Karigan gazed at the pile. On the very top were the pages comprising the map of the Capital—with lettering in gold leaf. It had been a two-page spread, and now had holes ripped out where it had been stitched into the binding. Without a second thought, Karigan snatched the map and folded it up into as small a square as she could make, tucked it into her hand, and headed upstairs where she could study it in private and think.

In the Present:

YOLANDHE’S ISLAND

A storm came in the night bringing shadows to Amberhill’s mind. As waves tossed onshore and the sky rumbled, he turned restlessly beneath his furs.

The outer turmoil seemed not to affect the shadows. They remained stolid, somnolent forces. Where were they? Just in his head? What or who were they?

Soon his breathing eased, the restlessness fading as though he mirrored the shadows. Beyond the veneer of stillness, he knew, lay ferocity, chaos, and destruction. It should bother him more, even cause him fear, but as the beating of his heart slowed into counterpoint to the storm, it did not.

• • •

“What are they?” he asked Yolandhe the next morning.

“I do not know of what you speak, my love.” She was rearranging sea shells on a rock in the cave, something she did from time to time to please herself, as though they were priceless art pieces on display.

Amberhill remained beneath the furs at his ease. How to explain? “The shadows. I sense them in my sleep. They sleep, too. It’s not exactly a dream.”

Yolandhe turned away from her shells to stare hard at him. After a time, she came to some decision and said, “Let us take a walk.”

Amberhill tossed aside his furs and rose. Once out of the cave and on the beach, they passed Yap’s lean-to, which had miraculously withstood the storm. The pirate snored within.

They crossed the beach, Yolandhe leading Amberhill along a shoreside trail wet with puddles.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Ahead of him, Yolandhe shrugged. Her gait was easy and unhurried, but Amberhill felt like he had to rush to keep up, splattering mud in all directions.

“The place has no name,” Yolandhe said. “It is just a headland.”

Amberhill was not surprised. Yolandhe had not seen fit to name any of the features of her island. In fact, he did not think she had even given the island itself a name. Had a Sacoridian come to take possession of it, the first thing he would do would be to name it after himself.

Amberhill Island. He considered the flavor of it and shook his head. It didn’t sound right. This was Yolandhe’s Island, and that’s how he would always know it.

Even if he should take his treasure and form his own kingdom, naming a realm after himself would sound awkward: Amberhillia, Amberhill Land, New Amberhill. Even while he considered the idea of his own kingdom absurd, a kernel of ambition awakened to the idea.

As he hastened after Yolandhe, his clothes ragged, a scruffy beard on his face, and mud sucking at his feet, he imagined himself upon a throne, his vassals kneeling before him and praising King Xandis. They offered gifts and their loyalty . . . Now where would I put a kingdom? he wondered.

A voice inside him that was not his own, replied, Wherever I am, it is mine to rule.

The voice belonged to a leader of warriors who raided and sacked settlements wherever he went, incorporating the land, its wealth, and its inhabitants into his own vast holdings. The intrusion of that voice chilled Amberhill, and he tried to extinguish it like stamping out the embers of a fire.

The trail rose on granite ledges, moss and sedges growing in the joints between rock layers, the roots of evergreens fingering across the trail, seeking the barest pockets of sandy soil. Gulls squawked offshore and terns skimmed the waves. As they climbed up, the water fell away below them. Amberhill avoided the edge.

Yolandhe halted at a good lookout point—or it would have been had a veil of fog left behind by the storm not sat offshore obscuring the horizon and just about everything else. Amberhill discerned the cold, white disk of the sun behind the clouds. Perhaps the fog would burn off before long.

Yolandhe sang, more a whispered melody than a full-throated song. The birds, the trees, the plants all seemed to lean in toward her, and as always, Amberhill’s body reacted, this time prickling all over as her power passed into, and through, him. He could not describe the song, except that it was soft and lilting, like aural fog, if fog were a song.

Her song was a command and the fog receded, revealing some of the granite girding the islands of the archipelago, but did not dissipate entirely. The islands farther out remained ghostly behind the veil of mist.

She had command of the elements, Yolandhe did, the power to light fire, and to manipulate the air and water. What could she do with earth? Or did even her power have limits?

Amberhill never ceased to be amazed when he witnessed such power at work. When he found his voice again, he asked, “Why did you bring me here? What does this have to do with my shadows?”

“I brought you here because some of them sleep out there.” She swept her arm out toward the water.

What were they? Amberhill wondered. Fishes?

“They are ancient,” Yolandhe said. “They were here before Akarion, before even the Eletians, but Akarion learned the command of them, his greatest, his most terrible power. His was a devastating weapon. It made him a king of kings. It is how he and his people came to dominate so much of the lands.”

“Well, what are they?” Amberhill felt an inner burble that could only be his “infestation” laughing at his impatience.