Shadows of Time: Shadow Maiden Read online

  Shadows of Time: Shadow Maiden

  Book One

  By B.R. Nicholson

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013 B.R. Nicholson

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Prologue

  My mind is numb. The world presses in around me— like being held underwater. Blood rushes to my head, beating mighty drums inside my ears. My vision bends into focus. I can feel my fingers straining around the helpless stem of a glass. My fist clenches, snapping the stem like breaking the wings of a bird. A small glimmer of me imagines the touch of feathers. Warmth oozes from between my fingers. The sight of red shakes me from my trance.

  Where am I?

  My breath is caught. Something grips me tight around my chest. I look down and I am lost in dark shimmering silk. I cast down the remains of the glass, shards still pricking into my skin, and tear at the fabric. Panicked, I give up trying to free my body and push myself away from a table set with delicate glass and silver. The table rattles and the chair overturns, crashing into flat white stone. I drag the weight of my dress across the room to a wide and gaping window. I gaze through thick paned glass and my frantic heart ceases to beat. Feeling my eyes widen and my lungs failing to find strength to scream, I fall away from the world I see.

  With my head throbbing and tears blinding my sight, I crumble to the floor. The whirring and whizzing of metal throttling through the sky scream in my ears.

  The window overlooks a landscape of metal and decay. Rust glares from each groove and outline, from the twisting towers to the faces of the people who inhabit them. Everything is teeming with muted life, bustling about amidst scenery of showering sparks and tangles of wires. However, the city of gears and scrap below is not the worst. No, the sky—the sky is swollen with churnings of brown and gray. A sickly sun smothered by a veil of filth frowns at me from its throne high above the squalor of the mechanical city.

  What is this horrible world? I have no memory of coming here, or even being forced here against my will. Or even… I reach back further than the present. Where had I been before here? My mind strains to recall the past. Memories are smothered by darkness, nothing but candle light hushed out by a single breath of wind.

  I bury my face in the dark shimmering silk. I let myself be led astray by its cold, smooth embrace. I feel like I am being crushed from within, my heart being squeezed by its own despair. Where do I come from? Who—who am I?

  I am lost in a mist of fear and rage. My mind is lost— I barely feel the hand resting on my bare shoulders.

  I recoil from that touch, heaving my body around to stare into the face of my oppressor. For that moment, I feel brave. I feel ready to fight and scream and die beautifully.

  Though instead of attacking, I stop suddenly. My muscles refuse to move. Something in my head tells me I know this face I’m staring at, that he can be trusted.

  He is tall and dressed in the same shadowy silk. His face is etched with fury and metal but his eyes ease my mind, icy blue and full of burning regret.

  He extends his hand. Slender and welcoming, his hand is hidden beneath smooth black leather. I reach out for it instinctively, hesitating just inches away. I can feel his warmth and everything seems calm. I take his hand and he lifts me up as if I weigh nothing, as if he has all the strength in the world.

  He holds me and guides me back to my discarded chair. In one swift movement, he lowers me to my righted seat.

  He pulls up a chair next to me, its feet clattering on the bleak stone. Grabbing my hand, he gazes at it and presses it to his mouth. I can feel his breath whisper on my bleeding palm. He lowers my healed hand and brushes tiny shards of glass away with a flick of his fingertips. My palm is smooth and ghostly white against his black glove. I am shocked yet at once I am still. In fact, I feel at ease in his presence.

  He sits and looks long into my eyes. There is sadness between us, one that keeps me from smiling and fully enjoying his gaze.

  “I’m going to tell you a story.” His words come out as a shock, ripping the budding stillness in two.

  I simply nod, afraid to hear my own words disturb this foreign peace.

  “You know this story,” he continues, his eyes never leaving mine, “for it is very close to you—”

  “—Will you tell me who I am?” The words burst into the air, my throat burning from their intensity. He looks away to hide his pain and squeezes my hand with a shaky grip. I know then I may have cared for him once, maybe even loved him.

  “You need to listen. Just listen.” His eyes cut me deeper than before.

  I open my mouth to protest but he shakes his head and growls.

  “There isn’t time. You must listen. I cannot tell you who you are. I’ve already tried. You have to remember for yourself. You have to remember what you came here to do, what brought you to this place. You need to remember before you slip away forever.”

  His words weigh heavy on me. I do not understand. He can see it in my face. I feel like I have been alive for too long. I feel as ragged as the city outside the window.

  “I’m going to tell you the pieces. But you need to put them together.”

  “But if I’ve failed so many times before,” my voice cracks from misuse, “how do you know I won’t fail again? How do you know I even have the strength to do something like that?”

  I hear his breath catch. He leans forward, his voice hushed into a single breath.

  “You are the Hand of Death—the shadow maiden. We will all fall without you.”

  Chapter One

  Death will reign.

