The Shadow’s Curse Read online

  ‘You are despicable.’

  Khareh just laughed. A series of sharp knocks on the door made them both jump – although Khareh concealed it better than Wadi. He replaced the crown on his head, wobbling slightly as he adjusted it, until it settled – the two fangs of the jaguar skull on either side of his eyes. It was ridiculous. But ironically, it was an impressive sight too. That much was impossible to deny.

  ‘Enter!’ said Khareh, putting on his most khan-like voice.

  A man in the sky-blue turban of a messenger entered. Dust covered his boots and dirt marred his face in thick streaks. His legs were shaking slightly as he stood, and Wadi knew that meant he had been riding hard for several days. Darhanian men – bred from birth to ride – never felt the discomfort of the saddle.

  ‘I have ridden seven horses to get here as fast as possible.’

  ‘Where have you come from, messenger?’ asked Khareh. There was a bench in the centre of the room, which the man could sit on if Khareh gave him permission. Wadi saw the man glance sidelong at it. Khareh did not give him permission.

  ‘From the steppes between the river Tyr and the Amarapura mountains, my great Khan. Your men were transporting the captive to the prison at Genar to be tortured. They were ambushed in the steppes by—’ The man rasped a dry cough.

  ‘By whom?’ said Khareh, stamping his foot impatiently.

  ‘Please, my Khan, if I could just have some water . . .’

  ‘By whom?’ Khareh repeated, louder.

  ‘A band of old men from a Cheren.’

  Khareh burst out into laughter. ‘You are saying a group of wrinkled grandfathers ambushed a wagon of mine? That my soldiers couldn’t handle some decrepit old men?’

  ‘One of the men had a spirit-companion.’

  At that, Khareh stopped laughing. ‘He was an oath-breaker? Why hadn’t he been rounded up to my camp?’

  ‘No, my Khan. He was no old man – and no ordinary oathbreaker. He . . . controlled his spirit. He managed to free the captive. We think he was a sage, my Khan.’

  ‘There is no sage in Darhan but me!’ Khareh exploded, and the man cowered in response.

  There were several moments of tense silence, until Khareh spoke again, in quiet anger. ‘How many of my guards survived?’

  ‘One, my Khan.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘I . . . I believe he is receiving care with a tribe in the east.’

  ‘No, no, no. He should have been brought straight here. That is not good.’ He said the last words to the ground, as if more to himself than to the room. He looked up at the messenger, finally remembering himself. ‘Wadi, bring this man a cup of water.’

  Wadi could only just reach the man within the confines of her rope. Her hands were trembling. Raim. It has to be Raim. He was not only still alive, but he was still fighting. She tried to stop herself from sloshing the water everywhere as she took it over to the man. Before she handed it over, Khareh asked another question of the messenger. ‘Who did you tell about this on your way here?’

  ‘No one, my Khan. I travelled from tribe to tribe, collecting horses in your name, stopping nowhere, to reach you as soon as possible with this news.’

  ‘That is good. That is very good indeed. Wadi?’ He gestured to her, and she handed the man the cup. He immediately took a long draught.

  ‘Your lordship is most graci—’ But before he could finish the final few words, there was a knife buried deep in his chest.

  Wadi screamed in shock, then spun around to stare at Khareh. ‘There is no other sage in Darhan,’ he said, his eyes wide, his hand shaking.

  ‘You’re just scared! You’re scared of Raim because you know he is a good man who can inspire the people! Because he is a better man than you could ever be!’

  Khareh’s face didn’t change. ‘There is no other sage in Darhan but me.’

  18

  RAIM

  ‘She’s gone,’ Raim said, his voice cracked. He looked all around the room, but there was no sign of her.

  Can you see her? he asked Draikh.

  ‘No,’ the spirit replied. ‘She won’t come back while I’m here. She doesn’t trust me. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere.’

  I don’t want you to. I’d rather have you than her, anyway.

  ‘What?’ said Mhara, a confused frown on her face. ‘What did she say? Tell us everything.’

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ said Raim.

  Mhara and Aelina recoiled.

