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

by C. H. Williams

What do I need.

  Quiet.

  Time, to let the pain wash through him.

  And to heal.

  He needed to learn how to heal.

  SAM

  “The simple act of prayer can mend the soul. It is not that the gods are listening—or, if they are, that they particularly care. It is simply the belief that you are not alone, and that…that is a powerful tool.”

  ~Alva Praequintelya

  Sam’s hands moved through the motions, thought they weren’t his own.

  Tea in the basket. Water in the kettle. Match to the burner. Kettle on the stove. Cups on the counter.

  He moved, until he could move no longer. Until his eyes stung with saltwater and the world was bleeding, a watercolor memory.

  “You know, he—he was laying there, and I thought, this might be it,” Sam said hoarsely, hands braced on the edge of the sink. “That might’ve been the time we had. And he’s fine. But in that moment, I went to pray? Only, there was no one to pray to. We—we talk about these gods, but when it mattered, what…” He shook his head. “All I wanted was one fucking prayer, and I had nothing.”

  The kettle began to spit and whistle, clanking against the grate. He pulled it from the heat, clicking off the burner, a wash of steam billowing up as he filled the tea pot.

  Even now, he could feel the phantom burs in his hand where he’d touched his lover.

  One prayer.

  One prayer, because Teddy had almost died.

  One prayer, because Elsie had almost burned.

  She should’ve been in that farmhouse tonight, save for the grace of Chim.

  They will find her.

  And they will kill her.

  He’d refused to hand over the letters, and she’d almost been a third, beneath the quilts on the side of the road.

  That was what Clark had threatened, wasn’t it? That she was going to die…but the letters, these letters would’ve done nothing.

  They’d’ve warned of Fletcher—her ally, despite what she claimed. They’d’ve told many things.

  But not of a moment’s anger, the slamming of a door, not until it was too late.

  Whoever had set the fire had been watching.

  They knew.

  They followed.

  The thought terrified him, because soon, they would realize they failed.

  “I, um…” Fletcher trailed off, evidently at a loss. Brows knitted, he was leaning against the counter, banished by awkward imposition when Sam had been sent for tea, vainly hoping to steal a moment to catch his breath.

  A boy, trailing after me like a little dog.

  He regretted the thought instantly. It belonged to a bitter tart, angry at his lost monopoly of heartbreak.

  Swallowing, Fletcher put a tentative hand on Sam’s shoulder. Then, with a soft exhale, he closed his eyes. “Gods below,” he breathed, “cast up these words. Find our brother in the depths. Cora, cutter of threads, stay your hand. Lucia, trickster, show your mercy. Stell, cold-hearted, give your warmth. Hadri, in the night, light your lamp. These be the words” —Cora Lucia Stell Hadri Cora Lucia Stell Hadri Cora Lucia Stell Hadri— “Gods above, cast down these words. Find our brother in the heights. Asa, bind the wounds. Natali, give shelter from the storms. Ignata, calm the fray. Kiran, restore the day” —Asa Natali Ignata Kiran Asa Natali Ignata Kiran Asa Natali Ignata Kiran— “These be the words.”

  Names, for the reckoning.

  The kitchen was silent, and Fletcher let his hand drop. “I don’t know if they listen,” he said softly. “Or if they even exist.”

  Sam’s eyes fell to the five cups on the counter. “I don’t think that’s really the point.”

  They were quiet for a long moment.

  “Can I ask you something?” Fletcher paused, hazel eyes tentatively probing. “He…after the fit,” he asked hesitantly, arms folded across his body, moving in tight little palpitations back and forth, “he kept saying something about Tessa. Who is she?”

  “Tessa,” Sam sighed, rubbing the roped muscles strung tight on the back of his neck, “was his little sister. She was six, he was seven, and she fell.” She was six, he was seven, and she was pushed. “Hit her head on the corner of the dining table. It was a long shot, taking her to see a physician, but they did. An hour in the cold—skull cracked—and she made it into town. Even still, it wasn’t a hopeful prognosis, but the physician was willing to work on her, and with time, money, maybe…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “They couldn’t even buy her back off the examination table. I don’t know how familiar you are with the nuances of our little district, but the Guild has a price for everything. She was kept as collateral.”

