Empire of Shadows Read online

  Dedication

  For Dan,

  who makes me feel

  more human

  Contents

  Dedication

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  DRAMATIS

  PERSONAE

  in the

  EMPIRE OF SHADOWS

  MARA T’RIALA

  EMIL ARVI

  At the Order of Khatar

  VIVAKSH, head of the Order of Khatar

  GYAN, archivist

  SAMARA, weapons master

  The Kildi camp

  STEFAN ARVI, Emil’s twin brother

  MIHAI ARVI, Kys of the Arvi clan; Emil and Stefan’s father

  NADYA ARVI, Emil and Stefan’s mother (deceased)

  PALI ARVI, Master of Trade

  LEL ARVI, Master of Camp

  MERI ARVI, Master of Livestock

  RONA ARVI, Emil’s cousin

  BESNIK YANORA, Kys of the Yanora clan

  KIZZY YANORA, Besnik’s daughter

  In the surrounding forest

  ESMER, wild spotted cat

  ASHIN, wild spotted cat

  RAJO THE BLACK, leader of a band of mercenaries

  KAROTI, Rajo’s brother

  BIREN, a mercenary

  MARIR, a mercenary

  YATRA, a mercenary

  IMPERIAL CAPITAL CITY OF KAMAL

  At the palace

  REVATHI SA’HOI, a young noblewoman

  EKISA SA’HOI, Revathi’s grandmother

  EMPEROR SARO, ruler of the Bhinian Empire

  PRINCE PAITHAL, older son of the Emperor

  PRINCE SUDEV, younger son of the Emperor

  GAREN, head of the Imperial Palace Guard

  BHAGI, a bond slave

  HANOI, a cook

  In the Flower Circle

  TAMAS U’GRA, Revathi’s betrothed

  SATHVIK U’GRA, Tamas’s father

  AARI, Lord u’Gra’s companion

  TAPAN U’GRA, Tamas’s brother

  In the Jade Circle

  SUNI, a warrior monk

  MANIK, a cook

  SANAH, a healer

  VIHAN, a member of the Order of Khatar

  In the Wind Circle

  HEEMA, Lel’s sister

  GIRI, Heema’s companion

  ABHRA, tea seller

  AVAHAA, a young girl

  ASATYA, infantry captain

  CAMUS, a Jade scribe

  THE CASTES

  FLOWER, for the nobility

  JADE, for the learned

  BAMBOO, for the merchants

  HEARTH, for the farmers

  WIND, for the wanderers

  THE GIRL WITH no name reached the steps of the building a little before Darkfall. Made of weathered stone, the building was almost the same shade as the featureless gray sky. It seemed to fade into the shadows of the thick bamboo forest. There were no windows, just one ancient double door, made of teakwood and inlaid with pale slivers of bone.

  Sweat trickled down the side of the girl’s face, and the barely healed wound in her side burned. She’d been running since the Elders had named her punishment, fleeing the assembly like the criminal she was. But even before the trial, she’d known that she would come here.

  She had nowhere else to go.

  Hot air lay like a wool blanket on her exposed arms, making her itch. She pressed one hand against the carved surface of the door, feeling the grain of the wood and the smoothness of bone against her palm.

  Shar. The voice spoke softly into her mind. Her shoulders tensed with the feeling of eyes on her back.

  Don’t say that name, she sent back fiercely. Shar no longer exists.

  The words in her head were deep and sad. You know why they ruled against you.

  The girl kept her eyes on the door, fighting the urge to turn around. She wouldn’t see the watcher, not with these human eyes. The thick, straight stalks of the bamboo, the dancing shadows of the forest, all of that confused her sight, blurred the sharp outlines she was used to.

  I know.

  They’d ruled against her because of what she’d done. But they didn’t have to live with it afterward. They didn’t have to figure out a way to go on. She did.

  The voice spoke again. Why are you here? Isn’t exile punishment enough?

  The girl closed her eyes, feeling the prick of tears under her lids. Another human sensation. This isn’t about punishment, she sent. It’s about penance.

  And she seized the iron ring and knocked, three sharp raps.

  The door groaned and opened, revealing an older man in a yellow-green tunic, the color of new bamboo shoots. His dark-brown skin was seamed with creases, like the marks on a scratching tree. A tooled leather cuff covered almost the entire bottom half of his left ear.

  He fixed her with sharp dark eyes. “Who seeks the Order of Khatar?”

  The girl lifted her chin and stood a little straighter. She might not be Tribe anymore, but she would not show fear. “I do. I seek admittance to your Order.”

  The man stepped out of the building. His eyes moved to her tunic, and she saw that the cut in her side had opened again. Even her quick healing couldn’t completely seal a deep wound like that, not in two days. A patch of gleaming blood stained the fabric.

