Silverglen

Chapter One

Ember sensed the trap before she saw it, like the scent of a cold and unmoving predator.

When she turned the corner into the short, dark hallway, the trap was visible, a crystalline cage that gleamed in front of the oak door. She had caught the rank smell of the fish bait several minutes ago, and had so far done an excellent job of ignoring it. But as she neared the trap, the smell invaded her cat-mind, making it difficult to concentrate on the door behind it.

Behind that door lay clues, answers to her questions. Were there any shifters left alive? What had her father been up to these last months while she was away at the Academy? Power through knowledge.

Change now, she remembered. The hallway was empty, and so was the corridor beyond it. Now was her chance. She focused her cat-mind on her human form and dove into the swirling sensation of shifting skin and bone and muscle, an uncomfortable, unbalanced feeling that jolted her into nausea.

She opened her eyes in a crouch, intensely missing the warm fur and sharp senses of the cat. The stones beneath her feet were icy cold, and a draft crept over her bare skin, raising swathes of goose-pimples. She always felt dumb upon returning, and always felt the need to do some mentally challenging task in order to remember the strengths of being a human.

Planning and reasoning. A powerful intellect, she reminded herself. She evaluated the trap against the door. It was made of wrought iron, just like the ones from her father’s study, but the edges of it shone with a vivid silver light—a light that any other person would be unable to see. The light was a type of Blinding spell, a unique twist that made the viewer see what they expected to see rather than what was actually there. A harmless spell, unless you were an animal.

Or a shifter.

A soft footstep echoed down the corridor.

She slid the trap-door closed so that no animals would be tempted to enter, and flashed the hand-signs to undo the Binding spell that kept the study door locked. She turned the handle, stepped into the study, and closed it neatly behind her, motioning again so the door would lock. She listened in the dark for noises from the study and the hallway.

Silence. Her father, Arundel, had left Silverglen today, so she could be sure it wasn't him in the corridor.

Fletch.

Ember's skin prickled along her neck and arms. Fletch was too keen, and far too close to Arundel for her to risk being seen by him. She waited against the door, ready to lunge toward her usual emergency exit—a dingy window over the desk—if she needed to.

After an endless period of silence, she eased away from the door. Whoever was out there had likely been a servant, probably checking the torches along the corridor to be sure they would last through the long night.

The trap worried her. She found it hard to believe that Arundel would be having a rodent problem; he went to great pains elsewhere throughout his castle to eradicate them with his traps. But she never remembered him placing one here, three floors above ground-level, directly in front of his study door.

And on the night of my return. The thought made her stomach twist with anxiety. Was it a coincidence? Or did he suspect that someone visited his study and knew that it was her?

When she left for the Academy in Pemberville nine months ago, he had acted normal. Distant, distracted, and in one of his melancholy moods. He had even given her a new dagger before she left, tipped with a strong freezing spell. There was a possibility he had found a clue of some sort while she was gone, some hint that his daughter was a shifter.

Mother. Ember's heart thumped in her chest.

Her mother was the only one who knew. Or at least, the only one besides her closest friend, Gregory. But he would never tell, she was certain of it, and her mother wouldn't either. Exposure of the truth would mean her mother's death, not just Ember's. But Ember hadn't yet seen or spoken to her mother, Salena, since her return from Pemberville. She wasn't ready to speak to her yet. That may be another trap, all on its own.

Ember shivered and walked into her father's dark study, the wood floor cool beneath her bare feet. The space remained the same as always, cluttered on one side with a desk, a stuffed chair, two sofas, and a table, the walls lined with shelves upon shelves of books.

On the other side, the study transformed into a small armory. Glass cases reflected the dim moonlight that filtered through the window, and various weapons glowed with spells on their mounting stands, looking sharp and conspicuous among the shadowy furniture. From behind a closed door in one corner of the armory, she sensed the cold emanating from a hidden heap of spelled traps. The traps were used to capture shifters during the rebellion, but Arundel gave them to his patrols and used them in the castle under the pretense of managing Silverglen's rodents.

On a long wooden table in front of the glass cases lay sheaves of papers and a metallic device.

She crept over, straining to see in the dim light.

The device was a snare, but unlike any she had seen before. The long rope she was accustomed to seeing was replaced with strands of metal, like the ones used in musical instruments. Ember pushed her fear down and picked up the delicate-looking wires, braided together to form a long tether and loop. The snare had been skillfully made, the wires flawless and perfectly wound together: a rather admirable display of Arundel's skills in forming and manipulating metal.

