Where had that come from? Oh, of course; she’d fallen from a roof.
While thieving? What was I trying to steal; shingles? Slide down someone’s chimney to get inside a house?
No. She hadn’t been stealing. She had been running.
Since when did young women contrive to run across the rooftops? And why did she feel like she harbored the muscle memory to also fly from balcony to balcony?
That bump to the head had really done a number on her. That, or she really was in the land of faeries, where they regularly flew from perch to perch and spent their time on lofty peaks.
Maybe it was a regular pastime here, running amok on the rooftops, hopping from spire to spire, soaring to dome-topped turrets, sneaking through underground passages…
Wait. That didn’t fit. Now she was a creature of the underground as well?
It was there, plain as day in her memory.
Plain as night.
Slinking through the underground, hiding in the shadows, dashing through the alleys…
In a rush, things came flooding back.
I’m Shadhi, she thought as if realizing it for the first time. Certainly a dark faerie according to some, but this was not some faraway, strange kingdom. That blow to the head had simply skewed time and muddled her clarity. She was still in the city. Her city.
Clevwrith’s city.
Of course – how could she ever forget Clevwrith? He was the foundation behind everything.
Once she remembered him, everything else was restored with crystal clarity. It burst forth like a flock of birds unseen until flushed from the treetops, filling her memory to the brim, returning her complex identity to her.
I’m caught, she realized, only then recognizing the extent of her predicament. Oh gods, I’m caught! Panic gushed in, coming close to consuming her, its jaws roaring open above her and looming there, agape and ready to devour her. She stared into that terrifying maw as she was marched down the plush runner toward…
The throne room? Was she to have a direct audience with the king? The notion did nothing to calm her nerves.
Clevwrith’s voice filtered through the panic. “Relax. Breathe. Nothing is hopeless. Take in your surroundings. Inventory your resources. Map your escape routes. Remember who you are.”
She wasn’t behind bars yet. All was not lost.
“All is never lost,” Clevwrith would say calmly, unfazed. He wouldn’t even be bothered.
Really, though, would he still prove intrepid in the face of capture?
The answer, of course, was that no one would ever know. Because he would never be caught.
But even if he was, he would be perfectly capable of getting back out.
Utterly convinced of that, Despiris squared her shoulders and attempted to hold her head high, determined not to be beat by this.
And not a moment too soon; they had arrived at their destination. Stopping at two ornate, coffered bronze doors at the end of the hall, Des’s handler had words with a pair of staunch men in violet and gold uniforms who stood on either side of the doors. One of them rapped on the doors with a staff, and Des and her handler were admitted.
Into the throne room she was escorted, down a gold runner toward the dais. The entire floor in the throne room was one big glossy slab of violet marble, all the way up to the perfectly chiseled stairs of the dais and beyond to create the platform for the king’s throne. The throne itself, of course, was gold. As were the mile-long curtains framing each pane along the towering wall of windows to the left. Despiris was beginning to sense a pattern.
King Isavor sat on his throne, robed in a gaudy ensemble of red and silver. As Despiris approached, he handed a scroll off to an assistant and raised his large hazel eyes to her.
An audience with the king himself. What an honor. Despiris quietly sized him up, remaining impassive.
The monarch considered her at length before speaking, equally as stoic. “I’m told you led my men on quite an adventure,” he remarked. “Taking the chase across the very rooftops.”
Despiris said nothing, maintaining her mystique. Inwardly, she was wondering what the bloody hell she was supposed to say to the king. She was standing before the king of Cerf Daine! Did she refuse to engage him and hold onto her secrets? Should she use this as an opportunity to plead the case of starving children everywhere? Pretend to be someone else so they had no idea they’d caught a Shadhi? She had never prepared for this scenario.
“I’m told also you are clever with a knife,” the king went on, seemingly unbothered by her silence. “You must be very confident in your ability, to hurl a naked blade at a child and not fear aiming for the locks at the nape of the neck might be a margin off.”
Despiris met his gaze, her inner conflict giving way to a surprising flare of indignation. She spoke without even realizing she meant to. “You speak as if the wellbeing of children matters to you.” She was not sure she had ever heard such disdain in her own voice before.
Unperturbed, the king replied. “It does matter to me.”
“And yet you punish them. For starving.”
“I punish them for thieving.”
“Perhaps if you fed the hungry, they would have no reason to steal.”
“We feed the hungry every day, my lady. Or are you not familiar with the soup kitchens in Goodfellow Square?”
“Your kingdom is bigger than Goodfellow Square.”
“Indeed. My kingdom is vast. It is impossible to extend charity to every single soul.”
“A poor excuse for neglecting to extend it to as many as possible.”
The king inclined his head. “Eloquently and poignantly put. You must have intimate knowledge of the royal budget and our extensive process in which we prioritize, allocate, and fund hundreds of causes in order to make such an assured judgment that we are not doing enough.”
