VIOLET PICKED UP the giant axe, then looked at the room of artefacts stretching out unnervingly around her.
As she looked around at the cabinets full of horns and the tables heaped with jewels, she was struck by the sense that a collection like this was gathered not simply to own the items, but to exercise control over the world itself. She wondered if its confinement here was part of its charm, assembled to be gazed at in secret. She remembered the India room in her father’s house, into which he had allowed select guests, explaining this or that about the artefacts that he had assembled, all of which lay passive beneath his words. She wondered if that had been part of the charm too. Objects couldn’t talk back. Her father’s control over India in that room had been total.
Strapping the axe to her back, she felt her own temptation to stay here, and gather up everything she could, take as much of it with her as she could carry, in case – in case what?
She would never know who these objects had been made for, but they hadn’t been made for her.
She was turning away when her eyes fell on the table full of parchments that had absorbed Leclerc.
The words were all in French, some written in new ink, some in writing so faded the parchment almost looked blank. Generations of Gauthiers had taken notes on their collection. Perhaps because she couldn’t understand the French, it was a sketch that caught her eye.
The sun was inked out in black, as if there was a hole in the sky. Her eyes moved helplessly on to see an eruption of black ink from a mountain, like a volcano retching out shadows, then a terrible horde.
And then she saw a single figure, drawn in an old-fashioned style, slightly out of proportion, which only made it more frightening.
She was looking at the Dark King.
Someone’s idea of the Dark King, drawn centuries after his death, with dark horns – or was it a dark halo? – holding aloft a stick or a staff that was too small to see.
Black lines were drawn from the object like unholy sunbeams, connecting it to the horde as though it controlled them.
In English, in modern handwriting:
Sinclair believes he has located the Dark Palace. He sends shipments south by sea to Calais, then over the mountains through the Pass of Mont Cenis into Italy, where his men dig ceaselessly. He seeks to release the Dark King’s army. He believes he has the means to control it.
We were right to follow those leads in Southhampton. A force must be dispatched immediately from the Hall. We must send Stewards to Italy, to stop Sinclair.
She stopped, her eyes fixing on the words. They were written in what looked like a journal. She reached out, almost as if compelled, and turned the pages to the beginning.
Justice, if I am too far gone when you arrive, you must take the words I write here to the Elder Steward. We do not have much time.
They know. They know about the Cup. They are waiting forme to turn.
But Sinclair has greater plans than any of us knew, and what I have learned is of vital consequence to the Stewards.
No. Oh, no. It couldn’t be, could it? Her shaking hand turned the page before she could stop herself.
I have been here for perhaps a week. My captors are James, who has taken the name James St Clair, a woman named Duval, and her brother Leclerc.
Leclerc visits each mealtime, making continual notes, as if I am a specimen to be observed. He notes my movements. How much I drink. How much I eat. He notes down my words, though I speak little. He writes all he observes in his leather journal, that I yearn to yank from his hand.
At first I thought Leclerc and Duval studied Stewards, but I have come to understand that they study shadows. It is as if Sinclair’s plans with shadows extend beyond my turning. There is a great darkness in their actions, a terrible pattern that I can glimpse but not yet see.
James visits rarely, and always at night.
He has grown into a vicious servant of the Dark. He has embraced all of the worst parts of his nature. He likes to see me in chains, yet he fears that I may escape him. He talks about his new position and boasts about his destiny. He taunts me with what I will become.
My father was right about him. He wants nothing more than to sit beside the Dark King on his throne. He is not redeemable. He will kill us all if we do not kill him.
The worst of it is, his taunts cut deep. For he is right.
I am turning.
I need to die before my shadow claims me, but my chains are too short, nor have they left any kindly weapon for me to use. I stole this journal from Leclerc with no thought to write in it. I thought the pen would puncture an artery. I held the tip over the vein in my arm.
I couldn’t do it.
The shadow is too strong. It wants to live. That is what they do not tell us. We must kill each other because a point comes when we cannot kill ourselves.
I know now my only chance is to hold on. Justice, if I can tr—
I must stop writing. I can feel the first tremors. It is worse in the mornings.
I will meditate to hold steady.
Her heart was racing. The words were written amid scrawled drawings, that upraised staff, and a mountain, drawn over and over again. It was too much, pages and pages of it, and she knew had to take the journal and run, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
I kept looking at you as we tied up our horses. You seemed newly alive to me, or perhaps it was the simple joy of being alone with you outside the Hall.
The last thing that I remember before my capture is you smiling, your hand on my cheek, offering me a night together with no duty.
I think I was turning then. I wouldn’t have agreed if I had been myself.
She couldn’t bear it. It was too personal. She skipped forward.
I begin to fear that all we have done has been not of the Light but in service of the shadow. Why did we isolate ourselves behind our walls? Why did we keep the knowledge of the old world hidden? Why did we not forge alliances, or enlist others of the old world in this fight?
Were our decisions our own, or did they come from that dark seed that we carry inside us, the shadows planted by the Dark King?
I think of the day I drank, years of training leading me to the Cup. All I wanted as a novitiate was to be worthy to be your shieldmate.
