Plague Arcanist (Frith Chronicles Book 4)

by Shami Stovall

  “Eh,” Lynus said with a shrug. “That’s not important right now.” He faced me, though his long copper hair was covering most of his mangled expression. “How come you aren’t on a ship, sailing away with what’s-his-name?”

  “Fennis left without me,” I said, my voice calm, but my blood cold. I forced a shrug, even if my tense body resisted. “So, I guess I owe you a drink. You called it.”

  Lynus pressed his thumb against his left nostril, closed it up, and then snorted hard. A glob of blood splattered onto the ground. “That prissy uptowner had frills for brains.”

  I laughed, though it was short lived and a little darker than someone who was genuinely enjoying themselves. “I have bad luck with love, is all.”

  “You’re cursed.” Lynus chuckled. “We all are.”

  The waves continued their gentle song, and the seagulls added their sleepy chorus. For a long while, I sat next to Lynus, watching the sun finally set in the distance. The chill of twilight washed over the empty docks, blanketing us in the cold embrace of an autumn night.

  “Are you done sulking?” Lynus asked.

  “I was never sulking,” I growled. “This doesn’t bother me. I knew… Well, I knew someone like him wouldn’t want someone like me.” The tension in my shoulders worsened.

  “Good. Because I got us passage to a port town near the Lightning Straits.”

  I snapped my attention to Lynus, his face still obscured by his blood-matted hair. “How?”

  “I helped the tax collector convince some people they had to pay up.” Lynus half-smiled, showing off his sharp canines. “They might’ve broken my face, but they won’t walk right ever again.”

  “That’s why you look like this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?” I asked, my throat tight and my voice at the edge of raw. I took a deep breath, and when I spoke next, I was practically yelling—it hid any sort of emotion other than anger. “What’s the point if we don’t have passage on a ship large enough to make it through the straits? Dammit, I don’t need to see the narrow waters; I need to get to the world beyond it!”

  Lynus didn’t respond.

  I grabbed his bloody tunic and shook. Through gritted teeth, I said, “Don’t do these stupid stunts unless you think it through.”

  “Here,” Lynus said as he withdrew a piece of parchment from his trouser pocket. “This is why.”

  The small poster read:

  VOLUNTEERS

  Aid Needed on the Open Ocean

  THE FRITH GUILD

  Arcanists of the Frith Guild need able-bodied men and women with the skills to tame the high seas. The queen has authorized expeditions to quell corsairs and discover distant lands and far-off places.

  INQUIRE AT THE PORT OF RED FALLS

  Speak with First Mate Gregory Ruma

  Serve under Captain Liet Eventide

  Bonuses will be given in addition to two months’ advance.

  “You want us to enlist with an arcanist’s guild?” I asked, all anger gone from my voice.

  “That’s right.”

  “The Frith Guild?”

  Lynus shrugged. “They have a good reputation. They won’t fail to pay.”

  I ran my hand over the lettering on the poster. “You think they’ll take men like us?”

  “Won’t know until we try. Better than staying here. Better than watching you sulk.”

  I laughed, this time with actual mirth. “Will you be able to handle taking orders from an arcanist? You’re more feral than these organizations like.”

  Lynus rubbed at the bruise that covered half his face, more blood seeping from the cut on his lip. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the only damn family I have left. If taking orders from try-hards will get you out of this depression, I guess I gotta tough it out then.”

  I smacked him on the side. He grimaced and ground out a curse.

  “I’m surprised you managed this,” I said. “A good plan? From you?”

  “You always underestimate me, Everett. When have I ever let you down?”

  I jerked awake, my heart pounding hard against my ribs.

  It took a few seconds to realize I was in the storeroom of the Sun Chaser. Pale orange light beyond the porthole told me it was almost dawn. I had slept throughout the night, never waking once, all thanks to Adelgis’s magic.

  Everett.

  Everett Zelfree.

