*
Clevwrith had always said the dark was her greatest ally. And she couldn’t deny that she had found a home, and a friend, and a devious partner in it.
But there was something about the rain. It tap-tap-tapped on the door to her soul, bringing her out of even the deepest sleeps, calling her out into the streets, her name whispered in the drizzle and spelled in the trickles between cobblestones. She would breathe in the sweet musk of wet pavement, tilt her head back to the sky and drink the downpour like one who had been wandering the desert for days.
There were tricks to be done with the rain, too. She couldn’t remember when she had learned them – if she’d taught herself or always known them.
But they hadn’t been taught by Clevwrith.
Tricks such as stalking someone through the downpour, knowing well they couldn’t see her through the opaque sheets of rain, but if she squinted and focused just right, she could peg the fleeting gaps between raindrops, her vision threading a vantage point to her quarry. Or hyper-focusing on a single raindrop – slowing down time itself, it seemed – to decipher a reflection and realize someone was following her.
Both tricks she used to track the king’s men through the Cob, when the following day found them determined to continue their search of the old district. She was surprised they even bothered, in this storm, but clearly they had orders they didn’t dare defy.
So they slogged through the deluge, splashing through potholes and poking into flooded nooks and crannies, looking for mermaids, it seemed, for Despiris couldn’t imagine what else they would find. And she trailed them and practiced her little rain tricks, delighting in her transcendent awareness, supposing it simply stemmed from some superior level of focus Clevwrith had drilled into her.
She’d gotten used to feeling superior to most of mankind, and didn’t question it.
Maybe if more people bothered to imagine they could rise above the norm, bothered to push their limits, they might find that the night, the rain – all the elements and forces at their disposal – would rally behind them and grant them the same wonders she experienced.
The miraculous was everywhere, if you simply bothered to look. And once you knew it was there, it was hard not to spend every waking moment staring at it.
Touching it.
Experimenting with it.
So for no other reason than delight, Despiris slunk after the king’s men, amused by their obliviousness and her own cleverness.
Now the alley was obscured by the downpour, a gray-washed canvas – and now, with little more than a shift of focus as with switching from near-sighted to far-sighted, the elusive frames between droplets painted a picture. Three men, hunched in the cold, drenched and miserable on their wild goose chase.
Then – a glimmer of gold, drawing her gaze to the side. That sense of slowing down time to suspend a single raindrop in her focus. A violet-cloaked, gold-clad figure’s reflection, miniscule and skewed in her unorthodox looking-glass, showed another guard down the alley next to her. A lone scout, separated from the group but projected to enter the alley behind her and hem her in between him and the others.
She changed course to avoid entrapment, slipping around to a new vantage point.
Now she watched the men coming her way, loving the thrill that was standing exposed in the center of the alley but knowing she was invisible. Looking for me? she thought tauntingly, backing slowly down the alley as they made painstaking progress toward her. This way, men, Just a little further. That’s it…
For a moment, she almost felt sorry for them.
But it was far too much fun.
It was only when the rain began to let up that she retreated, abandoning her little game for the day.
Although it was daytime, Clevwrith was in the lounge. Drinking tea and playing chess against himself, it appeared.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Despiris asked.
“I heard you get up.”
That was the problem of living with someone whose senses picked up on even a fly sneezing. Her comings and goings would always disturb him.
“You know me,” she said a little sheepishly. “I heard the storm.” It wouldn’t be the first time he’d caught her out in a storm, relishing the downpour. He’d long since accepted it as one of her quirks.
Nodding, Clevwrith rose and crossed the room to the tea cart. “Tea?” he asked, but didn’t wait for a response. She’d been out in the cold getting drenched to the bone; of course she wanted tea. At least, she was sure that was his thinking. She didn’t feel cold.
Porcelain clanked as Clevwrith stirred sugar into her brew. Turning, he offered the steaming teacup to her.
Despiris accepted with a grateful nod, holding the pretty cup to her lips.
Cocking his head, Clevwrith considered her curiously.
“What?” she asked when his gaze lingered, the examination a little too peculiar.
His fingers came up to run a strand of her hair through his fingers. “You aren’t wet.”
Not w–?
She touched her own hair, finding he was right. Well, that was odd. She had been out getting drenched, had she not?
She couldn’t explain it, and so, uncomfortable, she tried instead to dismiss it, taking a casual sip of tea.
Clevwrith’s thoughtful eyes shifted to her lips, watching her drink. As if he’d never seen her drink before. “Not too hot?”
She shook her head. “Just right.” Then, to dispel his strangely attentive gaze, she moved to sit at the chess board. “King’s men are still searching the alleys.”
“In this weather?”
“You must have really goaded the Lord Advisor.”
“Didn’t take much.”
“How long do you think it will take them to decide there’s nothing here?”
“I don’t think they’ll waste too much time. Especially once we point them elsewhere.” Clevwrith sat across from her, returning to his tea. It was comical, witnessing such a mysterious figure partake in such quaint, ordinary pastimes.
Maybe that was what Clevwrith had been thinking when studying the way she drank.
Ha. You’d like to think you’re as mysterious as he is.
