Lord of Secrets

by Breanna Teintze

  I grasped the ring of the trapdoor and yanked it open. A set of wrought-iron steps wound down into utter darkness. I dug through my satchel and scribed an illumination spell on the inside of my forearm, hardly feeling the pain that slid through me when I pronounced it. The ball of soft blue light travelled down the steps. It wasn’t a mere cupboard, then. I went down the steps before I could think too hard about it.

  The area was about the size of a decent cellar. It contained a table and a shelf, which held a collection of carefully-sealed scroll tubes. The table was empty except for a box made of delicate, lacquered red wood.

  I moved my illumination spell around the walls and floor, but I couldn’t find any more runes. The box was the right size to hold two gems. I flicked the latch and opened it.

  Two pieces of polished, almond-shaped obsidian with sigils carved in their centres gleamed in the dull light. If I had been choosing stones to represent Jaern’s eyes, they were exactly what I would have picked.

  I slipped them out of the box and considered putting them into my satchel, with the others. But it felt almost sacrilegious to be carrying runes around, knocking against my reagents and the dozens of tiny sigils engraved on the doll itself. I didn’t know how the doll worked, after all. What if the runes interacted, like spells in a book?

  What if Jaern got hold of the satchel? What would I have, at that point, that could restrain him?

  I put one of the pieces of obsidian in the bag with the rest, and transferred the other to my pocket. I still didn’t feel like I’d taken adequate precautions, but hells, I was carrying a soul-moving doll – adequate precautions didn’t exist.

  When I climbed the stairs, Brix was still hovering in the doorway. ‘There you are.’ She sounded anxious. ‘Did you find it? Do you have all the pieces?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ I shut the trapdoor, walked out of the tower and closed the other door behind me. I glanced at Brix. There was a disturbing flatness in her face, the same sort of emptiness that I was learning meant that something was very wrong, indeed. ‘What’s the matter? Has Jaern been bothering you, or something?’

  ‘I haven’t touched the woman, Cricket.’ Jaern hadn’t moved, his eyes lingering on the wards. ‘Not all of us have the same hobbies.’

  ‘Watch your mouth,’ I said.

  His lips twitched. ‘Why, did I mumble?’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ Brix said, and with a sudden, instinctive certainty I knew she was lying. It showed, in the pallor under her freckles and the tight lines of the muscles in her throat.

  ‘Brix.’ I drew closer to her, turning my back on Lorican and the necromancer. ‘You can tell me.’

  For a moment, I thought she was going to. She studied me, weighing her words on some scale I couldn’t see. Then her eyes dropped to the satchel.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she repeated, at last. ‘Really. It just . . . hit me, I suppose. It’s been a lot of fear and suffering and death, and for what? An ugly metal baby and a few carved stones. I was almost hoping that the last pieces wouldn’t be there after all.’ She blinked, and gave me a forced smile. ‘What do we do with the doll now? Do we start putting it together?’

  ‘That’s my question, too.’ Lorican stood behind Jaern, his hand casually resting on the hilt of his dagger. ‘How is this going to help Acarius?’

  ‘Acarius is locked up.’ I paused, unable to get the words maybe without a soul out of my mouth. Disquiet crackled in the air, and I couldn’t find the cause. ‘I think the doll is sort of a . . . key.’

  Maybe it was unjust, but I knew something was wrong, and Lorican was the person I didn’t understand. I had been hoping he would prove himself one way or another. Until he did, I wasn’t going to talk about my plans openly – and I was going to keep the piece of obsidian separate from the rest of the Empty One. ‘The next step is to analyse the doll, and it’s getting dark.’ I started towards the cabin. ‘What do you say we discuss it in the morning?’

  *

  Two bedrooms for four people meant some scrambling. Jaern had to have Acarius’ room, for the simple reason that the doorframe had magic locks carved into it, and I wanted to be able to shut him in while I slept. I expected to have to force him into the room, but he went with just a token sarcastic snort. Lorican declined to sleep indoors, and made himself a bed on the porch, where he could watch the horses and the stars. Which left Brix and I standing awkwardly in the sitting room, staring at each other.

