She Hears AllâŠ
Mishka Silverfloe, the barely legitimised daughter of High King Torvin knows all about complicated family dynamics. Her father had to deny her existence for most of her life to save her from a tyrant king, her mother sold her into service to a minor deity for political advantage, her fiancĂ©, Kindean Onryn, turned against his family in a bitter war that saw Mishkaâs childhood friend, Killean, become her sworn enemy.
The war is over now, but the dust has not settled. Working as the Mistress of Whispers, King Torvinâs best spy, Mishka uses her unusual magical powers to hunt down dissidents intent on plunging the Land of Three Rivers back into war. After surviving a cave in, she discovers a plot that puts her on the trail of the elusive, and threatening, Sapphire. A mysterious insurgent who might prove to be even more deadly than the infamous Killean Onryn himself. Especially when, on the eve of her wedding, Mishka discovers that Sapphire plans to use the mind controlling relic, Gendrilâs Flute, to strike directly at her complicated and sundered family.
She Hears AllâŠ
Mishka Silverfloe, the barely legitimised daughter of High King Torvin knows all about complicated family dynamics. Her father had to deny her existence for most of her life to save her from a tyrant king, her mother sold her into service to a minor deity for political advantage, her fiancĂ©, Kindean Onryn, turned against his family in a bitter war that saw Mishkaâs childhood friend, Killean, become her sworn enemy.
The war is over now, but the dust has not settled. Working as the Mistress of Whispers, King Torvinâs best spy, Mishka uses her unusual magical powers to hunt down dissidents intent on plunging the Land of Three Rivers back into war. After surviving a cave in, she discovers a plot that puts her on the trail of the elusive, and threatening, Sapphire. A mysterious insurgent who might prove to be even more deadly than the infamous Killean Onryn himself. Especially when, on the eve of her wedding, Mishka discovers that Sapphire plans to use the mind controlling relic, Gendrilâs Flute, to strike directly at her complicated and sundered family.
Mount Haze, Northern Three Rivers â One Year Ago:
Another day, another rebel faction raid. Mishka Silverfloe hitched a sigh as she picked her way, carefully, through the dense, dank jungle covering the lower reaches of great Mount Haze. Everything was dripping and stinking in the fetid heat trapped under the canopy. The staccato beat of raindrops on leaves thrummed through her head, echoing the steady pounding of her footsteps and the almost inaudible groan of old trees breathing in the damp.
This close to the border with Past Tiger and the wildlife in the region grew some very sharp teeth. But it wasnât chittering monkeys or lone prowling panthers Mishka was on guard for. Death stalked her steps, creeping through the knee-high undergrowth with a phantomâs grace. Mishka had been leading her on a merry trek for the last fifteen minutes, skirting boggy waterholes and criss-crossing the raised, spidery roots of massive, hollowed out trees, just to give her hunter a workout. But her patience for the game was wearing thin.
She could be back in Delta City now, enjoying the clement weather, reclining on pillows and blankets laid out on the grass, sipping chilled white wine while nibbling on lacy wafer biscuits. Listening as the Delta City Philharmonic played Nebadiahâs Seventh Symphony with intended cannonade accompaniment. Kindean had bought the tickets weeks ago and a bottle of â52 Divinerâs White, just to make the prospect of a well-deserved day off irresistible. â52 had been a particularly fine year for her favourite vintage. She could almost taste the sweet but sharp wine on her tongue and smell the gunpowder in her nose.
She shivered hungrily, imagining the thunder of the cannon as the orchestra swelled to crescendo. A rapturous harmony of bombast and skill, the vibration thrumming through her bones like the best kind of magic. And beside her, quietly soaking it all in, fingers laced with hers, the man she loved. Total heaven.
But she wasnât in Delta City, was she? No. She was stuck in the stinking northern jungles, ankle deep in rot and leeches waiting for death to get a freaking move on. Ugh. That was it. Sheâd had enough. The time for fun and games was over. Those rebels werenât going to arrest themselves and she needed to get to the meeting spot before the idiots got too drunk to say or do anything incriminating.
