The Shadow Cats (fire and thorns ) Page 3

  “Too much,” he says. “I doubt the girl lives.”

  My heart squeezes, and I realize that I had warmed to the girl—her brightness and energy—and hardly knew it. “The men must search for her anyway,” I say. “They need a purpose, something to do so they don’t fight with one another.”

  “And there’s a chance, isn’t there, Zito?” Elisa asks in a small voice. “A slight chance that she still lives?”

  He nods. “But we also need to think ahead,” he says gently. “It would be indelicate to bring it up now with the conde, but we must consider that Lady Calla’s father is unlikely to allow the wedding to proceed if the girl is not found.”

  Zito and I exchange a grim look. As war with Invierne looms, Papá and I must do all we can to strengthen this, our weakest border. The wedding must go on. But I have no idea how.

  6

  I cannot sleep, not while the soldiers are out searching. I stand on the wall and watch their torches wink and flash as they wind through the hills. And I’m still awake long after midnight, when the last of the men returns empty-handed. The wedding is scheduled to take place the sunrise after this one, but based on the crying and arguing that rings through the castle late into the night, I am certain it will be canceled.

  A sense of failure weighs on me. I need to do something.

  While my servants sleep, I dress quietly in riding breeches and a stiff leather vest that is fitted to my body like a second skin. My calfskin boots won’t protect my feet as well as my riding boots, but they make it easier to step soundlessly. I don’t know yet exactly where I’m going or what I’m doing, but Lord Zito has trained me to be prepared.

  My feet carry me to the place where Lupita disappeared. Someone is already in the garden when I arrive, someone whose profile I recognize even in the dark, long before I see the spear he leans upon.

  “Lord Zito.”

  He jumps as if I’ve startled him from deep thought. Bowing his head, he says, “Your Highness.”

  “What brings you here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep for thinking of the girl. Everyone is too shocked, too grieved. I’m trying to see this place with clearer eyes.”

  “Explain.”

  He gestures toward the sculpture. “For one thing, there’s too much blood. Jaguars kill by piercing the skulls of their prey, not by draining them of blood. And look here. See this second scrape of blood on the wall? Too far away from the first. Were there two cats? He couldn’t have carried the girl over the wall twice.”

  That’s what Elisa was saying. She wasn’t shocked; she was thinking. “So you agree with my sister?”

  “I do. And you would do well to heed her. She reads widely and wisely, and knows an uncanny amount about those things with which she has little personal experience.”

  It is more praise for my sister than I am accustomed to hearing. “Reading can only take you so far, up to the moment where you must take action with your own hands.”

  He nods, which makes me feel relieved, though I’m not sure why.

  “Let’s do it, then,” I say. “You and I. Let’s take action.”

  “We will. The cooks are already up preparing breakfast, and our guard will be ready to resume the search as soon as the sun is above the horizon.”

  “And their noise will drive off the jaguar or send it into hiding so that we have no chance of finding it. We must look now, while the countryside is undisturbed.”

  “Princesita,” he says. It’s a diminutive he uses only when pleading with me, as he did when my heart was broken the first—and last—time, and I climbed out a window to the edge of the roof to mourn in private. He thought I was going to jump.

  “The jaguar will be drowsy,” I say. Because it has eaten its fill. Zito winces. “If we bring the cat back, destroy this thing that has everyone so terrified, they’ll see us as heroes. Saviors. We might even save this wedding. At the very least, we’ll demonstrate that the crown still cares about Paxón’s people.”

  “Alodia, please,” he says.

  “Are you coming with me?” I say. I climb onto the back of the stone jaguar, careful to avoid the drying blood, and it’s only a short reach to pull myself atop the wall. But the garden is built into a slope, and the drop on the other side is longer than I anticipated. I hesitate.

  “Here,” he says, a bit angrily. “If you’re going out there by yourself, you’ll need a weapon.” He pulls a knife from his belt and tosses it up to me. I snatch it from the air.