I think about that moment now. Not the test or the celebration, but the moment when they brought forth the Cup.
I think of Cyprian. I do not want him to drink. I do not want him to feel this inside him. To lose himself. To be trapped in the shadow. As I feel. As I am. I am lost in the dark. But he has a way out. It is too late for me. It is not too late for him.
It’s harder to hold the pen. My hands aren’t steady. I have to concentrate to stay myself. I fear sleep. If I close my eyes, I will become a shadow completely.
I will hold. I will not falter.
In the darkness I will be the light.
I will walk the path and defy the shadow.
I am myself and I will hold.
Flipping forward again she saw that the handwriting had changed. Deteriorating over the course of the journal, it was now a wild scrawl, barely legible. Even the words felt unstable.
They talk freely in front of me now.
They believe that I am too far gone. They think I no longer have the will to work against my shadow master. They talk of the staff. They believe they can command what lies beneath the mountain. They think no one can stop them.
They say they will find the vessel. The vessel will birth the king.
They think us old-fashioned in our ways. Ill-matched with the modern world. They say the Final Flame is waning, and the time of the Stewards is done.
They do not know my mind is clear.
The Stewards cannot do this alone.
We must gather the old allies.
We must Call for the King
We must find the Lady of Light
We must find the Champion who can wield Ekthalion
And reforge the Shield of Rassalon
The Dark grew strong when the old alliances were broken. For we will surely fall if we are sundered. Is not that the way of the Dark, to let us turn on each other, and not the greater threat?
Let us put aside old grudges and differences. Let the shadows find us united. Let us stand against the Dark as one.
The shadow fears these thoughts. It fights my pen. It wants us to splinter, as the shield splintered. At times it becomes me, and I want us to splinter. I want us to break apart.
It’s very dark here. I can’t see the stars. Justice, were you a dream? I think if you were not real I would have had to dream you. I’d hold on for such a dream, that I would hear your footsteps, and look up and see your smile.
I am not a shadow. I am Marcus. I am Marcus.
This cage will open. I will see your face. And you will draw your sword. I know that you will be the last thing I will see. I know it. Justice.
It’s just so dark.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
He is coming.
There was a sound behind her.
She snatched up the papers and shoved them into her jacket, jerking around to see what had caused the sound.
It was Mrs Duval.
‘You see now what we face,’ said Mrs Duval, ‘and why you need to learn to fight.’
Violet’s heart was pounding. ‘Why is that?’
‘Because more than the Dark King is going to come back.’
Suddenly, the statues and the figures with their staring faces were sinister. Violet said, tightly, ‘What do you mean?’
Mrs Duval was a dark silhouette on the stairs, the light from above limning her, making it hard to see her face or expression.
‘When Sinclair releases the army under the mountain, they will lay waste to our world. Italy will fall first, but after that they will spread across the map until every human is under their control.’
‘Italy,’ said Violet, ‘is where my friends are. I have to warn them!’
‘I told you before,’ said Mrs Duval. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’
And when she tried to move, Mr Duval’s power stopped her. She tried to throw her whole body at the power that held her in place like shackles. She tried to spit at Mrs Duval in frustration.
She couldn’t do any of that. She had to just stay in place as Mrs Duval descended the stairs.
‘Italy will fall,’ said Mrs Duval. ‘It’s too late for your friends. But it’s not too late for this world. You need to stay here and complete your training. You need to be ready to fight your brother, and to beat him. When the past comes pouring back into the present, the world will need a true Lion. Only a true Lion can defeat what lies beneath Undahar.’
Movement on the periphery of her vision. Violet couldn’t move her limbs, but she could move the direction of her eyes.
Deliberately looking at a spot over Mrs Duval’s shoulder, she said, ‘Behind you.’
‘I’m not going to fall for that,’ said Mrs Duval scornfully, as if irritated by the juvenile trick.
Leclerc chose that moment to push himself up, groaning.
Mrs Duval turned. It was enough. Violet sprang forward instantly. She had a second, perhaps less, before Mrs Duval’s eyes were back on her. But it was enough time to leap and bring Mrs Duval down. Go for the kill, she’d been told, in dozens of lessons. The weak point. She put her thumbs over Mrs Duval’s eyes and pressed down.
She heard Mrs Duval shout in French. She could feel the round orbs under their delicate covering of eyelid. ‘Strike where they’re most vulnerable, and do it without mercy,’ she said, readying herself to grind her thumbs down. She’d have to blind Mrs Duval to get out of here.
‘Wait!’ said Leclerc. On all fours on the ground, Leclerc was pleading desperately. ‘Wait, don’t, I beg you, I’ll tell you anything. Just spare my sister.’
‘Don’t tell her,’ Mrs Duval was saying. ‘She will leave, she will run right to Italy, and she’s not ready, let her take my eyes, she must stay, she is not yet a true Lion, when the army awakens, she’ll be killed there—’
‘No. You saved me from a lion once,’ said Leclerc. ‘Now I’ll do the same.’
‘What’s really happening at that dig?’ Violet said. ‘What’s Sinclair’s plan? What did Marcus come here looking for?’
Leclerc began to talk, and Violet went cold at his words.
She had to get back to her friends.