A Shaper's Promise Read online

  A heavily carved stone archway lay before her. Beyond it, she could see two guards lying face down. The floor under them was awash with blood. A hooded man stood over them, his sword still dripping. He attacked before she could tell if he were friend or foe, his gift slamming into her aura. She put up a burning wall of energy to block it and retaliated with a medium push. He fell as if struck by lightning.

  Heavy laughter and a frightened, “Please don’t hurt me,” came from further into the room. Her heart ached to leave the guards unHealed, but she crept forward, holding her breath to avoid alerting the attackers. She felt cool, sticky liquid on her left foot as she stepped past the prone bodies and looked down to see she’d lost her slippers at some point. Her stomach lurched at the sight of a dying man’s blood painting her toes, but she didn’t have time to worry about it and kept on.

  Around the corner, Manson was cowering behind a well-stuffed loveseat on the far side of the room. Two men were taunting the servant, stabbing swords towards him and laughing at how he twitched to avoid them.

  Anna waited until there was no risk of a blade catching the old man then knocked the soldiers out. She ran across to the old man, relieved to see he was unharmed. The yellow aura looked distinctly shaky though.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  “The staff were all downstairs. Everyone else was in their rooms getting ready for dinner. The King too.”

  “The King’s here?” she gasped, the reason for the searching suddenly clear to her. “They mustn’t get to him! Where are they coming from? We have to stop them!”

  “Follow me, miss. I know a way.”

  Manson scuttled over to a tapestry hanging on the back wall. He dragged at the corner, but it was too heavy for him to lift. Between them, they managed to uncover a small, wooden door. Anna held the weight of the cloth while Manson struggled with the complicated lock. Her arms were burning when it finally gave way. She let the tapestry go as she stepped forward. It fell with a thud behind her.

  The door opened onto a narrow, low-ceilinged and poorly lit corridor. Manson had taken a lantern down from the entrance and lit it with his flint then hurried off into the darkness. Anna rushed to keep up. Neither had the spare breath for questions. The empty corridor seemed to meander forever through the castle. The dust their feet kicked up suggested they would meet no one.

  After what seemed an eternity to Anna, they reached a small, metal doorway. She hovered impatiently behind Manson as he undid multiple bolts and fumbled at the enormous, rusty lock. At last, the key turned and she moved forward.

  The servant was about to step aside when he stopped and barred her way. “Please be careful, miss,” he said in a gruff, scared voice. “There were hundreds of them out there.”

  Anna gave him a small nod before pushing past to grasp the handle, ready to step out.

  “Wait!” he cried. “Let your eyes get accustomed to the daylight before you step out, miss! It’s a narrow step. You could easily fall.”

  Anna cracked open the door and recoiled as the wind brought the sickeningly sweet stench of death to her. She waited impatiently until she could look out without squinting. The first thing she made out was that the door opened roughly a third of the way up a narrow set of steps that ran up the wall from the inner bailey to the keep’s battlements. Below was a mass of fighting soldiers. Some were in armour and some in leathers. Some seemed to have come straight from their beds. Roughly half wore armbands. Dozens of bodies lay in pools of blood. There was no time to waste. She opened the door and stepped out.

  The numbers were more than she’d ever had to deal with before. There was no way to link with each aura. It would take much too long. More men would die. Instead, she sent a net of energy over the entire battlefield and pushed every aura, friend or foe, at exactly the same time. Every man fell, but one. The one in the middle. More than six feet tall, he wore a full set of armour and held a long sword aloft in both hands.

  His sword stilled as hundreds of bodies and weapons clanged to the stone floor in a sudden metallic crash of thunder then he slowly turned on the spot. His black armband fluttered in the breeze. She could feel his eyes fixate on hers through the slit in his helmet. He knew exactly where the attack had originated.

  Something touched her aura, trying to worm its way in without alerting her. She burned it off without a moment’s hesitation, wondering why the armoured man hadn’t succumbed to her push when all else had. It occurred to her that there was hardly anything for her gift to work with: only thin streams of golden aura leaked from the warrior’s armour. The metal shell protected him.