She raised her voice to be heard. âIf youâre going to attack me, Sammia, get on with it, already. I have things to do today.â
A normal person would never have heard the attack coming. Sammia, Child of Death, knew how to use the trees, the undergrowth, and the dripping condensation to her advantage. Sheâd spent plenty of time hiding out with the rest of the Dread Four in Past Tigerâs jungles and the other womanâs movements were as graceful as they were economical. Alas, against Mishka, none of that mattered.
Mishka didnât see Sammia leap down from the sturdy bough of the tree behind her, but that didnât matter because she heard her just fine. She heard the rasp of her boot sole slip ever so slightly on the moss covering the branch as she launched herself through the air. Before that sheâd heard the creak of the bough, the tremble of the leaves at the end of the branch, the otherwise imperceptible intake of breath before Sammia committed to her leap. A normal person wouldnât have heard a thing. But Mishka wasnât normal. Thank the Torch Bearer, for that.
She struck out with a low leg sweep the instant Sammia landed behind her, using her momentum to complete her turn and back up the grazing jab she aimed at the other womanâs head. Sammia rolled to the right, lunging with a hooking kick of her own for Mishkaâs ankles as she came out of her roll. Mishka hopped over the kick and side-stepped to the left, fists up.
Sammia bounced to her feet, her grin a wet flash of white in the emerald gloom surrounding them. They circled each other, the ground slick and spongy underfoot. Sammia, Child of Death, wore the colours of the jungle well. Clad in tight fitting green silk trousers and smock with a dull leather jerkin crossed with straps for the weapon missing from her back. Not a complete surprise that Sammia had decided against leaping from a tree with a six-foot spear strapped to her back, but still, Mishka wasnât used to seeing her without her weapon of choice.
During the war a rumour had spread that Sammiaâs immortality was tied to her spear; take it and she would be rendered powerless. Needless to say, it wasnât true. All the same, Mishka cast a quick look around the treetops for any place the other woman might have stashed her spear. It might not be the source of her power, but she sure was prickly about people handling her polearm.
Sammia held out her arms, crouched low in a wrestlerâs stance, and twinkled her fingers invitingly. âCome at me, princess.â
Mishka grinned back at her, showing all her teeth. âDrop dead, Sami.â
The Child of Death lost her smile. âDonât,â she grumbled.
âAww,â Mishka drawled. âWhatâs the matter? Donât you like your pet name anymore?â
They continued to circle. Around and around the same tiny patch of free ground. Beyond the canopy, the wind shifted direction, causing a fresh deluge of raindrops to thunder down overhead. Mishka heard the shriek-squeal of an animal at the exact moment it became a pantherâs dinner someplace else in the jungle.
Sammia narrowed her eyes. âNo one calls me that.â
Well, not anymore. Killean was gone. Hopefully for a long time to come. Mishkaâs childhood friend-turned-enemy was currently sleeping his life away in Silent Hell and had been for the last five years. Which was something of a sore spot for his ex. Sammia was the only member of the Dread Four still free to roam the Lands of Magic. And her freedom was something of a technicality.
âIâm sorry,â Mishka simpered, âthat was insensitive of me. Iâm sure you must be â frustrated â with the way things are. I mean, who else but a blood thirsty lunatic would ever lie with you? And there just donât seem to be enough of those around right now. It must be so sad for you. No one to call you pet names. No one to give you back rubs. No one to â"
âOh, thatâs it.â Sammia launched herself forward, head low and arms wide in a front tackle that ploughed Mishka into the trunk of a tree covered in phosphorous toadstools.
As the breath whooshed out of her lungs, Mishka did wonder if goading the notorious killer had been her best idea to date. But not for long. Riding out the impact as her spine collided with trunk and fungi, she pressed her fingers together and cupped her palms, clapping them hard over Sammiaâs ears.