  My satchel hung, heavy, off one shoulder. I hadn’t put it down yet. I needed to look at the doll and the gems calmly and figure out how they all worked together. Jaern could have been lying, of course, but the bare possibility that he wasn’t – that my grandfather was trapped, soulless, suffering – had been sitting in my chest like a stone. I had to clear my mind enough to think, and find some way to get Acarius his soul back without letting Keir capture the doll. But I also had to sleep, just for a couple of hours. It really didn’t matter where, as long as I kept the satchel under my pillow and scribed a spell or two before I went to sleep. Even if my weary suspicions were accurate and Lorican was a Guild spy, I didn’t think he could get the doll away from me.

  Meanwhile, Brix looked exhausted and strained, almost grieved. She needed rest, at the very least. She needed safety, too, I reckoned, and maybe someone to say something reassuring, but I was terrible in both categories. I decided to attempt gallantry. ‘Take the bedroom. The mattress is lumpy but the blankets in the chest at the foot of the bed should be clean.’

  ‘Your bedroom,’ she said.

  When she put it like that—

  My ears went hot. ‘I’ll sleep on the hearth.’

  She went into the bedroom, and I heard her moving around for a long time, presumably hunting for blankets. I banked the fire, sat down cross-legged and tried, unsuccessfully, to quiet my mind.

  But she came back and seated herself exactly where I had said I’d sleep, on the warm floorboards in front of the fireplace. She didn’t speak, didn’t even turn to look at me, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Eventually I let myself focus on the sinuous dance of the heat over the coals. Sometimes, watching a fire die, I can manage to let my thoughts spool out into nothing. Not that night, though. Not with her sitting that close to me.

  ‘Your grandfather,’ she said, after a while. ‘You said he talked to you, but you don’t know where he is. Why didn’t he just tell you where he was?’

  ‘Because he’s a stubborn bastard,’ I said.

  ‘He’s not the only one.’ Brix sighed. ‘It was because he didn’t want you to be arrested charging in to some Guild stronghold to get him, wasn’t it? I’m not trying to pry, Gray. It’s just . . .’ She paused. ‘It seems like this is hurting you. I know my mother wouldn’t have wanted me to hurt. Are you sure that your grandfather wants this for you?’

  ‘You know your mother’s voice?’ The words came out before I knew they were in my mouth. ‘Remember what she looked like, things like that?’

  I turned my head in time to see a frown appear between her eyebrows. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘I can remember my mother sick, coughing up bits of her lungs, and sacrificing a chicken to try to get better. That’s all. And I don’t even know my father’s name.’ I gave myself the luxury of studying my own left thumbnail. ‘My mother died when I was three. Red plague, I think. We lived in one of the river villages. I suppose the families were doing their best by me, passing me from house to house. At least I ate, most of the time. Then, when I was five, they apprenticed me to a tanner.’

  ‘Tanner.’ Anger boiled under the surface of her voice. ‘The same tanner who gave you the brace?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ I ran my hand down my shin, where the bone felt naked without its usual bolstering of copper and leather. I felt naked, all my broken pieces displayed, all the jagged edges there for her to cut me with if she chose. ‘One afternoon the beatings escalated. I forget what I did to spark it, but it ended wh
en I crawled under the woodshed and wouldn’t come out. I didn’t know any magic except a few chants my mother taught me. All I knew how to do was call for help.’ I pinched at my kneecap. It didn’t hurt, but it’s hard to resist the ghost of old pain. ‘Acarius heard me, and came. She must not have had the strength to call for him, at the end. He didn’t even know she had died.’

  She was still, but the line of her body was taut. ‘How long were you under that woodshed?’

  I shrugged. I couldn’t remember; it had been at least three days. ‘The important thing is that Acarius took me out of all that. Raised me. Gave me everything I have. Loved me, I guess.’ I paused, and had to swallow. ‘I can’t leave him. Even if he wants me to. I can’t.’

  ‘You’ll save him.’ She almost seemed to be reassuring herself. ‘You’ll find a way.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so confident,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll find a way because you have to,’ she said. ‘Like me. I have to find my sister and free her. There isn’t anything else for me.’ Her hand found mine, fingers intertwining. ‘I think you understand that, maybe better than anyone I’ve ever met.’