  ‘No, not to escape,’ he added. ‘I just need some air. Please.’ Even though the hall was large and cavernous, Raim felt the weight of everyone’s eyes on his back – the expectation of the Council, Mhara, Draikh.

  Mhara studied him for a few moments, then pointed to the far end of the room. ‘The door there will lead you outside.’ Raim had to breathe deeply to keep from bursting into a sprint.

  He was used to making his decisions under the great clear sky – whether it was here, in the mountains, or before, in the vast desert. If there was ever a time that he needed clarity, it was now.

  He had an answer to a question he had long asked: what was the promise sealed within his vow? He was promised to fulfil his destiny as rightful Khan of Darhan. Now he knew, but he felt even further from the truth than ever before. Every answer seemed to pose a hundred more questions. Knots within knots. Promises within promises. Secrets within secrets. What was it that Zu had said to him once? That he was a maze of mysteries. That was what it felt like: he had been dropped in the centre of a maze with no points of reference, no sense of direction. Every corner he turned required yet another choice. Choices he wasn’t sure he wanted to make.

  For a moment he let himself yearn for the simpler time, the simpler vow. There was a time when he thought his life would revolve around a single knot: a vow to protect his best friend with his life. No ambiguity. No questions.

  Nothing was that simple.

  Up here in the mountains, it felt like he was glimpsing the magnitude of the world. Up here, he could see jagged crags spread out for miles around him. Those that looked small from this vantage point, he knew stretched for many lengths higher than where he was standing now. Here, tiny trickles spread and grew to great rivers. Here, flakes of snow amassed into devastating avalanches. Here, mountain lions could feast in caves, while just next door goats perched on cliff faces so sheer he would have thought them impassable to those on two feet, let alone four hooves. Life here was complicated, and dangerous.

  And was it so different on the steppes, where he grew up? The terrain, perhaps, was simpler – but it was not simple. If anything, it was subtle. He had learned as a boy to tell the difference between the wind blowing through the grasses and the near-noiseless patter of a wolf making its way towards one of his goats. He learned which clouds brought life-giving rain, and which brought fierce tornadoes. He learned the ways of the steppes, and how to live on them; now he had to learn something else . . . the ways of people, and how to lead them.

  Once again he thought: Khareh is far more interested in this than me.

  The night air blew cold against his fingers, and he stuffed them deeper into his tunic, where the pockets were lined with soft fur. Though his toes had turned numb in his boots, he wasn’t ready to turn in just yet. He let the wind sweep through his dark hair, blowing what felt like cobwebs from his mind.

  The spirit of Lady Chabi’s words came back to him, along with the enormity of what she asked. I need to remake my vow to her. Draikh, what have I agreed to? Can I even do it? What about my Absolute Vow? He placed his hand on his chest, over the place where the mark of permanence was seared on his chest.

  ‘You vowed to protect Khareh’s life, not his throne. You can promise to fulfil your destiny as Hao’s descendant – as long as you aren’t the one who harms Khareh.’

  So you won’t kill me if I try?

  ‘Only if you try to hurt Khareh.’

  Raim nodded. After a few moments of amiable silence, Rai
m looked up at his spirit. Draikh, I need to be alone. Completely alone. Just for a bit.

  Draikh had taught him a trick back in the Cheren, something he hadn’t really thought would be all that useful – until now. It was the trick of how to block the flow of his thoughts from his spirit. It hadn’t seemed to matter when it was just him and Draikh. But now that he knew about Lady Chabi, it suddenly seemed much more urgent.

  Even as he thought about doing it, Draikh tried his best to distract him. ‘Try blocking this out! How are you ever going to become Khan? You’ve never led a camel properly, let alone a nation. You’re just a lowly goatherder boy.’

  They were all thoughts he’d had himself already, worries that ate at his brain. They were the perfect distraction – so he tried to focus on something else. He thought back to the one face that always kept him grounded: Wadi. He built her in his mind’s eye from the chin up, focusing on the details he’d had only such a short time to memorize. She was the first person who had really believed in him, and she’d had to see him through his scar.

