Behind the Shadows

By Mallika Sinha

A treasure so dangerous that a war is being fought over it.
A treasure so alluring, one would kill for it.
When Xavier Verdon steals the necklace of Tashyrn, he finds himself tangled in a conflict going beyond his life as a petty orphan thief - he becomes part of a war of nations. With assassins sent to kill him and treachery on every side, who will he trust? How will he protect the necklace...and his life?
In this game of cat and mouse, every shadow hides secrets...and the only ones lurking behind the shadows are the dead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546227182

Mallika Sinha

Mallika Sinha is thirteen years old. In addition to writing, she learns ballet and plays the piano and brass instruments. She has lived in Europe, Asia, and now lives in New Jersey, with her parents and younger sister. Mallikas world is made up of music notes, dance moves, and her imagination. Her fascination with words began when she was young and continues to this day. This is her second book.

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© 2018 Mallika Sinha. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/13/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-2716-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-2718-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018901660

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 1

W ar made cowards and corpses of men, and the soldiers who had been fighting the war since the beginning, few as they were, could attest to that. No connections, bonds, or friendships could be made, because the next day that person would probably be lying with glassy eyes in a trench or field somewhere, a bullet in their stomach or a knife stuck in their heart.

Older men watched as newer, younger ones came in, looking frightened at the very sight of weapons and desperate to do anything to avoid the carnage. One man had slit his own throat, leaving a note apologising to his family; many others simply became pale shadows of who they once were, refusing all food and drink, turning away company, simply staring into empty space with haunted eyes.

There was always the faint metallic smell of blood to everything, whether it was the weapons, the air, and even the clothes and armour of the soldiers.

Most accepted the fact that they would probably die forgotten, mourned by no one but a close friend or relative. Many were criminals who had thought that once they were out of prison, war would be a cakewalk compared to the confines of their jail cells, with petty rivalries and empty threats.

They were wrong. War did not make empty threats, nor did it give any warnings. It simply came in a whirlwind, did as it pleased, took whoever it pleased, and left abruptly, indifferent to the trail of sorrow left in its wake.

And still there was a note of disbelief throughout the camp whenever they received bad news. Stirrings in the capital? More deaths? Reinforcements arriving for the Moiraians, the hated opposing camp? With every message that arrived, soldiers only grew more and more inconsolable. They were from Fallshé. They were supposed to be brave in this wretched war against their neighbouring country, and yet Moiraío seemed to be willing to fight for eternity.

Most people spent the time they weren’t on the battlefield drowning in bottles of amber liquid, staring into the depths of the glass as if it would somehow save them from this living hell. There was a sense of resentment brewing, and anyone with half a head could tell that as the tension rose, the breaking point grew inevitably nearer. But what would follow? No one really knew. Most were apathetic toward the thought of death now—dying seeming more like a blessed respite than a curse.

The nurses were exhausted, tending to wound after wound, injury after injury. There were only so many supplies, and despite the occasional reinforcements from the capital, the sheer number of injured soldiers was overwhelming—not everyone could be seen to. Most people avoided the sick tent, choosing to treat most wounds themselves. As a result, the hospice was filled with groaning men missing limbs or bleeding from mortal wounds.

There wasn’t much hope left. There wasn’t much of anything left in the camp, except for a lot of pain and death.

The corpses were disposed of discreetly because there were too many to give a proper burial to each. Huge pits had been dug some distance from the camp. Those who died in the battlefield remained there, rotting; the crows picked away at them till there was nothing left but sun-bleached bones and grief. Those who died within the camp were dumped unceremoniously into the pits, crushed against hundreds of other corpses.

Too many dead, too little left with any real energy. In the first year, the second year, there had been hope that the war would resolve itself quickly, that any day now, they’d receive the order to go back home. All they had to do was wait.

Even after the fifth year, people still held out hope. They would be home soon, soon enough to meet their spouses and children and siblings and joke about the war with them. After all, two defenceless royals couldn’t last much longer against the entire forces of two large countries, could they?

