The Shadow’s Curse

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Part One

  1 Raim

  2 Raim

  3 Raim

  4 Wadi

  5 Wadi

  6 Raim

  7 Wadi

  8 Raim

  9 Wadi

  10 Wadi

  11 Raim

  12 Raim

  13 Wadi

  14 Wadi

  15 Raim

  Part Two

  16 Raim

  17 Wadi

  18 Raim

  19 Raim

  20 Wadi

  21 Wadi

  22 Wadi

  23 Raim

  24 Wadi

  25 Raim

  26 Wadi

  27 Wadi

  28 Raim

  29 Wadi

  30 Wadi

  31 Raim

  32 Raim

  33 Wadi

  34 Wadi

  35 Raim

  36 Raim

  37 Raim

  Part Three

  38 Wadi

  39 Raim

  40 Raim

  41 Raim

  42 Wadi

  43 Wadi

  44 Raim

  45 Raim

  46 Wadi

  47 Raim

  48 Raim

  49 Wadi

  50 Wadi

  51 Raim

  52 Raim

  53 Raim

  54 Wadi

  55 Raim

  56 Raim

  57 Raim

  58 Raim

  59 Wadi

  60 Raim

  61 Raim

  62 Wadi

  63 Raim

  64 Wadi

  65 Raim

  66 Raim

  67 Raim

  68 Wadi

  69 Raim

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Amy McCulloch

  Copyright

  About the Book

  ‘Discover the origins of your scar. Then you can carry out your mission for revenge.’

  Raim always dreamed of becoming protector of the Khan, but destiny had other plans for him. Now the new Khan has betrayed him, kidnapped the girl he loves, and started a bloody war for control of Darhan.

  Raim longs to rescue Wadi, but his duty to the people must come first. Having made an unbreakable vow to protect Khareh’s life, Raim may be the only one strong enough to stop him. But in order to master his new-found sage powers, he must seek the truth about the dark secrets of his past . . .

  The electrifying sequel to The Oathbreaker’s Shadow

  For Sophie, mapmaker extraordinaire

  PART ONE

  1

  RAIM

  Raim snatched at a long blade of grass and released the seeds from their cluster at the top of the stem. They dropped like stones from his hand to the ground. The air was still, and the grass here was so tall it covered the men with ease. The perfect place for an ambush.

  He caught his grandfather’s eye and Loni nodded once, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. They had spent many hours poring over Dharma’s visions. Raim’s younger sister had woven them into an intricate carpet, which predicted where the wagon would pass. The wagon destined for the prison where Khareh kept his most dangerous enemies, and guarded by both man and shadow. The wagon that Raim believed was carrying the most important person in his whole world: Wadi.

  Wind whistled by Raim’s ear. He looked up and saw his spirit-companion Draikh settle down amid the grass. Even Draikh had to hide here. With this wagon in possession of its own shadow-guard, Draikh was vulnerable to being seen. Only oathbreakers could see the true figures of shadows – to everyone else, they appeared as patches of swirling dark, like ominous clouds.

  ‘Oyu has seen them,’ whispered Draikh.

  Raim craned his neck to the sky and saw the garfalcon wheeling overhead. How far? he thought in reply.

  ‘They’re travelling quickly. Ten minutes, at most,’ said the spirit.

  Raim locked eyes with his grandfather again and signalled with his hands: Time to go.

  Getting into position, the group barely moved the grass more than would the gentlest breeze, and for a moment Raim allowed himself a touch of confidence. They were going to do this. And who would have known it from looking at them? The group was made up of old men, long banished from their tribes, awaiting death in groups of yurts known collectively as ‘Cherens’, not even worth the knowledge they could pass on to their grand or great-grandchildren. But their new mission had drawn purpose out of the most cobwebbed minds. What they lacked in energy, they made up for in experience.

  Then doubt. Were he and Draikh ready? Any physical combat with the guards was going to be up to them to win. They had practised. They had trained. But what if they failed?

  Raim didn’t want to think about losing Wadi for a second time.

