Death and the Merchant (River's End Book 1)

by C. H. Williams

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he was saying softly, hands lingering in surrender, and gently, he rocked, back and forth, a lilt she’d memorized, a tic she’d seen a thousand times and loved a million more.

  “No. No, you’re not.” She shifted, her legs beginning to prickle with pins and needles.

  Then, exhaling deeply, she flicked the blade shut, gripping it in a tight fist. “That thing, the girl…”

  “A kobalde. A demon.” He was searching, too, his flashing eyes refusing to flit away. “Are you alright? You’re not injured?”

  “No.” Her fingers grazed the back of her head nevertheless, meeting the unbrushed mess of a braid peppered with pokey little seeds burrowing into her dark hair. A bit tender. But she’d had worse.

  The barren trees overhead reached up towards the dark, rumbling sky, the dead leaves skittering with raindrops. “Where are we?”

  “Out of the way. For the moment, at least.”

  And there it was again.

  Beside her heartbeat, tucked safely in between the spaces of her ribs.

  Safe.

  Safe.

  Safe.

  And not numb.

  Gods, was she so not numb.

  There was thunder in her palms and lightning in her eyes and this, this was what it was, to revel in being.

  She was on her feet, brushing dirt from her leggings. “So. A Drada.” Her eyes flicked over to him. Mysterious mountain boy, indeed.

  Fletcher was rising, black cloak giving a faint flutter in the breeze. The shadows didn’t become him. If they’d meant to conceal him, they’d utterly failed—he would’ve blended better to sun and sand. The ears, though…

  “It suits you. Being…Drada.” Whatever that was.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly, unbelief in his eyes.

  “So, you’re obviously hunting,” she sighed, gesturing vaguely at him. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say it was the—what was it, kobalde?—that you were after.”

  “Something like that.”

  “And she attacked me because?”

  “No idea. One moment, she was circling the border, the next…” He trailed off with a quiet sigh, and his eyes found hers.

  I wish that we could never end.

  Seven words, and they’d betrayed his fears. Seven words, and they’d been an apology for sins of circumstance that had slipped through his fingers while he’d held her close.

  Seven words, and she could see it in his eyes, now.

  This will not be how we end.

  Seven words, and he remembered that she wrote the endings.

  She blew out a breath, eyes trailing him up and down once more. She’d been praying for this fairy tale for a long time, now. It seemed foolish to abandon it before it’d even really begun. “Alright,” Elsie said softly, eyes flicking past him to the forest beyond. “Let’s go get her.”

  He gave her a curt nod, and she could’ve sworn she saw a faint smile tugging at his lips in the low light. “First thing’s first.” With a small gesture of his wrist, a glowing orb appeared in the palm of his hand, pulsing softly in the darkness. “This is a lucent. Throw it, as hard as you can, at anything that comes towards you.”

  Her fingers brushed against his as she took it, his skin sparking warmly against hers, familiar and soft. And the lucent—

  “Amazing,” she breathed. A smooth, velvety membrane of warmth seemed to be all that kept the light inside from spilling into the dark. Grinning, she pocketed the lucent, gesturing for another

  “Second,” Fletcher nodded, obliging, watching as she stuffed her pockets with lucents, “kobalde are tricksters. They thrive on discomposure, and they’re wicked clever. My brother was fond of saying that truth is irrelevant on a demon’s trail—and gods, I can’t believe I’m saying this—he was sort of right. Confused prey is easy prey, so just be on your guard when it’s cornered. They’ve got tongues like knives.”

  “Noted.”

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  He held out his hand.

  She took it, savoring him, sweet and warm in the cold air, and the world dissolved around them.

  ELSIE

  “Dark of heart, dark of mind,

  And in the dark, should demon find,

  To run, to scream, to fight, to flee,

  Lest the darkest heart consumeth thee.”

  ~Emilyon Dresada, ‘Chant of the Night’ from ‘Collected Dradan Poetry’

  Elsie felt a renewed wave of nausea in her stomach as she gripped his hand, waiting for the world to still. They were on the western border of Butterfly Ridge, where the farmland slowly began melting into the forest beyond.

