That, or it was merely taking him a while to plan their next move.
And so Despiris explored her freedom, a little ashamed to have wasted time pruning roses when she could be out arranging her own schemes. She wanted to make Clevwrith proud.
With that objective in mind – and quickly getting a taste for her own glory – she executed a series of independent heists to build her resume.
She stole an idol of the goddess of night Daalasia from the Museum of Ancient Artifacts; short-sheeted the beds at the Amber Acres Countryside Inn; snuck into nobles’ manors and replaced gems in ladies’ jewelry with resin-preserved beetles, and stag-bust trophies in lords’ offices with majestically terrible paper mache replicas.
While strange not consulting Clevwrith about each heist, she found a certain validation in pulling them off herself, every detail her own design from start to finish. It became routine, going out on her own, testing her skills and pushing her boundaries. Her insecurities about becoming a separate entity from Clevwrith evaporated. She was happy.
Only when she paused to regroup from her engrossing, fast-paced undertakings did she realize how little she’d seen of him lately. But when she went to find him, he wasn’t there. Out on his own devilish errands, no doubt. She peered around at the emptiness, wondering what he was up to.
Then exhaustion got the better of her, and she headed to bed, vowing to catch up with him another night.
But their disjointed schedules continued, and night after night they failed to cross paths. Slowly, they grew distant, becoming almost strangers.
*
Despiris was planning her next heist when she ran into a logistical snag. Unable to sleep as her mind turned over the problem, she got up to wander the city, donning a dress she kept stashed away so she would blend in with the womanfolk. A half-sleeved white shift made of gauzy, woolen material, with a navy-blue, velvet corset-like bodice laced over the torso, it was a plain garment that nevertheless left her utterly transformed. Leaving behind her sultry dark persona, she ventured out of the Cob.
Out of the Cob, into the open, through the throngs to the marketplace. She watched everyone going about their business, imagining herself in their shoes. These were the kinds of mundane things she would be doing if she had never been caught thieving and discarded like a dog in the Cob for the Shadowmaster to find. The hustle and bustle ambled by, looking, she thought, exactly like yesterday – an ironic thing to note, seeing as she hadn’t witnessed how yesterday transpired. But that was the point; it was all the same, every day, no excitement or surprises, a mind-numbing routine she couldn’t imagine being trapped in.
But she had not become so far divorced from her previous life that she didn’t notice something familiar about a ratty girl who slunk along the edges, keeping her expression carefully neutral as she perused the booths for opportunity. A parallel memory sparked, stopping Despiris in her tracks to watch. Once, she’d mastered her features the same way, feigning disinterest to avoid suspicion. It was a faulty tactic, to a more experienced eye. Everyone came to the marketplace looking for something. To not look made you suspicious.
Thinking she was being slick, the girl angled herself behind other customers at a fruit stand, staying out of sight of the shopkeeper as she selected her target from the peaches stacked at the booth’s edge.
But out of sight of the shopkeeper didn’t mean out of sight of the king’s guard. A trio in gold uniforms perused the street a few booths down, on the alert for trouble.
A splash of dread caught Despiris where she stood, anticipating what came next. The visual before her flickered, her past coming back to lay over the present like a nearly-identical lens. She saw herself in the girl’s place, redacting the notion that she couldn’t relate to these people. She could imagine all too well being in this girl’s shoes. Could feel the hunger, because she had lived it. Could feel the desperation, because she had felt it. Could see the siblings starving at home that drove the girl to risk everything, when all the guards would see was a thief.
And see the thief they did. They honed in on her telltale body language same as Despiris did, nudging each other and dividing to block off her escape routes.
What would become of this child, at the mercy of the law? What happened to child thieves, when they were tried as intended? One thing was for certain – she wouldn’t be left fortuitously in an alley to be found by Shadhi. That was a rare and coveted honor, not something likely to happen again in this lifetime.
The guards closed in on the girl.
