Chapter One
The excited chatter of the young women gathered in the sunny classroom reverberated through the upper level of the Holding. Kaeda sat apart from the other students, gazing out the window at the green meadow below. Gardeners moved about the orchard that bordered the meadow, harvesting fruit trees. In a day’s time, the Spring Faire would commence, with people coming from all over the continent to sell their wares and ply their trades. Artisans, tradesmen, farmers, and performers would converge on the village and the large avenues that formed a wide crossroads.
As a healer apprentice—as the only healer apprentice in the Holding at the moment—Kaeda would be expected to attend Salis in the Keyholders’ tent. The healers’ tent would be, as always, the most popular. Over the last four years Kaeda’s dislike of the Faire only increased. She would much rather explore the Faire rather than sit in the stuffy tent watching Salis attend to humans and fae-folk alike. Gnomes, elves, the occasional troll or civilized ogre, and once every so often, sprites or nymphs who found enough magic to make themselves substantial. The once-powerful veins of magic that held the land together were growing thinner, and more supernatural creatures found themselves losing what created their very identities. Over the last few years, Kaeda had seen more and more dwarves and gnomes come through, reliant on the remedies she and Salis dispersed to cure the human ills they suffered from.
The world is growing older. We no longer need magic to save ourselves. The number of magic-endowed humans dwindled as well. Those who were born with the elemental songs in their souls were sequestered away in the Holdings as soon as they were old enough to leave their mothers. The old gods haven’t left us completely on our own. Not yet, anyway.
The last time she saw more than the four ivory walls of the tent had been the year she was thirteen, on the cusp of womanhood, just months away from beginning her formal apprenticeship. She was older than any of the apprentices in her year, but only because her talents hadn’t been clarified until she was nearly fifteen—at the age when most apprentices were exiting their apprenticeship.
It was clear she was destined for the Holding, for life as a Keyholder. The summoning crystal glowed like a star when she came close, as it always did when a being possessed enough potential to handle magic. While every living being existed with a matrix, a binding cloak of magic, very few were granted the ability to touch it, manipulate it, to sing the life songs.
That blessing was the only thing that kept her in the Holding. Twice she’d sat through termination hearings before the Elder Keyholders. Every year that passed, her chance of banishment increased.
The wind gusted through the meadow and whipped the tall grass into emerald waves dotted with jewel-like wildflowers. Kaeda imagined the sweet breeze on her face.
Magic proved to be temperamental. Some were born with the ability to weave the elemental energies that could manipulate air, water, fire, and earth. Human-centered abilities, like healing or psychic talents, were less rare. Talin, one of the Keyholders from the North, could make things grow just by touching them. He’d given her a rose three years back, at solstice, and hinted of courtship once she emerged from her apprenticeship. Kaeda smiled and shifted on the pillowed window seat, lost in thoughts of blue-eyed, dimpled Talin. He waited so patiently for her, despite her never-ending apprenticeship and the attentions of younger, more talented women.
“Kaeda.” Salis’s quiet voice cut through the mindless chatter of the other students and startled Kaeda out of her daydreams. She slid off the window seat and faced her teacher. Had Salis asked a question? She struggled to recall anything, but the depth of her fantasies excluded everything.
“Kaeda, if your dedication to lessons matched that of your daydreaming, you’d be teaching this class rather than just assisting me.”
“I’m so sorry, Salis. I thought we were done.”
“Did you finish the list of herbs that will ease a summer cold?”
Kaeda’s heart faltered and she bowed her head. She picked up her tablet of smooth parchment and presented it to Salis. She faced the now-silent class of curious girls. She was the eldest by ten years, and as the beautiful, talented teenagers gazed up at her, she fought back a horribly discomforting wave of shame.
She paused and closed her eyes, thinking of the one tincture that she knew Salis wanted to hear more than any other. Listed in no text, existing only in the minds of the healer-women of the river clans, Salis passed on the recipe to her students, and her students alone.
“…And a mixture of valewort, faebane, and the water vilis plant will ease all the symptoms and relieve the patient of any discomfort.”
“Thank you, Kaeda. Girls, I have to run an errand. Kaeda will resume teaching the rest of the lesson. She will instruct you on methods that don’t require a healing song.”
Kaeda looked up sharply, surprised. Salis raised one thin eyebrow. Salis’s hands flashed in the silent, subtle language only trained Keyholders were taught when they reached Keyholder rank. You are my apprentice, after all, dear.
I’m not prepared. I don’t have a lesson! Though never formally instructed, Kaeda possessed a natural ability with languages, and learned it simply from watching her mentors. After all, she’d had more time with them than any other student.
You’ll be fine.
Salis swept out of the room, a smug smile on her face.
Ten pairs of eyes alive with challenge turned toward Kaeda. She assumed Salis’s position on the cushion near the center of the group and picked up Salis’s notes from the floor. “Ah…Where did Salis leave off?”