  Even as she blinked back the specks of white light still burned into the back of her eyelids, Fletcher had his head cocked, his movements unnaturally still. Then, ear twitching slightly, he nodded south, to where the tree line grew dense as it neared the river. “That way,” he breathed, giving her hand a squeeze before letting go.

  The swollen purple clouds above them had dimmed what little evening light they might’ve had, pelting raindrops smacking haphazardly against her cheeks with cold determination.

  The weather willed her home.

  The weather, she mused, would’ve done well to remember.

  I write the endings.

  Her fingers were around the lucent, turning it idly over in her hands, eyes darting up and down the banks of the roaring river as they walked, every nerve alive with anticipation. Air, crisp and sweet, filled her lungs, lighting crackling through the clouds.

  One, two—

  Thunder barreled through the earth.

  On the heels of the shaking ground, a grinning little girl with inked eyes and a cloak of blood.

  Elsie sent her lucent flying with lethal precision—

  But the little girl gave a flippant wave of her hand, and it melted away, ice against a hot stove.

  “Oh, isn’t this a precious little game,” the kobalde snickered, brushing off her hands. “Princess Pastry and Good Sir Tart, come to play. Grishka!” Her voice clapped through the air. “Grishka! Come out and introduce yourself! I’m Chim, by the way,” she beamed, sparing a mocking curtsy and a flashing, fanged smile. “And it is so lovely you’ve come to play.”

  Behind her, branches were cracking beneath shadowed swipes, shuddering trees sending sprays of water droplets peeling to the ground as great booming steps pounded through the foliage, Chim squealing with excitement.

  Fletcher’s fiery lucent bore into the dark wood without warning, not waiting for the creature to emerge. An ear-splitting roar filled the air, and Elsie’s skin was crawling, her jaw clenching—

  It was terrible, the thing dragged from the shadows. Slits for nostrils sucked in the night, steam curling with hot, heavy breaths, and loose, mangy skin hung from bones, greasy and slick with rain, a sickly gray scabbed with blue. Towering at no less than twelve feet tall, great black plumes gathered at its fingertips, coalescing amid the cackling laughter.

  Impossible.

  It was impossible, the billiard-ball lucent clutched in her fingertips, against the beast with blazing eyes.

  A pernicious little giggle bubbled through the air, and the kobalde’s eyes were on her, maliciously amused. “So sweet,” she simpered, throwing a hand up to dissolve another lucent, “letting your little princeling do the work. Is that what mommy taught you, that little gaped-mouth fish face?”

  “No! Elsie, don’t—”

  But Chim was running, laughing wildly as she danced through the trees.

  A blur of red twirled through mangled brush and the air was burning in Elsie’s lungs, the bellow of the river drowning out the pounding in her ears, her heart a screaming war drum. The spindly fingers of branches and bramble clawed through her coat, yanking her hair, but it didn’t matter because there was fire, fire burning hot inside her chest, she would pay for those words, pay dearly—

  Taking a chance, she hurled a lucent towards the giggling blur of red
—and watched as the girl was sent crashing down, rocks squealing at the impact.

  “Mean,” the kobalde was whimpering, pushing herself to standing, dusting off her smock with a crinkled nose. “You’re a mean girl. That wasn’t fair, I wasn’t ready!” Crocodile tears pooled in her eyes, spilling onto her dirty cheeks.

  “Too bad,” Elsie smirked, tossing the lucent in the air, catching it in the palm of her hand. “Why’d you attack me?”

  “Because those are the rules of the game,” Chim sniffled, pulling a hand across her face.

  “It’s not a very good game, then, is it.” Turning quickly, she sent the lucent in a piercing line to the kobalde.

  “Mean and stupid,” Chim snipped, swiping the lucent aside with ease. “You just don’t know how to play.”

  “Then tell me why you attacked me in the pasture.”

