by Carol A Park
He tugged at the string a few times, making sure it was secure, and took the torch back. “You can’t tell me you’ve never sought solace in the arms of a man.”
“You assume I need—or even want—solace.”
It was an act, an act so good he was sure she believed it herself. He knew it as surely as he knew the isolation that ate at his own soul. He didn’t know how he knew, only that he knew. “I’m sure even people like you get lonely.”
She met his eyes. “There is no solace for people like me.” She broke the gaze to peer around the corner again.
He wanted to argue with her, but he sensed that would get nowhere. So instead, he asked, “Why are we standing here?”
“I’m making sure none of the beggars are following us.”
“Ah,” he said. “They seemed jittery.”
“Wouldn’t you be, when strangers are known to show up at random and haul you away to a workhouse?”
He blinked. “The authorities know they’re down here?”
She let out an exasperated breath. “Of course they do. Sewers, workhouses—as long as no one can see them, do they care? But every once in a while, they think it a good show—or perhaps sport—to raid the sewers and drag a couple beggars back up where they belong.”
She bit the final words off like they were her last, and again, he couldn’t help but wonder at her. Why was she an assassin? She ought to have been a leader of some people’s advocacy group, or the like, with her sensibilities running so sympathetic to the blighted of society.
Footsteps down the tunnel made him tense, and Ivana’s dagger was in her hand in an instant, but she stepped out from the wall into the open. “Tenoch,” she said. “Did you remember something else?”
“They’re coming.”
Ivana cursed. Why were they being so relentless? She had been hoping they would give her up for lost in the sewers.
“Let’s go,” she said to Vaughn. He followed her without question, which was a nice habit he had, at least.
She picked up the pace, casting looks over her shoulder every so often. She had to eat another star-leaf with the increase in movement, to ward off the corresponding increase in pain in her leg. She was going to regret the amount she had taken in a few hours, but hopefully, by then, they would be somewhere safe.
She heard activity farther down the tunnel and halted, holding up her hand to Vaughn to indicate he should be silent.
He drew up behind her, and they listened.
Yes, definitely ahead. It could sometimes be difficult to tell the direction of sound down here. And yet Tenoch had said they were coming, which meant they also had to be behind.
“Can you turn us invisible yet?” she asked Vaughn.
He scratched at his chin. “Well…I can, but I wouldn’t trust moving with it right now. Not sure I can hold it perfectly.”
“Good enough.” She gestured to the ground. “Kneel.”
He raised an eyebrow, and after securing the torch he was still carrying in a nearby wall bracket, did as she asked. When he was on the ground, she clambered onto his back.
“Well,” he said, sounding amused. “This is exciting.”
“Turn us invisible and shut up.”
He did both, and they waited.
A moment later their pursuers came into view, two from behind, and two from ahead. They halted when they saw each other, brows furrowed.
Good, Ivana thought grimly. Now come together, have a nice conversation about it…
They did exactly as she hoped, meeting in the middle of the tunnel.
“You see them?” one guard asked.
Another shook his head, and then glanced at the out-of-place torch. “No, but I could have sworn…” He turned his back toward Ivana, and she leapt.
Vaughn grunted as she used him for leverage, but held steady, and she landed on the guard’s back.
“What the—” he shouted as he stumbled backward, trying in vain to reach his sword, while his comrades gathered their wits, and then Ivana caught his throat in the crook of her arm.
As he lumbered around with her weight on his back, clawing at her arm and gasping for breath, an arrow flew through the air and lodged itself in the thigh of another guard.
The guard yelped and fell to one knee. Two more arrows followed soon after that one, disabling the same number of guards, until finally an arrow found the leg of her own.
He stumbled, and she lost her grip on his back, but still she clung to him with her arm, using her own dead weight to prevent him from drawing air until he fell to his hands and knees. He tried to buck her off, weakly, and even managed to get his fingernails into her arm and draw blood, but finally he collapsed onto the ground, unconscious.
She drew her dagger, slit his throat, and then stood and surveyed the situation.
Two of the guards had decided it wasn’t worth fighting an invisible enemy and were limping back down the tunnel.
The last guard, on the other hand…
He had, apparently, at some point during her scrap with the first guard, hurled himself in the direction he had seen the arrows come from and was now wrestling with a visible Vaughn, bow knocked to the ground beside him.
She had just taken a step in their direction, when she heard the other two guards coming back.
She glanced that way, and her stomach dropped.
Not the guards. The Conclave.
Chapter Eighteen
Layers
Two priests stood in the tunnel, grim expressions on their faces, a cloud of incense already rising around them. One of the pair started intoning a rapid, snapping chant, and then raised his hand toward the torch. The flames at the head of the torch licked outward, as though seeking other fuel to devour, and then the priest jerked his hand toward Ivana.
She flung herself to the side just as a spout of fire streamed out from the torch and arced in her direction.
It fizzled against the sewer wall behind her, just as another spout headed her way, courtesy of the second priest.