  Her touch was, perhaps, meant to be soothing. Instead it sent a ripple of fire through my gut, disorientating, intoxicating. I scrabbled desperately for something sensible to say, some way to hide what I was feeling. She looked at me and, deliberately, moved her hand to my knee. Then to my thigh.

  ‘Brix,’ I said, unsteadily.

  ‘Did I make a mistake?’ she said. ‘Do you not want this?’ The firelight outlined her features, her face tipped up towards mine, lips parted just a little. She was made of gold, and I wanted her like a drowning man wants the surface.

  ‘I do,’ I whispered.

  She put two fingers on my mouth. ‘Then stop talking.’

  I kissed her fingertips and then her lips, and for a long time there was only her – her heartbeat thudding against my chest, her fingers in my hair, her lips crushing mine against my teeth. When she pulled away, she was trembling like a person who’s tripped and fallen. She reached for me. ‘Come on.’

  I let her take me by the wrist and lead me towards my bedroom. There wasn’t anything else in the world, just the unhurried sway of her body under the robe, the way the firelight caught her hair, the way she looked back at me.

  Brix turned and slipped my satchel off my shoulder, to the floor, then slid her hands up to the laces of my shirt. I was fumbling with the buttons on her robe when I realised she was still trembling. I stopped. ‘We don’t have to,’ I said. ‘If you’re not sure. We can stop.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Brix said. ‘I wish I wasn’t.’ She stepped backwards. ‘I’m sorry.’

  It took me three heartbeats to make any sense of it, of the reeking alchemical paint, of the unshed tears in her eyes.

  I looked down. I stood inside an inexpertly-scribed but very effective prison circle.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Her chin quivered for a split second before she clenched her jaw. ‘I didn’t want to do this, Corcoran,’ she said, hoarsely. ‘I didn’t have a choice.’ She picked up my satchel and moved to the door.

  I didn’t have to try the edges of the circle to know that it would hold me, at least for the next few hours. ‘Brix.’ I knew it sounded pathetic even when I said it, but I couldn’t help myself. This couldn’t be real. ‘Please.’

  She didn’t look back. She did that much for me.

  Seventeen

  I suppose you expect me to tell you my heart was broken, or that I was gutted, or some other trite poetical nonsense. The bards will have you believe that you can watch such moments go by, chronicle every thread of pain that stitches itself through you. The truth is, sometimes they hit you like hailstones. All you do is go down.

  So I don’t know how long I crouched inside the circle, trying to make sense of Brix’s leaving, as though understanding her reasons would make it hurt less. Eventually I realised I was cold and sitting on the ground in my unlaced shirt. Exposed. Stupid. I had been so stupid.

  The indications hadn’t even been particularly hard to spot. There was the way the Guild kept appearing, no matter how discreet I was. Their divining hadn’t got better; Brix had simply kept the tracker ring I’d taken off her in Fenwydd, the one I’d told her to throw away. Then there were her questions about whether I had all of the pieces of the doll, and her uncanny knack for tolerating me – I should have seen it. Keir Esras had known exactly which bait to use with me, and I had risen to it like a good little fish.

  And gods, the things I’d thought about Lorican. The things I’d said.

  Stupid. Stop this.

  But I couldn’t stop. I sat there, blind as a stunned bird, remembering how to breathe. Finally, I made my mind count off the runes and start to analyse the prison circle.

  The circle was scribed in blue paint, which made it more long-lasting than if she had used red. Maybe she didn’t have any other colours. It was also a classic set of sigils, written as though it was copied from a model. Which it probably had been, come to think of it. I didn’t see Brix as being a natural for spell-casting – but then, I didn’t really know her, did I?

  Stop it.

  The only thing I had to do in that moment was get out of the damn circle. It didn’t matter why she had done anything, didn’t matter what I had been fool enough to hope for. There was a puzzle here, and I had to solve it.

