d hope you were friend enough to stop me from doing something so stupid and dangerous. And if you weren’t, I’d have either proved it was safe, or I’d be the one with the broken neck instead of you.”

  “I will not break my neck.”

  “You know that because you can see the future.” He added something else under his breath. Probably rude.

  “It’s just a dive, Chakkan. You used to like diving and swimming. Oh, I forgot, that was before you grew up.”

  Chakkan shoved his feet into his boots and yanked his tunic over his head. “You get home however you please—or not.”

  “Where are you going?” Leaving made little sense. If he were Sherakai’s friend, he’d stay. They’d fight, and they’d settle their differences the way they always did. If he were merely a guard, he’d stay and convince Sherakai not to take the dive or physically prevent him.

  Strapping on his belt, Chakkan headed for the path. “I’m going to find your brothers.”

  “You are not.” Would he? No, surely he was just being sarcastic. It was hard to tell at this distance. Sherakai watched him disappear around a corner and into the trees. Dismay battled with disgust.

  He was not a child. Wanting to climb the rock wall and dive into the water did not make him childish. Yes, the jump was higher than anything he’d done before, but he was a good swimmer. They both were. Chakkan would have done it before he’d starting sparring with the Guard—as if that and the killing and maiming that went with the job weren’t genuinely dangerous.

  With a snort of derision, Sherakai turned back to the cliff and started up. This dive would be the stuff of legend.

  Chapter 2

  The climb challenged him. Twice, the steep, inward-leaning walls threatened to dump him prematurely into the pool. His shoulders burned and the scrapes the rocks gave him stung sharply. When he reached the top, he flopped on his back in the grass and grinned up at the
sky. It took awhile until his breathing returned to normal and his limbs stopped quivering. Then he rolled onto his stomach to peer over the edge into the black depths below. A rush of adrenaline propelled Sherakai to his feet again.

  He walked around for a moment to make sure everything worked the way it ought. Contrary to popular opinion, he listened to his elders; he just didn’t always follow their advice.

  The sound of voices from below drew his attention. When he approached the edge, he saw his brothers dismounting their horses. He blinked in astonishment. He hadn’t expected them to answer Chakkan’s summons so fast! And all three of them, no less. Only an extremely reckless escapade would set them after him in force. If he was going to be in that much trouble, he’d best make it worthwhile for all concerned.

  “Sherakai?”

  He heard his name as clearly as if Fazare stood next to him, so perfect were the hollow’s acoustics. With no time to waste, he went to the recently fallen tree. Both ends lay on firm ground, and a shove against the thing didn’t cause it to rock. Roots on one end and branches on the other kept it steady. Pulling himself up, he strode to the middle and turned toward the canyon opening.

  “Great sun! He’s up there! Sherakai, come down!” Tasan shouted.

  He spared a moment to line himself up properly. His extended his left arm, palm flat. Then he pressed the backs of his fingers to his forehead and then the palm of his hand to his heart in salute.

  “Not that way!” Fazare yelped.

  Imitoru took one look and moved to the edge of the water, shedding his belt and tunic. The more venturesome of the three, he didn't waste time yelling.

  “Sherakai, don’t you—”

  The jump stole Tasan’s words. Arms sweeping back, then forward and up, Sherakai propelled himself into space. The log did not even tremble under his slight weight. He brought his knees to his chest, touched them lightly, spun backward… He knew the technique for such dives, but the height shocked him now that he was committed. Crazy. Maybe he would reach the bottom of the pool after all. Too late to turn back, a moment’s fear shot through him. Fear is a choice, the words of his arms teacher, Master Chimoke, reminded. He had no time for fear.