  “What happened to her,” he edged, too much false hope in his eyes. “She didn’t…”

  “A death certificate was delivered to their door the next day, and a notice to which public grave plot she’d been buried in.” Sam returned to the tea, the rich reddish-brown brew long oversteeped. “Teddy blames himself. He’s got a talent for healing, as you’ve obviously seen. And he’s got a singularly kind heart, of which I believe Tessa still holds the most of. I do not believe a day goes by when he does not miss her more badly than any of us can imagine.”

  “He—he was a kid, there was nothing he could’ve done…”

  Sam tossed the steaming leaves into the bin, the basket clattering against the sink. “Guilt doesn’t discriminate, Fletcher. We’re all victims. And now his parents…”

  An uncomfortably familiar rap of rat tat-tat-tat against the front door interrupted Sam, making him start.

  The clawing of a caracara.

  A chill swept down his spine, unpleasant and cold.

  Impossible.

  It was impossible, that he’d come here.

  But here, he’d come.

  Clark Carson was waiting at the threshold as Sam pulled the door open, knuckles white against the brass handle as he tried to hide the shaking.

  “My deepest condolences,” Clark said, voice dark as he pushed past Sam, not bothering to wait for an invitation. “I came the moment I heard, naturally—our young friend, she remains intact?”

  “El’s fine,” Sam muttered warily, glancing down the hallway.

  Clark’s sigh of relief was palpable as he ran a finger across the rim of his top hat before tipping it off, eyes skirting the room. His gaze landed on the sketch set on a bookcase shelf, framed beneath silver and glass.

  It’d been from ages ago. Sam had sketched it, a portrait of he and Teddy laughing together, arms around each other’s waists, testing the waters of romance—and a new set of coloring pencils. Teddy had paused on that page of the sketch book as they’d flipped through it together, curled on the sofa and armed with wine and conversation. He’d loved it, he said, the moment he saw it. Like I loved you.

  When Clark’s eyes flicked back to Sam’s, they were full of fury. “I’m waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “You know what for,” Clark snapped, glaring. “You cannot possibly believe that last night was a coincidence.” In the wake of his voice, the apartment had gone eerily still.

  They were listening.

  “What was in them,” Sam asked softly.

  “Pardon?”

  “What was in the letters,” he echoed again, voice nothing more than a whisper, “that would’ve saved her?”

  A little game he’d been playing since they’d seen the rubble. What, oh what, would those letters have done. Not a damn thing.

  “I will not indulge your rhetorical lines of questioning. Hypotheticals are the refuge of the weak—”

  “Nothing,” Sam breathed, cutting him off. “There was nothing. Do you know why, Clark? Because she wasn’t even supposed to be there, last night—”

  “I am protecting her best interests.”

  “The way you protected mine?”

  “Yes, as it so happens—”

  “No,” Sam hissed, “no, you are not a hero. You do not get to come into my home, our home, trumpe
ting your own moral high ground. You’re the one that gave her that damnable locket. You might as well have put a target on her back, if any of what you’ve said is true—”

  Clark’s beady eyes were narrowed, fists clenched in anger so finely veiled as he walked the streets, so expertly tucked away as he laughed and drank and smoked away his nights, so impossible to deny when his little flocks flew away, and all that remained was the two of them.

  It was the same look, carved now across his face, that he’d borne, finding Sam and Mattie in the garden.

  Disgust, that Sam thought he might belong to another.

  And beyond that, lethal envy.

  “It was her birthright. She is of age, now, and though others may be too paralyzed to act, I am not—”

  “You are a degenerate thug,” Sam growled, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. “You are not welcome here. I bought your line once, Clark, when I thought you could’ve really done something for her. It’s time to move on.”

  “You have overstepped for the last time—”

  “I have kept your secrets, Clark. But I have no qualms divulging if you don’t leave her alone—”

  “You—oh, this is precious. Are you trying to blackmail me?”

  “If that is what it takes to discredit you, to get them to see you for who you are, to keep her out of your way, then so be it.” Sam’s chest was tight, his words breathless as they cut the air.