The other woman yelped and leapt free. Mishka licked her lips and curled them over her teeth before bringing her fingers to her mouth. Sammiaâs eyes widened. She threw up one hand, âNo, wait!â
Mishka did not wait. She took a breath and gave a sharp whistle. The shrill sound tore through the dank jungle like a musket rapport. Sammia was thrown backward by a solid wave of sound that sent her flying across the narrow clearing and into the undergrowth growing up between two trees. She landed in an undignified heap on her back.
The jungle was alive with sounds. Monkeys screamed. Panthers coughed out yowls of protest and a symphony of warm-blooded critters hidden in the ferns broke into a chorus of complaints, scampering deeper into the forest. Birds took wing, blasting free of the canopy, making the branches shake in their wake.
Oops. Not exactly stealthy behaviour, Mishka. She needed to remember she still had a job to do. Torvin would have words for her if she blew the mission scuffling with Sammia. She sighed, rolling her shoulders and scraped fungus stains off her back.
âYou okay?â she asked, as the other woman hauled herself out of the thicket.
Sammia rolled her eyes, âItâs not like you can kill me.â She cocked her head, smacking the side of her skull. âI could do without the ringing in my ears, though.â
âYou attacked me first,â Mishka reminded her.
Sammia plucked a broken stem from her froth of hair. âYou told me to do it.â
ThatâŠwas true, actually. Darn it. Mishka grimaced. âWe need to quit messing around and get on with the job,â she announced briskly, deciding her remaining dignity demanded she ignore that remark.
Sammiaâs look was droll. âYou know this is a waste of time, right?â
Of course, she did. She was supposed to be sipping wine with her beloved while the sky over Delta City rang with music and cannon fire. But that wasnât the point. It was never the point. At least according to Torvin.
âThereâs been an uptick in subversive behaviour in this region. As agents of Three Rivers Intelligence itâs our duty to investigate,â she said.
Sammia was not impressed. âItâs going to be the same as last time. A bunch of drunk yokels and Tiger ex-pats talking big in some disused mine in the mountains.â
Mishka sighed, shoulders sagging. âIt would be nice if just once they chose somewhere else to have their clandestine meetings. There are a couple of very good hunting lodges not far from here.â
âTheseâre amateurs,â Sammia scoffed, crossing the clearing to retrieve her spear from its hiding place in a patch of feathery ferns. She expertly strung the spear to her back without a mirror. âTheyâre playactors, not real rebels. Itâs not like in my day. Back in the war, we knew how to do things right.â
Mishka wanted to argue with that on principle, but Sammia wasnât exactly wrong. The Onryn Uprising had upended the balance of power across the Lands of Magic. Things could so easily have ended very differently for all of them had Dadarro been a little less deranged and KilleanâŠwell, never mind. That was all in the past. Right now, it was her job to make sure none of the disgruntled rebel groups popping up around the country harboured the next Killean Onryn in their midst.
She eyed Sammia warily. âJust remember you work for us now,â she warned, âget too misty eyed about the glory days and itâll buy you a one-way ticket to Silent Hell.â
âAnd youâll be the one signing the ticket, right?â Sammiaâs smile was caustic and nasty. Almost a provocation in itself.
Mishka crossed her arms over her chest and reminded her, âTorvin put your life in my hands.â
When the war had ended with Dadarro dead, Killean and the other members of the Dread Four locked away and Killeanâs army of Accursed falling apart without a leader to follow, it had made sense to hunt down Sammia.
Three Riversâ Intelligence had been tracking her since her split from the Dread Four during the war, in the vain hope that she might lead them to Killean. That hadnât happened and in the excitement of their abrupt victory, Riversâ Intelligence had lost track of the Child of Death.
Mishka had spent three months chasing whispers and hunting down leads until she finally caught Sammia in middle-of-nowhere Cow prairie lands. The collar should have been her crowning moment of victory and the final nail in the coffin of the Onryn Uprising. The least her father could have done to reward her for her good work was properly punish the war criminal.