  She tried to think how best to use what little aura there was, but the man attacked before her thoughts could fasten on anything of use. This time, the attack was sent with purpose and power. He meant to control her. Again, she burned off the invasion before it could take hold, but it had been close. Her mind leapt to the passage in the book she had just read. Could she follow the link back to the aura inside his armour?

  The third attack hit her with ferocious strength. She frantically pulled at her staff for the power to fight it off. When she felt his gift slip away, she sent a blaze of white energy behind it, along the same path. She saw him rock as the energy hit his aura, but his fists tightened on his weapon and he started to walk towards her. Her counterattack had failed. If she didn’t stop him, he would surely kill her. Metal struck stone with each step towards her. Each one rang around the bailey like a death knell. Anna knew no help would reach her in time. She was on her own. And she couldn’t allow him into the keep.

  She pulled every bit of clean energy from her staff and crystal jewellery and focused it through the peristones. She felt the power grow with every bead, changing colour as it passed. When the lilac was added, the energy burned with the heat of white fire. With bitter regret, she aimed it straight at the man’s heart. She knew she fought for her life, for her King’s life. She had no choice. She raised her staff and let go.

  She heard Aibreann shout, “No!” just as she released the energy. Confused, she looked above her. There, far away on the ramparts were the pale, worried faces of her friends. “The King!” Aibreann shouted. “It’s the King!”

  Anna looked at Aibreann in horror. Aghast, she turned to the mound of metal lying still among the mass of bodies. She had surely killed him. She flew down the stairs to the bailey and ran a desperate obstacle course around the fallen, frantically seeking the man in full armour leaking a golden aura. It took an age to reach him. There was no sign of life.

  She heard doors being thrown open at the back of the courtyard as she struggled to remove the King’s helmet. She wept as she fought to at least release the visor. It was stuck fast. In utter desperation, she basked his body in a thick layer of clean energy, feeding it into every crevice she could find in the armour. At last, hands helped her to remove the helmet.

  A familiar, blonde-bearded face lay still underneath. She noted the broken nose, the scar by the left eye, the hints of grey hair at his temples and, there, finally, she spotted the thinnest of golden glows bathing the body. The King was hanging on, but by the barest thread.

  She raised her arms and pulled more energy from her staff and jewellery than she had ever achieved before. It felt almost as if the very ground beneath her responded. The energy seemed to sing to her, vibrating in time to her heartbeat. She felt it rush up through her body. She breathed it in like air, filling her soul, her heart, her aura, filling every element of her being. She pointed the glowing crystal staff at the King and screamed her defiance at death.

  Unseen by her, the witnesses had arrived. Elegantly dressed men and women struggled to get to the King. Her friends held them back. “Let her be. Let her Heal him,” Finn shouted angrily. Sy had drawn his axe and glared at any who dared disobey. Finn’s father continued to wrestle with him to get closer. Manson was on his knees, sobbing. Only Lady Braxton and Aibreann were quiet, their eyes wide, their mouths open.

  “Everyone shut the h
ell up!” Lady Braxton yelled. The others stopped in shock at her vulgarity. Lady Braxton never swore. “Let her Shape,” she ordered them. “Only she can save him. If you interfere, you’ll be responsible for the death of the King.”

  All movement stopped. All looked towards the girl who seemed even to the non-Readers to glow with an internal light. Aibreann fell to her knees, stuttering in disbelief at what she saw. “She is… By the light… She is… blinding!”

  Lady Braxton leaned heavily on her husband.

  “What’s happening?” he demanded.

  Lady Braxton struggled to maintain her composure. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from the miracle before her. “She’s drawing energy from the ground. It flows through her bare feet to every part of her body and aura, but there’s a core which is so bright, it’s difficult to look at. Like the sun, only white. It runs from her left foot, winds up her leg and around her torso up to the very top of her head and down to the fingertips of her right hand. Her aura is a mass of fierce, white heat. It’s immense. There’s a rainbow of colour flying all around it, about ten feet away from her skin. It’s… difficult to describe. It looks like she’s channelling the energy through the bracelets on her right arm. Her wrist is afire with colour. She’s sending it all into the King. She’s doing everything she can to save him.”