  “And what then,” Clark asked softly, his voice sinking to a deadly timbre. His eyes were burning, something salacious bored deep into those dark pits as he took a step towards Sam. “What will they say, when you tell them you sought comfort in the arms of your mentor? That, in the throes of adolescence, in a world unfamiliar, I simply helped guide you into manhood? You know such accusations cannot stand.”

  “I—You overestimate your position—”

  “Our fellow merchants will side with their Commissioner,” he pressed, a vindictive smile starting to curl at the corners of his mouth. “And as for everyone else…well. It isn’t me, they’ll be calling a degenerate.”

  “They will see you for who you are—”

  “Then they will see a powerful man, who does not cow to the baseless threats of lesser men!”

  “You cannot—”

  “I can!” Clark was glaring again, knuckles white as he gripped the rim of his hat. “Do as you wish, Sam. Spread your vicious rumors. Cling to your morality, love, and tell me of its steadfastness in your waking hours, when it is all that remains of the life you wanted! And I promise you, it is all that will remain.” Words still hanging in the air, he turned on his heel for the door.

  “You can’t,” Sam echoed, voice soft. A whispered cry.

  He would not be defeated. He would not bow to these threats. Not again. Not when it had cost so much already.

  “You,” Clark snapped, shooting a foul look over his shoulder, “are an impertinent fool! I am the master of this Valley. I do as I please!”

  Sam swallowed hard, eyes stinging as he pressed a shaking fist to his lips, trying to steady himself.

  The master of the Valley.

  FLETCHER

  “Never doubt your instincts. They’re why we’ve survived this long, and they’re going to be what gets you through.”

  ~Adrian Lynch

  Loyalty before amity.

  Maybe they weren’t such different things, in the end.

  He saw his reflection in the kitchen window in the split second before he moved.

  The soft, two-button tunics that Teddy liked, cotton and casual. The furrowed brows over his mother’s eyes. He might’ve passed for a human, if they hadn’t bothered to look for the tipped ears poking through his messy, dark blonde hair.

  The first time he’d made an arrest had been two years ago, and he’d been in a freshly-pressed cadet’s uniform, boots still shining, fresh from the box.

  His striped socks would have to do, this time.

  “Commissioner Carson.” Fletcher stepped across the threshold, crossing the dining room in a few quick paces. Magic was flaring in his wrists as he sent an unseen wall between Clark and the door, the Commissioner’s hand hitting solid air as he moved for the handle. Another flick of his hand, and the Commissioner was walled in completely.

  His fist hit the shield in frustration, teeth baring. “What—”

  “You are being detained on suspicion of the illegal practice of blood-magic,” Fletcher cut in, and he found his shoulders thrown back a little more, found a little string pulling him up a little taller. “The charges against you are as follows: the illegal operation of a production ring, resulting in the deaths of nine known persons, the interaction and employment of persons of known dangerous magics, the assault of an officer of Caelaymnic law with such persons, the attempt of bodily harm against the royal family of Caelaymnis, and…” He glanced back to Elsie, lingering at the back of the hallway. To Sam, eyes glistening, arms held tight to his chest. Then back to Clark. “And the knowing and willful assault of a human within the sequestered borders known as Aerdela.” A charge—willful assault of a human—that was intended to protect the humans from any rogue Drada who sought to exact vengeance against humans, never mind that the folks living in the bounds of Aerdela had no part, or even awareness, of what their Woodshade cousins did. But there was no reason it couldn’t be used to protect the humans from themselves, too. From Clark.

  “On whose authority,” Clark snarled, his chest heaving. His hands were pressed against the shield, like it might give way, his breaths panicked and fast.

  Someone didn’t like enclosed spaces.

  “On the authority of the Senate, Council, and Crown of the Dradan Territory of Caelaymnis.”

  Clark had burrowed into his breast-pocket, slamming a slip of paper against the wall, shimmering faintly as the sun edged toward the entryway where he stood, trapped. “Release me.”

  “You confessed.”