  It wasn’t as harsh a spell as I had initially feared. And the circle had a time-dependent component; it would only be effective for six hours or so – which would be long enough for Brix’s trail to go hopelessly cold. But I didn’t have anything to scribe with, so I couldn’t alter the spell. Which left two options: I could either erase part of the circle, or call someone else to erase it. I reached for the runes.

  My hand stopped, as though bumping a glass wall, a half inch from the blue paint. I must have missed something. I scanned the runes again, willing my wits to engage. I couldn’t afford to do this now, dammit.

  There it was, my name in the upper half of the circle, surrounded by twisting sigils – the circle was locked, keyed to me like the wards on the tower had been, but in reverse: I was the only one who couldn’t get out of this. I wouldn’t be able to cross the paint, or touch it. Still, circles could only be keyed to one person at a time, which meant Jaern or Lorican could help me. Jaern was locked in Acarius’ room. I cleared my throat and cupped my hands around my mouth to shout for Lorican.

  Only I didn’t shout. I couldn’t make a sound. She’d silenced me, too. Of course she had.

  You’re missing things. Calm down, quit feeling sorry for yourself and think.

  I put both hands on the back of my neck and closed my eyes. I had to quit feeling things, period. If I hadn’t been so damn guilty. If I hadn’t been so damn lonely—

  My mind wouldn’t allow me not to make the connections, wouldn’t stop chasing back through my memories for proof. She’d tried, after all. She’d told me what all this was about, what she was playing for.

  Anka, the sister. For whatever reason, Brix couldn’t buy her freedom without selling me. It would have been an easy choice: her family over a skinny, sarcastic malcontent.

  Think. Solve the puzzle.

  ‘Well, Cricket.’

  I opened my eyes.

  Jaern stood in the doorway of my bedroom, observing the situation, the firelight from behind him throwing his shadow across the floor. ‘Here we are,’ he said. He sat on the floor, a few feet from me, and rested his chin in his hands. ‘So, what are we going to do?’

  I couldn’t speak, but I could be creative with my gestures.

  He didn’t seem offended. ‘Very high-spirited of you, but less than efficient. I assume you’d like me to get you out of that circle so you can go chasing after the little bitch, correct?’

  My hand slammed into the invisible barrier around me before I had time to realise I was on my feet, trying to hit him.

&nbs
p; Jaern didn’t move. ‘Still so sensitive?’ He reached forwards and rubbed out part of the circle – just part of it, the silencing component.

  ‘Bastard,’ I said. I was still stuck. ‘You were locked in.’

  ‘My parents were married, as far as I know.’ Jaern brushed the flakes of blue paint off his fingers. ‘And a lock only works when the prisoner doesn’t know how to make a key. Are you going to tell me what happened?’

  I could make him let me out. I had his soul. All I had to do was concentrate and command him. I opened my mouth.

  He held up a hand. ‘Or force me to clear the circle, and let me read it from your insides myself. Your choice.’

  He was trying to make me angry enough to be foolish. I took a breath. ‘What?’

  ‘I am being patient with you,’ he said, ‘because your necromantic education has been so shamefully neglected. Did you think there would be no consequences, when you use my soul to order me around like a servant? Did you think my soul wouldn’t be me, poking around in your thoughts?’ He stood, nose to nose with me. ‘Every time you force me to do something, I learn more about you. I see a little deeper into your memories. I swim a little further into your desires.’ He smiled. ‘More intimate than I suspect you intended.’

  ‘You’re a liar,’ I said.

  ‘When I feel like it. But I still know about the time you saw Brix’s tattoos across her chest, and you recognised the binding sigils, the communication spell. And I know what you said to Acarius, that last time you saw him here, when you had that nasty argument.’ He clicked his tongue in mock disapproval.

  Needles of ice jabbed into my chest. I hadn’t told anyone about the argument. I didn’t even like thinking about it.

  ‘Does this conversation have a point?’ I said.

  ‘I’m just talking some sense to you.’ He squatted and stared at the runes. ‘You should take my help.’

  I crossed my arms. ‘You don’t want to help me. You just want your soul back.’

  ‘And you want to be rid of it.’ He rubbed out one character and then let his hand hover over another, as though he was considering. ‘Unluckily, to extract my soul we need that doll that you just let the bitch steal.’