After the eighth year, a noticeable change had occurred in most soldiers’ faces. The laughter was sucked out of the camp as if by an invisible force; people no longer joked and talked as if they were simply on a sabbatical, here to witness the war. Soon, liquor became more in demand than good company. There was a brief flare of hope when a report came in of a sighting of the two royals, but most of the optimists had died out by then, leaving behind the scarred, silent, grim-faced realists who had figured out that the only way they were coming home was in a coffin.

This was all upon the orders of a king – one man who’d told them to fight the Moiraians, so they fought. It was ludicrous, and the soldiers who weathered the battles every day knew better than anyone else the cost of allowing power to run unchecked.

The war had now been raging for fifteen years, and the enmity between both nations was showing no signs of slowing. Many had praised the apt name of the conflict, the War of Ages. Perhaps it would go on forever, until distant descendants were left fighting a war for reasons they had forgotten.

There were children who had been born and raised in a world of war. They didn’t know life without it. The thought made most people’s hearts hurt. Perhaps there truly would never be an end to this war.

We’re never getting out of here. His voice had been roughened by years of battle and bottles of drink, and both had taken their toll on his body as well. Godwin sat by the fire in the dwindling sunlight, staring absently into the flames as if he wished he could do nothing more than catapult himself and die in one final burst of heat.

Of course we are. We just won’t be breathing when we do so, that’s all. Not that big a deal, right? a second man, Morlan, responded sardonically, causing the former to cast a dark glance in his direction and take another swig from his loosely held bottle.

A third man, Daved, snorted, covering his mouth with the back of his hand before shifting closer to the fire. Similar fires burned all around the camp, tended to by similar men who were sitting, grasping bottles, and huddling around the fire to ward off the demons of their memory.

Speaking of which, Johannes never came back yesterday, did he? He said was going to take a piss, then he never returned. Did he meet a stray Moiraian? Godwin asked, not taking his gaze off the flickering patterns of the flames’ light.

His two companions shrugged, the expressions on their faces hard to make out in the shadows.

Chances are he probably did. Old ‘Hann had a real knack for gettin’ in trouble, didn’t he? What do you think, Daved? asked Morlan, with a trace of a rough farming accent.

Well, I reckon he probably lost his way, wandered around, then got killed by some damn Moiraian, was Daved’s response, and despite his harsh words toward Johannes, their circle felt a little smaller tonight.

What’s up with the nurses? I hear they’ve been keepin’ the painkillers all to themselves; we ain’t allowed to take painkillers no more. Why? The question wasn’t said with any real animosity; it was more of a forced inquiry to fill up the space that their acquaintance had left in all of their hearts.

Haven’t you ever heard of addiction, huh, Morlan? I’ll bet people started getting needy for the damn drugs, stealing them and whatnot. They can’t have drugged soldiers fighting their war, can they now? Daved scolded, his eyes hooded.

Casting covert glances at each other, they kept drinking, the conversation dying out along with the last dregs of dusk.

The setting sun left men scrambling to kindle and keep the fires fed, for if the fires died out, they would have to rely on oil lanterns, which meant cutting into their precious oil supply. Their battlefield, a rough scrubland in the middle of a desert divided by the Moiraian-Fallshian border, had precious few trees, so both sides were left hungry for firewood more than food. Besides, it was hard to stomach food when you had seen your comrades-in-arms die beside you—that was the general sentiment among the men, and who was there left to force them into eating?

Though the sun had just dipped below the horizon, its rays still reached the soldiers, bathing the camp in a sea of red, orange, and pink, with the moon still a faint outline of silver among the clouds. Gradually, the men rose, bidding each other goodnight, putting out the fires with a sigh, lighting their own precious stock of candles and treading to their tents through the illumination of the heavens.

The three men made their way back to their own tents, shared with three other men. The assignment of men to camps was haphazard, and many suspected there was no real system to it; men were left sleeping in solitary tents because all their roommates had died, while others shared tents with six other new recruits who stared at the few veterans with wide, frightened eyes—until they became those very same veterans.