No chewing through this one. She fingered the strands, which had yet to be spelled. She remembered when she was seven, and Arundel had come back from hunting. Ember and her sister had been waiting eagerly for him to arrive, and he had been grinning and happy and proud, and it wasn't until he lifted up his brace of rabbits that she understood. Rabbits could be hunted with a bird, or they could be trapped with a snare.

You see, her father had told them with gleaming hazel eyes, rabbits like to run. They have powerful legs, and when their neck gets caught in the snare, they try to run. The loop tightens the more they struggle—

Ember shuddered and forced the memory away.

She set down the snare, went to the glass cases and worked her way through each weapon, careful not to touch spelled areas. She was familiar with all of them—pole axes, old foot and neck snares, lethal body traps, spears, crossbows, steel jaws, and restraint poles. Arundel had welded his own small collection: a sword whose end curved like a scythe, a lance with a spear on one end and a hammer on another, and a staff with two serrated blades protruding from one end. Each weapon held at least one spell. Freezing, Blinding, and weight spells, some simple one-handed spells that were already fading, others highly complex two-handed spells that radiated cold light.

Ember glimpsed her pale reflection in the glass cases. Naked. Uncertain. Vulnerable.

She repressed a shiver and grabbed her first weapon, easing into the fluid motions she had known since childhood. The strong, controlled thrust of the spear, the heavy draw and quick release of the crossbow, the smooth arc of the pole axe as she brought it down and twisted it into a jab at the last moment.

Ember breathed a sigh as she set down the last weapon. There were so many things she was unsure about, but coming here always made her feel better. Power through knowledge. Arundel's words, though he had no way of knowing how she would use them. She must always be ready, always alert to new traps and weapons. It was the only way to stay alive and hidden.

A flash of light caught her gaze.

There, on the desk just beneath the window. Ember drifted to it. Papers, quills, ink pots, and books cluttered the desk. Her father was an industrious man, often busy being a Lord of the Council, and if not that, overseeing the smelter or welding some new weapon or trap for hunting. His latest project was still being sketched. It was some sort of tiny guillotine, as beautiful and delicate as any of Arundel's work, meant for quick decapitation of rodents. Another sketch of a smelter furnace, and another of a network of mine shafts delving into the earth. Ember pushed the drawings aside and reached for the item she had seen from across the room.

A chill emanated toward her fingers and she snatched her hand back before she touched it. The small key pulsed with an incredible spell.

No, three spells, woven together as one. A Blinding spell, a Freezing spell, and a Binding spell. Too strongly forged for her own magic to undo. The spell was strong enough to trap her for hours, paralyzing her, making her senseless and stupid while it stuck to her like her own skin. She would have been caught red-handed by a servant. Or Fletch.

The length of her hand, the key was rather simple, with a small head and only a few notches at its tip. A slight chain threaded through the key loop and gathered at its base. Like any other key Ember had seen, but why the spells? If her father had created the spells, they wouldn't affect him when he wore it. But they would affect anyone who tried to steal it.

Such a strongly spelled key could only mean one thing. What are you hiding, Father? Coins? Traps? Rare metals or jewels?

Ember shuffled through the books on his desk, looking for clues. One fat book opened to a page about Blinding spells. The binding creaked as she looked at the cover. Spells of Old. She studied the table of contents, noticing nothing unusual. The book reminded her of the texts she had been required to read at Pemberville, only much older.

She flipped through the first few pages, and a sentence caught her eye. Her heart stopped, then banged in her chest.

...Ineoc is the god of shapeshifters, she whispered, that group of people whose ability to shift into animals is passed down through the blood from parent to child...

Ember read on, learning more about Ineoc but nothing else about shapeshifters. She clapped the book shut, ignoring the dust that billowed into a cloud around her head.

The book should have been destroyed with the others during the rebellion. Arundel himself had ordered that anything with information about shifters was to be burned. Ember had spent her entire life searching for ones that might have been missed, but Arundel had been thorough. How many other unlawful books did he keep? Was that what the key was hiding? Ember stared at the tome, barely seeing the leather cover, barely feeling the rough edges, and blind to her trembling hands.

If what this book says is true, my mother has been lying to me my whole life.

The thought shocked her. Her mind seemed unable to move beyond that single realization, as if it were frozen in a heartbeat that rippled through her past. Memories became dreams from which she was now waking, and it felt terrible.

Scratching at the door broke her paralysis.

Fletch.

The door to the study loomed up before her, candle-light filtering in through the edges, shadows flickering as he made the signs to unlock the Binding spell.

