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

by C. H. Williams

  “Sorry, but…it’s just a sort of membrane, isn’t it? Couldn’t you still cast it pretty wide, even if it doesn’t cover the whole thing?”

  “Well…no.” All eyes were on Isa, now. “A shield is a wall of densely packed air,” the Captain went on. “Our magic—the membrane, if you will—is what holds it together. We can’t just conjure up a barrier made solely of our magic.”

  “Why not?”

  Isa sighed, dark eyes meeting hers in thoughtful contemplation. Then, holding out a hand, they said, “Give me a gold piece.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Then make one.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not,” Isa pushed, raising an eyebrow.

  “I don’t have the gold, or—or a forge, or the stamp, or any of it.”

  “Now, what if I asked you for a gold piece, but instead of you needing to make one, you could just take it from somewhere else? A coin purse, or my pocket, or what have you.”

  Elsie’s face heated guiltily as she nodded her understanding.

  “Our magic lets us work the world around us into many things,” Isa said, a smile tugging at their lips. “We conjure the—the membrane, I guess we’ll call it. And through that, we can pack the air tight enough that a person can’t get through.”

  “What about magic, though,” she edged.

  Isa’s brow furrowed. “Magic…can shape the physical world. So, yes, it could get through, but without something physical to bear the weight, so to speak, it wouldn’t really do much—unless you’re Mia,” they corrected quickly, nodding to the strawberry blonde.

  “How?”

  Snickering, Mia held a palm outstretched.

  Elsie had to do a double take, watching the lightning storm summoned into the small hand, crackling and hissing.

  “Family gift,” Mia challenged, flashing a bright smile.

  The gift of lightning in her fingers.

  And in the blink of an eye, it was gone again, and Isa gave a small so there kind of shrug.

  “That’s it.” Fletcher’s voice was soft, at last breaking his study of the table map. “Elsie figured it out. She’s right, we need a shield.”

  Augustus heaved a sigh, thrusting a finger at his lover. “Were you not just listening to them? Isa already explained this, Fletch—”

  “Shield the house.”

  “That’s great, if you want to wait three weeks to starve them out.”

  “Try three minutes,” Fletcher pressed, shaking his head. “Just bleed the air out of inside. We can pack a shield so dense a person can’t get through—why not air, too?”

  A look of understanding dawned across Augustus’s face, eyes lighting. “Knock them unconscious. There’s not even a fight, no risk of contamination…I don’t see why it couldn’t be done, but you’ve got three days—”

  “Plenty of time,” Rodion interjected jovially, clapping Fletcher on the back. “He can learn.”

  “Learn what,” Elsie pushed.

  Fletcher’s eyes locked on hers. “A piece of magic never tried before.”

  “It still depends on whether your friend can get you in,” Augustus pressed on, running an anxious hand through his dirty blonde hair. “Your plan guarantees the mercenaries inside the facility are distracted, not the ones out of it. If they’re not busy at the manor house, or if the Commissioner gets wind of what’s happening and tries to make a run for it—the last thing we need is him running off to the City with another botched arrest attempt—”

  “He’ll get us in.” Elsie felt a swell of pride in her heart, saying the words.

  I will fight for you.

  She’d been meaning to burn the letters he’d given her. Even without the last page, a written confession of his own misdeeds, she’d have kept them, though.

  Reading them, it felt like she’d forgotten how to live.

  He’d chronicled every pain. Every hurt. Every joy. Every smile, every laugh, every good day she’d had in the last six months.

  Her life, in ink and parchment.

  SAM

  “Call me simple, but I’ve always fancied the best introduction a quick and unremarkable one.”

  ~Theodore Alderton

  On the stoop of the massive buttercream house, Sam waited.

  Beneath the blue silk cravat, beneath the pressed tunic, hidden beneath the undershirt, the ring atop his collarbone, quivering in time with his heart.

  He wouldn’t have bothered to drag the cravat from the wardrobe and noose it around his neck, wouldn’t have bothered to dust off the charcoal jacket, except that those things mattered, here.