  The bailey was silent as all held their breaths.

  Anna knew she had to feed the King’s aura. It was how she’d Sy. But the gold resisted her. Only a bare trickle was making it through. The gold behaved almost as if it didn’t trust her. Her head pounded, a mallet hammering her temples. She had to think! She looked at the aura that skimmed over the King’s face. It was precisely the colour of the golden spots of light that pierced the hearts of the King’s men. Was that it? Did she have to be sworn for the King’s aura to accept her help?

  Her whispered oath was heard only by Spider who knelt beside her, the King’s helmet in his hands. It was said as a prayer and with the profound solemnity of a heart-felt promise. “My life for the Kingdom. My life for the King.” With her last conscious moments, she channelled everything she had into the King she would willingly die to protect. It had to be enough.

  Her body crumpled to the ground, the energy gone, the colours scattered into the ether, her staff broken into smithereens. All that was left was a girl in a beautiful beaded dress with dusty feet and a pulsating white aura. Two thick, midnight black streaks desecrated the white around her head.

  CHAPTER 20

  C hiara slipped between Sy and Finn and ran to the Shaper and King Rybis. She put her hands on the King first. There was no poison. He was weak but sleeping. “He lives!” she shouted. She switched patients. She sucked in her breath at the extent of Anna’s pain. It was beyond excruciating. She willed it into her body, accepting it as her own, then pushed it into her well. She could never refuse her son’s saviour. Her body slumped in relief as the moment of pain vanished. The Shaper slept, the poison gone.

  The absence of available guards meant that Anna’s friends, supported by an emphatic Lady Braxton, won the argument what to do with the Shaper.

  She woke the next day. Rather than the dungeon the King’s Councillors had demanded, she found herself in bed, in her room. Aibreann was sitting in a bedside chair, reading a book.

  “How is he? How’s the King?” Anna asked fearfully.

  “He’s sleeping. Everyone is at a loss what to do, but Sy insists we should let him sleep. He stands guard at the King’s door and refuses everyone entry on pain of death, no matter who they are.”

  Anna wept. She’d prayed to be White and yet here she was nearly killing the King. He might still die. “I need to see him,” she said, sitting up. “I need to make things right.”

  Aibreann held her gaze. Anna could see the swirl of dismay in her aura. She took it for distrust.

  “I would never hurt the King,” she swore. “If I’d known…”

  Finn’s sister held Anna’s hand in hers. “I believe you, Anna. If it were up to me, I’d let you in there right this instant. The problem is the King’s Councillors. They saw you knock out hundreds of men without even taking a deep breath. They saw you almost kill the King. Of the Council, only my mother can see auras and only my father will listen to her at the moment. The others believe all the old stories. With the King sleeping, they’re in charge and my parents are just two of six present. Right now, they’re outvoted… I’m sorry, Anna, but anyone who lets you into the King’s chambers will be tried for treason.”

  Anna lay back onto the bed in defeat. How could she help if she couldn’t even see the King? “The book,” she said. “Perhaps the book will have a way?”

  “What book?”

  “The one I was reading when the men broke into the library. It’s called the Art of Shaping.”

  “They won’t let you into the library, Anna. They won’t even let you leave your room. They’ve not slept. They’ve spent all night and all morning arguing about what to do with you. Reason has fled what are usually great minds. They’re terrified.”

  It was everything Anna had been warned about. Mama’s face swam before her eyes. “Better a lowly servant than a dead Shaper,” she’d said time and time again.

  A knock came at the door. Aibreann stood in front of Anna as if to protect her. Her voice was firm when she called, “Come in,” but her aura shimmered with fear and uncertainty. The door opened and Chiara was admitted between two heavily armed sentries. Anna heard Aibreann’s murmured, “Thank the light.”