Ember tore her gaze away. She reached across the desk, unlatched the window and shoved it open with ferocity, strangling thoughts of panic into submission. Frigid air gusted into the room, stealing her breath and scattering papers to the floor.

One step up the desk, one step up the sill, she thought while she imagined a mockingbird, light and small and quick. The door handle squeaked as it turned, but she hardly gave it thought as she sank into familiar nausea.

She vaulted from the window.

Chapter Two

Darkness dressed Ember's balcony.

Situated strategically above the great hall, the balcony put her close enough to be within earshot of the doors far below, but far enough away from the torchlight to mask her shifting. The east-facing wall of the great hall held dozens of wide glass panes, each dancing with reflections of shadow and flame that arose from the two rows of torches lighting the path to Mirror Lake. The lake, along with the surrounding Merewood forest, belonged to Lord Arundel, and served as the only entrance into Silverglen.

Ember landed gracefully before her balcony doors, the familiar glass panes framed by ironwork resembling ivy-laden oaks. Savoring the dark, she shifted back to her human form.

The night air leached the heat from her bare skin and cooled her panicked thoughts. Had Fletch seen her? She couldn't be sure; shifting had the tendency of swirling her mind to the point that she became unaware of her surroundings. And she hadn't been able to risk letting go of her focus to listen or look around—the result would've been an uncomfortable half-transformation at best, or, in the case of jumping out of a three-story building, fatal at worst.

She shivered and unfolded from her crouch.

She always kept her balcony doors unlocked for circumstances such as this. Stuffy air crowded her sparsely furnished bedchamber. A strangling effusion of engraved roses hung from the ceiling, and the cherry bedposts protruded like towers smothered in ivy. The two bookcases and small writing desk were equally embellished with the overzealous floral pattern. Ember had asked for anything besides the wrought iron and hunting scenes that were the life and breath of Silverglen, so her mother had provided her own unique style instead.

At least it's wood rather than iron.

She lit a fire and sat in front of the crackling tinder, watching as the small flames curled around the pine logs and charred them to black. Unlike the rest of her family, she kept no personal servants. Her secret would never stay hidden if servants lurked around. And anyways, she didn't mind doing menial tasks like starting a fire or changing her bed-sheets; they gave her time to think, time to move away from her constant anxiety of discovery. Time to be normal and ordinary.

Like Gregory.

She hadn't seen him since last summer, before she left for her second year at the Academy in Pemberville. She wasn't sure how last summer had happened. When she had returned from the Academy last spring, he seemed different to her. Older, more mature, more attractive than she remembered him being during their childhood. And she had been gone for such a long time, with no one to talk to who understood her, who knew her like he did.

Where have you been?

Ember sprang up and whirled. Salena sat in the corner of the room, half in shadow.

Mother. Ember grabbed a shift off her bed and threw it on, gritting her teeth against the irritating fact that her mother had been watching her. I've been out. How did you get in? The question was futile, as Salena had strong enough magic to open practically any door she wished, but Ember felt the need to say something to distract her mother's perceptive gaze.

Salena gave a cat-like smile and ignored the question. Perhaps you should learn to check your rooms before becoming human again, she suggested, looking at ease in Ember's stuffed reading chair. Copper hair fanned over her shoulders and flared against Salena's green satin robe. Have you discovered anything useful in your ventures?

Ah, the old interrogations. That was why Salena waited in her room, looking so placid. Ember knew the impatience her mother must be feeling to have come there and waited, on the same night of her arrival back from Pemberville. Ember had grown used to communicating with her by letter and thought she had done a decent job at weaning her mother off her dependence on Ember for information. But now Salena's hunger glowed from cool blue eyes.

I was in father's study. Ember went there for her own reasons: to find clues about where shifters might be, and to practice using Arundel’s weapons. But she knew her mother wanted information of a different sort. His latest projects are a snare made of metal wires and a miniature guillotine.

Salena's expression remained smooth. They were petty details. Meaningless, according to Salena, but Ember knew better.

Someone set a spelled trap outside his door, Ember added. Salena's expression shifted—or was it just the shadows cast by the fire?

And you still went into the study? A mild disbelief in her tone. Worry hovered behind it, within reach. Ember knew the worry wasn’t just for her own safety. Should her father find out the truth, everyone would suspect Salena knew and hid Ember’s secret. Would her father torture Salena the way he did shifters? Would he let her live knowing she raised some other man’s daughter, if indeed Arundel wasn’t her real father?