She was forced to move again, and again, as they alternated chanting and throwing fire so that they could keep up an almost continuous offense.
To the abyss with the Conclave!
She used the moment of delay their magic required while finishing a chant to roll in close to them.
She came up right in the face of one. His look of surprise was still plastered on his face as he fell at her feet, blood spurting from his neck.
The second priest had time to begin a low, sinuous, drone before her arm flicked out toward him.
At least, she thought her arm had flicked out toward him. Instead, it cut through air.
She blinked and turned, finding the priest a foot away from where she thought he had been.
The drone rose in fervor, and when she tried again, she was hurled backward by what felt like an incredible gust of wind.
The priest’s invocation changed again while she caught her breath, and he held one hand directly toward her.
She didn’t have time to consider what that might portend, because a moment later, an arrow struck him in the chest.
His arm fell, and the incantation died on his lips. A split-second later, he fell to the ground himself.
She pushed herself to her feet and found herself trembling. She didn’t know if it was the excess surge of energy caused by the frantic fight, the overuse of the star-leaf finally taking hold of her body, or if it was merely the shock of fighting such a foe.
Or perhaps all three.
She turned, expecting to see Vaughn standing with bow in hand, pleased at having saved her life—again.
Instead, she found him on the ground, blood running from his nose and a purplish bruise growing at one eye. He had curled in on himself, except for one arm laying out limp to the side, silvery dust on his fingers. The last guard was standing over his quarry, satisfied that he had cowed the criminal.
He clearly had no idea that Ivana was still alive and that his two Conclave associates were dead, because
he didn’t even turn to look at her before she stabbed him from behind.
She knelt at Vaughn’s side. “Vaughn,” she said. “Vaughn!”
He opened one eye and tried to smile. “You look almost concerned,” he croaked out.
She frowned at him. “Can you move?”
He grimaced and tried to sit up. “Temoth,” he said, huffing a bit, and then managed to prop himself back against the wall. He pressed at a spot on his side and then breathed out. “Thought I might have had a broken rib or two, but I think it’s only some nasty bruises,” he said. “He was trying hard not to kill me.” He let out a short-breathed chuckle. “That’s something, huh?”
She didn’t reply. It would be so easy to leave him here. He would just slow her down. It was clearly the most practical course of action.
His smile faded, as if he could read her thoughts.
She hesitated. But she might need his aether, yet. The warmth of the blood still oozing from her aching leg attested to that.
So, instead, she handed him a piece of star-leaf. “We need to get out of here before the other guards realize their comrades aren’t coming back.”
Relief spread across his face. He ate the leaf, made a face, and then struggled to stand. She helped him as much as she could, letting him lean on her.
Vaughn glanced at the ground, as if seeing the bodies for the first time. His eyes dragged over the two dead guards and then moved on to the priests. “They sent battle-priests,” he said, disbelief coloring his voice.
“So it would seem.” She had never fought priests before. She wasn’t supposed to have ever drawn the ire of the Conclave.
His eyes lingered on the priest with the arrow through his heart, and then he looked away, eyes closed, lips pressed together.
“Get it out now,” she said. “We were out of time fifteen minutes ago.” And she was fading. She could feel the effects of the star-leaf starting to pull at her limbs, begging her to sit down for a little while, to rest.
He turned away from her, one hand bracing himself against the wall, and emptied the contents of his stomach.
She handed him another piece of star-leaf. “First person you’ve ever killed?” The aether on his fingers suggested he had used magic to do so. Impressive that he could be so clear-headed while being beat up.
He nodded, avoiding her eyes, and ate the leaf she offered.
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” she said. “If it were, you’d be like me. Can you walk on your own?”
He tossed his head, as if to fling off whatever was ailing him, in the process spraying a few drops of fresh blood from his nose onto her arm that mingled with her own blood.
He stretched a little, winced, and then stretched again. “I think I can make it for a little ways.”
“Good,” she said, letting go of him and turning away.
“You know, I can’t seem to get ahead. Every time I save your life, you save mine,” he said from behind her.
“Duly noted,” she said. “Next time, I’ll be sure to let you die.” She plucked the torch out of the bracket and strode off down the tunnel, trying to ignore the pain increasing in her leg again. She couldn’t take any more star-leaf, or she’d risk more serious complications.
“All right, all right!” he called, and his footsteps shuffled behind her. “Let’s not be hasty…”
Vaughn was worried, at first, that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with Ivana. He felt like…
Well, like someone beat me up. He grinned, though it wasn’t at all funny.
It had been a long week.
But the initial pace she set tapered off rapidly, and she started limping. He couldn’t see the bandage beneath her skirt, even as tattered as it was, but with all of the action she had seen since he had last wrapped it, he couldn’t imagine those stitches had held. If they had a moment to rest safely, he’d try to get her to let him look at it again. At the least, it would need a new bandage and another dose of aether.
They wound through the sewers for a little while longer—long enough that he was thoroughly lost. However, before long, they were clambering through the same hole in the stone they had come in through, traversing the cavern tunnel, and entering the broken cellar.
