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

by C. H. Williams

  “You know what to do,” Fletcher muttered, glancing at Mia. “And do it quickly.”

  The shield—and his nerves—were beginning to fray.

  A nauseatingly familiar electric crackle filled the air, and the whines of hunger had turned into howls of pain as the beast shuddered to the stone with starts and jolts.

  And amid the screaming of the barghest, the shuffle from upstairs that was drifting down as an argument broke out beyond the stairs, he could hear it.

  Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.

  Fletcher’s shield fell and he was running past the beast that had come lunging down the corridor from that cell, holding onto that sound, that weak sound, faint in the din.

  Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.

  His magic recoiled at the darkness, as his eyes searched through the black of the cell—

  She was not alone.

  Held close in Isa’s arms, the Captain’s fingertips were outstretched, a faint shimmer of a shield around them both.

  “Just me,” Fletcher pressed, hands held up in surrender.

  “Mirestva,” Mia snapped, “what in the name of the gods—”

  Isa let the shield fall, and Fletcher was on his knees beside her. “Elsie,” he breathed, putting a hand on her shoulder, feeling hot tears on his face. She didn’t stir. “Elsie?”

  Da-dum.

  So slow.

  Da-dum.

  Too slow, he realized.

  Da-dum.

  “Elsie, please!” He was begging now, his arms around her, holding her, trying to warm her—cold, she was too cold—

  Da-dum.

  Was he imagining it? His own heart was racing in his ears, the rush of blood almost deafening, mocking him—

  Mia was beckoning the Captain out of the cell, back from where they still knelt beside Elsie, making room for Risa.

  The body in his arms was shivering—or maybe he was shaking, it was hard to tell—

  “Honey, it’s time to wake up now,” Risa was urging, “Elsie, come on, sweetie, open those eyes…”

  Her eyelids gave a shudder, and Fletcher was crying, silently thanking the gods above—

  But where the emeralds should have sat on a field of white, there was only blood.

  The whites of her eyes were shot with magic.

  Damp—no. No, no, no—

  Her body was damp, dripping, red—it coated his hands, his chest, his lips that had brushed against her forehead—

  A deep cough wracked her body, making her seize and shake.

  But his murmured words, choked out in a mixture of relief and panic, did nothing. There was no recognition in her eyes as they met his. She did not know him.

  “No…” A look of terror was spreading across her face. She tried to pull away, to fight, and her ragged breathing became faster. “Please,” she started to cry, red lines painting her hollow face, “no, not you again, please, leave me be! Let me die!”

  Her voice cut through him. Cut through the corridor beyond, the house, the city—it had all gone quiet.

  “Hey.” Risa’s voice was low. Calming, instructing, like a mother’s call, and Elsie’s eyes flew to hers. “Hey, it’s alright. We’re here to help.”

  “No,” Elsie breathed, chest rattling faintly, “I don’t want to see them anymore, tell him to leave—”

  “I know,” she soothed. Her hand was running easy strokes across Elsie’s hair. “I know, honey.” There was a vial in the other hand, uncorked quietly. “I promise that you don’t have to see them, okay?”

  “Really?”

  Her breaking voice against the bleeding lips broke his heart.

  “Really,” Risa nodded, slowly moving the vial up, up, up, “but I need you to do something for me, okay?”

  Elsie was crying again, body shaking. “Anything. Please, anything—”

  “Drink this.” And with that, Risa tipped the contents past her lips.

  “Please.” It was a mumbled plea now, her eyelids sinking again. “Please, you…you have to tell him…”

  “I will,” Risa breathed, holding her hand.

  “No, you don’t—you have to tell him you came? Because Teddy—Teddy has t-t-to…”

  Her eyes were closed now, and Fletcher needed them open, needed her back, she needed to come back—

  “Please…tell…you have to…”

  Her body went limp in Fletcher’s arms.

  With a deep inhale, Risa rose, her movements quick, deliberate, now. “Can you carry her?”

  Fletcher nodded, drawing her tight as he came to standing.

  Light. She was too light. His arms should be straining from the weight, and yet…

  As they emerged into the light of the corridor, a somber crowd greeted them. The body of the barghest had been moved, was sitting limply against the wall. Isa was watching them, arms folded tightly, dark eyes glistening. Mia’s hand was on the Captain’s shoulder, a fist pressed to her lips as she shook her head.

  Cormalum was standing, fists clenched at his side, face red with rage. “Take her away,” he growled, pale eyes flashing, and Fletcher’s fingers held tight. No. He couldn’t be talking about Elsie—

  “Get upstairs,” Cormalum snapped, turning to one of the household guards, “and get that bitch out of my sight! I will see her tried, I will not rest until her head rolls, I will make her pay—”

  “Fletcher.” Risa’s hand was on his arm, bringing him back. “Let them deal with Cam. We don’t have much time.”

  FLETCHER

  “We find comfort in our loved ones. Right or wrong, it is an undeniable truth of our existence. And it guides us on, and on, and on.”

  ~Sam Alderton

  Slouched in an armchair by a small fire downstairs, Fletcher sat in the living room of his house in Caelaymnis, staring at the flames.

  7,894.