Byrnadette, a cocky, beautiful nobleman’s daughter, raised her hand. Gold bracelets glittered on her wrists. Kaeda recalled her own first year at the Holding school. Her family couldn’t afford the tuition, so they surrendered her to the Holding, all in the name of service to the king. Since she was a child, the only home she'd ever known was the sprawling, ivory-brick Holding set among fertile gardens and deep orchards.
“She was about to tell us why you’re such a failure as a Keyholder.”
Several of the girls laughed. The youngest looked around, uncertain and uncomfortable. Emira shook her head. “She told us about herbal remedies that don’t require any other spells. She wasn’t finished.” The girl paused. “She said you’re the best to teach of the physical healing arts.”
“Thank you, Emira.”
With her confidence low and her pride stinging, Kaeda flipped through Salis’s notes and picked up where the Keyholder left off.
Hours later, Kaeda trudged through the girls’ dorm in search of the giggling trio she’d heard sneaking through the corridors. As the most useless apprentice in the Holding, the job of caring for the children fell on her shoulders more often than not. She listened in the silence, and finally detected the softest whispers coming from one of the big empty dorm rooms near the end of the corridor. The Holding only accepted ten girls and ten boys at any given time, but the sprawling Holding served as a shelter during emergencies. Many of the dormitories were left vacant for most of the years.
As she drew closer, she made out the glow of candlelight brightening the black shadows. She cupped her hand around her own candle to hide the light the dancing flame cast. What were the girls doing down here? She thought back, trying to remember what would have lured her to the silent, empty chambers when she was a child.
Silence. Peace. Time to heal from the barbed insults of the other children.
No, that wouldn’t be why these giggling twelve-year-olds braved the dark halls in the middle of the night.
She stood just outside the doorway and listened to the hushed voices.
“Nani, it’s your turn to tell a scary story!”
Ah, she should have known. Ghost stories in the ‘haunted’ chambers. She was never invited to join in as a child, but she knew the shadows, knew how to weave them around herself so she couldn’t be seen. She’d followed the other students, cloaked by magic and shadow, and eavesdropp
ed.
The stories the three girls told were so similar to the ones her class had shared.
Kaeda blew her candle out silently and set the holder down on the stone floor. She closed her eyes and focused inward. Her matrix responded and began to draw the shadows around her. Once all hint of light no longer tickled her matrix, she opened her eyes and slipped into the chamber. The three girls sat on dusty cushions in the middle of the room around a trio of candles. Kaeda knelt, between the girls and the door.
“So there’s this king,” Nani began. She came from an island province off the northern coasts. A lilting, sweet accent flavored her words. “They call him the King of Nightmare and Shadow—”
Brenna rolled her eyes. “We know all those stories. We invited you because we thought you’d tell us some scary island stories. Sea monsters and stuff.”
Nani shrugged. “We don’t have any of those. Just fish. Fish aren’t frightening. Let me tell my story. I know it’ll scare you.”
“All right, fine, but if it doesn’t then you can’t come to our circle anymore.”
Kaeda recognized the hurt in the girl’s eyes. She arrived at the Holding only a few months before, and the dark brown of her skin and hair amid the mostly fair-haired mainlander children guaranteed she stood out. None of the other students had ever been unfriendly, yet she always seemed to stand on the edges of the crowds.
Like me. I looked just like them, and I still stood out. I still stand out.
“Anyway, when my da was bringing me here last year, he met this man in an inn we were staying
“I’m absolutely terrified,” Von said dryly.
“Shh.”
Kaeda smiled. Nani didn’t let the girls intimidate her. “This man was from Aichinn.”
“We—we don’t say that name here unless we’re in class,” Von said, her voice uncertain.
“It’s just a name.”
“But…it could summon him here!”
Nani leaned closer. The candlelight painted wild shadows on her face. “The man, he told us to be careful. You know how the old kings of Aichinn used to steal Keyholders to be their wives?”
The other girls nodded.
“The man said…the new king is looking for a woman to give him an heir.”
“So?” Von, still trying to be brave, flipped her hair over her shoulders.
“So he’s looking for a woman to steal away. And…she’s got to be a Keyholder.”
Kaeda tried to recall all she knew about Aichinn government. It was a required course, once a student reached a senior status. The kings of Aichinn required a wife who could pass on magical abilities, since it was necessary for a king to be as powerful as humanly possible. Who had been the last Keyholder taken?
A woman named Fern. Two generations back. Before that, others--both men and women, had been taken by force to the unforgiving desert lands.
Nani grinned, her white teeth flashing. “And this man, he said the new king himself is coming to the Northlands to create an heir. He doesn’t want a wife, just the heir.”
“I’ve heard he’s handsome,” Brenna said.