Despiris blinked, given pause, but wasn’t thrown off for long. “I know at a glance that regardless of your efforts, you sit in a marble palace on a golden throne, dress like a peacock, adorn your guards in gold when tactical gear would be more practical, probably visit gem-studded lavatories and wipe your bum with the finest silk, and based on the smell you bathe in perfume rather than water. You flaunt excess all around you, when a single crystal from one of your ridiculous chandeliers could feed a family for a month. I suppose you also pay someone to dust that chandelier daily, and yet I doubt you take even a moment to stop and admire it.”
The king expertly hid any affront. “And now, assumptions about whether I admire my own décor. I resent that accusation. I recognize the sentiment, however. Frivolous spending has always struck a nerve, with me. It is one reason I have been so hesitant to dedicate resources to hunting nuisances like the Master of the Shadows. Resources that would go a long ways elsewhere. Alas, he forces my hand with his antics. Goading relentlessly until he cannot be ignored, distracting from other causes.” He made a dismissive gesture. “But I digress. Décor is admittedly more frivolous than that. Since you make such a passionate case, I must inquire, then… What have you done to further the cause you clearly hold so dear?” Genuinely curious, his gaze pressed her to share her strategy, wanting to hear of her efforts.
And Despiris was ashamed to admit she’d done nothing. While clearly an issue close to her heart due to her own experience, it had been tucked away there for years, dormant and forgotten, suspended since she escaped that life. Seeing that girl today had stirred it up from the recesses of her past, reawakening a stifled, key part of her identity. I survived, was the only response she could think of. But it wasn’t enough. Was she any better than the king she apparently held in such contempt? She may not sit in a palace hoarding excess, but she regularly stole whatever she desired. And had she once shared any of it with those starving on the street?
Had Clevwrith? She’d always thought of him as some perfect saint, her savior, his act the ultimate charity, but had he ever helped anyone else?
And the king’s words about how chasing after
the Shadowmaster robbed precious resources from other causes… What was she to make of that?
She was left stunned by the course of her own thoughts. Suddenly she felt foolish, standing there schooling the king of Cerf Daine. At least he had soup kitchens. She didn’t have soup kitchens.
Isavor seemed to read her conflict, realizing she didn’t have an answer for him. “Being passionate about something is beautiful. It is the only way to ever drive change. And passion comes from individual experience. No one person can change everything about the world. Not even a king. It takes many individuals, with their unique, individual passions. It is why I employ a team. If a single person was to harbor that deep, gut-wrenching care about every suffering soul in this world, he would surely go mad with heartbreak and jump from his highest tower.
“But, at the end of the day, I am king and am charged with taking on the burden of caring for all my citizens. And at the end of the day, I do care about all of my citizens. That is why there are consequences when one directly hurts another. It is not that I do not have compassion for a starving child driven to steal, my lady. It is that the man she steals from is a poor, hardworking soul trying to feed his own family. And he is doing it by lawful means. Honorable means. Should I allow him to be punished? His family to go hungry? I cannot just have ladies running amok throwing knives around crowded marketplaces either. And thus, here we are. The truth is…a king does his best. And sometimes his best isn’t enough.”
Despiris didn’t know what to say to that. Clevwrith had educated her extensively, but never about any of this.
Short of coming up with absolutely nothing, however, she landed on one last snide remark. “This ‘team’ of yours might be more of a heartening concept if they went without dragging little girls around by their hair and resorting to derogatory terms like ‘maggot’ and ‘mongrel’ to get their point across.”
The guard behind her stiffened. A very slight smile of satisfaction crooked the corner of her lips.
Isavor carefully processed her implications. “I would be disappointed to observe this behavior in my guard. The Captain of the Guard is a man I trust, and he does his utmost to hire on reputable men. I will have him remind his men what it means to represent the kingdom’s interest with honor and integrity.”
Not exactly the direct reprimand she might have hoped for, but it was something. Despiris considered the king, confused about what to make of him. There was a grudge in her heart, to be sure, but standing before him, hearing him speak… He seemed like a good man.
“I thank you for your candor, my lady,” he said with a sense of finality. “You will be arraigned in due course and properly cared for in the meantime.” For the first time, his attention flicked to the guard behind her. “Carlisle, escort this lady to her cell.”
The guard’s grasp tightened on her arm. As he led her from the room, he leaned in close, fingers digging into her flesh, and murmured, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep that pretty mouth shut, you hear?”
Grinding her teeth at the pinch of his nails, she squirmed for relief, thinking maybe the king would see. But the throne room doors were closing behind her, and she had bigger problems now.
The garish halls unraveled back into modest rooms and stony passages, until sconces along the walls provided the only light and the air grew dingy and moist. A burly man guarded a barred door at the end of the passage, and beyond, the dungeon awaited.
Des’s heart thumped erratically in her chest. She tried to swallow, finding her mouth dry. She and her escort were admitted through the squealing iron door, where a smell like the sewers assaulted her, and trapped souls shuffled in the dark.
When Carlisle drew her to a rough halt before an empty cell, she balked. The thought of being caged filled her with dread.
No, with fear.
Master yourself, Shadhi. She couldn’t let fear consume her. She needed to be able to think straight.
Thrusting her into the cell, Carlisle slammed the door behind her. It gave a deafening rattle as it closed, locking automatically.