  Each piece of Wadi’s face that he built up in his mind was like a key to a series of locks closing his mind off from his spirit. As he moved past her dark brown eyes, to the smooth expanse of her forehead, he felt the last walls go up and suddenly he heard his mind go blank.

  Or maybe – he didn’t hear was the point. He had been so used to having voices in his head, this sudden silence was like a new sound for him. Draikh? he said tentatively into the darkness of his mind.

  There was no answer.

  I renounce my blood and I’m going to run off this mountaintop right now – you won’t be able to stop me!

  Nothing.

  He was truly alone.

  He let himself open his eyes. Draikh was still there, floating not far from him, and he looked uncomfortable. Please leave me, Raim said to him. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything stupid.

  ‘You’d better not,’ said Draikh, but he floated backwards until he disappeared from view.

  Raim was alone. He was free. He let out a loud whoop! And started running, feeling his feet pound across the mountain paths, dodging rocks and shrubs. When he had finally exhausted himself, he fell with a slump against a large rock, allowing the coolness of the surface to penetrate deep into his muscles. From his vantage point, it felt like he could see the whole world. He even imagined that far off on the horizon he could see where the green turned to gold – the start of the Sola desert.

  But of course, that wasn’t the entire world. It might have been his world, sure – but there was still so much he hadn’t seen. Somewhere, across the never-ending desert that did end somewhere, was Aqben. That was where his mother, the Council, Mhara, even Draikh wanted him to go. But how could he? He knew nothing about the South, and he couldn’t see how there was anything there for him. If he was supposed to be the rightful ruler of Darhan, then he was needed in Darhan. And the people of Darhan did not want an oathbreaker for a ruler.

  ‘Do you hear that, world?’ he shouted into the open air from the top of the mountain. ‘I am an oathbreaker. I can’t be your khan. Not yet.’

  Just then he felt a sharp pressure on his mind. It was Draikh trying to work his way back in. Had he been listening all along? Did he know his plan?

  Tentatively, he let the wall down, his resolve like Yun steel.

  What is it? he asked Draikh.

  ‘Mhara is coming to you. I think you should listen to her,’ he said, his voice gently insistent.

  Raim spun around to see Mhara standing at the top of the path he had run down. She walked slowly down to meet him, joining him on his perch at the top of the world.

  ‘I still have this,’ Raim said, to break the silence. He held out her ring in his hand.

  She took it from him and rolled it between her fingers. Then she threw it, as hard as she could, from the mountain. ‘A remnant of my old life. I don’t need it any more.’

  Raim could keep it in no longer. ‘How are you here?’ he asked. Now that she was close to him, and they were alone, he could see the trauma of the scar across her face, saw the edge of it disappear down her neck and beneath her tunic. ‘I thought you were dead,’ he said. ‘I searched for you. For so long.’

  Mhara turned to look at him, and the corners of her lips rose in a smile. ‘I know you did, Raim. The fall from the cliff . . . it did kill me. Or – almost.’ Her eyebrows knitted together in a frown. ‘My memory of the event is confused, as I know you can imagine. The pain was blinding, until it wasn’t. It felt like I had lain down in a deep patch of snow, even though I was on the edge of the Sola desert. I felt nothing in my limbs. I knew that death was coming to take me.

  ‘But I was lucky – if you can call it that. A passing Alashan tribe found me and took me in. They tried to heal me themselves, but I knew they did not think I would survive long. The agony was unbearable. In fact, I think they debated finishing me off. It would have been merciful of them. But then, somewhere far away in Darhan, Khareh was taking his place as the Khan – by killing Batar-khan. That was when Batar’s spirit brought me back from the brink of death, healed my wounds, so I could fulfil my Absolute Vow: to avenge his death. That is what I was sworn to do.’

  Raim’s mind buzzed with questions, but he knew they would have to wait until later. ‘How did you end up here with the Council?’