  7,895.

  He had spent the last two hours counting her heartbeats.

  Making sure that they pulsed on amid the terror that had yet to dissipate from his heart.

  Cam was being held in the palace cells. Her house was being searched, and Cormalum was on the warpath. A messenger had been sent to the House with the news nearly an hour ago. It had been a small comfort.

  But it was not nearly enough.

  Soft steps coming down the stairs drew his attention, and Isa appeared around the corner.

  “How is she?” Fletcher asked, straightening.

  “Resting,” Isa sighed. “She’s asleep. Risa gave her a sedative, and Teddy’s sitting with her.” And Alva had returned to their crumbling family, and Sam was making use of the kitchen, anxiously cooking to pass the time, and it still was not an answer.

  Swallowing, Fletcher tilted his head back, fighting another wave of tears. “Thanks for staying.”

  “Of course.” A pause. “Sir?”

  Fletcher glanced over.

  “I deeply regret that my involvement with the General—”

  “Don’t. Please. My brother’s a piece of shit that can rot in the underworld. You don’t need to pay for his sins.”

  Isa had stayed to care for Elsie. That was payment enough. It was the act of a kind heart that deserved better than whatever lousy, half-hearted affection Augustus had no doubt offered.

  “I tried to take her,” Isa said softly.

  “What?”

  “I tried to evanesce us both out. The cell wasn’t barred in, of course, like the compound prison. Couldn’t be, I guess, if it’s a ring.” Isa pursed their lips, raising an eyebrow. No. No, of course, they were right. The cells were barred in to quash magic, and therefore escape. But any such bars would render the efforts of a production ring weak, if not altogether inert. “But it was like she was—was stuck, or something.”

  “And you stayed,” Fletcher edged, tilting his head back against the cushioned chair.

  “She is my friend. She asked me not to leave. She did not want to be alone. And so I stayed. Loyalty before amity, sir.” Their dark eyes flicked to the kobalde on the rug. “And sh
e said she’d go get help, anyway, if I promised her a bag of sweets.”

  With tired footsteps, Risa joined them. A streak of blood was painted across her cheek, her messy hair tied up in a knot on top of her head. With a deep exhale, meeting Fletcher’s gaze, she shook her head. “She’s out, for now. But…it’s not good.”

  Fletcher’s heart dropped into his stomach, and he was on his feet. “W-what do you mean, not good?”

  Risa frowned. “We can’t stop the bleeding. I gave her a tonic to compensate for the blood loss, but it’s really only a stop-gap measure. She’s hemorrhaging. Keeping her sedated as much as possible will help, of course. Keep her heart rate down, she bleeds out slower. But unless we can find a way to stop the bleeding…like I said, it’s not good.”

  “But I—I don’t…what do we do?” Words brought from desperation.

  “Perhaps with rest and food, she’ll begin to recover on her own,” Risa sighed quietly. “But she’s in bad shape. You saw, she was delirious, starved, sick—it’s hard for a body to heal in such a state.”

  “So, you’re saying,” Fletcher said, eyes stinging, “she might die.”

  “You need to be prepared for that possibility, yes. It’s too soon to tell, but,” Risa said, swallowing hard, “she’s been through hell. Sometimes that’s too much for one person to take, even for someone as strong as Elsie.”

  Adrian was nodding from where he lurked in the foyer. “The government of Caelaymnis should be on their knees praying that she lives,” he said, voice filled with ice. “If she dies as a result of her imprisonment…” His threat didn’t need completion. The whorls of frost gathering about his fingertips said it all.

  “She won’t,” Fletcher said softly, staring at the ground.

  It was truth, unmistakable, and undeniable, one she had taught him well.

  She was a survivor.

  She was a fighter.

  And even still, she was something more.

  Elsie Mirabeau was a deluge.

  This wasn’t her ending.

  SAM

  “Do no harm—to others, to yourself. That is the tenant we live by. In this, we heal.”

  ~Theodore Alderton

  The darkness felt unending.

  But when dawn at last broke through the window, pale light crawling across the carpet, there was the unmistakable residue of an ashen heart that had lasted the night.

  Sam had quietly taken his place beside Elsie. Had carefully taken her hand in his, had brushed his lips across the back of her hand, and her fingers had given a reflexive squeeze, faint, but there nevertheless.

  Fletcher was laying down beside her, his arms protectively around her, like he was daring death to try and take her from him. He did not sleep. Eyes looking dark in the low light, they would periodically flash from Elsie to everyone else, then back to his companion again.

  Risa kept vigil in her chair. But her blue eyes had long since drifted away from Elsie. Had landed on Teddy, where he was staring at Elsie from where he sat, leaning against the bedpost at the foot of the bed. The conflict in his eyes was unmistakable. The Thread, lashing out, only to recoil violently into himself—he’d whispered as much, and Sam knew it wouldn’t stop him from trying to mend his sister, all the same.

  Whatever they’d done to her, it could not be fixed with the hand of a Healer.

  Whatever magic flooded her veins, time was the only recourse for remedy.

  Eyes flickering back to Elsie, Sam’s heart gave a lurch. A drop of blood had formed in the corner of her eye, had fallen down her cheek, leaving a trail of red in its wake. Like she was crying.