Instead, he offered her a job.
Worse. He offered her the exact same job heâd granted Mishka after the war. The job of a Three Riversâ spy, working in the shadows to keep the country safe. A position that should be granted only to the most trusted patriots and citizens of the land, not a Green Peaks mercenary who made her name killing her fellow Accursed in the Valley Good Arena.
Once again, in a single thoughtless act, Mishkaâs father had managed to disrespect and invalidate all her hard work for the sake of his never-ending schemes. Yet, despite this being the pattern of a lifetime, Mishka never could shield her heart from the blow of disappointment.
âAn enemy in the hand is an excellent shield against our enemies hiding in the bush, Mish,â her father had told her when he first announced his intention to have Sammia work under her supervision.
The inanity of his delivery, puffing on his pipe as he sifted, listlessly, through the endless pieces of paper his clerk kept handing him, only added to her mounting fury.
They were in his private study, hidden behind a secret passage on the second from top floor of the Royal Palace. The room was still full of Minuidonâs junk. Elaborate swords in jewel crusted scabbards whose blades couldnât cut paper. Suits of armour strung together with wire, moth-eaten tapestries depicting a fabled draconic past that never really existed. Mishka wondered how her father could stand it.
Former High King Minuidon had been a tyrant and petty bully who had blackmailed her father with threats against her life for most of her childhood. If Mishka had her way, all evidence of Minuidonâs reign would be purged from the palace within a half hour. She didnât understand how her father could spend all his time surrounded by keepsakes of the man who had oppressed them all. He acted more like a squatter than the king of his own castle.
âThatâs not how that saying goes,â she ground out, clasping her delicate teacup with shaking fingers. The truly disgusting thing was, if she tossed her lukewarm tea in his face the guards stationed at the corners of the stuffy room would arrest her for treason. âSammia, Child of Death canât be trusted. In the name of the Light, she even abandoned Killean!â
Not that he hadnât deserved to have his beloved ditch him, but the point remained. Sammia had proven herself untrustworthy. She had no creed and no cause beyond her own self-preservation. Those were lousy traits in a friend and lover, but truly terrible traits in a spy.
A spy had to be willing to give up her life and honour in the name of king and country. She had to be willing to stomach any indignity and shoulder any insult in the name of Three Riversâ continued safety. Mishka understood that, so why didnât her father?
âWe canât let a potent symbol of the failed rebellion walk free, darling,â her father soothed.
âThen lock her up! For crying out loud, thatâs what we did with the rest!â
âWell, thatâs true,â Torvin temporised, âbut Silent Hell is getting a bit crowdedâŠâ
Mishka put her cup down before she shattered it in her bare hands. âDaddy. Silent Hell is part of an infinite expanse of magical energy outside the reach of time and space,â she reminded him through gritted teeth, âit doesnât get crowded.â
âWeâell, almost,â Torvin tapped his fingers against the drum of his pipe. His blue eyes were smiling when he focused on her. âI want you to work with her. Watch her. If the war taught us anything, itâs that we canât keep pushing our Accursed to the sidelines. So many of them are looking for a cause to believe in. I believe with your guidance, Three Rivers can be that cause.â
Mishka believed her father was full of it. There was no point in calling him out on it though. Torvin-the-Spark had multiple reasons for everything he did and he delighted in keeping all but the most trivial hidden from his closest advisors. Mishka wasnât foolish enough to flatter herself into thinking she counted as one of those.
Abandoning yet another failed teatime with her father, Mishka had risen from her cushion with a familiar ball of bitterness festering in her guts. âI want full authority to pass judgement on her conduct,â she warned. âIf I say she goes to Silent Hell, she goes, Father. No arguments. You may think a criminal can do this job as well as I, but Iâd like to see how well you rule without me in your corner.â
Her father beamed at her, outwardly proud, but Mishka, who had wiled away her adolescence longing for such a look, knew how empty it was. He wasnât proud of her; he was proud of the reflection of his own cleverness he saw in her place. He delighted in his manipulation as he forced everyone and everything to dance to his tune yet again.