  Then, there was no more time to think. Raim’s head filled with the pounding of horse hooves, and the grating of iron wheels slicing their way through the field. Dust, rising and pluming in the air, stung his eyes. It happened so fast, he wondered if his muscles would move in time or if he would remain rooted to the ground like another of the blades of grass, bending and breaking in the wagon’s wake rather than holding firm, rather than leaping forward to attack . . .

  A screech broke through the cloud in his mind and he answered with a cry of his own, raw and almost primal.

  He leaped forwards, stringing an arrow and releasing it almost immediately, striking down the driver.

  Simultaneously, the old men of the Cheren reacted, one man spearing a gnarled branch between the spokes of the front wheel. The horse, already spooked by the sudden loss of a man behind the reins, jumped forwards. A loud crack filled the air as the branch snapped and splintered, and as it broke, so did the wheel. The wagon lurched and toppled, coming down hard on the corner where its wheel had given way.

  The door on the far side flung open, almost horizontal, and immediately the space was full of swords as the human guards sprang out.

  Raim was there to meet them. He swung his first strike with abandon, a wide arc that gave plenty of time for his opponent to leap clear. He cursed loudly.

  ‘We will get to her!’ shouted Loni. ‘Keep the guards away from us!’

  That was it. Raim needed to keep his concentration, and then the others would rescue her. He stared at his enemy with sharper focus, slashing with purpose. In a few strokes he disarmed the man, and Draikh was at his side to collect the fallen weapon. Raim kicked the man to the ground and leaped over his prostrate body to find a new target, as another of his group trussed up the fallen enemy with rope.

  One of the oldest Cheren men cowered in fear, a battered old axe in his trembling hand, his eyes wide, as a much younger man approached with menacing slowness. But the old man wasn’t staring at his opponent directly . . . because he was unable to see him.

  ‘Draikh!’ Raim screamed and pointed at the soldier – who was, in reality, a shadow. ‘Haunt!’

  Draikh swooped down as the haunt attacked. Raim heard a scream, but was instantly distracted as another guard leaped towards him.

  Raim was so close to the wagon now, he could almost feel Wadi’s presence. Strength imbued his every move in a way he had never experienced before. The next guard, already weak in the shoulder from the crash, was no match at all. He fell quickly to the ground.

  Raim jumped onto the wagon and looked inside. It was empty.

  ‘Escape! Escape!’

  Raim jerked his head up at the sound of the cries and saw a guard dig his heels into the side of his horse. There was a struggling pris
oner, bound with their head covered by a sack, thrown roughly on the horse’s back.

  Raim strung another arrow, and shot. It whistled past the guard, missing him and, crucially, the prisoner, but flew close enough to the horse’s ear to make it rear. The prisoner, still wriggling to break free, rolled off the back and hit the ground with a thump.

  The panicked guard looked down at the prisoner, back at the ambush, and gave his horse rein, disappearing fast across the grassland.

  Raim ran towards the writhing bundle on the ground.

  ‘What of the guard?’ shouted one of Raim’s men.

  ‘Leave him,’ replied Loni. ‘We have what we came for.’

  Reaching his target, Raim flung himself down, skidding on his knees in his haste. He grabbed the edges of the rattan sack and ripped it from the prisoner’s head.

  But it wasn’t Wadi.

  It was Vlad.

  2

  RAIM

  Vlad’s wrists were ravaged red-raw, the edges blackened and blistered. His face, already so lined and drawn from his years in Lazar, seemed older by a decade. Raim found Vlad’s haunt too, in the remnants of the wagon, so weak he was almost transparent.

  There was no sign of Wadi. Raim kicked at the broken body of the cart, the wood splintering with a satisfying crack. He could blame no one for the assumption but himself.

  Dharma’s vision had been of the wagon, not the prisoner. Raim had let his hopes soar, and now they’d come crashing down, brought down by yet another of Khareh’s arrows.

  He swallowed down his disappointment, and walked over to where his companions were bandaging Vlad up as best they could with their meagre healing supplies. He was barely conscious through all of it, only a low moan escaping his lips.