  He loved her with a ferocity he hadn’t realized was possible. Had loved her from the start, from the moment they’d met. Loved her wit. Her humor. The way she saw wonder in the world. Loved the resilience of her ashen heart.

  It was said that the gods wield not weapons but fountain pens.

  There were words, once. Murmured to him from a story as old time itself, given to him by a mother who, with her dying breath, would’ve ripped the pen from the gods so that her son’s story might go on.

  Words to restart an ashen heart.

  You are strong, fiery and unstoppable.

  He could still smell her, the tang of flowers and yeast.

  You are power, a force to be reckoned with.

  Her hair, beaded with sweat and snow.

  You are goodness, worthy and pure.

  His eyes stung with tears as he gripped Elsie’s hand, and he knew. Knew it more strongly than he’d known anything before. You are light that cannot be extinguished. And she would endure.

  EPILOGUE

  Forcing open her heavy eyelids, Elsie blinked back the darkness—the sun had set, though, night falling through tall windows of her bedroom in Fletcher’s house. Curled up beneath a soft throw on the window seat, she’d dozed off watching the glittering snowflakes gathering on the sill, wondering how it’d feel to be so free. So pure. So clean.

  The shards of the person she’d been still lay scattered on her cell floor.

  It had been four days, out of the cell.

  She hadn’t meant to doze off, sitting there. But bathed in the last vestiges of daylight, her thoughts slowing as the storm beyond picked up, she had slipped away.

  Her fracturing had been methodical. Her reassembly was haphazard, at best.

  She was falling apart.

  Even now, her heart pounding with wakefulness, the tang of blood was rising, and something wet dripped from her nose.

  She would’ve happily traded her shattered soul for a body that wasn’t disintegrating.

  Room spinning, vision speckled with dark spots, she’d managed to crawl out of the featherbed pressed against the wall, trying to get to the sun.

  I write the endings.

  It would’ve been so easy to give up. To look at the pages they’d ripped out and surrender, because she was not stronger for what they’d done. They had not tempered her like fine steel, refining her through pain. They had gutted her.

  And never would she thank them for her torture.

  Never would it be said that who she was, she owed to the page-rippers.

  I write the endings.

  She did not want her story to start with defeat.

  But she could not change her beginning.

  She was hurt.

  No question.

  Her body was bleeding and her soul was shredded.

  But they had not yet torn the pen from her hands.

  I write the endings.

  There was much to be done.

  The parchment wrinkled softly beneath her fingers as she unfolded it again.

  Ms. Elizabeth Faulise, it began. The name cadenced oddly on her tongue.

  The rest was trivial. The epitome of banal.

  I was greatly relieved to hear of your release.

  May the gods grant you a quick recovery.

  Should you require anything during your recuperation, my services are at yours and on and on it went.

  He hadn’t needed more. Her name was promise enough.

  May justice be served.

  In Acquisition, Distinction, Protection,

  Yours sincerely, Commissioner Clark Carson.

  Oh, yes.

  Ms. Elizabeth Faulise, it began.

  There was much to be done.

  And I write the endings.

  The End

  Pronunciation Guide

  Drada

  draw-duh

  Caelaymnis

  sell-aim-niss

  Vora

  vor-uh

  dhacrym

  dah-krim

  barghest

  bar-gu-hest

  mende

  mend or mend-uh (dialectical)

  Apoticaeum defuespes

  apaw-tiss-ay-ee-um dif-way-space

  Amdormvitae

  am-dorm-vee-tay

  Isa Mirestva

  eye-za meer-est-vaw

  Praequintelya

  pray-quinn-te
ll-ee-a

  Mia Siddeus

  mee-a sid-ay-oos

  Rodion Kastarae

  road-ee-un kass-stare-ay

  Declaration of the Guild of Merchants

  And heretofore we the Merchants, for the sake of our souls and the souls of all, enact our own governance, establishing and recognizing we ourselves as autonomous.

  As such, we set forth these obligations, for the benefit of all, written henceforth to protect the endeavor of Acquisition, the honor of Distinction, and the duty of Protection, of which all in governance must swear to undertake.

  By communal vote, one Commissioner Merchant shall supervise proceedings, in that they shall protect Acquisition through action as primary negotiator in matters concerning most or all districts herein, and guard Distinction through the levying of Protection, both in gold and armaments. The Commissioner Merchant presiding over this Guild remains the deciding vote within disputes, undertakes their co-conspirators as parties for which the Commissioner Merchant retains responsibility, and bear reasonable and just consequence over all within the territory. Let it be known I take this duty upon myself, that I, from this day forward, will guard these Districts beneath my wing for the sake of all, and should any seek to harm our people, our homes, our land, and our souls, they shall answer to me, for I be the Master of this Guild.

  Signed,

  Salem P. Aerdela

  Acknowledgements

  This is the story that I need to tell.

  The story of Elsie and Fletcher and Teddy and Sam, and all the rest.

  It is incredibly difficult to start your life again after you run into the page-rippers. It feels like you’re watching the world pass you by, and everyone else gets to go on living while you just sit on the sidelines.