iii.
The land is plagued with bandits. A century ago a man lost the name he was given and stole the name Shaix: The Shadow Dragon. In Castellon he broke the necks of mighty warriors in the heart of night, poisoned the blood of kings with toxins sweet as honey, and pulled at the hearts of all men. All in the lands of the Valdashi and Castellon knew of Shaix. Some hid in the shadows in fear. Others came from the shadows to join the dark empire where the shadow dragon had his throne.
There are many legends. In Castellon, the story goes that the merchant houses banded together and overthrew a king who no longer protected them, and that one boy—only child of the House of Cammen—took arms against the shadow dragon’s army. He united all the merchant houses and all those with a will to fight. Those they battled against were fearsome enemies. “Blades of Night,” they are sometimes called. Though others still call them only the Ashen.
The battles were fierce and poured into the streets. The seven spires of Castellon (for there were only seven then) were each bloodied in the fights. After many great losses, the boy Cammen overtook the kingdom of the world below. The Ashen were defeated—though the story of what happened to the man called Shaix is uncertain. Some say that Shaix died on Cammen’s blade. Others say he lives still. Others believe that he never existed as more than a story around which the dark-hearted men gathered like ash around a flame.
The boy Cammen’s story is one the world knows well: He had united the houses of Castellon and had the will to unite the rest of the realm. It was he that drew the maps anew to put Castellon at the center of the world. It is his army that united the north of the central lands into the Castellonian Empire. But his story need not be told here, though his children became conquerors and emperors. Cammen’s progeny may stand like a distant blade ready to strike, but other blades of Castellon crept fast as the night itself. It is another legacy which haunts these roads.
Here on the paths of the western lands, far from the eyes of emperors, there are men who have stolen the name Ashen. They plague the roads and call to the story of the shadow dragon. They are merciless and cruel. They will send your soul flying from your body if they can gain even a silver from your death. They are practiced killers, and as their power has grown, so too has the need for hired blades and guards and city walls. A wise merchant once told me, “Don’t plan to beat them. Only bring enough men that the Ashen cannot take you by surprise in the dead of night. Bring enough men that the Ashen choose another corpse to make.”
When I heard her shouting I reached for my sword and ran from my tent. I saw men in black cloaks and stained armor, their faces covered in gray soot so their whiteness would not beacon in the night. I saw the sky above spread over with clouds the color of ash.
The battle was swift and fierce. Before the fighting started, one of our men was dead. Another fell only moments after. But when the first of the Ashen was struck down by a true warrior in my company called Samuel Fray, the others took the blow with a chill of ice. Fray injured a second and my own blade felled a third, and the ice shattered, sending some number of their kindred flying into the dark.
But not all fled. One man, his face gleaming its pale ash, his blade flashing in the night, seemed mad for vengeance against the girl who had woken our company and cost him the spoils of my wagons.
That is when her hands flew like vipers. As he closed in on her, daggers flew from her fingers and struck him true, but not true enough to halt him. She flung her cloak to slow him. She had but one dagger left when the last Ashen stood over her, raising the sickly length of his blade to plunge it down into her spine. Yet her hands were vipers still and had one fang left. Her dagger gashed his throat.
I had been running toward her, trying to aid her, but now there was no need.
As she stared at me, pure and fierce, the clouds parted and the moon shone through. Crimson had splattered her face and blade, yet the blood had fallen off the white silk of her tunic as if it were water falling from stone. The white of her garments shimmered. The green of her eyes gleamed. This was the moment when I saw her burning with two fires. It was the moment I knew this girl who was called Lidahlia had many names she would yet earn.
It had been only two days west of Worth when the ash descended upon us. The next night, I saw a man of my company named Hull standing outside her tent. He loomed there, a look on his face grim and perilous. I held for a moment, afraid of what Hull had walking within him at that moment. I was afraid of what he would do. I was afraid for the girl. And then, all at once, I was afraid for the boy.
I called him away, for in my deepest heart I did not want to know which of them I should be more frightened for.
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