  Had that really been one of his memories? I had never realized my master from the Frith Guild—Master Zelfree—had once been a poor kid on the streets. All I had ever known of him were the stories and what I had learned over the course of studying under him. Why had Adelgis shown me those things?

  “I thought you liked stories of legendary swashbucklers?”

  I flinched and threw myself out of my hammock, my pulse quickening even faster.

  Adelgis sat on the rum barrel in the middle of the storeroom. His ethereal whelk had disappeared from sight, no doubt so that the room could remain dark. Fain and Wraith were asleep near the door, neither of them stirring, despite Adelgis’s question.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “I said, I thought you liked legendary swashbucklers?”

  “I… I do. I read about them as a child.”

  “Perfect. Master Zelfree interacted with several of them, especially Gregory Ruma. Wasn’t he the man your home island was named after? Memories of Gregory Ruma will be interesting, won’t they? And you said you wanted interesting dreams.”

  I rubbed at the back of my neck as the rest of my body managed to wind down. “Uh, yeah. I suppose they would be interesting.”

  This was what I got instead of fun dreams? There really was no winning.

  “It’ll only take us six days to reach New Norra,” Adelgis said. “I suggest you just relax until then. Fain and I can handle most everything the crew will need from us.”

  9

  A Sky Trek

  Training on the deck of the Sun Chaser kept me distracted.

  Fain evoked ice often, making everything cool despite the rays of sun from a cloudless sky. While he attempted to increase the strength of his frost, I worked on my footwork. The slippery deck gave me a better understanding of how to keep my balance, even in the most difficult of terrains.

  Luthair merged with me during those times, and although he didn’t add weight, his shadow armor did help me keep my footing. Fain would blast ice over the wood as I rushed at him. He’d attempt to stop me, and I’d do everything in my power to keep from getting caught in the rime.

  Although I didn’t think it was the most efficient training, it did seem to help Fain. His ice became thicker and more powerful, even from just two days of solid practice and instruction. I suspected he hadn’t been exerting himself before, for fear of his own powers. Now that he knew what he could manipulate, he seemed a bit more confident.

  When I grew tired of running back and forth on an icy deck, I unmerged from Luthair and waved at Fain. “I need to take a break.”

  Biyu waited by the railing again, her book open and her notes extensive. Luthair and I walked to her, and she stared at us the entire way, her one eye wide and locked on to Luthair’s shadowy armor. I decided to take a seat next to her—a good three feet away, but still close—and Biyu made a quick note of it in her book.

  “Are knightmares empty inside?” Biyu asked Luthair.

  He took a position on the other side of me, his cape fluttering with dramatic flair. “Yes.”

  “Can you see things? Without eyeballs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you smell things?”

  Luthair mulled over that question for a long moment. “No,” he finally said.

  Biyu hunched over her book and wrote down the information as fast as her hand would allow. The black spots on the feather of her quill faded with each word she penned.

  To my surprise, her handwriting was refined and almost elegant, even when she wrote at extreme speeds. I could read her writing, even at my distanc
e, but my attention immediately went to the small accompanying pictures she had drawn in the margins.

  “Is that Fain and Wraith?” I asked, pointing to the image of a dog and a man. The man’s fingers were black, and the dog’s face looked odd, as though drawn twice.

  Biyu angled her book away from me. “I’m not done with those yet. You can’t look at them.”

  “Well, they’re really good from what I saw.”

  Her cheeks brightened to a soft pink as she touched the page of her book. “I, uh, like dogs. And wolves. And especially puppies.” She glanced over, her one eye narrowed. “All the arcanists here have birds as eldrin, which are boring to draw. Except for Karna. But her doppelgänger isn’t cute at all.”

  I scooted a tad closer, just an inch or two. “I’m sure Wraith would let you pet him, if you asked.”

  “I can’t.” Biyu held her book close and wrote a quick note. “Vethica says you three aren’t to be trusted, and Captain Devlin says I should—” she cleared her throat and then deepened her voice in an attempt to match the captain’s, “—maintain a cautious distance and call for help if anything suspicious happens.”

