Page 70 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth

When they’d eaten, Morin made tea, and the three of them sat drinking it around the fire. The rain dwindled down to nothing.

“What will we do if the spirits catch us?” said Eda.

Morin put another log on the fire. “Tuer is calling you to the Mountain—we have to trust he’ll protect us long enough to get you there.”

The flames cracked and popped, glowing hot embers sparking red into the night, smoke swirling up to join the emerging stars.

“How can you trust Tuer after what happened to your parents?”

“Their deaths were not his doing.”

Something twisted inside her. “How can you know that?”

He shrugged. “I guess I don’t. But it’s not something he would do—Tuer has always watched over us.”

“You still think that after everything he did to me?”

Morin and Tainir exchanged glances.

“I don’t think Tuer is quite who you think he is,” said Morin.

“Then who is he?”

Tainir rubbed her thumb along the rim of her tea mug. “Who he is not is more to the point. What do you know about the spirits?”

“There were countless of them, formed by the One at the beginning to help the gods shape Endahr.”

“So there were,” Tainir agreed. “Some helped Raiva guard the trees and make them grow. Some helped Mahl and Ahdairon, the wind gods, harness the lightning and wield the rain. Some helped Uerc tame the beasts and teach them to speak. And there was one spirit who became the servant of Tuer, helped him raise mountains from the earth, and cast them down again.”

Eda saw a flash of the murals in the monastery temple: a shining spirit, always at Tuer’s side.

“This spirit was almost as powerful as Tuer himself,” Tainir went on. “While most of the spirits were not faithful to just one god, but passed freely between tasks until they grew bored and roamed about Endahr on their own, this spirit stayed beside Tuer always, and so he was called, in the old days, Tuer’s Shadow.”

Eda drew a sharp breath, unease twisting through her. “I thought—I thought Tuer’s Shadow was apieceof Tuer.”

“No god can divide themselves,” said Morin quietly. His eyes snagged on Eda’s, but she only held them for a moment before looking away.

Tainir’s story continued to spin out into the night. “When the spirits rose against the gods and were sealed into the void, Tuer’s Shadow remained. He went with Tuer into exile in the Circle of Sorrow, and it’s thought that Tuer sends him out to do his bidding in the world. Some stories do not think Tuer’s Shadow is benevolent. They say he’s an evil spirit who manipulates Tuer, using the god’s likeness to fool mankind into making hapless deals. In those stories, Tuer’s Shadow goes by another name.”

Eda forced herself to breathe as a horrible understanding unraveled her, thread by thread. “What name?”

Tainir’s voice was small in the vastness of the dark: “Rudion.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

EDA LAY AWAKE LONG AFTER THE THREEof them had crawled into their bedrolls and Morin and Tainir had drifted to sleep. Uneasiness bit at her.

How long had Tuer been trapped in the Circle of Sorrow? How long had he sent his Shadow—sentRudion—to do his bidding?

She couldn’t shake away Torane’s words to her back in Tal-Arohnd:He claimed he served Tuer, but there was such darkness in him I cannot believe it. I think he must have pledged himself to an evil spirit instead.

Deep in the night, Eda left her bedroll and paced to the edge of the cliff. She stared out into the vast reaches of Tuer’s Rise, a speck of dust amongst the stars. The wind curled round her, icily cruel. And then a shadow separated itself from the mountain, and she was no longer alone.

His wings stirred beside her. She could feel the heat of his fiery crown.

“What do you want with me?”

“What I have always wanted,” he answered. “What my lord Tuer bid me.”