  ‘You know this man?’ asked Loni when they had finished, although it was more of a statement than a question.

  Raim nodded. ‘His name is Vlad. He accompanied Wadi and me from Lazar. We thought that he was just helping us to reach Darhan, but in reality, he wanted revenge.’

  ‘Revenge?’ Now Loni was confused.

  Raim’s voice broke, the sudden wave of memories hitting him hard as a lightning bolt. ‘On Khareh.’ He looked up into his grandfather’s face, the man who had raised him on the steppes. He was grandfather to Raim’s two adopted siblings as well: his older brother, Tarik, and his younger sister, Dharma. Raim didn’t know how Loni was going to take the next news. ‘He is Dharma’s father.’

  As ever, Loni’s expression remained stoical, though he tugged at his beard with twisting fingers. ‘And how could you possibly know that?’

  ‘He was Baril, once. Like Tarik is now. He and his wife, Zu, were exiled from Baril when they broke their oath. They used their Baril knowledge in Lazar to help me, and they said they once had a daughter, named Dharma.’

  ‘A name means nothing,’ Loni scoffed, and released his beard from his nervous hands.

  ‘The scarf,’ Raim continued. ‘Zu gave her daughter her scarf as a token just before they were sent away. The same one that Dharma gave to me, before my . . .’ He didn’t need to finish. During his exile, that scarf had been his lifeline back to the home he never wanted to forget. He blinked back tears that had risen behind his eyes. ‘When Vlad found out what Khareh had done to Dharma, he wanted to kill him. He thinks she is dead, but even if he knew how Khareh had injured her, he would have wanted vengeance. Obviously, he didn’t succeed.’ He looked over the man’s scars again. ‘Who knows what he must have suffered.’

  Finally, after a pause that seemed to last a lifetime, Loni nodded. ‘We need to get away from here,’ he said, his gaze fixed on the empty plain ahead of them. ‘They might come back with reinforcements.’

  Raim nodded, not trusting himself yet to speak. He hoisted Vlad to his feet, and with the help of another they carried the broken man away from the site of the ambush, the long grasses obscuring their path. Vlad barely weighed a thing.

  They set up camp a few miles away, and established a vigilant watch, but no one came; the only shadows on the horizon were the dark peaks of the Amarapura mountains. Still, Loni insisted they couldn’t risk a campfire, not even to boil water to help sterilize Vlad’s wounds. The air felt so still though, Raim couldn’t imagine anyone approaching without them knowing about it. Not that he thought Khareh would be particularly bothered by the ambush. They hadn’t come away with the real prize.

  Vlad drifted in and out of consciousness, babbling meaningless words. Raim cringed, looking at him. He was a shell of his former self – the arrogant former Baril priest Raim had met in Lazar. Some of Vlad’s wounds were older – scars fading to white, cracking, healing poorly. His haunt was silent and docile. Raim tried to talk to him, too, but received nothing in return. His stomach turned at the thought of what the man must have endured.

  Of what Wadi might still be enduring.

  ‘Look, you didn’t know. Couldn’t have known.’ Draikh sat cross-legged in front of him.

  Raim shrugged. ‘But what she saw . . .’

  ‘She saw a wagon. Carrying a prisoner. She didn’t see the prisoner. We all just assumed because they had shadow-guards that they were carrying someone important. You hoped it would be—’

  ‘Of course I hoped it would be her! The fact that it’s not means that she’s still there with him. That I’ve still abandoned her to whatever fate he has in store for her.’ Raim stood up, stretching the cramp from his leg. ‘Gods, this is so frustrating.’

  Dharma had never been wrong before. Everyone was awed by Raim and his sage powers, but he was in awe of his younger sister. She had endured terrible pain at the hands of Khareh, but in doing so he had inadvertently unlocked her gift. She could see into the future, and what she saw, she wove into carpets that prophesied the future. It had been Dharma who had shown him that Wadi was still alive in the first place – when he thought she was dead. He had seen with his own eyes the knife Khareh had thrust into her chest. But Dharma knew otherwise, and had set him on the path to rescuing her.