“He commands shadows.” Nani, also blessed with the gift of light and shadow, waved her hands in front of the candles and made a shadowy shape that flickered across the girls’ white night tunics. “He has fearsome powers. He can cast glamours and illusions. He can call up all the powers of darkness to destroy the soul of his victims. But he’s powerful handsome, and able to send a girl to rapture with a touch. Would you welcome a man like that into your bedchamber?”
The other girls blushed, visible even in the candlelight. Kaeda rolled her eyes. What did these children know about men? The Holding encouraged chaste behavior, since Key power either increased or decreased when the bearer lost their innocence. One had to couple with the right partner, their channel, a natural compliment to their own abilities, in order to reach their full potential.
“The man we met said the new king is haunting the Holdings, looking for a vulnerable young girl, one he can steal away and have his way with. The man said, he won’t come like a man, though. He’ll sneak in like a shadow, and plant his seed in some girl’s womb, and then vanish. And when the child is coming into the world, he’ll send his vile goblins in to steal the child away.”
Kaeda’s control over her matrix shivered suddenly. She felt the cloak of shadows swell up and expand, emmiting tangible pulses of energy.
Von, the most sensitive of the three, cried out and turned around, candle in hand. Kaeda thickened the shadows, creating an illusion of solidity. The light reacted to Kaeda’s matrix and bounced off like lightening, illuminating the terror in the girls’ faces. As one, they fled the room. Their screams bounced off the walls of the corridor as they raced deeper into the Holding.
Uh oh. Kaeda sighed and let the shadows bleed away into the chamber. She fetched the two candles and turned toward the door.
A figure stood there, silhouetted in the moonlight shining in through the high window across the corridor. Kaeda’s heart thumped and she stifled a scream.
Nathe shook his head and stood aside so she could exit. As the lead Keyholder, he was master and commander of the Holding. “You aren’t supposed to manipulate that energy, Kaeda. It’s not feyne energy.”
The feyne, the basic name for the energies all Keyholders used. “The king has men who possess the same abilities.” What is it, if it's not feyne? She'd asked countless times, yet never received a true answer.
Nathe gestured for her to walk with him down the corridor. “They use them for defense, not skulking around in dark hallways to frighten children.”
It hurt that he would think that of her. “I wasn’t trying to scare them. I…I just remembered how my classmates used to sneak out and tell scary stories.”
“If I recall, you were never invited.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Nathe stopped. He put a hand on Kaeda’s shoulder. “Kaeda, you promised long ago to let those abilities fade away. You are not one of the king’s warriors. Those are energies you can’t wield.”
Kaeda nodded and bowed her head. “I won’t use them again, Nathe.”
“They’re dangerous, Kaeda. If the wrong person were to discover you possessed them, you would be a danger to everyone.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“Work on your healing energies, dear. You want to make Keyholder this year, don’t you? You can’t be an apprentice forever.”
Most Keyholders finished their apprenticeships within two years, and she’d failed the tests five times. This year would be her last attempt. If she failed, Nathe would send her to the conservatory on the highest mountain in the Northlands. If the monks could sever her connection with her matrix, she would return to an ordinary life. Find a husband, learn a trade, something. If they couldn’t, then she would remain there, cloistered away so no one with ill intentions could take advantage of her abilities.
Nathe patted her shoulder. “Go to bed, Kaeda. The Faire begins tomorrow, and we need you well rested.”
She nodded and forced a small smile she didn’t really feel. Nathe walked away, a soft glow of feyne illuminated his passage. They’d treated her differently than the other students, and she never understood why. More like parents than mentors, her education had been more intense. They worked hard to strengthen her weakest traits, hoping her other abilities would suffocate from lack of use. They helped culture her natural healing abilities and bound the other energies she could touch, like the shadows. Every few years, the bindings weakened and she found herself swirling shadows and wielding the darkness. Binding was a long, painful process. The last time the binding failed within a few days, and rather than go through the procedures again, Kaeda kept her mouth shut.
Hope turned to disappointment when she failed her first test. Instead of her abilities intensifying, as they should, nothing changed. She remained weak in all the areas that mattered.
Weak. If I could just show them how
I can mold shadows, I might pass. She was a weak link in the ancient, honored way of the Keyholders.
Kaeda sighed and glanced out the nearest high window. The stars twinkled in the velvet sky, ever the same.
I won’t take the test, she decided. I won’t disappoint them again. After the Faire, I’ll tell Nathe I want to go to the conservatory.
No. A cold blob of fear surrounded her. Not the conservatory. During the Faire, I’ll slip away. I’ll just vanish. She looked down at her hands. She was weak, yes, but not totally useless. She could use her healing gifts enough to help. No. To have her birthright stripped away would be brutal.
Kaeda made her way back to her tiny, private room at the far end of the girls’ dorm and settled into bed, imagining a quiet life as a healer in some distant town.