A tight feeling clutched Despiris’s chest. No, she insisted, impassioned with empathy. Clevwrith did not have to be the one to save this girl. There was a Shadhi present who could intervene on this girl’s behalf.
The advancing guard grabbed the child roughly by arm just below the shoulder, yanking her away from the booth and snatching a peach from her hand. “Well, if it isn’t another marketplace maggot–” the guard began, but was cut off as the girl writhed in his grasp and chucked a peach from her other hand at his face. Startled at the smack of fruit to the head, the guard became angry, seizing the girl by a fistful of pale blonde hair to better control her. His other hand went to his face to dab at his cheek. “Why, you little mongrel…”
Despris hardly even realized she’d slid up her skirt to access the knife strapped to her thigh. But suddenly the blade was whistling through the air, neatly slicing off the girl’s hair above the guard’s hold. He stood staring at the handful of severed tresses in his grasp as his charge darted off through the crowd.
The knife clattered to the cobblestones. Despiris wouldn’t be getting that back without exposing herself as the culprit. But it was a worthwhile sacrifice – ah, wait. Someone was pointing at her and exclaiming something in alarm.
Hell. She’d been made. That’s what she got, pulling a stunt like that in broad daylight.
The little thief forgotten, the guards gave chase to what was now the bigger threat.
Despiris fled.
Looking for a shadow to lose herself in, she turned down an alley. But the daytime shadows were only faint impressions of their midnight counterparts. Her usual list of options evaporated in the midday sun before her. Agility was still her lackey, the element of surprise still her secret weapon if she took the chase to the rooftops.
She looked for a route up, sounds of pursuit spilling into the alley behind her. Sweat was already springing from her pores, the sun an oppressive element sure to tire her out faster than usual. And her dratted skirt, tangling with her legs with every stride… How was she supposed to perform in a skirt?
Suddenly the usual stepping stones to the rooftops looked twice as daunting, fraught with heightened impediments, and her calculations faltered.
Then exhilaration replaced her brief wave of doubt. Had she not been charged with testing her limits? This was indubitably an ideal scenario to do so. Rich with elements foreign to her, unstable with twists and turns impossible to predict, it was highly dangerous and unlike any challenge she had previously pitted herself against.
In a word, it was perfect.
Rising to the challenge, she abandoned her quest to take to the rooftops for a quick escape. She dodged in and out of unfamiliar alleys, taking every opportunity to taunt those who pursued her. Instead of growing alarmed when the guards nipped at her heels, Despiris found herself feeding off the close-calls, loving the rush.
Only when her lungs were bursting from the relentless pace did she return to the objective of changing elevation. Careening out of the alleyways into the open, she made a split second assessment of the shops along the street.
There! A carriage parked in front of a shop with a low-hanging roof. Wasting no time, she skittered across the cobblestones and vaulted up onto the carriage, lurching as her knee caught on her skirt. The carriage quaked from her rough transition. With a grunt, she forced through the hampering skirt, the sound of ripping fabric punctuating her rise. Finding her balance, she leaped to the roof, once again
finding her legs irritatingly restricted. Dratted droves of dress! This would never do.
Stumbling, she hiked up her skirt, attempting to flee across the rooftops with the same swift grace as usual. But she felt clumsy as a babe, the fabric still managing to find its way underfoot, tripping her every few steps.
A margin of panic returned. Why had Clevwrith never made her practice courses in a skirt? This was impossible!
But she knew she had no one to blame but herself. She had no business being out during the day, and it was her own fault she’d come unprepared, that she hadn’t put herself through her paces to acclimate to her costume of choice.
Yanking the troublesome hem once again free of her feet, she held it aloft and managed an unhindered sprint to the edge of the roof, but the leap to the next was clumsy without the freedom of her arms. She’d never realized how crucial every body part was, working and balancing in tandem. One impediment threw everything off-kilter.