  “Biyu!”

  The shout got me tense, but I took a deep breath and relaxed once I realized it was the woman with the zigzag dagger—Vethica. She stood at the top of the stairs to go below deck, and her hard gaze spoke a thousand words of irritation.

  “The captain wants to see you below deck, Biyu,” Vethica said. “You should hurry along.”

  Biyu shut her book, tucked away her quill, and then offered me a quick smile. “Goodbye for now.” She hurried to the stairs and flew down them two at a time.

  I was starting to dislike Vethica. She walked straight to me, and I stood in order to greet her, but she huffed and waved away the gesture.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.

  “Resting after practice. Is that a crime?”

  “No, but there’s never a reason a man should be talking to a little girl like Biyu.” Vethica brushed her short hair to one side, never taking her attention off me. “As the boatswain, I’ll have you thrown from this ship.”

  “I don’t mean Biyu any harm,” I said. “She just reminds me of my sister. Illia also wears an eyepatch.”

  “A likely story.”

  I opened my mouth to make a heated retort, but I caught my breath before any words escaped. Vethica’s forehead didn’t have an arcanist mark, but once her bangs had fluttered to the side, I realized there were scars where one should have been. The faded etchings in her flesh seemed like wounds, and I wondered if she had once been an arcanist. If an arcanist’s eldrin dies, the arcanist loses all their magic. It seemed a cruel and sad fate.

  Vethica noticed my staring. She raked her fingers through her hair, bringing the orange-red locks back down in front, blocking the old arcanist mark.

  “Mind your own damn business,” she said. Then she crossed the deck, purpose in her gait.

  I didn’t try to stop her. All I could think about was how terrible it would be to lose Luthair. And if I didn’t find a cure for the plague in my veins, that just might be the only outcome for us.

  I had a night of vivid dreams, but not like I had been expecting.

  All I saw were visions of ships, wide open oceans, and mystical creatures crashing out of the waves. It wasn’t like the last dream, which had a coherent narrative told from Zelfree’s memory. They were just instances of interesting scenes, like watching snippets of someone’s life and only stopping to focus on the extraordinary moments.

  When I awoke, I felt refreshed, but also… disappointed.

  I had wanted to see how Master Zelfree had joined the Frith Guild.

  The porthole for our tiny storeroom showed me the night sky. I had awoken early.

  Anxious to stretch my legs, I slid off my hammock and then shadow-stepped to the door, so as to not make any needless noise. Luthair slithered after me—knightmares never needed to sleep, so I suspected he had just been waiting for me to get up and go.

  I stepped into the shadows and emerged on the other side of the door, in the dark corridor that led to the captain’s quarters. My heart seized in my chest when I almost ran into a man upon exiting the darkness.

  “Whoa,” Jozé said, his voice unsteady. He braced himself on the bulkhead and forced a chuckle. “It’s you.”

  I shook my head. “Uh, yeah.” Then I realized he had just been standing around in a dark hallway, no lanterns lit. “What’re you doing here?”

  Jozé rubbed his hand across the dark stubble on his chin. “I… came to speak with you.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “Heh. No. Truth be told, I was here at twilight, but I kept debating about what I’d say.” He leaned more of his weight against the wall of the airship. “Listen. The crew says you’re practicing magic, but you don’t have a weapon.”

  “That’s true.” My words came out curt, even when I was trying to sound normal.

  Jozé opened his coat, flashing the variety of weapons I had seen he had earlier. “Here. Use this for the time being.” He handed over the sword with the heavy scabbard, hilt first.

  Although it seemed rude to reject his offer, the thought crossed my mind.

  It was a good weapon, though.

  I took the blade and held it close.

  “I made that,” he said. “Crafted it with a handful of star shards, the fang of a pyroclastic dragon, and my own phoenix magic. That blade’ll get hot enough to sear a bonfire.”