Those three men lay awake for longer than usual that night. They stared at the ragged, fraying top of the sagging tent, shifting in their handed-down, faded, thin sleeping bags that were barely any better than sleeping upon the earth itself.

Johannes was gone now, and none of them harboured any delusions that he might stumble back into the camp a week from now, that familiar lopsided smile on his thin face as he explained how he had managed to lose his way in the desert. They could, however, remember him for one last time before letting go of him completely.

You think there’s always alcohol in heaven? Because I ain’t going to heaven unless I get a supply of endless drink, Johannes had said, looking up at the sky as if he might actually be able to peer through the clouds and find out what the state of affairs was in heaven.

His three companions glanced at each other, then away, their lips pressed together, the slight twitches of their mouths the only change on their blank faces.

You’re a bastard who’s going to hell if I ever saw one, replied Daved, raising an eyebrow at the indignant look Johannes gave as he digested the derisive statement.

Well, you’ll be coming with me as well, then, won’t you? All of you will be, since anything that I’ve done, you’ve done much worse, Johannes replied smugly, draining half his bottle in one large swig.

There’s probably liquor in hell too, come to think of it. That’s where all the drunkards go, innit? Angels would probably turn up their noses at that shit, don’t you think? Morlan chimed in, proud of himself for finding a solution.

Laughing, Johannes had raised his fourth bottle of the night, a faint pink tinge across his cheeks, and called out loudly, Well, I’d toast to that! To hell! He had drunk deeply from his bottle then, and his friends had followed suit.

To hell, indeed.

Eventually, the three fell asleep—their only respite from the fears that plagued them every waking moment. Except for death, of course. Death was the ultimate respite.

A hush fell across the camp, the only noise the slight rustling as sentries alternated shifts, some checking their guns and some throwing their weapons aside as they collapsed upon their worn sleeping bags. The nurses worked all night, tirelessly tending to the sick, prompting more than a little admiration from the soldiers despite the nurses’ stringent refusal to hand out painkillers unless absolutely necessary.

The stars twinkled over the camp, illuminating the peace that had stolen over the fighters like a whisper, there for an instant and then gone before they had even a chance to feel any tranquillity. Morning seemed to come in an instant, as if the time in between had never passed at all.

As the first tell-tale signs of dawn appeared, the sentries readied themselves for yet another day of death, fixing their armour and eating what they thought might be their last meal. The soldiers were awakened by nurses and groggy roommates, told that another day had come—the sun was to rise upon the carnage of war one more day.

The same chaos was occurring some distance away in the Moiraian camp, as men who wore the same fear but different emblems, the same pain yet different colours, rubbed the sleep out of their eyes and prepared to either die or watch their comrades die in front of their very own eyes, helpless to do anything else.

The same hopelessness permeated the air, making it heavy and hard to breathe, as if their armour had been fastened too tightly.

***

The day before

Johannes Kepler had been named with the hope that he too would revolutionise his chosen field, creating laws in his name that would endure through the ages, helping thousands of people in his future. Rather ironically, he had been anything but a high-flier, disappointing his ambitious middle-class parents as he stumbled his way through schooling, barely making it into the Guild of Knowledge, the lowest-class guild in their town.

A chubby, pasty-faced child, Johannes had always kept his eyes on the floor when talked to; his teachers were of the opinion that he was utterly forgettable. Girls giggled at him, the kinder ones waving pityingly to him, while the less kind ones openly snickered as they pointed to his paunch.

His parents had never specifically expressed their disappointment, but he was clever enough to see the signs. Their faces tightened the moment his teachers shrugged and said he’d be better off finding a low-paying job at a restaurant, that he had no chance of getting into a good guild or apprenticeship with his marks. Their smiles dimmed the moment he came home from school, and they never said anything about his results improving.

They had taken care of him, but his name seemed to have cursed him, for the more they pushed, the harder he fell, becoming more and more mediocre until his parents resigned themselves to the fact that he wasn’t going to make them the proud parents of a national sensation. He’d never even had a chance.