  The moon had risen, its light peering into the darkest corners of the world and gazing at its secrets. A city hung beneath the moon like a cloud heavy with rain, suspended unmoving in the air and innocent of the evil that dwelt below.

  While most slept, one stirred. A shadow carried on the Lythian wind fluttered through the maze of towers and turrets until it snaked into a lone window. Inside, the stone walls and floor were barren and dusty. The shadow slid past cascades of cobwebs, rustling them like curtains, causing the inky black spiders to pause from their spinning to see who had disturbed their work.

  Death will conquer.

  It will scour the land like the darkest night.

  A figure formed from the coiling mist; a cloaked silhouette with paper skin and black lifeless lips. She stood before a heavy wooden desk. Papers, dried and withered, lay like leaves scattered across the top, the writing far too faded to read. Stooped over the desk was a skeleton of incredible age. Time had rendered its features into dust with the exception of some leathery patches of skin hanging from the hollow of its cheeks. A few strands of long wispy hair clung to its skull, fluttering along with the cobwebs in the midnight breeze.

  In the corpse’s boney hand was clutched a ring.

  The silhouette, less mist now and more feminine shaped with a curve to her sunken cheek, brushed her long white fingers against the ring. She leaned in close and breathed a cold, raspy breath, mouthing the words of ancient necromancer magic into the metal. The ring rattled against the molting bones, quaking with unnatural life.

  You shall rise again, my fair prince, she hissed, pulling back to gaze at the shriveled corpse before her. And you shall bring evil into these lands. You will damn those th
at have damned you—that have forsaken me.

  Make them suffer unto the generations.

  Make their ancestors churn in their maggoty graves.

  Kill them all and let me feast on their souls.

  Death will rule once more.

  She faded into shadow as if she was never there, her twisted being swept from the room and out into the crisp winded night.

  Death will rule, the shadow rasped. And I will be queen of all.

  ***

  Damn! That’s just what I needed, another paper cut to keep the rest company.

  Lestel riffled through piles of brittle papers, searching for any glimpse into Alainia’s past. Recorded events seemed to stretch only so far before fading into nothingness. He had scoured every musty shelf of the royal library and had only managed to find a few vague statements about the splitting of the kingdom.

  This is ridiculous. There has to be something here. He had searched for days, nights, and all the hours in between, ever since his ravenous curiosity was sparked by a brief before-bed conversation with his wife, the queen.

  “Darling, have you ever wondered,” he loved how her green eyes glowed when questioning the world around her, “what ever happened to the elves that were exiled from Alainia? I know there are plenty of legends and what-not, but you know not all of them must be true. I remember father used to wonder the same thing. He would look out at the people and see our numbers dwindle. He vowed one day he would find out but the poor fellow never did.”

  “Well, my dear,” he had given a hesitant cough as he deliberated on how to respond. It wasn’t easy being married to a queen, especially when he himself wasn’t of full royal blood—noble blood, yes, but not quite kingly blood, at least in the in the eyes of the aristocracy. Pedigrees were such picky things. Besides, he didn’t want to wake up one morning to find the entire kingdom rallying against him because of something he had said while half-asleep. “Well then, that is quite the question. Maybe there’s something in the palace library about it.”

  He had regretted the suggestion for the few nights that followed while straining his eyes and rubbing his pointed ears raw, hunched over a mountain of parchment. Why were these things never as easy as he always originally thought?

  He was up and out of bed shortly after Evanna had fallen asleep, his slippers making muffled plops against the frosty white stone floor.

  Nothing to it at all. The first book I see. Loads of information. That’ll show her and this damned curiosity at that!

  The palace corridors seemed foreign in the gray moonlight. The well-traveled halls were held captive in a reverent hush. Tapestries, muddled with shadows, yawned high above Lestel’s head while gaunt curtains hung like phantoms in the cool night breeze.

  He finally reached the library’s uninviting door. He heaved it open, the hinges squealing from neglect. Papers scurried about, being tossed around as the invading breeze hissed inside the inky black room.

  Just a little book I need,

  To complete this little deed.

  He loved thinking in rhymes.

  Lestel bumbled around in the cluttered gloom, hitting everything from dusty over-stuffed chairs to dangerously tall piles of books. He felt his way around one in particular mound until his fingers finally managed to grasp a single book. He scurried out the room and zoomed around the corner. With his breath caught in his throat, he held the glorious book up to the torchlight.

  “The Brash Romances of a Brunheidla, The Sloshy Wet Nurse and Other Tales… What in the?” He threw down the book like it had caught fire, the blotchy cover illustration seared into his mind. That’s just not natural.

  Ok then. The second book I grab will be it.

  As soon as I get a candle lit.

  While congratulating himself with a low chuckle on his clever rhyming, he grabbed the torch and pattered back into the library.