  Those who knew of her gift called her the Weaver. Vlad didn’t yet know the wonder his daughter had become. Raim would tell him when he woke up; it might go some way to relieving his pain.

  ‘Khareh is playing you,’ said Draikh. ‘He knows you too well. He knew you would come after her.’

  ‘And surely you should have known Khareh better than anyone!’

  ‘Raim!’ Loni stormed over. Whereas before, his grandfather used to look at Raim as if he was going mad, now he understood what was happening when Raim appeared to shout at a dark cloud: that Raim was having a conversation with his spirit – or, in this case, an argument. ‘How about channelling that energy into something more productive? You’ve neglected your training ever since we came on this expedition.’

  Raim cursed under his breath, but he knew his grandfather was right. All his focus had been on rescuing Wadi and he had set aside the progress he and Draikh had been making. The first month after the brutal clash with Khareh had been about recovering, for both of them. Khareh had broken them of both physical and mental energy. Raim still had flashes of memory: the expression of sheer joy and cruelty as Khareh looked down on the men and women from Lazar; the fear that gripped his throat when Raim saw his likeness – a part of his own spirit – empowering his greatest enemy; Khareh’s cool demeanour as he punched the knife through Wadi’s chest.

  It was a miracle Raim had escaped with his life. Without Draikh, he wouldn’t have. Besides Khareh and his soldiers, they had also been fighting against members of the Yun – the elite guard of Darhan, the best anywhere in the world, and the order that Raim had once been apprenticed to. Once, Raim had dreamed of nothing more than joining the Yun and becoming its leader – and the Protector of the Khan himself. The fact that his best friend at the time had been the heir to the khanate seemed to make it all the more clear that it was his destiny.

  But destiny had other plans for Raim. Like an involuntary twitch, Raim’s eyes flicked down to his wrist where a bright r
ed scar encircled it, a brazen reminder of his treachery. In Darhan, vows were sealed with knots and carried for ever by the oathtaker. Broken promises were seared into the skin like brands when the knots burned away. Even worse, a dark shadow would arrive to haunt the oathbreaker, who would henceforth be shunned. There was no escape from their final fate: banishment across the Sola desert, to the city of exiles – Lazar. An oathbreaker was considered too wretched even to deserve an honourable death at the blade of a sword. Either they would perish in the unforgiving sands of the desert, or they would become Chauk: residents of the city of Lazar, unable to return to their homeland. At least, that was the legend that Raim had grown up with, the legend that had engendered the deeply rooted hatred for all oathbreakers – even himself, now that he was one.

  The truth, he discovered, was a little more complicated. The scars were bad, yes, but worse were the shadows – or haunts as they were known by the Chauk. As only an oath-breaker could know, the haunt was actually the spirit of the person they betrayed, who could berate the traitor until the oathbreaker was driven mad or entered the city gates. Once they entered Lazar, their punishment was over, and the haunt disappeared. The oathbreakers then lived out the rest of their lives in Lazar, not believing themselves worthy of returning home.

  Any vow made before Honour Age – sixteen – did not suffer this consequence. Or so Raim had thought. But by vowing to protect his best friend Khareh’s life, Raim had unwittingly broken a promise he never even knew he had made. He had been scarred, but there was no sign of a shadow. It was still the greatest mystery.

  On the run from his home, scarred as an oathbreaker, he had made his first big mistake. Khareh had offered to help him, and Raim had agreed. In exchange, Khareh wanted to make Raim a vow. He promised to take care of Raim’s younger sister once Raim was gone. A promise Khareh would break as soon as he could, to unlock the other mystery of the haunts: the power that would make him a sage. If somehow an oathbreaker could gain dominance over, or cooperation with, their haunt, they could harness all their power: from levitation, to healing, and even to flight.

  Draikh was Raim’s haunt, but he wasn’t like any other. Raim hadn’t broken his vow to Khareh. Draikh had appeared when Raim was being attacked by a lethal swarm of behrflies, in order to save Raim’s life. Maybe Druikh was the only part of Kharth that was good.