  “How old are you?”

  She swallowed under his stare. “I’m fifteen.”

  “And why are you here?”

  Again she resisted the urge to look behind her. Instead, she touched the fresh blood on her shirt and held out her red-stained fingers.

  “There is blood on my hands,” she said. “I would like to wash it off.”

  The man’s hard lo
ok turned speculative. “So you do know the purpose of our Order. But do you know the price?”

  “I do.”

  “To redeem oneself, to regain lost honor, it is a heavy task,” the man said, and she thought his voice was gentler than before. “There will be sacrifices. Are you ready to give up all you are and any prior loyalties to family or Empire? To pledge yourself to the protection of one person even until death?”

  Her throat constricted, blocking her words. She could only nod.

  The man didn’t seem to notice her silence. “Those who are ready for the Order must bear the mark before they pass through the doors.” He pulled the cuff off his ear and she saw that his earlobe had been cut off. “The mark is the sign of the oath you will take. If you fail in your duty, whether through negligence or fear, you will be stripped of your ear cuff. Your shame will be made visible for the world to see. Are you willing?”

  My shame is already visible, the girl thought. It was in her exposed skin, her clawless fingers, her dull human eyes. No one of her Tribe had ever chosen to take a permanent human form. The idea was absurd.

  But it was the only part of her that wasn’t a monster.

  Her face grew tight and hot. “I am ready.”

  The man slid the cuff back over his mangled ear and pulled out a dagger. The blade of the weapon was double-edged, sharp as the gleam of teeth in shadow. Instead of a traditional solid handle, it had two slender pieces of metal that came down about a hand’s width apart. Two closely set handles, like the rungs of a ladder, connected the two sides.

  The man slid his veined hand over the handles, so that the long sides of the dagger reached down his wrist and the blade rested on his knuckles.

  “This is a kattari,” he said. “It was invented by Khatar of the Copper Blade during the reign of the Second Lotus Emperor. With it, Khatar became the most feared of fighters.” He mimed a swift punching motion that came close to the girl’s face, but she didn’t flinch. The man looked pleased.

  “With this blade, you do not merely hold the weapon, you are the weapon,” he said. “Khatar used it for his own glory in the early days. Now we use it for the protection of others. But first it must taste your blood.” He stepped closer and took her earlobe in two fingers, his skin and bones pinching into the sensitive flesh.

  The girl remained motionless. This is what I choose, she reminded herself. This is my penance.

  She saw the man’s hand move, saw the blade flash, and a clap of white-hot pain echoed through her head. Everything went fuzzy and gray.

  When her vision cleared, she was still standing. The man was pressing a cloth to her ear, and a stream of something wet and warm was dripping down her arm. She didn’t look at it.

  The man smiled, showing worn and crooked teeth. His hands on her ear were gentle. “Well done, novice. Welcome to the Order of Khatar. What shall we call you?”

  A name. A new one, to fit a new life. Out of the corner of her eye, the girl saw a flicker of striped tail in the forest, the last sight she would ever have of her Tribe. The loss was sharper and more final than the pain in her ear.

  Tell them I said good-bye, she sent in the direction of the retreating scout. Tell them I’m sorry.

  Then she turned her eyes back to the man, who had leaned forward to bandage her wound.

  “Mara,” she said to him. “Call me Mara.”

  I tire of killing.

  Make me the man I wish to be.

  And give me purpose.

  The words of Khatar of the Copper Blade

  as spoken to Elina the Bow-Singer,

  from The Song of Stone and Blood

  MARA SAT IN her stone sleeping cell, cleaning her dagger. Her hands were busy with the cloth and polishing sand, but her mind was far away.

  In a few minutes, she would take the final test to become a full member of the Order. If she passed, her time here would be over. She would walk out the wood-and-bone door for the first time since she’d come to this place. She would leave behind her open cell, with its hard stone shelf-bed. She would leave behind the practice square with its high ceiling and the broad opening in the roof that let in the gray dusty light, the place where for three years she had practiced combat forms until her bones ached and her muscles cramped. She would leave behind her teachers, the other novices, the simple way of life she had held on to in those first dark days of choosing to be human.

  For the first time in three years, she would be alone.

  The dagger in her hand slipped, slicing the pad of her thumb. Mara hissed through her teeth and put her thumb to her lips. The rich, sweet taste of blood filled her mouth, bringing a rush of memories. Pouncing on the kills her parents brought home, sharing rabbits with her siblings, the swish and rustle of the long grass around her as she stalked her first deer.

  And it brought back the last day of her old life. The pain of the sword biting into her side, and the red haze of rage. The feeling of her teeth sinking into unprotected flesh. The sick shame that came when her mind cleared. And the irrevocable verdict of the Elders.