Ivana smothered the torch on the cellar floor and climbed up the ladder to the main floor. At the top, she pushed aside the trap door. As she started to lift herself up, he put his foot on the bottom rung—and one of her feet slipped.
She swore and caught herself before he could reach up to do the same. But instead of climbing back up, she dangled there, putting her head against the top rung of the ladder.
“Ivana?” he asked, concerned.
She roused herself, muttered a string of curse words under her breath, and continued on.
When they had both reached the top, she went to the window and cautiously looked out through the crack left by the broken shutters. She then leaned against the wall. “We’ll be safe here for a little while. The city guard doesn’t bother with this area of the outer city.”
An intact bucket lay on the floor, and he wandered over to look down at it. “Is there somewhere to get water?”
She closed her eyes. “Move that barrel,” she said. “There’s a well.”
“That’s handy,” he said, doing as she said. There was a hole in the floor underneath, and a thick rope dangled down the edge. He pulled it up, but the end was frayed.
“Don’t lose the bucket down the well,” she said. “Or you’ll have every thief and smuggler in the city infuriated at you.”
Great. He tied the rope tightly around the handle of the bucket and then knotted it again. He lowered it down, and sure enough, heard the distant splash of water a moment later. He heaved the bucket back up and set it on the table.
He leaned down to inspect it. “Fresh?”
She nodded. “It’s drinkable.”
The taste was heavy with minerals, but it quenched his thirst enough. Then, he found a rag in the bag and went to a cracked mirror on the wall. He winced at his reflection. One eye was starting to turn black, and the other cheek had split and was surrounded by a nasty bruise. He peeled away the remains of the aether that hadn’t flaked off his face from his nose, which wasn’t broken, thankfully.
He turned back around in time to see Ivana sliding down the wall. She grimaced as she hit the ground, and then put her face in her hands.
“Ivana?” he asked again. She just shook her head slightly.
He brought the bucket over to her and set it down, and then settled down next to her. “Have some water.”
She picked her head up and stared at the bucket. Then she leaned forward and cupped her hands to drink, but spilled half of it down herself as they shook.
“Here—” He helped her hold the water by cupping her hands in his own.
She drank, and then drank again, and then sat back, eyes closed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Too much star-leaf,” she said. “It’s finally caught up with me.” She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.
“Is that dangerous?”
“Can be. But I didn’t have much of a choice. It was also dangerous to let myself be stopped by pain.”
He didn’t know what to say to that; only found that his sense of concern increased. “Is there anything I can do?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I took enough to cause any permanent damage,” she said. “A few hours of rest and I’ll be good as new.” She moved her leg and grimaced. “Well. At least as far as the star-leaf is concerned.”
He frowned. “Let me look at your leg again,” he said. “At the least, I can apply some more salve and fresh bandages, if not try to fix the stitches.”
She exhaled and jerked her head.
He took that as acquiescence and got up to retrieve the bag of supplies.
But when he returned, he found her head nodding to the side. “Ivana?” he asked, placing one hand on her shoulder. “Ivana.” He shook her, but she
didn’t respond.
She was already sound asleep. He gently lowered her to the floor and stripped off the blood-soaked rags holding her leg together.
What he found was not encouraging. The salve had helped to bind the deepest wounds faster than they normally would have healed, but the entire area was an angry red and was starting to swell. The stitches had indeed pulled out in a number of places, tearing the skin further. He did his best to clean the wound off with water from the well, and then applied a generous helping of the salve, with an equally generous serving of bindblood aether mixed in. But despite his ministrations, he was no doctor, and by the looks of it, that was what she needed.
He dug out the last of the clean bandages and wrapped her leg back up again. At the least, it would help to numb the pain for a little while.
He then set to the task of examining his own wounds. He dipped his rag in the water, crushed bindblood aether into it, and then pressed it against his face with a sigh. It could have been much, much worse, but he had taken one look at that guard and known there was no way he would win a fight with him. Knowing the guard hadn’t intended to kill him—a distinct advantage of being a Banebringer—he hadn’t given him a reason to apply more force than necessary to subdue him.
It was humiliating—his instinct was still to fight back, despite the circumstances—but he had learned to do what he needed to survive, and sometimes that meant fighting, most of the time it meant running, and occasionally it meant simply giving up.
At least Ivana hadn’t left him behind. For a moment, he was certain she had been about to.
He turned his eyes back to her. Ivana.
Sweetblade had been about to leave him behind. Had Ivana intervened? She was a mystery to him. Sweetblade was a hard, cold woman. Her other identity wasn’t particularly warm, but she didn’t seem purposefully cruel, like some sadistic maniac who enjoyed hurting people for the sake of it.
Even so, she held herself aloof. There was someone else buried beneath those two layers, someone he hadn’t been able to figure out yet. He didn’t know if she knew who it was anymore, and he couldn’t help but wonder about how she had come to the place she had in life. Could he pry it out of her? Could he get her to show a little bit more of herself—her true self?