  He means to discourage me, but he has failed. I slip the blade into my own belt. “Thank you. I’ll see you when I return, then.”

  I swing my legs over the wall, then my body, and hang by my fingertips. The drop between my boots and the ground is little more than the height of a man, but in the dark, it feels like a chasm.

  “Alodia!” The whispered exclamation is accompanied by the soft thud of his staff and the sound of his boots on the sculpture.

  It is all I need to hear. I let go.

  My legs are too stiff when I hit the ground. The impact shivers up to my knees, which respond by buckling, and I plop gracelessly onto my rear.

  Are you all right, Highness?”

  “Come find me if I’m not back by the noon meal.”

  He mutters something under his breath that I’m fairly certain is a string of swear words in several languages, and then says, “Move away from the wall. I’m coming down.”

  I’m glad the dark hides my smile as I scramble out of his way. His spear drops first, clacking against the wall before it hits the ground. He follows a moment later, rolling upon impact, and comes up standing. I am impressed.

  He brushes off his pants. “Your Highness, this is foolish beyond measure, even for you.”

  I hand him his spear. My left ankle hurts a little when I shift my weight onto it, but I’ll never tell. “You said something does not add up, and I agree. Let’s trace the creature’s path, and see if we can find what has eluded us.”

  One thing I have learned from many years of watching my father is that some people, the best ones, are motivated more by the chance to prove themselves than by a command to serve. It is the work itself that calls them onward, especially if they believe they are the only ones who can do it.

  “Zito, you’re the smartest man I know. I need your help with this.”

  His eyes narrow with suspicion, but even he is not immune to such persuasion. “Just a quick look,” he says.

  I have won. Grinning, I turn and hike into the jungle, following the faint deer trail an animal might take if it landed on the ground at this spot.

  “Let’s go this way,” he says as he catches up with me, but I see the direction he is pointing and will have none of it.

  “That would take us down toward the river and the village. Jaguars are creatures that retreat upward, into the mountains, into the trees.”

  His answering sigh makes me laugh. “It was worth a try.”

  Hours later, I’m beginning to recognize this trek as foolhardiness. I hate giving up on anything, but we’ve seen no sign of the cat, and my ankle is swelling. I’m about to suggest we turn back when we come face-to-face with a steep slope of loose rock, marked by dark spots that might be caves or shadows or pockets of vegetation. The air is still—too still. No birds sing, even though the sun now edges the eastern horizon.

  “A good hiding place for a shadow cat, wouldn’t you say?” I whisper.

  “Maybe,” he answers, his voice wary.

  “We should look for scat or prints, then report back to—”

  The jaguar’s cry, right on top of us, freezes me to the bone. A black shadow separates from an overhead branch and leaps. Zito crashes to the ground.

  7

  ZITO rolls with the jaguar, striking it with his spear. “Run, Alodia!”

  I spin. My ankle catches in a root, and I hear a great crack like splintering wood. I scream, falling to my knees. Through a haze of tears and a red curtain of pain, I see death leaping toward me. The
jaguar has abandoned Zito to attack me.

  I fumble for the knife. I pull it from my belt and yank off the sheath, which I fling at the jaguar with a cry of fury. It bats aside the piece of leather with a giant paw the way a man swats a harmless mosquito. It leaps, but I roll, and the snapping jaws barely miss my neck; the raking claws slide off my leather vest.

  The cat lands behind me, and I barely have time to twist on the ground to face it before it is on me again, forcing the air from my lungs with the weight of its body.

  I grab a fistful of fur and flesh at its throat and, with strength born of desperation, hold the jaws at bay just enough to avoid having my skull crushed. Its warm breath reeks of sour meat, and one fang is dark with rot. The cat snarls as it rolls its head, trying to pull loose from my grasp. Claws rake my shoulder, trailing white-hot pain.

  But I do not let go, and I stab wildly at its face, over and over, until the knife slides into a yellow eye. The jaguar roars, wrenching its head, yanking the knife away. I grab for the hilt, trying to reclaim it, but the massive cat collapses on top of me.