  The light flickered and danced its way into the room. Lestel had never realized how expansive the library had been or even how long it had been since it was last used. It was a large, round room that stretched at least three stories tall, with book and papers crammed onto the shelves. What didn’t fit on the shelves was piled in slanting mountains on desks, chairs, and anything unfortunate enough to get trapped underneath. His jaw hung open from the realization that this might be harder than previously thought. He scanned the room with his dark, sharp eyes, looking over the faded titles and fraying covers. Nothing stood out to him. In fact half of them were completely illegible.

  Well. Here we go.

  Looking for a tome

  No really one knows,

  In a library all alone.

  Lestel waddled up to a squat wooden chair. He grabbed a massive clump of parchment from its seat and dumped it out onto the floor. He found himself confronted by a small mountain range of books on top of a meek little desk. Rummaging through the drawers, he managed to find a few stubby candles. The torch had begun to dull to a somber blue by the time he lit the small bits of wax and placed them on top of a neighboring stack of books. Shaking off the weariness from his limbs with a muffled grunt, he picked up the nearest book. The Love Life and Mating Rituals of the Alainian Tree Slug. And then the next, How to Farm to Charm: A Guide to Winning the Fair Maiden’s Hand through Agriculture. And, just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, Mingling Etiquette with the Lower Class and Less Fortunate.

  Each one he went through seemed to get worse and worse, each just as useless and mundane as the next. Not a single one dealt with anything but trivial facts about nothing in particular. What a waste of good ink. Lestel’s own family at least had entertaining books in their modest library. Though most were written by his father and grandfather, they were numerous times more valuable than what he had so far found in the palace library.

  Then, without warning, there appeared a shining star in the night, A Brief History of the Alain. He tore open the pages and devoured the words inside, searching for any clues his eyes could find.

  The Alain are a sophisticated people with a rich and glorious past. However, due to a tragic fire in the once great library’s archives, most of our recorded historical information of the era before the Split has been lost to the ages. Though, there are many wonderful and amazing things that have happened since then, for example, the introduction of the irrigation system to the city’s farming district—

  —No! There has to be more!

  He became frantic, flipping through the pages only to find nothing but farming and the names of a handful of previous rulers. One page bit at him, leaving a long, red stinging slit in his thumb. It would be the first of many.

  Lestel threw the wretched book down and snatched another—and another, and more. This continued for hours. Time melted together into a blur of days and nights. Candle stub after candle stub, he worked his way from book to book, and found nothing to satisfy his raging curiosity.

  All these foolish minds be damned!

  I’m going to end up with a bandaged hand.

  Days and nights bled together and there he sat, fuming at the scholars of the past, pulling his dark hair from the roots in frustration. That is, until late on the third night, when he came to the very last straw.

  It was a small thin book the color of weather-worn skin. There was no title, but inside instead of the usual typeset used in all the others, everything was handwritten in a rushed, black-inked script. He had found what appeared to be a diary of some sort. Whoever had written it had done so with haste. The writing slanted every which way and blobs of ink dotted the pages.

  He eagerly flipped to the beginning. There was no date, or even a name that he could see, but the strange tickle that he was holding something very old and very important danced wickedly inside him.

  I’m writing this for others to know the truth, for surely it will be forgotten and swept clean like nothing ever happened. I want them to know I didn’t try to murder my father, nor my brother, but rather I was defending the king from his crazed son, who later took his
own life. I am the rightful heir. That is why my brother went mad, mad with jealousy. My father had gathered us to the Anvalin, the very heart of our grand city, a place sacred to only its rulers and heirs. The king had decided the power was to be mine, not my brother’s, he had chosen me, and before his power could be passed down to me, the traitor tried to plunge a dagger into his own father’s heart and then tried to kill me. We struggled, but before I could stop him he flung himself from the open window to his death below. I was overcome, wrought with grief, as was the king. Not only was my brother dead, the boy with whom I shared my mother’s womb, but the embodied link of the power and pride of the Alainian rulers had been broken. Father was so distraught. He had come close to madness with mother’s passing, but this time he fell deeply into despair.

  Word had come to us that my brother (I cannot even bear to write his name) was influenced by a power-mad leader of the common people. He had convinced him, like so many, that there was no need for a king, that they should have the power of the Anvalin. Such fools!

  The king blinded their leader and banished all that followed to live their lives subject to the cruelties of the world. His wrath was so great he summoned the power of the Anvalin and raised the city from its foundation into the very clouds above, never to be touched by evil again.

  This great feat of strength drained the king of his own life force. When the city had finished its descent, he left nothing but a withered body. He had died before passing the power of our people done to me, the rightful king.

  The power was lost. The only reminder of its presence was the sacred Anvalin and its key, now rendered useless because it had not been successfully passed down.

  I fear this event will create an even greater rift among the people of Alainia. There are some that would see my head hang from the castle gate to pay for the city’s upheaval, and yet there are those who are merciful, who know that that is not the way of the Alain. I have already seen the riots from my hiding place. It is only a matter of time before war breaks out inside these walls.