  Of course, waiting on the doormat of a merchant’s house wasn’t how he’d imagined their honeymoon.

  It would’ve been the ocean. Or else, a library somewhere, where he could’ve paid a fortune to have the thing locked up for a week, and he’d watch his husband—Sam’s heart skipped a beat—buried in a stack of books, reveling in the quiet peace of tomes.

  They would’ve been married a year ago, if Sam had saved enough to get a house on the merchant’s edge of the district. That was when their dreams had been different, though.

  That was when they were going to fill their house with children and Sam was going to spin out gowns from a shop of his own and Teddy was going to spend his days baking pies and loving their babies and Elsie would be coming and going as she pleased from the apartment he’d wanted to bequeath to her, when they’d moved on to greater things.

  He had to find a way to tell her what they’d done.

  Stowing the ring beneath his fussy clothes was one thing. But Teddy was going to have a hell of a time keeping that gold chain hidden beneath the thin tunics he wore.

  Married in a kitchen as November died.

  It sounded like the kind of wedding Sam Carson would’ve hated.

  And the kind that Sam Alderton adored.

  You’ll get your lace. His words to Desi were still ringing in his ears.

  The rich wood of the sewing box was stained golden and puzzled together, tiny bands of sunlight-soaked panels holding the mother-of-pearl starburst inset. Held at his side, it’d been a faithful companion at Mulligan’s, and hardly touched in the weeks since he’d left.

  She’d be getting lace, alright.

  “Ah. Mr. Alderton.” A rather dour looking man, aging and gray, pulled open the door, beckoning him in.

  A squeal of excitement, though, cut off any semblance of courtesy, as a flurry of crinoline and pink swirled around the corner. “Sam!” A young woman threw her arms around him, kissing each cheek in turn before planting a jovially exuberant and very innocent one right on his lips.

  “Des,” he grinned, returning a half-hug with his free arm. “The weeks have kept you well?”

  “Oh, gods, no! Sam, my dress—thank the gods you’ve come, it’s the most horrendous—but why have you come?” Her eyes were wide, affected concern written beautifully across her face.

  “To see my favorite client, of course,” he offered kindly, and nodding to his sewing box, added, “and make some casual amendments, lest a certain young woman find herself wanting at her introduction.”

  Sunlight bathed the drawing room, and Desi stood valiantly beneath the mass of jewels and silk, watching Sam work the hem.

  They’d given her lace, alright—but not the fine weave she’d likely wanted, spun on the Coastal Reach. It’d been a rough Warken pattern, wretchedly floral and coarsely stitched in without a second thought.

  “I had a suspicion that I was needed,” Sam mused, kneeling on the carpet, pinning a gorgeously woven Raspberry Harvest pattern lace to the hem. True to its name, the deep burgundy drew out the pale pink of the gown, the pattern nothing more than delicate twirls, tasseled at regular intervals. “Seamsters can sense these things, you know—when there is a crisis of lace.”

  Desi giggled, her mother giving a quiet laugh from the corner. “It is fortunate you came to call,” Lora remarked, working herself on a spot of embroidery. “Everyone i
s simply distraught at that fool Mrs. Mulligan, and right before the introductions, too. It is quite the scandal, Sam—though I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “It is no fault of Mrs. Mulligan, I assure you,” he muttered, glancing up.

  Lora pursed her lips. “We know, love. We know. And rest assured, on this matter, we cannot find solidarity with our Commissioner.”

  Sam gave a slight dip of his head in gratitude before returning to his work. “A lovely sentiment. Though,” he sighed, “these things do happen. My only regret is that I won’t get to see sweet Desi here meet society.”

  Desi’s shriek of dismay shook the room. “What? Sam, you have to be there! You promised!”

  “I wasn’t invited, hon. But you’ll be marvelous—”

  “He didn’t even invite you?”

  “Forget it, Des, I shouldn’t have even brought it up—”

  “Mama, fetch the proofs from my stationary desk, this is absurd,” Desi fussed, nearly falling off the stool in her distress, catching herself with a hand on Sam’s shoulder as she was inclined to do at least once a fitting.