  “Hm.”

  Silence settled between us as I stared down at the heavy scabbard. No wonder the blade burned with extreme intensity. Pyroclastic dragons were said to be the kings of fire.

  “You know about imbuing magic, right?” Jozé asked, breaking me from my thoughts.

  I nodded.

  “Why haven’t you made a weapon yet? I thought that was what knightmare arcanists did. They made a weapon with their eldrin.”

  “Well…” I tapped the hilt of the sword, wondering how much information I should give my father. When I determined it wouldn’t hurt to explain, I said, “I made a shield with Luthair, but I left it with my sister. And before Luthair was bonded to me, his first arcanist had crafted a sword from a behemoth fang, but that was broken during the attack on Thronehold.”

  “That means you don’t have one anymore?”

  I shook my head.

  “Kid, I know you’re still deciding whether you’ll speak to me, but if there’s one thing I’m good at in this world, it’s crafting magical items.”

  I glanced up, my eyebrows knit. “They say you’re the ship’s blacksmith.”

  “Yeah. I make all sorts of magical things for the captain and crew, with metal or bone or mystical wood.” Jozé patted his stiff leg. “I’m not really good at anything else, so I focused hard for these last twelve years.”

  “What’re you trying to say?” I asked.

  “I’m good at making weapons. You need a weapon. Let me help you with this.” He pushed off the bulkhead and stood as straight as his bad leg would allow. “Obviously, I can’t make up for the years lost between us, but I can at least be useful to you now, right? We’re heading straight to New Norra—I’m sure we can find something interesting to use as the base material for a weapon.”

  “Base material?”

  “Like a fang or claw or shard of bone. Maybe we could even find some rare metals floatin’ around. We could make something unique, and I can show you how a master arcanist crafts a magical item.”

  Excitement and hope laced his words.

  I had to admit—it sounded good. Although my father and I didn’t have much in common, we were both arcanists, and if he could teach me to craft brilliant trinkets and artifacts, perhaps we could find common ground to bond over. He had been absent most of my life, but this sounded like a plausible route to reconciliation.

  “I’d like that,” I said. “I’ve only ever made the one item, so I don’t know
much about imbuing magic.”

  Jozé let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Good. Great, even. Once we land, I’ll take you to the bazaar.”

  A new day. More terrible food from the airship galley.

  I continued my training on deck, working with Fain, my mind on distant possibilities while he practiced simpler things. When I merged with Luthair, it was easier to focus, but whenever I wasn’t, my mind wandered like a dinghy lost at sea. Practicing magic wasn’t distracting me like it had before.

  The sun set, ending the day.

  With all the enthusiasm of a shambling corpse, I ate dinner and headed back down to the storeroom. I threw myself on my hammock, my gaze on the roof. Adelgis placed a hand on my temple, and once again, I drifted into a dream world created by his sorcery.

  But again—it wasn’t like the memories from before.

  Sure, I saw Gregory Ruma. He was just like the old legends said. Brave. Bold. Gallant. Without peer. The flashes of memories showed him toppling ships with his control of water and blasting cutthroats with lightning.

  And while I enjoyed seeing it, the context wasn’t there.

  I awoke with another profound sense of disappointment and then flinched when I realized Adelgis was leaning over me, staring as though he had been watching me sleep.

  “What’re you doing?” I whispered, now fully awake, my heart hammering out of control.

  Adelgis sighed. “You seem unhappy.”

  “I like my personal space.”

  “I don’t mean right now. I meant in your dreams. You’re not amused by them anymore.”

  I rolled out of my hammock and took a few steps away from Adelgis. Once my nerves had calmed, I ran a hand through my matted hair. The sweat and grime from multiple days of training caused me to shiver. I probably smelled horrible.

  “We’re stopping to resupply,” Adelgis said as he pointed to the porthole. “Look outside. We’re at a village on the edge of the Amber Dunes, right where the forest meets the sands.”