Of course. Father is out of town tonight. There is no one else to worry about—

You know that isn't true, Salena cut in. A small line appeared between her brows. You were careless to have gone in there. What if someone had been waiting inside?

Ember made her tone light, almost teasing, unable to resist disturbing her mother. He was waiting outside.

Salena gripped the arms of the chair and leaned forward, her face flushing into a scowl.

That creature? Did he see you? Her voice was thick. Wheels churned behind those frozen blue eyes.

He is untouchable, mother. You cannot kill this one. Unlike Ember's old nurse maids, who witnessed Ember's odd nightly behaviors of disappearing through windows, Fletch would not be easily ended. He was cunning, and close to Arundel. Besides, Salena wouldn't have reason to kill him, not until she was sure he knew what Ember was.

No, Ember said with more confidence than she felt.

But he suspects, Salena said, relaxing a bit into the chair.

Does he have reason to suspect? Ember turned to prod the fire with an iron poker. Sparks exploded in the hot air and disappeared a moment later.

Perhaps he heard something. Perhaps you were careless at the Academy. It wouldn't be unlike you. All it would take would be one small glimpse, or a sound, or an unusual movement on your part. Then the suspicion would take root.

Perhaps he knows something I don't.

Salena’s tone sharpened. What do you mean?

Ember turned her back to the fire, feeling her pulse quicken. Perhaps he knows who I really am. Who my real parents are.

Her mother stiffened and looked away.

What now? Salena sounded hollow. You heard rumors again? I have told you before not to trust them.

And you eat up rumors like a starving cat with a rotten fish.

Ember didn't bother pointing out the irony of Salena's words. A book informed me that shapeshifting is passed down by blood. Unless either you or Father are shifters, you aren't my real parents.

Salena jerked up from the chair and strode to Ember. I am your mother! The fire lit her smooth, perfect face—a face that was not only made beautiful by Glamours, but that was young, and confident, and stern, and knowing. There were other things in that face, things that Ember didn't want to see…love, tenderness, compassion. How could a person lie to someone they loved?

She put a hand up to caress Ember's face, but Ember pulled back.

"You lied to me," Ember hissed. She fought the urge to shift and fly away.

Salena's expression hardened. I birthed you, and you are mine. That is no lie.

And Father?

Salena looked into the fire. What was this book you found?

Ember crossed her arms. It doesn't matter. An old tome from before the rebellion.

Salena shook her head. The book is wrong, Ember. People had their silly notions about shifters back then. The truth is, no one knows how the ability arises. Unless you heard or saw something at the Academy...?

The researchers at the Academy stayed as far away as possible from shifters. There was no sense in risking funding by angering the Council. So she had seen nothing, and heard nothing. That's just it, though, Ember thought. No one knows the truth about shifters anymore. If they did, they kept silent. Or they lied.

Well, then, Salena said. This argument is over. If you have nothing important to tell me, then I'm away to bed. Welcome home, dear.

Chapter Three

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The unwelcome noise of the smith’s hammers woke her at dawn. Twenty blacksmith's hammers multiplied to hundreds as the sounds traveled from the west side of the keep to the east, ricocheting from wall to wall before spilling out over Mirror Lake and bouncing off the cliffs.

Part of Arundel's legacy. Fortunately one that she wouldn't inherit, real daughter or not.

Groaning, Ember clawed out from beneath the sheets and stumbled to the basin of water at her bedside. In the dim light, she made quick work of cleaning up and dressing in her usual comfortable trousers and loose cotton shirt, with a dagger tucked inside one boot. Satisfied, she left her rooms and went to find her row-boat.

She followed the path from the great hall to the lake and took the thick semi-circle steps down the cliff until she reached the last step that rested in the water. Her small row-boat bobbed among the others tied up there, and she started to untie her rope.

BLOODTHIRSTY BUGGERS! boomed a voice nearby, followed by a string of equally robust curses.

Ember whipped around to see a large fisherman crouching on the steps several boats down, struggling with a rope line full of jerking fish.

A squelkin had his hand embraced by rows of sharp teeth, with two dozen tentacles winding around his arm and stretching for his neck.

Ember yanked the dagger from her boot and leapt over the steps, blood thundering in her ears.

The fisherman struggled with a tentacle, peeling it away from his throat, yelling profanities at the top of his lungs. He didn't seem to notice her until the dagger sunk into the squelkin's head.

Tentacles and teeth slackened, and Ember removed her dagger. Black liquid oozed out of the opening.