“If the rain keeps up,” Clevwrith mentioned, “I thought we might run a wet course tonight.”
A keen spark ignited inside her. When the acrobatics and obstacle courses they bounded through on the daily started feeling routine and too-easy, they liked to renew the challenge and keep their skills sharp by running said courses wet. Nothing upped the ante like surfaces slick with rain.
“Unless, of course, you’ve had your fill of rain,” Clevwrith said, but the lack of inquisition in his tone told her he already knew the answer.
“Never.”
“It’s settled, then. At midnight, we run.”
*
The rain had reduced to a steady drizzle by midnight, not enough for Despiris to play the same tricks as earlier, but enough to paint the city hazardous. Despiris waited in the alley for Clevwrith, over-eager and ready early.
To warm up, she ran at the alley wall, calculated agility carving her path briefly vertical up the stone facade into a flip that landed her back where she started. Once, twice, thrice–
Clevwrith emerged on the fourth go, Despiris catching a dizzying upside-down visual of him approaching as she arced through the air. He was pulling on his gloves as she landed.
“Ready?”
“Catch me if you can,” she taunted, and then she was off.
They careened through the city at a breakneck pace, skimming over surfaces and barely making their vertical ascents. Every obstacle was a slippery slope, the constant give of tread beneath boot a relentless rush through Des’s veins. The scent of rain lingered thick in the air, filling her lungs like a euphoric drug.
Into a narrow alleyway they sped, leaping from the ground to kick off the right wall, then the left, then the right, then he left – a staggered pattern of upward thrusts that saw them bound aloft. Then
it was snagging a window ledge with slick fingers and flinging themselves higher, arm muscles burning but fingers already reaching for the balcony above as feet found ledge and pushed off again.
The course was unrelenting, one risky maneuver moving seamlessly into the next, each reliant on perfect execution.
From wall, to window, to balcony, to rooftop; down angled shingles and gutter drain pipes, over hurdles and bridges and wrought iron fences. It was a blur of adrenaline and muscle memory, a precarious terror of a ride not for the faint of heart.
When it was over, Despiris slumped with hands on knees to catch her breath, laughing like they had just gotten away with something, pulled a heist on fate itself. Clevwrith mirrored her stance, but straightened before she did. The fire in his eyes was beautiful, something primal and wild and alive glowing from within.
Walking past, he slung an arm briefly around her neck and kissed her sweaty temple. “You were glorious,” he praised, and then he was headed for the underground entrance to wash up, stripping off his gloves and shirt as he went.
Despiris caught a glimpse of his pale, muscled back before he disappeared. She finished catching her breath, the drizzle causing a kaleidoscope of ripples in the potholes around her. It was those ripples, and the darkness, that she blamed for not finding her reflection in the puddle at her feet.
But it was not the first time she stared into a pane of water, and the water failed to stare back.
11
Treason Cause
“And those proven treasonous shall be drawn and quartered, and made an example of to any who conspire against the crown.” – Outdated law practiced during King Tataunus’ reign.
*
Crow stormed down the spacious palace halls. Servants scattered at the sight of him, hiding behind great marble pillars and whispering behind his back after he passed. (It had been a peaceful day or two while he’d been away, and every employee in the king’s service – from stable boy to kitchen wench – had known the instant he returned.)
Crow paid them no mind. He muttered under his foul breath to himself, nonsense muttered just for the sake of muttering, and jerked severely at his robes when their billowing tangled with his strides. He was hard pressed to keep himself composed, brimming with agitation over how things had turned out.
He burst into the king’s private chamber, without announcement except for his intrusion, and silently cursed the young king’s grasp on impassivity. Crow’s impromptu entrance – which reeked of importance, surely, and was at the very least disrespectful enough to earn him a reprimand – resulted in no visible reaction. Catching himself before his exasperation could get him expelled from the king’s service, he halted and waited for permission to speak.
The king flicked a glance at him but returned to straightening his doublet in the mirror. A doublet that was already quite straight.
It was apparent to Crow that he was being deliberately forced to practice patience, and he stewed inside at the insolence. He was not a child. He was there to advise the king, for the gods’ sake. Did his seniority count for nothing?
When the king casually crossed the chamber and made himself comfortable at his desk in his green velvet cushioned chair, where he ignored Lord Mosscrow and silently set to work sharpening his belt knife, Crow decided the monarch had been born with a mean streak. Scrape after rhythmic, methodical scrape, the blade sparked gradually sharper.
Twitching with impatience, Crow coughed to get the king’s attention, and coughed once again more pointedly when the king took no notice.
“Where’s Osprey?” inquired Isavor at last. “Not ill with that cough of yours, I hope?”
Funny, your Majesty. “He is not ill, Sire. I don’t know where he is. Probably cowering in his bed from nightmares. I don’t think he fared well on our hunt for a shadowy menace who seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once.”
Isavor betrayed a hint of smile. “I take it, then, that you were not successful in your little jaunt?”
“Successful?” Little jaunt? “In a sense I was quite successful. I made a valuable discovery. On the other hand, that discovery suggests a new enemy to the crown, and one that poses a greater threat than any we have ever known.”
