Shade's Edge by Leo Hull

Author:Leo Hull [Hull, Leo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-17T22:00:00+00:00

The camp folded into neat bundles now borne by Eira the muskox. Women shrugged free from fur and leather and shifted into a menagerie of creatures, yet Tristan still dwelled on Mathias’s revelation, walking in a daze with his new companions.

The Speaker’s melancholic resignation had turned to cutting anger when Tristan tried to argue that all wasn’t lost, that he had confronted the Risen and saved Nessa and Annik. The sudden aggression rocked Tristan back on his heels, and he remained quiet while the muskox Shifter was laden with the group’s camp and they set off into the swamp. Tristan struggled with Mathias’s hopeless certainty. If he had taken such a dim view, he would have doomed Nessa to a life of servitude and Annik to a tortured existence.

Yet, he also understood Mathias’s grim resolve. What if he’d had only the chance to kill Annik, but not free her? Would he have left her hanging in Talek’s contraption on an uncertain chance to save her later? That was a life filled with pain that reached the soul. Just a short time with Talek stealing her Gift left her despondent for a month. Better a quick mercy than drawing out life just to play the hero. Sometimes the courageous act was shouldering the grief and suffering of what had to be done.

But that did not mean giving up hope. Tristan had saved Annik, Mathias could try to save his daughter before taking that irreversible step. Tristan quickened his pace until he walked beside Mathias. The trapper turned his face, a sad smile on his face.

“I know what you want to argue,” Mathias said. “You want to tell me nothing is hopeless, that just by admitting defeat I have guaranteed it and sealed Liv’s fate. These are thoughts I’ve wrestled with over many sleepless nights.”

Surprise showed on Tristan’s face. The grieving father had cut to the heart of the matter in a single stroke.

“I have… struggled with this decision,” Mathias said. “I was the one that Konan befriended, the one that he used to ingratiate himself with us as more than just an occasional trader. I was the one that argued against our insular world view, that we would benefit through closer ties to the south and that Konan should be our first step. I—”

Mathias choked off and he took a deep breath. “He went on hunting expeditions. On one of these, he accompanied young men, Speakers, on a late season trek north into the untamed tundra. A storm, not unusual in that time of year, caught them out. Several of those children pressed on, trapping the rest in a hidden crevasse. Konan rescued them, brought back two Speakers. I was the one that argued for him to be marked as Kaethlan. I was the one that recommended him to Liv as a member of her band. I am responsible—then and now.”

“She could still be saved. Your guilt shouldn’t stand in the way of her life,” Tristan said, remembering his own role in Annik’s capture and torture.

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