Thank you, the fisherman muttered, tugging the squelkin from his hand. Tattered flesh clung to his bitten hand, and blood seeped from it as he strung the dead squelkin on his rope.

I can take you to the healer— Ember started.

I have my own healer, he cut in, then gave her a sharp glance that roused a half-apologetic grunt from him. He tossed the rope over a shoulder, but Ember pretended not to notice as she tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt.

Here, at least let me wrap it. Please.

The fisherman scowled and hardened his lips, but let her wrap his hand snuggly. He avoided her curious gaze.

You've been bitten before, Ember said, noticing the scars on both forearms.

I'm a fisherman, he said with a touch of scorn, as though the scars didn't need explaining and he had only pointed her in the obvious direction because she was the lord's daughter.

Did he dislike her because of Arundel, or was it that she dressed like a boy? Cheeks burning, Ember knotted the cloth, wondering what a normal woman, with nothing to hide, would say.

I hope it heals quickly—

The man nodded once and was off, striding up the steps as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, his rope of fish and squelkin bouncing against his broad, sweat-soaked back. Inky liquid splattered on the steps behind him.

Ember rinsed her dagger, tucked it back into her boot, and nodded at another fisherman who approached the steps. He raised his hand and gave a grim smile.

She stepped into her boat and rowed as fast as she could straight east.

She passed under the immense walking bridge that spanned from the northeast tower to the southeast tower, cutting through one of its three round arches that smelled of fishy moss. Sunlight shimmered off the water and onto the stones as the oars dipped.

Ember redirected the boat northeast, ignoring Arundel’s Blinding spells that warped the appearance of the lake, and focused instead on her own internal compass that had unfailingly led her to Gregory's over the years.

She was sweating by the time she neared the small cliffs closest to Gregory's bungalow—or rather, his father's bungalow, which Gregory would inherit along with the horse-breeding business when his father died.

This spot in the cliffs was the lowest on the lake, not an official entrance like the great staircase to the east. Here, the cliffs had crumbled and receded beneath massive pine and cedar trees, one of which had fallen and rested like a ladder along the rocky edge.

Ember threw the boat's rope around the tree, knotted it securely, and scrambled up the log until she reached the dense pines at the top.

She had made a habit of flying to the bungalow when she was younger, when she and Gregory were just friends. And before it mattered that she showed up without clothes on—a rather annoying trait of shapeshifting that she had tried desperately to change. But no matter how much she tried, her mind could only alter her own flesh and bones, not any other material. Gregory hadn't minded her nudity last summer, but now she wasn't sure, and she couldn't take her chances shifting during the day.

Ember broke out of the woods and onto green pastures. Acres of grass spread around a squat stone building and rows of stables. The tree-line lay to the north, where the Merewood Forest rose in gentle hills before reaching Arundel's smelter. Beyond the smelter and the forest clearings lay the rounded Orion Mountains, but Ember had no attention for them today.

Near an opening of a stable paddock, she saw Gregory straddling a leggy mare. His back was rigid, poised, and his mare's ears perked back, waiting...

His trainer, standing ten paces away, made a signal, and Gregory thrust his heals into the mare's flanks. In a flash they were flying toward the forest, the mare's white tail streaming behind her like a brilliant flag in the morning sun. Ember ran to the paddock, breathing in the smell of horse and dung as she watched Gregory. A thousand things filled her head—memories of playing chase with Gregory as a child, of grooming horses and mucking stables and doling out oats. She could recall the sweet smell of alfalfa, how the evening sun slanted through the stable doors and gilded horse hair and dust, and how they glimmered as they danced in a warm breeze.

More than anything, she remembered last summer. Butterflies in her stomach, hay sticking to her sweaty skin, his face like sand against her.

Horse also tried to fill her head. The scent of the lush grass was hard to ignore, and the sudden feeling of freedom as she ran, unbound by fences, with the wind gliding along her nape. She forced it all away, repressing the urge to run on all fours, to toss her head in the air and kick, to let her skin melt and her muscles flex into...

No, she thought, it's Gregory I want. He was a distant point at the forest edge. He whirled the mare with finesse, and she bent her head toward the ground as she careened back.

Ember reached the paddock fence and pulled herself up to the top rung. The trainer, Florence, had the copper skin and golden eyes of an Ekesian, with a wiry figure and an ugly patched beard. He had a foul temper, but today he was intent on the race, and his skinny, ringed fingers moved beads rhythmically on his counting-piece.

Gregory flew. He leaned into the mare, crouching in the stirrups, his elbows pointing down and out for balance. Every jolt of the horse rocked his slim figure, but