Isavor didn’t suddenly become rapt, but he no longer appeared bored, either. “I’m listening,” he said.
Crow produced the letter from the Hither and Yawn, handing it across the king’s desk. Setting his knife aside, Isavor looked over the missive. “There, at the bottom,” Crow directed. “‘Long live the king, and the Spylord’s reign’.”
Isavor considered this for an infuriating amount of time. “The point in question?” he finally prompted, and Crow all but burst with exasperation.
“My point is that no, we did not catch the Spylord, because he is far more cunning than a fox; he walks behind me like my own shadow, and haunts me like my own ghost. Our disadvantages are his resources. He can dance in circles around us without us growing suspicious of even a natural breeze. If he leaves footprints, then they must disappear, and if he makes mistakes, we’ll never see them as anything more than another twist in the intricately treacherous conspiracy he plays as his game. He could slit our throats in our sleep, and if we awakened as ghosts, we would never realize we had perished.
“Doubling security is not what I’m proposing. The multitude of the guard is irrelevant; he could slip in on our nightmares if he wanted to get in. The point is that this clever wraith that mocks your reign and shadows your streets is capable of anything, and that note you hold proves his intentions are treasonous.”
“Crow...I’ve known ants more inclined to admit they are wasting their efforts.”
“Your Majesty defines laboring to nip treason in the bud as a ‘waste of effort’?”
The king assumed a long-suffering expression and set the letter down on his desk to focus solely on his advisor. “Lord Mosscrow, if this shadow man really is as extraordinary as you make him out to be, then how do you expect to overthrow him? Would it not be the more clever move if we…say…befriended him instead? Employed him, even?”
Crow couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Now you wish to employ the miscreant?”
“I am just saying… If he is so outmatched, our efforts might be better spent not bothering to challenge him to begin with. If we do not take the bait and pursue him…” He shrugged. “Perhaps the narcissistic fellow would take the bait and relish the chance to be employed in the esteemed position of ‘secret weapon to the crown’.”
“You wish to employ the treasonous criminal mastermind.” Crow blinked, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong advising this man, that he should harbor such ridiculous notions. “Why don’t we just spring all of the murdering malefactors out of the dungeon and hire them as assassins, or that brute caught clubbing poor souls in Halloway Square and hire him as your personal bodyguard?”
“I believe you missed the point. You are adamant this man can’t be caught, and yet you request permission to pursue him. You insist he cannot be outsmarted, and yet you expect me to get behind making a move. What do you want from me, Crow? You are telling me it can’t be done, and asking to do it.”
“I am telling you I believe it important enough that I would risk failure, and ruin, and even death pursuing it.”
Applying that level of gravity finally seemed to get the king’s attention. For the first time, Isavor looked at his advisor with considering eyes, rather than annoyance or amusement.
“You really believe this” – he picked up the letter again – “justifies such dramatics?”
“He talks about his reign, Majesty. Clearly denouncing yours. I do not know if I can outwit him, but he is growing bold, encroaching on your territory, and I believe it would be a disastrous mistake to leave him unchecked. If my discretion is worth anything to you, Sire… I am asking for permission to dedicate myself to thwarting this threat. I do not believe it is ‘dramatics’. I believe it is duty.”
“You really are set
on this.”
“I know you have matters you would prefer to focus on. I am simply asking… Will you recognize the threat, Excellency?” He tingled with anticipation, feeling he was close. So very close, this time.
The king sighed. He read the note once more, thinking heavily on that treasonous last line. Then, eyeing the Lord Advisor over the top edge of the parchment, he came to a decision.
“I recognize the threat.”
*
Savoring his victory, Crow forgot about hauling Osprey from his bed and beating him for his absence (the poor soul had been traumatized after their haunting pursuit of the Shadowmaster, making holy signs on his chest and glancing with paranoia down every alley on their way back to the palace.) The Lord Advisor lay in his own bed, smiling for the first time in a very long time. Any threat recognized by the king, when the king himself was too busy with other matters, was then Crow’s to deal with as he saw fit.
Which meant, of course, Lord Mosscrow would have every man that could be spared searching for the Master of the Shadows day and night, night and day. He would demand detailed reports and study those reports like a sleepless student at University, taking notes and testing theories, analyzing every trick and turn until, if it was the last thing he did, he would get to the bottom of what was very possibly the land’s deepest and darkest mystery of all time.
12
Caught
“You are not the girl you used to be. You are something new. Remade. Reborn. That girl is dead,” Despiris had said to herself in the mirror, a daily affirmation during early Shadhi training. But same as the king’s men had misjudged her that night they left her in the alley, that girl was not as dead as she might think.
*
Despite ‘setting the stage’ for a real-life chess match with the Lord Advisor, Clevwrith let the heat die down over the next month. Despiris got the impression he took a certain pleasure in pointing the Lord Advisor straight at his hiding spot, and then sitting back to let the trail go cold and watch the chaos. It would be maddening for Mosscrow to follow such a clear lead and find absolutely nothing, and half of the fun, at least where Clevwrith was concerned, seemed to come from aggravating the man.
Girl of Rooftops and Shadows (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 1) Page 8