  “Curious, what those letters might’ve said,” Clark snapped instead, eyes flicking to Sam. “You are a fool, boy! You are meddling in things you know nothing of—”

  But Fletcher’s eyes were flying across the sprawling script curled across the parchment beneath his hand. Under the provisional charter, Chancellor Margaret Faulise hereby grants political immunity to the friend and ally of the Hidden City, Commissioner Clark Carson, bringing him for all intents and purposes beneath the govern of justice that reigns within the City—

  “Chancellor Faulise is no longer in power,” Fletcher muttered, scanning the rest of the letter, “this is voided, under new leadership…”

  “It is not. I assure you that Regent Chancellor Vaupellum has ratified the ruling, now release me!”

  Fletcher turned, finding Elsie’s gaze from deep within the hall. “I’ll be back,” he said softly. “I promise.”

  And snapping down the walls of the shield, he grabbed the Commissioner’s arm, and the world dissolved into a swirl of lights.

  “You arrested the Commissioner!” Augustus slammed his hands on the desk, the legs whining against the floor as the whole thing went askew. “What is wrong with you, Fletcher? This is an embarrassment! Father is meeting with the Chancellor, trying to smooth over your diplomatic fumbling—”

  “It wasn’t fumbling,” Fletcher muttered, not meeting his brother’s gaze.

  The General’s office was stark, minimal and gray, just like the rest of the compound. A fireplace, the massive desk, littered with neat stacks of parchment, each little thing in its place—until he’d nearly shoved it across the room in his fury.

  A pen was rolling slowly across the wood, clicking and clacking until it rolled right off the edge, hitting the floor with a satisfying ki-tak clack-clack.

  “It wasn’t fumbling,” Augustus echoed, growling the words through gritted teeth. “Are you not listening to what I’ve just said—”

  “He as good as confessed.”

  “No, he damn well didn’t! You were so desperate to make an arrest, you
would’ve arrested your own lover, if she’d said the same!”

  “He said he was the master—”

  “It is a common Vernacular phrase, Fletcher! He is the master of the Valley—he runs the gods-damned place! Hell, he runs all of Aerdela! You stuck your nose into a little family spat, and you’ve made a grand little diplomatic incident for all of us!” Augustus scoffed, kicking his chair as he straightened. “I’ve let him go.”

  “You can’t—”

  “I have let him go,” Augustus snarled, glaring. His angry breaths swallowed up the words as he paused, eyes unblinking on Fletcher’s. And when he spoke again, his voice was deathly quiet. “You haven’t made an arrest in nearly a year.”

  “No. Sir,” he added, not wishing to test the limits any more.

  Augustus slid a piece of paper from the now-collapsing stack, eyes falling to the swirls across the page. “Your arrest record before today was unblemished. A flawless conviction rate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His eyes flicked up, pale and flashing. “You were sure about this. Why.”

  “I…don’t have a reason,” he mumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets, eying the floor. “It was a hunch.”

  “A hunch. What’s that?”

  The Vernacular word had slipped through his lips without a second thought, and he felt his face heating. “A guess. A feeling in your heart, so strong, you can’t fight it.” Love was kind of like a hunch, now that he thought about it. Maybe lots of things were hunches. Hunger. Exhaustion. Happiness. Relief.

  Augustus blew out a breath, eyes flicking about the room. “I don’t have a choice in releasing him,” he said, after a long moment. “He does have diplomatic immunity, and his Advocate has been quite clear that it is not within our authority to proceed with indictment. However.” He paused. “If you are able to dredge something up, any shred of physical evidence he’s actually running a production ring, I will be right there with you as you bring him in.”

  He glanced up, hardly believing the words. “You’re serious? The—the censures, and—”

  “Fletcher, you disobeyed a direct order and disappeared to a human settlement for six months. I believe in this cause, but what else was I supposed to do?” he shrugged, tossing the arrest record aside. “His release is only going to bolster his confidence. The Commissioner believes he can hide behind Vaupellum’s edict, and as far as he’s aware, our government has no interest in pursuing this further. Father is busy plying him with apologies as we speak. But even still, you don’t have much time.” His eyes flicked to Fletcher’s. “You need anything,” he said softly, “anything at all—you tell me. Our resources are yours.”