âOf course, sweetheart,â he promised, âyou are my Princess of Whispers. You know I trust your word above all others. Now let me tell you about this group in the mountains. The rumours coming out of the region are alarming. They say this group know where the Firefly is. I want you to go and find out the truthâŠâ
âOi,â Sammia called, drawing Mishkaâs attention. âYou think this lot have the Firefly?â she whacked at a clump of bushes whose bladed leaves struck upward like a thicket of spears.
Mishka side eyed her hard. âWhy donât you tell me?â she suggested snippily. âYouâre the only person alive â well alive and awake â to have seen it this century.â
âSeen it, held it. Threw it at Bodaiâs head one time,â Sammia agreed before pointing out, âThat doesnât mean I know where it is now.â Her tone turned speculative. âI thought your lot snatched it up after the battle of Dragonâs Ascent.â
Mishka pursed her lips. âYou thought wrong.â
Memories of that final, hideous mess of a battle pushed up from the dark crevices in her brain where she shoved all her baggage. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. It was all indelibly engraved in her memory. Nadilâs blood soaking her gloves and clawing at her nostrils. Gunpowder clogging her lungs, coating her throat and the sight of smoking craters, torn earth, shattered rock, and ruined bodies filling her vision.
Two dragons twinned in the air, one red as a streak of blood the other black as soot, sinuous bodies wrapped around each other like two bits of string wound in a murderous knot. The sky was rent red and black, the clouds bloodied and stained by magic and battle. Ash fell like fat snowflakes, covering the smoking ground in a dull patina of grey. Fallen banners and pennants lay trampled all around her, belonging to her side and the enemyâs â if such distinctions meant anything anymore.
In that moment, cradling Nadilâs body in her arms, kneeling in churned earth charred black, as ash and ruin rained down around her, Mishka could do nothing but watch the battle raging overhead, transfixed.
She didnât know what to wish for, who to root for. In an instant, the cut and tried war of clearly delineated sides, who was good and who was bad, had been transformed. She knew well enough what defeat would look like, as the sky boiled in a vortex of incoming magical destruction and the ground rumbled in warning beneath her.
If the red dragon won, they were all doomed. Every battle her side had fought to this point, everything they had tried to prevent, was on the verge of coming true. Dadarro was ascendant. A feral god, spewing fire into the air, eager to tear the mountains down around them.
Bu the black dragon had his measure. The black dragon was vicious where the red was vainglorious. The black dragon didnât waste time knocking down mountains when he could lock his jaws around the redâs throat.
But what would happen if the black won, Mishka had wondered, awed into a sort of contemplative stupor as gouts of fire rained from the sky. Killean was not supposed to be on her side. He was not supposed to forfeit the battle so he could wade in to stop Dadarroâs ritual. He wasnât supposed to help her save Nadil. But he had and now Mishka didnât know what to think.
âI donât think they have it,â Sammia mused aloud. Her thoughts, at least, still focused on the present mission. But then again, Sammia hadnât been in the final battle. She hadnât seen the things Mishka had seen. Despite having been part of the group that had unearthed the Firefly, she had never seen its full power.
âNeither do I,â Mishka said. âBut King Torvin thinks someone does. Itâs our job to find them.â
Long ago, the great sage Myron created three relics, not that they were relics when he made them, but theyâd quickly gained the name due to their potency and legend. Each was an object of power so great, their individual names had been passed down through the centuries, accumulating numerous myths around them.
The Firefly, containing the essence of Eternal Flame, the very fire of creation itself, and said to grant its chosen wielder immortality. Gendrilâs Flute, once created as a gift for Myronâs son, an instrument with the power to control creatures of spirit and the Accursed. Lastly, the Sapphire Clam, said to bestow mastery of the Timeless Realm of spirits upon its holder.