  I pound at the animal with my fists. Seconds or minutes pass until I realize the creature is limp and dead. I manage to shift a little, just enough to fill my chest with air. A sob of joy at deliverance wracks my body.

  After collecting my breath, I try to shove the cat aside, but I can’t. I start to leverage my way out, but I scream the moment my ankle pushes against the ground.

  My tears dissolve into laughter. I have killed the jaguar, but it may yet kill me.

  A shadow passes over me. Then, a grunt. The cat is flung aside.

  “Zito!”

  “Alodia! Are you—?”

  He crouches beside me and peers toward my wounded shoulder. It’s probably bleeding badly. I hardly care. “Zito, I thought you were . . .” I can’t even say it.

  “You were its target,” he says. “It saw you limping and pegged you as easy prey.” I wince as he pushes back my sleeve to get a better look. “Poor creature—it had no idea who it was tangling with.”

  “We have to cut open the cat’s stomach,” I say. “We have to find out if it . . .”

  He nods, wrenches his knife from the cat’s head, and expertly slits open its belly. Organs spill out, steaming and stinking. He grabs the white-pink stomach and slices it open. The contents ooze out, like stew from a cracked bowl. I don’t know what I expect to see—the girl’s body, her face, her other muddied shoe—but none of it is there.

  Zito pokes through the mess with the knife. “This hunter has not been eating well. I see a feather. Small rodent bones.”

  “Then whose blood was in the garden?”

  He shrugs for an answer, shifts to the other side of the creature, and stares at its hindquarters. A faint rosette pattern is barely visible in its matted black fur. “There’s an arrow deep in its haunch,” Zito says. “It was the hunted, not the hunter. Maybe it leaped into the garden to escape. The blood smears were the jaguar’s, not the girl’s.” After a pause, he adds, “You were lucky, Alodia. If the cat had not been injured and starving, you may not have been able to handle it.”

  It’s getting harder to think as the fear and fury of battle dissipate, leaving only agonizing pain in their place. “That doesn’t make sense,” I manage. “If anyone in the village shot it, they would have raised the alarm.”

  I don’t like the look that passes across Zito’s face.

  He thrusts the knife into the cat’s flank, digging and prying. Blood oozes slowly now that the cat is dead, disappearing into the thick black fur and leaving a sticky sheen. A moment later, Zito pulls out an arrowhead. A string of muscle sways from the serrated edge. The shaft has been chewed off.

  “Zito?”

  “This is an Invierno arrowhead,” he whispers, and his eyes lift and scan the surrounding area. “That would explain what drove the jaguar out of the mountains. And perhaps more than that. We need to get back to Khelia Castle immediately.”

  But it’s too late. Speak of evil, and you summon it. Voices filter through the jungle.

  “It came from over there,” comes a clipped voice.

  “The cat is long gone by now,” says another.

  “The whole castle was out looking for it last night. They’ll come again. We need to find that arrow before they do.”

  Zito and I must escape. But I’m in no condition to go anywhere.

  8

  ZITO slips his arm under mine and pulls me up. “Pray there is a cave or shelter among those rocks,” he whispers. He places the hilt of the knife in my mouth. “Bite down. Do not cry out.”

  The taste of jaguar blood makes me choke, but I swallow the bile as it rises. Zito leans on his spear, dragging me along as fast as he can manage.

  The trees conceal us, but my foot dangles uselessly. It snags on a root, sending us both sprawling. The knife cuts my cheek as I slam the hard earth, but I do not cry out. I will not cry out.

  A startled exclamation filters through the trees as the bandits find the dead jaguar.

  Zito lifts me again, sees the blood on my face, and slides the knife into his belt. We limp onward, with barely two good legs between us. My head throbs. I hear him talking to me, as if from far away.

  “This is well concealed,” he says. “Hard to reach, hard to find.”