  “No. Why don’t you run back to your little princeling before I decide to give you a penalty for breaking the rules.”

  Elsie clicked her tongue, pacing as she tugged yet another lucent from her coat. “Not good enough. You attack me. You insult me. I want to know why.”

  Always, needing to know the why. As if Gregory Mirabeau hadn’t given her the why a thousand times.

  Still, she asked.

  Still, she hoped one day to find the answer.

  The little girl inclined her head, dark eyes wide, unblinking. Her gaze was disconcerting. Where the whites of her eyes should be, where the concentric colored circles ought to be running towards a dark pupil, lay only a black void.

  “It is as the Master commands,” she said salaciously. “You know the one? The one with a taste for pastries?” Then, with a devious smile on her lips, she straightened her hood. “Must be getting home for supper. Those are the rules.” And in a whirl of inky black, she disappeared.

  Elsie sent the lucent flying towards the dark cloud—her efforts were in vain, though, the lucent crashing into the tree behind where the kobalde had stood.

  The Master?

  Gravel crunched behind her, and she started, whirling.

  “Just me,” Fletcher murmured, hands in surrender.

  “She—she disappeared,” Elsie breathed in outrage, glaring. “I tried—”

  “You couldn’t have stopped her.” Fletcher’s hands were outstretched, as if he were warming them by an unseen fire as he surveyed the disturbed earth where the kobalde had fallen. “Lucents can slow a kobalde. But they aren’t shackles.”

  “What about that—that other thing,” she asked quietly, glancing over her shoulder, as if expecting it to come tumbling through the trees at any moment.

  “A beluae. Dead.” He said the word like it killed a little part of him, too.

  Elsie could still feel the phantom lucent against her fingertips, now stinging with regret.

  “She’s certainly gone,” Fletcher murmured. “Where, I do not know. Beyond our reaches, no question.”

  “Can’t you find it again? Do the thing—with the, um…” Her hand danced in the air, searching for a word she realized she didn’t know. “The disappearing, or whatever?” Her heart was pounding, body flooded with adrenaline from the chase.

  “Evanescing. That’s what it’s called.” He shook his head, rising from where he’d knelt to examine the ground. “The kobalde are deceivers. They have a gift for disappearing when they do not wish to be found.”

  Rainwater was already pooling in the little indentations made by the kobalde as she’d skidded to a stop, tumbling over herself. Elsie was soaked to the bone, the water clouding her vision. Not water, she realized—tears. Tears of failure, and bitter anger.

  “Elsie.” Fletcher gently brushed the moisture from her cheeks with a soft finger. His skin was stained with blood as he pulled it away, her own stinging with salt and water.

  “We should find—”

  “You’re hurt—”

  “I am fine!”

  “Elsie, you—I—” He sighed, exasperated. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t track a kobalde over those kinds of distances. Nobody can.”

  Grimacing, she scoffed her frustration. “No. Of course, not. Because why—why would anybody…” But the words caught in her throat, stuck between her constricting chest and heavy disbelief.

  She grabbed his hand, slick with rain and chilled to the bone, gripped it hard, as if the mere act of his skin against hers was enough to dissolve this miserable scene. “Fine. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  ELSIE

  “Never let propriety get in the way of finding what you need.”

  ~Risa Barrett

  Ringing out her hair, Elsie frowned, watching the veritable waterfall splattering onto the soft hearth rug below. Soaked to the bone didn’t really do their condition justice.

  With a grimace, she sent the droplets lingering on her fingertips towards the flame-licked logs, the fire hissing and spitting in protest. The steady drip drip of water on brick evidenced the still-waterlogged state of her clothes tossed hopelessly on the grate, vainly soaking up the heat. She pulled her borrowed dressing robe closer—gods, it smelled like him, like tealeaves and bread, beyond familiar, verging on intoxicating—and sighed.

  A Drada.

  Her eyes skirted the lodge room, looking for…well, looking for whatever it was elves left lying around that would’ve been particularly elfish. A cobbler’s bench, maybe.