Put them altogether and the person who held them became a living god. Undying and with the strength to control the most powerful magical beings residing in both the Material and the Timeless realms. Given all that, it wasnât surprising idiots had been trying to reunite the relics for centuries.
Most of the people who looked never had a hope of finding them, and many more had come to believe the legends were made up, until Killean had uncovered the Firefly in Dadarroâs name during the war. The Onryn had only found one of the relics, but even those who had not been at Dragonâs Ascent to see a column of fire skewer the sky, knew that the power unleashed by just one relic was enough to turn the land into a wasteland in the blink of an eye.
In the ash-stained moments between Dadarroâs defeat and Killeanâs capture, before Three Rivers forces had steamed over the lip of the crater, Mishkaâs father in the lead, the Firefly had vanished, meaning that when her father reached the bottom of the pit all he found was Mishka, clutching Nadil in her arms, and Killean, kneeling, panting in the dust, gasping against the strain of retaining his human form.
It said something about the respect â or lack thereof â her father had for her as an agent of Three Rivers that to this day he had never asked Mishka what happened to the Firefly. It said something about Mishka that she had never volunteered the information.
Because the thing was, Mishka didnât just root out secrets. She kept them too.
âThe wind was her friend. The air her servant.â
We briefly met Mishka Silverfloe in The Life & Times of the Traitor Killean Onryn as one of the three trainees of Torvin the Mage, connecting her (albeit unwillingly) to the anti-hero, Killean. The book ends, leaving readers with much to learn about this agent of Three Rivers, but here, in Mishka Silverfloe and the Secrets she Learned, is her story.
Mishkaâs fatherâs power is in speech, and although Mishkaâs magic was not inherited, hers is also in her voice... and ears. She shows readers how she weilds the power of the deity Koâsuhi, harnessing the air to do more than learn secrets and send messages. Dexterous with keen senses, and a voice that can literally shout down a door, the agent is not to be trifled with. She possesses a strong moral compass and sense of duty, but personal affairs tend to get in the way. Will the tension between herself and her father, her desire to be with her betrothed, and wrestlings with past secrets allow her to succeed?
Mishka Silverfloe and the Secrets she Learned straddles the events of Killean. Naturally, readers may want to skim over Killean again before they pick up Silverfloe. Beginning a year in the past, Mishka must complete a mission with a rebel-turned-ally, placing her in a position that involves trust and intrigue--two ingredients that donât mix well. Readers will learn about the events that occurred while Killean was condemned to Silent Hell, as well as how Mishka, Kindean, and Killean must stay one step ahead of Sapphire in the days after the war. Braiding current adventures with the past, A. R. Cunningham writes steadily between two timelines. Within these, memories resurface, revealing Mishkaâs past and giving insight into the story. While the time jumps can take adjusting to, they are effective.
Silverfloe offers a satisfying view of Mishkaâs magical powers but also centers her inner life. Her inner voice reveals both struggle and intense deliberationâthe analytical and deeply principled Mishka wrestles between reason and her gut.
As always, Cunningham masterfully wields vocabulary and visceral description, replete with apt analogies that draw rather than distract. While The Life & Times of the Traitor Killean Onrynâs humor often lay in repartee, Silverfloeâs can be found in description, bringing much appreciated levity to the story, while showcasing the protagonistâs highly tuned senses.
Often, readers of fantasy novels want to know the spice level: some like it hot, some not so much. Silverfloe delivers PG scenes involving deep love and sexual tension, without appearing prudish.
When writing fight scenes in a fantasy novel, authors often have to explain the magic system, fantastical weaponry, and the like without removing readers from the action. Cunningham navigates this artfully. Silverfloeâs action is succinct and perfectly paced; Cunningham fleshes out the physical prowess and magical elements, bringing readers into the adventure without overdoing it with unbelievable moves.
Overall, Mishka Silverfloe and the Secrets She Learned is an engaging next installment of the Relic Saga.