Shadowguard

When Lyra was hardly six winters, too young to understand the world beyond the horse paddock, men in black robes tore her family apart. They came in the dead of night — ghastly apparitions stood on the doorstep. She heard them knock at the door, and through the tiny window above her bed, she watched them haul her father off into the darkness. The next morning, she woke to her mother in the kitchen, an uncomfortably wide smile plastered on her face as she prepared breakfast.

"Your grandfather's ill and the mendicant suspect he won't last the week," her mother claimed. "Your father left to see him off. He'll be home soon."

The days melted into weeks, and from there, into months. The months compounded still, and soon one year became two. Two became five. A decade passed and the second quickly approached with no word. He never came home. No letter arrived to assure them of his health. The Guard never delivered with news of his passing.

He simply vanished into thin air.

The quiet of morning smothered the town, the streets still and barren. It was a recent occurrence, one quickly becoming commonplace in the wake of Mayor Ashburn's death. On the surface, life continued as normal; the town woke at sunrise and wound down shortly after dusk gripped the sky. Peace became an illusion, upheld with false smiles and forced pleasantries. Behind the guise of normalcy, anxiety bubbled. People kept to themselves and within the safety of their homes. Children no longer wandered the streets. The older folk became reticent, whispering amongst themselves as they cast their doubtful gazes about, as if they feared someone might hear their mutterings.

Snow gathered on the hem of Lyra’s dress as she picked her way through the streets. Her basket, a pitiful thing woven of splintering wicker and lined with threadbare fabric, sat heavy on her arm. Beneath the crisp green apples tucked inside lay the source of the weight.

Lyra did not like weapons; they were tools of violence, forged only for a single, horrible purpose. Unlike knives and axes, which had less offensive uses, swords and daggers existed only to cause harm — to maim and cleave at flesh. She never thought she'd carry one, and its mere presence filled her with disgust.

She passed a younger guard, who was much too short to douse the lanterns that lined the streets. The sun would rise within the next half hour, the first light of morning already turning the sky from deep blue to muted purple. Pendel would fall into the façade of liveliness once more.

Her path took her down the lesser traveled streets, through the back allies where townsfolk left their refuse for the sweepers. She stepped past crates overflowing with old clothes and food scraps and over thick sacks filled with the contents of emptied chamber pots. The streets stank of human waste — which never quite bothered her; her mother threw their chamber pots into the compost — but it would not last for more than a few hours.

Mayor Ashburn had kept Pendel spotless as could be. They did not throw waste carelessly into the streets, as it was in most places; thick bags, coated with wax to prevent leakage, were used to line their chamber pots. The sweepers then collected the bags and transferred them by cart to a dumping ground several miles outside of town. The ingenuity behind the system proved its worth a few years prior. When disease broke out in their corner of the kingdom, Pendel pulled through without a single case.

The townspeople prayed his successor would be as attentive to their well-being as Mayor Ashburn was.

She swallowed thickly. That night remained firmly lodged in her memory. It plagued her sleep — the blood, the violence, all of it as real and vivid as the day it happened. She still felt the blood on her dress, the skirt soaked and warm and slick against her legs. Guilt clung to her like shackles, weighing down her every step — the chains wrapped so tightly around her ankles she feared she might trip and never find her feet again. She hoped this all ended soon; she couldn't keep up the charade for much longer.

The barracks, a low stone building with bark shingles, stood directly behind the Guard post, dominating a full black of Knapp street, which ran parallel to the charred remains of the town hall less than a quarter mile away. The sky had shone orange the night of the fire, the plumes of black smoke so large she'd seen them from her mother's farm on the southern fringes of the kingdom. Pala and Evelina were the only survivors. Fifteen maids and servants perished before the Guard contained the inferno. All that remained of the town hall were a few smoldering beams and scorched stone.

The barracks' entrance was unguarded. After the brawl that ended with Windmore's arrest, Corden recalled the town's Guard for an immediate and thorough reevaluation. Seven died in the tavern and he executed another twenty since. There would be more to come.

The ones that remained on the streets were the only ones cleared of suspicion, and few they were.

A narrow entry hall sat immediately beyond the doors. To her right, a wide archway opened into a spacious training hall filled with straw dummies and archery targets. It was empty, as expected. Corden had sent the bulk of the Guard home as they awaited their turn to be questioned and vetted by a cleric of the Golden Lady. It was the only way to ensure none of them had access to the documents pertaining to Everna's case.

Stairs leading to the lower levels — first the storerooms, then the prisons — sat at the far end of the corridor. Lyra took them two at a time, leaping over the landing. The shift change would occur in half an hour; she needed to be done and out before the night guard arrived and their replacements shuffled from their bunks.

A weight settled in her chest as she arrived at the door that led to the prisons. The basket on her arm grew heavier still. Swallowing back a bitter mouthful of bile, she reached between the apples and pulled the dagger free.

The leather of the hilt was soft beneath her fingers, loosened from use and years of improper care. It belonged to her father before Shroud came to steal him away; it was one of the few things of his her mother kept. After nearly two decades of hiding in the darkness of a lockbox, it would finally see use.