Still, she pushed through, stumbling and correcting herself, telling herself that even a handicapped Shadhi was superior to the average man. She would get through this, leaving the king’s men in the dust even in her challenged state.
Had they even found their way onto the rooftops? Ah, yes – a quick glance over her shoulder saw them teetering and tip-toeing in her wake, unsteady on the foreign terrain.
See? They can’t even begin to follow on your level–
A guard hoisted himself suddenly onto the rooftop in front of her, having passed her up on the ground. Careening in another direction, Despiris scaled the steep slope and slid down the other side, sun-baked shingles burning her backside as her skirt rode up. Hissing at the sting, she used her momentum to launch from the edge to the next roof, but the guard behind her was a spry fellow, following closely.
Time to change tactics.
Despiris switched gears, engaging the chap in a game of hide-and-seek behind chimneys. When she’d tricked him enough to gain the span of two rooftops between them, she bolted once again, counting on her head start to carry her to freedom. Still, he’d gotten too close for comfort, and paranoid glances over her shoulder continued as she fled.
He’d gained ground – no, he was falling behind. Now the rooftops behind her were empty; where had he gone? Ah – there he was again, cresting the rise of an adjacent roof.
Returning her gaze to the path she blazed, Despiris nearly cried out in alarm. A skylight was inlaid in the roof, a fragile glass trap not two steps in front of her. And no sooner had she pegged the hazard than the glare of the sun caught the glass, throwing a blinding stab of light into her eyes. She veered to the side to avoid the pane, but couldn’t see where she was going. Gravity shifted, pulling her down the thatched slope. She dropped to a hasty crouch to control her fall, but still pitched into a roll, spilling dangerously close to the roof’s edge.
Footsteps touched down on the roof behind her, chopping toward her across the shingles. Fumbling for purchase, she dragged herself away from the edge, blinking away black spots as she scrambled forward on hands and knees. There was her skirt again, tripping her up, a confounded spider’s web around her legs.
A strange feeling came to her as she clutched pitifully at her freedom. Vaguely, she recognized the feeling from her past. It was that thing Clevwrith had helped her forget, drilled out of her, freed her from. That thing the Master of the Shadows loathed, the enemy he swore to keep at bay, and the enemy whose face he had never really seen. In a manner of speaking, it was what the Master of the Shadows feared most.
It was fear itself.
Footsteps advancing, the lucky guard closed in on Despiris where she clung feebly to the roof. She lurched as a boot came down on her hem, halting her in her tracks. Gripping the edge of a shingle, she desperately hauled herself forward, tearing free. But she was sweating excessively in the midday sun, her grasp slick. Just a wet course, she insisted, trying again.
If it wasn’t for the skirt trapping her legs, she might have had a shot. Alas – with only her hands, she was irreparably compromised.
She clawed at the roof as she slid, but to no avail. In a rush of flailing limbs, she went over the edge.
If only the darkness that consumed her when she hit the ground was the same kind she’d wished to immerse herself in.
13
Oblivion and Grandeur
“Do you miss them?” Despiris had asked, once. “The others?”
“The ones who were caught, you mean?” Clevwrith shook his head, a flicker of disdain in his eyes. “Once, I thought they were my family. But they are nothing like me. None who are caught and never able to escape could ever be of my ilk. And if they loved me, they would have tried harder to get back to me. For there is no trap which cannot be thwarted from the inside. No snare we cannot contort ourselves out of. No doom which cannot be solved as a mere riddle.”
*
Pain. Confusion. A pulsing, strobing miasma of fever-dream distress. She is so dizzy, only conscious in flickers, in far-off impressions half-glimpsed through blood and matted lashes. She is twirling. Spinning. Blurring night and day, delusion and reality, past and present. Things swim through her watery existence – fish, or souls, or worms, or secrets. Drifting, tumbling, leering.