  “Love, you don’t have to do that,” he murmured, trying to keep the smile out of his voice. Rising, he abandoned the hem to her flustered movements, making instead for the sewing box on a nearby end table. His fingers traced the places where it’d been worn down to streaks of white, never to be refinished. The click of the latch, the resistant whistle of the hinges, and it didn’t matter how long it’d been, he knew the contents better than he knew himself.

  A spool of purple thread, a needle stuffed messily beneath the layers, half-threaded. A thimble, once too big for his fingers, but she’d let him wear it all the same, that cratered little tin hat. A pin cushion, once pink but now faded, speckled with little brown stains he’d memorized long ago, and if he breathed it in long enough, held it close, turned the grainy little pillow over in his hands enough, he could still smell it, the lavender buried deep inside the shell. A tattered corner of dotted cotton, happy pastel-blue circles woven in the yellowing cloth, the disintegrating fibers catching on his callused fingertips.

  Careful, Sammy.

  A voice, sweetened like wine in his memory.

  Your daddy gave this to me, she’d smiled, tucking a strand of curling honey hair behind her ear, and he tried to remember what color her eyes had been, but they’d only been a reflection of flame as they’d sat, huddled on the hearth rug of that dingy one-room flat. And do you know what, Sammy? There’s no tear, she’d say, taking out the spool, no tear that can’t be mended. Remember that, sweet.

  “No tear,” he echoed under his breath, drawing the lid shut with a sigh. I’ve got more than a few tears that need mending, Mom. I wish you were here to fix them.

  I am fine. I am dealing with it.

  He didn’t really know if he was. Not really.

  Teddy helped.

  They’d tumbled into each other, hurting in their own ways. And in a twisted kind of way, it’d been beautiful. They’d loved not because of the pain, but in spite of it. When they had bared their souls, what remained was raw resilience.

  “Oh! Oh gods, now I can meet him!” Desi squealed, in a tizzy about the possibility of at last meeting the boy who’d won Sam Alderton’s heart. “The boy! Everyone—oh, gods, Sam, everyone talks about him, but it’ll be me, bringing him out! Ooo, we’re going to meet Teddy!”

  “I am afraid he is a rather private person—”

  “Please, Sam? Please? You have to bring him!”

  “I shall be sure to pass the invitation along,” he reassured her, watching her fret and fuss in front of the mirror, skirts rustling playfully, “though he is quite introverted—he elects to spend many an evening with his sister—”

  “Then bring her, too!” Desi was almost quivering with excitement, her face flushed a deep rose. “Bring her, she—oh, a ball, she’ll be splendidly excited—”

  “I don’t doubt you’re right. Now, if you’re quite finished, hold still,” Sam snickered, shooing her back atop the stool. The silk was smooth beneath his fingertips as he straightened the skirt, eying the half-done hem. One more. “It’ll be her first ball, you know—her companion has been simply dying to take her out—”

  “She never met society?” Desi’s mouth had fallen slightly open, eyes wide.

  “Des, sweet, Sam’s companion is a farmer’s son, remember,” Lora warned softly. Sweeping back from the writing desk, stack of stationary in hand and armed with a fountain pen, she gave her daughter a look of dismay. “They don’t meet society the way we do.”

  “Well, not the same society, obviously, but the farmers are still a society! Don’t they have that—that festival, or what have you?”

  “The festival is a disastrously fun excuse to drink and dance,” Sam offered. “It’s hardly an introduction ball, though.”

  “You’ve been! Oh, how charming—”

  Lora scoffed. “Des—”

  “Oh, right, gods, I nearly lost track—four, yes?” She glanced down at Sam in question. “Is that right? You, and—and Teddy, and his sister, and his sister’s companion?”

  “Truly, there is no need to make waves over such things—”

  A bright smile blossomed across her face. “It’s settled, then! Four invitations to my introduction ball, Sam, and I will not take no for an answer!”

  “I didn’t think you would,” he grinned, setting to work once more.

