Beyond the Shadowed Earth by Joanna Ruth Meyer

Author:Joanna Ruth Meyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
Published: 2019-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

The steerage passengers ate in a cramped mess hall adjoining their sleeping quarters. Portholes looked out to sea, where the setting sun sank fiery into the waves, and an Odan chef in a dirty apron spooned what looked like pig slop into tin bowls.

Eda took her slop, plus a mug of beer, and sat at a rough wooden table near Lady Rinar. Eda tried a bite from her bowl. It was some kind of stew, and thankfully tasted rather better than it looked.

“I was hoping you would join me,” said the old woman with a smile in Eda’s direction, though Eda had no idea how she knew it was her. “What did you say your name was?”

Eda opened her mouth to give Lady Rinar Niren’s name, but found she couldn’t do it. Her grief and guilt choked her. So she gave her own name. “Eda.”

“Like the Empress,” said Lady Rinar.

Eda looked at her sharply, but there was no suspicion in the old woman’s face. “Like the Empress.”

Lady Rinar sipped what appeared to be overly watery tea from a chipped mug. It smelled like dishwater. “What sends you to Tal-Arohnd? It is rare that the very young have any interest in religion, although you have the air of one who has seen the gods. Even treated with them.”

Unbidden, the green meadow from her dream in the holding cell came into Eda’s mind. She saw the stone temple where the scarred man sat writing in his book. All around the temple shadows slipped through cracks in the sky—shadows with teeth.

“I’m going to find Tuer,” said Eda without meaning to. “He wronged me, and I mean to make him answer for it.” She couldn’t quite speak her true purpose out loud.

Lady Rinar’s blind eyes fixed on her face. “That is a dangerous quest, little one. But I fear you won’t find him. The stories say he’s trapped in the Circle of Sorrow, though no one but the Bearer of Souls could know that for sure.”

The boat swayed, and Eda’s stomach dropped. “What is the Bearer of Souls?”

“Who is,” Lady Rinar corrected gently. “The souls of the dead cannot reach paradise—that land which dwells beyond the Circles of the world—on their own. Every century or so, the gods choose a mortal to be the Bearer of Souls—they are the one who gathers the dead and brings them through the other Circles to their final rest.”

“I am a devotee of the gods. I have never heard that before.”

“It is a Haldan tradition—my son wrote of it to me in his letters.”

“How does the Bearer of Souls pass through the Circles?” Eda asked, a horrible suspicion unfolding inside of her.

Lady Rinar reached out one quavery hand and brushed her fingers gently across Eda’s forehead. “I believe the gods mark the Bearer somehow, but it’s been a long time since my son wrote of it tome.” She dropped her hand. “I’m afraid I don’t quite remember.”

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