Arms are around her. A loving embrace? Or a monster keeping her captive? Are those sweet nothings in her ear, or the panting of a beast dragging her back to its den?
It’s a beast. A wolf. A bear. A man.
A stranger, but they are on a long journey together. It’s the fourth day. They travel north, taking a route somehow familiar. Are they going to the mountains? The plains? It is so hard to tell, for she cannot open her eyes.
But in memory, she can see.
It has happened before, it is happening again. This was always her fate, the time between a meaningless interim.
In fact, she can’t remember what happened in between. Maybe it never happened at all. Maybe it was just another dream in this feverish haze. A tangle of illusions returning to smoke, years of simulated memories wadded up like botched notes and condensed to a crumpled pile in moments.
There was never an in between. This is not the same thing happening again. This is the first time, back then.
Is that right? It seems like there is something else she should remember…
Whatever it was, it is blank now. Empty. Gone. There is only a cold pit of hunger and the punishing bite of chains wrenched tight around her wrists, and the daunting silhouette of the palace, a symbol of her reckoning, on the horizon. The fate awaiting all thieves, eventually.
I am a thief.
A thief. Only to feed a starving little brother and sister!
I am a failure.
Cold pavement on bare feet. What did they do with her boots? Hacking coughs, quaking in her lungs. Guards laughing. Jokes about Carlisle making a name for himself catching ‘the Rooftop Rascal’.
She doesn’t know who they could be talking about, because she was caught on the ground.
Every step hurts, tremors thudding through her bruised body. She can’t go on. Was life not cruel enough already?
Rain. Cold. The taste of blood washed down her face. Vertigo from the wound to her head. Lurching to her knees to retch in the gutter.
When will it end? It will never, never end. After all, it has been years, hasn’t it? Years of this traveling while she is barely aware, because she is a woman, now, isn’t she? She has grown up during the journey, half unconscious, life a slow-oozing sludge inching toward that ever-distant palace looming in the North.
One day, they will reach the North.
If she’s lucky enough to make it there before succumbing to her illness. But it doesn’t feel the same anymore; does that mean she is getting better?
It makes little difference. Doom hangs heavy on the horizon, the promise that she is finished waiting at the end of this long, long road.
But I am only a thief! she wants to insist.
Only a thief. She has never been Shadhi.
Gradually, her head began to clear. She blinked around at her surroundings, lucid but confused all over again.
She was slumped against the wall in some courtyard, guards standing over her. Servants, stable hands, and horses ambled by in the background.
“Good,” sneered a voice above her. “You’re awake.”
She peered up at the guard, silhouetted by a bright, slate-gray square of sky, at the same time that he stooped to drag her back to her feet.
The world spun.
“If you cooperate, you might be lucky enough to see a medic,” snapped the guard, shoving her in front of him and ushering her along the wall. Only his rough hold on her arm kept her upright. Through an iron-studded, arched wooden door, they moved inside. Despiris blinked at the dim interior, but musty passages quickly ascended into brighter chambers, which opened up into garish, spacious halls. Giant jade pillars lined a vast walkway carpeted in lavish violet and gold rugs. A long line of sunrays streamed in at an angle from towering windows beyond the pillars, casting airy stripes of palest gold across the hall. Sparkling crystal chandeliers the size of carriages were strung down the center of the high-vaulted ceiling, adding prisms to the faerie-like lighting.
Where am I? The palace?
What have I done?
Oh, of course – she was caught thieving.
No. How could that be? She wasn’t sure why, but that seemed wrong.
And how could this be the palace, if the journey had taken years?
It wasn’t ‘the’ palace, then. Simply a palace. They were no longer in the kingdom of Cerf Daine. It was the only logical conclusion.
They had journeyed long across foreign terrain and come to a faerie palace in some faraway land.
So much for logic.
Her thoughts were a jumble, pigmented by hysteria and disorientation.
And the bump to her head.
Girl of Rooftops and Shadows (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 1) Page 9