  He drags me forward, and the world goes black. My next sense is that we are halfway up a sloping wall of rock and scrub. Zito no longer carries his spear. One arm is wrapped around me; the other pulls both of us upward.

  I hate this. I hate the fear. I hate that I must be helped.

  Darkness looms. At first I take it for a shadow, but my hazing vision clears to reveal a small cave, just large enough for me to crawl inside.

  “You go first,” I say. “Pull me in.”

  “Shhh,” he whispers, gently easing me sideways into the narrow opening. “Hide here. I’ll run back to the castle and bring help.”

  I grab his arm. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.” He hands me the knife, hilt first.

  “You’ll need it if they catch up to you!”

  We hear voices in the distance.

  “I must run,” he says, pulling the knife back with reluctance. “Stay quiet. Stay alive. I’ll be back.”

  And just like that, he slips away. Tears well up in my eyes. I tell myself it’s from the pain. That’s the first thing I must do, then. Bind my ankle. Immobilize it and stop the swelling.

  I scoot farther back into the cave, where the higher ceiling allows me to sit upright. The sun is above the horizon now. Enough light filters in that I can see my ankle.

  It would be better if I could not. It is purple and swollen, and my foot turns at an odd angle. It’s not broken—it’s dislocated.

  I’ve dislocated fingers several times. There is nothing to do but yank them back into place and bind them up until they heal. Surely the principle is the same with an ankle. The good news is that the pain will be much diminished once I accomplish it. It might even support my weight, should it come to that. I unlace my boots, then brace my foot against the wall. I lean over and press my fingertips into the swollen skin, looking for the right grip. Red spots dance in my vision.

  I take three deep breaths and shove my ankle into place. Bone scrapes bone. The cave darkens.

  When I come to, I am dizzy and my vision is blurry, so it is a full second before I realize the shadow leaning over me is a person. I prepare to strike, hard and fast, when a small hand covers my mouth.

  A girl’s hand. Lupita’s hand.

  “Your Highness,” she whispers, her voice trembling.

  “Lupita!” I grab her and hug her tight. “How did you—?”

  “I’m sorry! I just wanted to find the scarlet hedge nettle. For the flowers—”

  “I remember. You’ve been here all night?”

  She buries her head in my chest. I stroke her hair.

  “What happened, Lupita? Tell me. But do it quietly.”

  “Yes, Your High
ness.” She swallows hard. “I was going to look for flowers, climbing over the wall. And then . . . and then I heard . . .”

  “Espiritu.”

  She nods.

  “We have killed him, Lupita. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

  “He leaped onto the wall, and I was so scared. I jumped down and started to run. Then there were men in the woods. Perditos. I didn’t know where I was going. I just ran and ran until I came here.”

  I marvel that this small child made the same drop that injured my ankle. “It’s all right. Do you remember Lord Zito?”

  “The man with the funny voice?”

  “He’s the one who brought me here. He is running back to the castle for help.”

  “I hope he is a very fast runner,” she says. She gestures for me to come see, and I drag myself toward the opening.

  The rising sun has revealed a small meadow between the cliffs and the jungle below. It holds a camp—the remains of a fire and some scattered supplies.

  “They hid here last night, when the soldiers were searching. I wanted to sneak past them, but—”

  “You were smart not to try. But no one is down there now.”

  She gasps and melts back into the shadow of the cave.

  Men with faces painted black emerge from the trees. Bones from their anklets rattle as they walk. They wear clothes hacked from poorly tanned hides, and their hair hangs in clumps. Perditos.

  But they are not alone.

  A tall, thin man with long white hair and a supple cloak accompanies the bandits. The staff he carries bears a glowing jewel in an iron cage at its tip.

  An Invierno. Not just an Invierno, but an animagus, one of their powerful sorcerers.

  Behind him come two more Perditos, dragging someone else, and my heart is in my throat even before my mind makes sense of the scene.

  They have captured my steward. He hangs limp between them, and blood drips from a gash on his forehead. Oh, Zito.