  But there was nothing scattered about that would’ve betrayed magic, save for the Drada wringing out a sodden tunic in the bathing room sink.

  Retrieving her steaming cup of tea from the mantle with a quiet clatter of porcelain-on-stone, she padded over to join him, letting the doorframe bear the weight of her exhausted self. “So,” she said dully, watching as he tossed the tunic over the edge of the tub. “Princeling. You think she knew it was by birth, or did the kobalde assume it was by your esteemed relation to Princess Pastry?” The taunt still screamed in her mind, the kobalde’s childish voice mocking and cruel. But his was a title given at birth, that much, he’d confessed long ago, in July, by the fountain. Only then, it’d been the kind of meaningless title everyone wore, like calling someone Lord or Mister, and since she’d believed him to be from the human settlement beyond Aerdela, she hadn’t questioned that they’d adopted the titles in defiance.

  “The former, I’m sure,” he muttered, not daring to meet her gaze.

  “Well, I confess, I’m a bit disappointed the settlements hadn’t taken to crowning their own royalty. Could’ve given the Commissioners a run for their money—I mean, a self-made King? That’s an easy sell, especially with the summer we had. Not to mention it’s a bit tropey,” she added in an undertone. “An elven prince…”

  Her eyes lingered on him. On his loose, too-long trousers sitting low on his hips. On his bare chest, smooth save for a fine dusting of hair on his soft stomach, the kind perfect for hugging.

  “So, how bad is it?”

  He turned, eyes wide at the almost-accusation, the dripping socks forgotten in his fingertips. “How bad is what?”

  “These murders. You’re a good man, Fletcher, and you have a good heart, but this is not the only streak of violence within Aerdela. People die all the time, and I don’t imagine your kind come running every time someone gets gutted in a back-district alley. And someone calling himself the Master is ordering demons through the brambles, bragging about—about having a taste for pastries, Fletcher, that’s not ordinary. At least, not here. So, tell me. Tell me what crime was so heinous that a Dradan prince was sent to find the answer.”

  Fletcher’s brow was knitted. “Blood magic,” he said quietly. “But nobody sent me. I’m not supposed to be here.”

  FLETCHER

  “Blood-soaked are the hands of the living. We are all sinners, to have survived so long.”

  ~Adrian Lynch

  The rain had stopped falling by the time Fletcher returned to the riverbank, leaving nothing more than squelching mud beneath his boots as branches above groaned beneath the fat, lolling bead
s of water.

  The body of the beluae lay where it’d fallen, the ground stained with its dark blood.

  “Odd,” a delicate, female voice said from behind.

  Fletcher knew she’d been there. He’d heard her words long before she spoke.

  “What, pray tell,” she went on, making for the creature, “is a beluae doing so far north?” She brushed back the hood of her cloak, a great cascade of curled, dark blonde hair tumbling down her back and shoulders. The skirts of her gown chattered eagerly as she circled the body of the monster, pale hazel eyes curious.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “And a kobalde, too.” Not a question. “Do you care to do the honors, or shall I?”

  “Be my guest,” he muttered, stepping back.

  A moment later, great white flames engulfed the body of the beluae, the sound of crackling flesh filling the air despite the damp.

  Consigned to the flames.

  It was silent as they prayed.

  May the fire release your soul from the confines of your mortal body.

  May the light of the gods lead you safely to the afterlife.

  The first two lines of the Rite. He wouldn’t offer more. What the beluae believed—if they believed anything—he did not know. Whether he ought to offer the Dradan words, said to help guide the soul to take its place as a pinprick star in the night sky—whether the beluae soul might even be permitted to take the journey—he wasn’t sure.

  But the first two lines were surely enough to usher the creature to whatever afterlife existed for it. If one existed at all.

  “Oh, come on, Fletcher. Have a little faith.”

  He glanced over to his sister. “It’s rude, you know, to Listen while someone’s trying to pray.” Trying, he mulled, being the operative word.