  Man killer.

  The dagger clattered to the floor and Mara bent over the nearby washbowl and spit red. She spit until her mouth was dry and rubbed the sleeve of her green cotton tunic against her lips until they burned. Then she pressed her forehead against the cool stone of her cell.

  I’m afraid, she thought. Afraid to leave.

  Without thinking, her hand went to her ear, feeling the tooled leather cuff. The smooth, curled design under her fingers calmed her a little. She would not fail this time. She would protect life instead of take it away. She would no longer be a monster.

  Footsteps on the dirt floor outside her cell made her straighten. Samara, the weapons master, stopped in the doorway. Light glinted off the smooth brown skin of her bare scalp, and her eyes were as direct and fierce as a hawk’s.

  “It’s time,” she said. “Are you ready?”

  Mara picked her dagger up and tucked it back into her belt. She ran a hand over her own head, feeling the short, soft strands. “Does it matter?” she asked, trying to smile.

  “You could choose to test next year,” Samara pointed out.

  “No,” Mara said. Her hands were damp, and she wiped them on her tunic. “I’m ready.”

  The low thrum of a gong rolled through the building.

  “Then come,” Samara said. She left the doorway and Mara followed.

  The center of the Order was a wide practice floor, ringed with the open doorways of sleeping cells. At one end of the room were three larger archways that led into the simple kitchen, the small library with its dense piles of scrolls, and the armory. That was it. There were no other rooms, no doors to give privacy. There was no world beyond the stone walls and the square of open sky, with the unchanging gray of the Barrier above them.

  Mara wondered what it would be like to live again under that vast space. Unbounded by walls. Free to hunt where she willed.

  Travel. Not hunt. Travel.

  She would never hunt again.

  “Novice Mara.” The voice jarred Mara back to the present. Samara had joined the other two trainers on the raised platform. Their yellow-green tunics matched Mara’s own simple clothing. The head of the Order, Vivaksh, stood in the center, his arms folded, looking no different from the day Mara had met him on the steps. He did not smile.

  “Step forward.”

  Mara came to the center of the room and bowed, her hands pressed together in front of her chest. The other novices gathered in a loose circle around the open space.

  All the novices looked curiously alike, with serious faces and haunted eyes. Some were here to atone for their own crimes; some were here to regain their family’s honor. The Order was where you came when you had nothing left to lose.

  Gyan, the archivist, stood to Vivaksh’s right. He was an old, stooped man, his face lined with both humorous patience and sorrow. He spoke first.

  “We will test your knowledge,” Gyan said. “For it is knowledge
that allows us to make wise choices and enables us to protect our charges. Novice Mara, what is the purpose and goal of the Order?”

  Mara closed her eyes, remembering the words she’d memorized by flickering lamplight, the words she’d burned into her mind like a brand so she would not forget why she was here.

  “We swear to defend the defenseless,” she said. “We take an oath to protect one person and one person only, for even a single life is precious. We are not mere guards; we do not pledge to households, nor do we protect treasure or goods. We accept no payment but the honor of laying down our lives for another. Like Khatar, who gave up his violent ways and pledged to protect Elina the Bow-Singer, we wish only to erase the evil we have done and replace it with good. That is the purpose and the goal of the Order.”

  “Correct,” Gyan said. “And very well spoken.” He smiled at her, the lines creasing deeper into his face. Mara smiled back.

  More questions came. How to sweep a room for danger, how to stand for hours without losing attention, how to guard against assassins—all the things Mara had learned came spilling forth.

  At last Gyan stepped aside, to be replaced by Samara. “Mara, you have passed the test of knowledge,” she said. “Now you must show your skills in a fight.”

  Mara swallowed and pulled her dagger out of her belt, sliding her fingers around the crossbar. Samara stepped down, her dagger appearing in her hand as if by magic.

  “You will fight until I say to stop,” she said. “If you surrender, or are pinned, you will fail the test.”

  Mara gripped the crossbars of her dagger, taking refuge in the rush of adrenaline that tightened her muscles. Samara swung the dagger around her head and dropped into the classic starting position. Mara followed.

  “Begin.”

  FROM THE FIRST training session, Mara had loved dagger fighting. The hand-dagger was a part of her, the way her claws had been, her arms and shoulders as much the weapon as the dagger itself.

  Samara moved first, swinging her dagger in an overhand strike, followed by a flurry of angled blows. Mara blocked them all, the clatter of daggers ringing around the open space.

  Then Samara struck with her other hand, aiming a close-fisted blow to Mara’s face. Mara ducked. Her feet slid on the sandy floor as she tried to keep her balance.