  AUGUSTUS

  “There is life in the blood—this, we universally acknowledge. Where there is life, there are lies, and too, heartbreak and hope.”

  ~Greysha Boewliç

  Arms braced on the desk, Augustus’s eyes were fixed unseeing at the map spread across it.

  Hours of planning, strategizing, and his thoughts had at last drifted away from the task at hand.

  Last night had brought another attack against the city walls, and with it, more death, more destruction, and more desperation.

  The Master’s contributions had dropped death tolls into the single digits. It’d given Augustus’s own men a fighting chance against the Woodshades, a chance to wrench what was more or less a victory from the hands of the humans addled by the blood-magic.

  A single drop on the tongue of each warrior.

  One Ruby Tear, and the humans had found the virulence of their attack weakened.

  To take the blood was to take the magic. The humans had done as much—they’d taken Dradan blood, taken what little bits of Dradan magic they could scrape up from the sacrifice, and taken the Dradan troops with insurmountable force. This, what Augustus did with the Master…it put them on even footing. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  They would quell the uprising in the settlements. Pinch out the production rings in Aerdela.

  And at the end of it all, they would retake their kingdom.

  “What happened there?”

  Elsie’s voice drew him from his thoughts, and he glanced up.

  She wasn’t what he’d expected.

  Tall. Gorgeously tall, with shining black hair the color of Isa’s—except Isa’s was straight, truthfully a little limp, when it wasn’t kept in the tight knot—but nevertheless, Elsie’s wild mane, barely contained, seemed to pair well with her wickedly sharp tongue, the almost demanding tone to her voice.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “There,” she said quietly, finger gently trailing towards his bare forearms. “What happened?”

  Fool. He’d pushed up his sleeves thoughtlessly. Everyone else knew the story, knew better than to ask, and of course, she couldn’t simply leave it alone.

  He jerked his arm away, and she started, flinching, like the movement was the precursor to a blow. His eyes locked on hers, an admonition on his tongue…

  And yet, it wouldn’t come.

  Fletcher once said he got lost in Elsie’s eyes. There was truth in that, to be sure.

  Staring into them was like staring into the face of Death herself.

  “It’s pers
onal.”

  “May I?” Elsie was gesturing to his arm. To see the scars, he realized. Maybe that was something that humans did. Gawk at each other’s scars, poking and prodding until everyone was thoroughly fucked up.

  Ama always did say there was a human in the Praequintelya line.

  That had to be why he held out his arm, not breaking her gaze. Some inherited stupidity from a round-eared moron ages ago.

  “Ouch,” she muttered, eyes following the lines up from his wrists to where they disappeared beneath the wrinkled gray sleeves clustered at his elbows. Gingerly, the tip of her finger brushed across the band of them, like she was strumming a sinewy, purpled, skin-stretched band of lute strings. “My brother’s a Healer. I bet he’d try and help, if you wanted him to look. These look pretty fresh, I imagine he’d be able to fix them.”

  “I know what he is. And there’s nothing he can do.” Augustus pushed his sleeve back down, turning away.

  “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it. How we chase scars. Like we don’t deserve to be unmarked, or something.”

  “It isn’t a matter of deserving,” he countered. Don’t even engage with her. This isn’t any of her business.

  “But it is. If you thought you deserved a chance to get better, you’d let Teddy take a look—”

  He turned on his heel, glaring. “You don’t think I had the best medics in Caelaymnis to try and fix this? I am a prince. A General of the Royal Army. I had Drada crawling all the way from Thallassas trying to help, and you know what? It wasn’t a matter of deserving, because none of them could do a gods-damned thing! These scars? They’ll never fade. I will have them for the rest of my life, because some piece of shit human decided to cut me open, and the last thing I need is some half-baked healer running his filthy hands all over me, reminding me that I am marked, and there is nothing anyone can do about it!”

  If she was shaken by his reprimand, though, she didn’t show it.

  She merely pursed her lips, and with a quiet sigh, returned to the study of the maps across the desk.