  Chiara brought food and water as well as messages from her friends. The general theme was not to worry, that all would be well when the King woke up. Without seeing his aura, Anna had no idea how long that might take. It could be hours, but it might be weeks or even never.

  The voice in her head that often nagged her when she was missing something prodded at her. In her mind’s eye she could see the image of fallen soldiers lying in pools of blood. She’d been reacting to everything so quickly that she hadn’t realised the anomalies: every one of them had an aura and none were smeared black. Sure, some of them could have been wounded on the side hidden from view, but all of them? She didn’t know where the blood had come from, but it definitely hadn’t been from the fighters. They’d all been alive and healthy. Why would they be pretending death? Why would the King pretend to be attacking the keep? Why would the King attack her?

  “He was testing me. The King was testing me,” she said out loud.

  “Yes,” answered Aibreann. “I swear I didn’t know beforehand and the others were sworn to secrecy. I’m so sorry, Anna.”

  Anna hung her head in misery. “And I failed.”

  “You didn’t fail, Anna. They were arrogant and reckless. You were much too much for them. Finn tried to warn them, but they wouldn’t listen. It’s not like you knew who was in the armour. How could you? All you saw was a threat to the keep. A threat to the King. When he wakes, he’ll be ashamed. It’s the only thing that stays the hands of those who would have you killed.”

  “Did you see his aura, Aibreann? After I collapsed? Had it recovered at all?”

  “I wasn’t close enough to see. That stupid armour blocks it. It’s supposed to protect him from Nystrieth. Hah! They’re going to have to rethink that now.” She paused to revisit the scene in her mind for the thousandth time. “I’m sure I saw rays of gold coming through the armour in a few places, like there were gaps, but I have no idea how strong it was elsewhere.”

  Anna nodded, squeezing her friend’s hand. “Where there’s light, there’s hope.”

  “Always,” agreed Chiara, breaking into the conversation, “but before we worry about the unknown, we should see to the known. Anna, let me check you, please?”

  “You Healed me?” Anna asked, for the first time realising that she didn’t have a headache hangover. “It was the worst headache I’ve ever had. I don’t think I’ve ever Shaped that much energy before. Thank you so much for your sacrifice, Chiara. I know what it means.”


  “I would never refuse you, Anna. If you need me, I’ll be there. Right to the brim.” The Healer reached over to touch the Shaper’s hand.

  Anna watched love, awe and truth swell in the woman’s aura and was humbled by her trust.

  “I’m delighted you’re fine, but, here, you need to eat,” Chiara ordered, putting the plate of bread and cheese into Anna’s hands. “Sorry, it’s so basic. I’m a terrible cook, Sy wasn’t around and the servants were too scared to help.”

  “It’s fine, thanks Chiara.” Anna began to chew on some bread, her face once more thoughtful. She was gnawing on a lump of hard cheese when she put it together. “I am such an idiot.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Aibreann.

  “One of the guards actually said, ‘It’s her,’ when he recognised me. None of the wounded had black streaks in their auras. None of my friends were to be seen anywhere and every one of the servants had disappeared apart from Manson. I saw that his aura was shaky, just like he was being misleading, but I took it for panic because two men had been playing with him like a cat with a mouse. True attackers wouldn’t have been taunting him without drawing blood. They’d have either killed him or captured him. Then, when I made it to the bailey, I didn’t stop to look at the whole scene. Thinking back, I realise that the battlements were empty and there wasn’t a bow or crossbow in sight anywhere. An archer would have killed me before I did anything if there had been one there. It’s not like I was well-hidden.”

  Aibreann and Chiara shared a look. “What’s done is done,” the Healer said kindly.

  “It’s partially my fault,” confessed Aibreann. “I could have stopped you if only I’d realised sooner what you were going to do, but, yes, you were a bit of an idiot. I doubt anyone with your level of training would have done any differently though, faced with the same situation. Chiara’s right. What’s done is done. If the King expects you to do better another time, he must have you trained.”