Page 2 of Heart of Shadows

Harper knew that. She felt it so deeply her bones ached, but that was a line she wouldn’t cross. Her body was the last thing she had of value that was hers. She wouldn’t give that up unless there was no other way—and she’d always found a way. Every winter seemed to be tighter and leaner than the last, but she’d always survived.

She looked into the pail of dirty water. This was freedom—wasn’t it? Making her own way in the world? The feeling in her stomach soured, and her throat tightened. This fell so short of the dreams nestled so carefully against the slivers of her wanting heart.

At her silence, Tam straightened and shrugged. “It’s your choice. You’re pretty enough to catch a decent fellow’s eye. Not like him.” Tam jerked his head in the direction of the bar. The thought of those hands roaming her, and worse, assailed her. Harper shuddered so visibly that Tam chuckled. “Aye. He’s not much of a reward. Besides, his coin is gone by way of my coffers.”

“You’re welcome to it,” she spat.

He laughed. “It’s a shame you don’t come with a dowry. With spirit like yours, I’d have kept you for myself.” He grinned, pausing, as though he expected a thank you for the compliment.

Indignation rose, burning hot through her belly, but she swallowed the bitter words forming on her tongue, for they would not serve her to utter. Was that all she was to be seen as in this world of men? Chattel to be owned? An object of their pleasure and the subject of their will?

His smile fading at her scowl, Tam muttered under his breath and sauntered out to the bar to call last orders. It was only when he had gone that Harper allowed the stiffness in her shoulders to ease.

This was not it. This was not to be the sum of her life. Harper could not take one more winter of this miserable drudgery, scraping an existence so hard and pointless it barely merited the effort, to line the pockets of the men that ruled that land. She wanted more—she wanted freedom for herself on her own terms—and she would make it so. Harper vowed it to the suds floating before her, the dirt on her knees, and the rain battering the roof above.

2

HARPER

Soon after Tam had tossed the last of the patrons onto the street, the worst of them still lying in puddles of mud and their own vomit, Harper made her way out. She paused by the door to accept her wage for the week, eyeing the full bag of coin Tam kept as he counted out a meagre handful of coppers for her.

After Tam’s deductions for taxes to the Lord of County Denholme—almost half of her coin—and a bit more for the suppers he docked from her pay, there was barely enough to scrape by. Certainly none to save, though she always tightened her belt an extra notch to put something away when she could bear it. Her hand closed around the coppers, a bitter taste upon her tongue. They were so small against her palm it still felt empty. Where were her grand dreams in the face of such a harsh reality?

“See thee tomorrow,” Tam said. He stepped aside so she could cross the threshold.

Harper did not reply, resolve hardening within her. There would be few tomorrows left here. She was done with this godforsaken place one way or another. Harper threw the hood up on her cloak and tucked it tightly around her before she brushed past him. The wind bit into her skin as it brought the chilled sea air inland. There was nothing but black as she looked out at the bay. Only darkness lay out there, the stars obscured by steely grey storm clouds, the ocean an inky void.

She often wondered what misfortune had landed her in this bleak and unforgiving corner of Caledan alone, and what had happened to her parents, but there was no time to do so that night, for fingers of icy wind pulled her cloak aside, stealing what little warmth she had in her moment of stillness. Without delay, she ducked into an alley for shelter, and to take the less trodden way home. Outside the village, the woods swallowed her up, the night blacker under the canopy. Harper did not dally. Wolves and worse prowled at night.

One encounter with a wolf had been enough for her. A day three years hence, and in a clearing, a young, lone she-wolf had crossed her path. They had stared each other down, and in that moment Harper had thought the wolf as proud, wild, and wary as her. Neither had broken the other’s gaze for a long moment—and then with a flash, the wolf had gone, blending back into the shadow of the trees with such silence that Harper wondered if it had been a dream. Why else had the wolf not attacked? Only the paw prints pressed into the mud at the stream’s crossing up ahead had proved it to be real.

Harper let out a ragged breath when she saw the small candlelight glimmer amongst the dark trees through her sole window, if it could be called that. It was a shard of salvaged glass from the town, far from transparent, that she had built into the woodwork of what Tam had called her “shack”, though she had fonder feelings toward it. It had been the only home she had known for as long as she could remember.