  ‘Because of your mother. Because of our friendship. I had to leave the Alashan – I wasn’t going to get my vengeance from there. I knew that the Council would take me in and heal me to full strength. I was broken in many ways by that fall, Raim, not just physically. It took longer than I anticipated to rebuild, and Khareh was growing stronger by the day.

  ‘But when Aelina came back to the Council claiming she’d seen a young boy with a scar around his wrist he claimed not to understand . . . I realized it had to be you. And your predicament has haunted me for a long time. I had to find out if my theory was right. That it was Chabi who had forced that vow on you.’

  ‘She should never have done that,’ said Raim, pounding his fist into the rock. It hurt, but not as much as the knowledge that he had been used.

  ‘No, she shouldn’t. I don’t think she realized the consequences, either. Aelina has told me that when you find Lady Chabi, she will be nothing but a shell of herself. Her body lies there, unconscious. She gave up her entire soul by forcing that promise on you. I’m not sure she expected that. She is not the type to want to give up her spirit so easily.

  ‘You would think that a people who have to suffer so much from their broken vows would care more about the consequences, the boundaries. But fear is a powerful thing. Before all this happened to you, when have you ever thought to question what a promise truly meant? Have you ever questioned why the punishment for oathbreaking is so harsh?’

  ‘Never,’ said Raim. ‘Well, no, that is a lie. You told me to question. You told me to think before I made an Absolute Vow to Khareh. Now I wish I had listened to you.’ He laughed bitterly.

  ‘And now? Now what do you think?’

  He thought of the people in Darhan who had to live out their lives away from their family because of one bad decision. No chance to beg for forgiveness. No opportunity to change their fate.

  At least he was trying to change his. But it was so hard.

  ‘I think you were right,’ said Raim. ‘I don’t think I can do this.’ His voice choked as he made the admission to Mhara. ‘She told me to go to Aqben. To find her.’

  ‘Of course you can, Raim. You are Yun. What is past is past, and we make the best of what we have now. Just concentrate on what you can control. Concentrate on what is most important to you. Like getting rid of this.’ She picked up his wrist and placed it so that the scar was all he could see, all he could think about it. ‘While you have this, you cannot do anything else. You cannot save your friend. You cannot live in Darhan.’

  ‘And I definitely cannot be the Khan.’

  ‘Exactly. Now come back inside. We need to plan this route so
uth.’

  Raim’s ears pricked up. ‘We?’

  ‘Of course. I am coming with you. You think I would abandon you now? Never.’

  19

  RAIM

  Tarik had been led back into the room at the same time Raim and Mhara returned, looking worse for wear, a large lump rising on his shaved head. Aelina had wanted to send him straight back to Qatir, but Raim refused. ‘He knows too much now. If you send him to Qatir, he will be punished!’

  ‘He will kill me,’ said Tarik matter-of-factly.

  ‘And what about your wife?’ asked Aelina, her arms folded across her chest.

  ‘Solongal? She will have been informed of my treachery already. I am sure that they are preparing her to be moved to another monastery with, I assume, the rest of the Qatir faction. Have you taken Amarapura?’

  ‘Yes. We have control of this monastery now, and I am the leader of the Baril.’

  Raim put a hand on his brother’s forearm. ‘I’m sorry, brother. For dragging you into this – literally.’

  Tarik shrugged. ‘If you hadn’t dragged me from the cell, my fate would have been the same. At least here I can learn – and maybe, I can help. These people are telling you to go south. But do you know what you are even looking for there?’

  Raim glanced at Aelina and Mhara. ‘I am looking for my mother, the Lady Chabi, who gave me this vow.’

  ‘And when you get rid of the scar, what will you do then? How can you hope to overthrow Khareh – you have no army, no weapons, and no support. You are just a boy and a shadow.’

  Raim bristled at the word boy, but he couldn’t disagree with anything that Tarik said.

  ‘Not to mention the fact that you have to get south to begin with,’ continued Tarik. ‘A journey that is said to be nigh on impossible. Your ancestor Hao made sure of that by sealing the passage to Lazar. There is more than just a desert separating North from South. There are other things too.’ His eyes opened wide. ‘Monstrous things.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ snapped Aelina.