The moment the draft had been instituted in Fallshé, everything changed. He was forced to attend six weeks of the military training academy, along with two hundred other recruits, and he lost the shapeless mass of fat that had always caused him such shame. It was replaced by wiry muscle, and the nervous stutter, slumped back, and mediocre results were replaced by a man who charmed all with his self-deprecating humour, who could hold his own in a fight, and who people gravitated toward. He became someone, and although he knew his new identity might come at the cost of his old life and family, he didn’t mind—at least, not within the confines of the academy.

He’d been twenty-four, well above the required draft age of eighteen. And now, at age thirty-nine, as he lay bleeding in the ditches of the desert between the Fallshian and Moiraian camps, he wondered if this was how he was going to die.

***

While drinking heavily, Johannes had told his mates he needed to go relieve himself. After buttoning up his worn pants and preparing to return to his group of soldier friends, he had felt a hand go across his mouth, silencing him, while he felt the cool caress of metal across his throat.

He was going to die here, now, under the stars, far away from his dull-faced mother and grim father, separated from his friends, his brothers, who had drunk with him and fought beside him. This was a war, and he wasn’t even dying on a battlefield.

He felt a hysterical laugh rise in his throat, along with his last meal, and he quickly choked both down, fully aware that his death could be much more painful than necessary if he resisted his attacker.

Johannes. The voice was frantic, nothing like the cold, self-possessed voice of an assassin.

Johannes felt his stomach drop as the blood flowing in his veins turned to ice, even as the hand across his mouth disappeared. He knew that voice. Morlan?

Shut up, please—you never know who’s listening.

I don’t give a fuck who’s listening—let them hear! Why do you have a knife to my throat? If this is some sick joke, it’s not very funny, Morlan, Johannes said, half-convinced this was some kind of hallucination brought about by his mind.

Listen to me. Morlan’s voice hissed, and Johannes stilled. The voice was Morlan’s, and yet somehow it didn’t sound like Morlan at all. It had a manic edge to, a roughness that cut like a saw, and with a shiver, Johannes wondered if Morlan had gone crazy, unable to bear the bloodshed any longer. Listen, Johannes. They’ll never let us out.

Who— he began, but the knife dug deeper in his throat until all he could think of was the steel pressing again his veins, against his soft, vulnerable skin, the metal breaking that skin, blood spraying, the life going out of his eyes as he had seen it flee from the eyes of too many others.

Don’t interrupt me! You need to listen to me, okay? Johannes, they’ll never let us go back. They are evil. All they want is to keep us coming in, like sheep, until the entire country is too tired to fight and they can use us until we become a watered-down version of the Moiraians.

Holding back a scoff, Johannes let Morlan continue, acutely aware of the blade pressing against his throat.

I want to help save us from this fate! We’re already in hell, don’t you see? Please tell me you see it, Johannes! I need you to believe me! I know you’ve been indoctrinated by the Fallshians, but I’ve figured out their game.

I believe you. Please! Please, I believe you, Morlan. I just need you to remove the knife so we can figure out what to do, Johannes said, unable to bear the pressure on his neck for even a second longer. There was a pause where he could feel Morlan’s heartbeat, beating like a runaway rabbit’s.

Listen to me, Johannes. I know that you’ll run back to the camp and raise the alarm the moment I let you go, so you need to understand me. Morlan’s voice sounded as if the strings that made up his mind were beginning to unravel and fray, peeling off one by one until he was left a raving lunatic.

Swallowing nervously, Johannes said nothing, still hoping to find even a shred of the pleasant, rational man he had conversed with barely minutes ago.

I need you to understand! We’ll all die here, our corpses rotting and piling up on the battlefield. The country will collapse. But I’ve figured it out! If we run away, people will assume we’ve died, and we’ll be able to find a new life for ourselves. You hear me? You and me, and maybe a couple others. We could do it, Johannes—just think of the possibilities! Free from the war, free from that enslaver of a country!

Swallowing the counterarguments dancing on his tongue, Johannes prepared to move. He couldn’t