Thud. The rising howl of the gale and the dark shadows of the night vanished as she shut and barred the door behind her, glad for the relative peace. Her ears still rang with the noise of the tavern and the storm, banishing the telltale creak of wood as the abode flexed around her and the whistle as that persistent storm found a way inside through the cracks. She would return to the tavern tomorrow, and the day after that, and seemingly all the days after that until she could finally leave—but for now, her time was her own.

Harper dragged off her cloak and hung it on the crooked iron nail that served as a hanging peg near the fire, then knelt to coax life into the embers. The floor, hard-packed earth, oozed cold through the paltry layer of rushes and a sheepskin rug. The rug was old, tattered, and nicked with holes from poor skinning—the only reason she had been able to afford to trade for it in the first place—but it did the job of sheltering her from rising damp, and the matted wool was a rough comfort on her knees as she knelt to tend the hearth.

Harper moved with practised silence, not disturbing the prone form huddled on one of the two pallets. Betta’s wheezy breathing had started getting worse, she noted. The drawing in of winter would see Betta suffer this year. Harper stoked the fire again, prodding it into life, and eased another log on. At the very least now, she could keep Betta warm and fed, as the old woman had done for her in winters past.

Guilt flickered around her edges. Freedom meant leaving Betta behind too. The old woman had already refused on many occasions to move, even simply closer to the towns where she might have found an easier way of life. Harper owed Betta for everything over the years, and Harper’s conscience wrestled with the tally that felt so one-sided against her favour. She could not abandon Betta to a life of greater hardship in her absence. There had to be a way to both free herself and ensure Betta’s comfort and care.

The fire flickered to life, soon growing before her. It flooded the small space with heat and Harper consumed the warmth greedily, basking in the light. It was so much purer than the murk of the tavern. The fresh scent of the pine boughs always cleansed that stench from her nose. Still chilled to the bone, she put an extra ration of wood on it to keep them toasty that night. It was a small pleasure that meant a disproportionately huge amount—she would never forget the pervasive cold of having no roof over her head.

Over a beaker of hot brewed roots and leaves made from whatever she could throw together, Harper examined her hoard, kept in a wooden trinket box under the head of the pallet where she slept. Two silver marks and fifteen copper pennies piled within. She added one of her coppers from that week. She could not afford to add another. Even that would send them close enough to starvation. More than likely, she would end up taking the copper back out to buy enough food, as she always did in winter. The prices went up when there was little available.

Harper never stopped dreaming of leaving, of building a better life, but it was too hard to think about when that might be. It seemed as endlessly and impossibly far away as ever between one year to the next of eking out an existence and with nowhere else to go and no means to leave in any case. No family. No friends. No ties calling her anywhere. She tugged her other treasure from the hiding place. The leather cover was tatty and worn, but she caressed it as though it was the most precious trove. The spine cracked as she opened it, the amber light of the fire barely illuminating the handwritten sheaves. Harper strained her eyes to read them anyway.

This was why she saved. Out there, beyond the woods, the sea, and the black sky, lay better lands, better places. Powerful warriors, honoured ladies, terrifying dragons, clever magic. Mountains, forests, seas, verdant lands… Adventure. Prospects. Hope. Her corner of Caledan was a grey and lifeless place. Out there, she dreamed of real places like those. Places where it was possible to warm right through to her bones, enjoy a full stomach, and a safe night’s sleep. Places where she wouldn’t feel as though it was her destiny to live and die in obscurity, working herself to the bone to survive, pay taxes, and then end up in an unmarked grave at the communal cemetary.

As the fire died down and the night darkened, Harper lost herself in the tales. No matter that she had read them so many times before. No matter that she ought to have slept instead. This was a chance to leave her life behind for a few hopeful moments. To step into shoes where she would be powerful enough to decide her own fate and carve her own place in the world. Someday, drunk patrons would not paw her as she served them. Harper clung to that.

3

DIMITRI

Dimitri buttoned his collar one-handed. His other forefinger and thumb stroked Princess Rosella’s slim chin for a fleeting second before his lingering fingertips slipped away. She huffed in annoyance, fluttering her long lashes and pouting as she propped herself on her elbows atop the plump, silken cushions.

“Are you sure you have to leave, Dimitri?” she asked, cocking her head to one side so he could see the slender, pale, perfect fall of her neck below her pointed ears that, not too long ago, he had kissed his way down. He gazed at it, his lips twitching in a light smirk.

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