Catching herself before she could fall on her face in the muck, Despiris turned to watch the sneering guard leave.
How had an aimless morning stroll ended like this? Curse her for provoking a chase in broad daylight! How quickly her finesse had failed her, how quickly her perfect record had come crashing down.
She forced herself not to panic, trying to draw comfort from the shadows around her. She could hardly even see the bars of her cell in the dark. With a little imagination, she could envision herself free, right at home.
Smothering her unproductive feelings of fear, she set the wheels of her mind turning. Clevwrith preached that there was never a situation that was entirely hopeless. There was no feat that was impossible. He had even mentioned imprisonment, once, indirectly. He had said to her: “When you are ready, Des – ready to face the world as I do – there will be signs. Feelings that go against logic. As when you find yourself trapped somewhere, and it won’t even bother you; when there are no windows and no doors, and yet you do not feel caged. You know it is not only possible to get free, but escape is inevitable.”
Somehow, she would get out.
It might take some time, she realized. But she could do it.
Resigning herself to the process, Despiris sat down to think.
14
A Crow’s Displeasure
“If we have never seen his face, how will we know when we catch him?” they had asked.
“You will know,” Crow had promised, sure of it. But it seemed he had overestimated the common sense of those around him. Or underestimated the trickster once again.
*
Lord Mosscrow swept through the dungeon, muttering bitterly to himself about incompetence and sabotage. How was it he had not heard of the new prisoner until now? She had been captured three whole days ago, and no one had bothered to inform him until now.
Even though – and this utterly obliterated his mental faculties – the king had ordered a personal audience with the girl because the nature of her capture had been notable enough to pique his interest. The king himself had deemed it unusual enough to look into, the ‘fleeing across the rooftops’ of particular interest, and yet had dismissed the significance and failed to consult his advisor.
Naturally, Crow had put up a fuss when he’d learned of it.
“She was caught defending a petty thief in the marketplace, Crow,” the king had said. “Taking the chase to the rooftops caught my interest as well, but she had no particular finesse, and does it really sound like one of your shadowy fiends to be out defending petty thieves in the marketplace in broad daylight?”
The truth was, it did not. But Mosscrow couldn’t shake the feeling that a chase across the rooftops was too significant to ignore. He didn’t care what the king said – no ordinary girl fled across rooftops. ‘No particular finesse’ had still meant evading the guards longer than any ordinary girl ever could, and anyway, who was he to say ‘those shadowy fiends of his’ didn’t take occasional strolls through the marketplace? The only thing he really knew about them was that he never knew what they might be up to. Maybe they got a thrill out of hiding in plain sight. Maybe they ran the squash stand down Lester Lane.
Who knew?
But running across the rooftops should have warranted telling him about.
Turning down the row that led to the culprit’s cell, he tugged his robes in tight to avoid brushing up against the mildew-slick bars on either side of him. Counting the doors, he stopped before the ninth cell on the left and thrust his torch toward the bars, hungry for a glimpse of the prisoner within.
And he stood there staring, a tingle creeping up his spine and a flicker of insanity whispering in his head.
For the cell, as it turned out, held no one. It was empty.
Somehow, Crow knew he had not miscounted. He knew he did not stand before the wrong cell. This was precisely where he meant to be, where she should have been. Where sh
e wasn’t.
“You fool,” he snapped in a whisper, the urge to storm back into the palace and cuff the king across his dense, perfectly brushed head ripping through him. The empty cell was the only confirmation Crow needed. “She was one of them.”
The undignified desire to whimper nearly undid him, but he overrode it with a powerful burst of rage. Turning so quickly he nearly snuffed his torch, Crow stalked back down the corridor, a tirade bubbling over in his head. You blind fool. How could you do this? That may be as close as we ever get! How could you do this to me?!
He made quick work of the dungeon passages and palace halls, seeking out the king’s personal chambers and bursting in unannounced – which seemed to be a growing habit of late.
King Isavor looked up from something he was reading. This time, he did not look so tolerant of Crow’s intrusion.
“Do you realize what you have done?” Crow demanded before he could curb his temper. Oh, well – if he was already being disrespectful, what did he have to lose? He might as well speak his mind like he wanted to. “You had her in your grasp! We were turning the tables, making the predator into the prey. How could you let her go like that! And don’t make excuses, Majesty, because the simple truth of it is this: if you leave one of them unattended, never mind if they are locked away in a cell at the time, it is as good as letting them go. Don’t you understand this by now? How could you be so naïve, allowing one of our Most Wanted to slip right through your fingers like that?
“And yes, that girl with ‘no particular finesse’ was indeed one of our Most Wanted, which I could have deduced if you’d bothered to consult me. I am your advisor, Highness. How am I to advise you on matters I know nothing of? And this matter, of all matters! The one I know inside and out! Because if you haven’t guessed already, that girl was one of the Spymasters, and I hope you don’t forget it for a very long time!”
The king did not let Crow blanch in the horror of what he’d just done for more than an instant. “I know,” he said dangerously, “who she is. But I wonder who you think you are, coming in here and displaying such insolence.”
Girl of Rooftops and Shadows (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 1) Page 10