Daughter of Discord (Star Mage Saga Book 1)

by J. J. Green

  “You’re welcome,” Carina said sarcastically. She cursed. What had she done? After that stunt, the Sherrerrs would be after her blood. She probably had only ten or fifteen minutes before the men she’d knocked out would come around and tell their friends a face-saving story about a nasty woman who’d defied the Sherrerrs.

  In fact, they were already coming around. Carina ran. She headed for the market. At the first gem dealer she found, she stopped and pulled out her pouch. Slamming a gem down on the counter, she said, “How much?”

  The dealer, sensing her haste, offered her less than half what the jewel was worth. Carina slammed the counter again with her other hand and glared at the woman. Entirely unfazed, the dealer only repeated her offer.

  Barely controlling her anger, Carina said, “Give it to me then.”

  After the dealer had counted out the cash painfully slowly, Carina snatched it from her and went in search of supplies that would be suitable for a mountain trip. She also picked up water bottles, thick coats and boots, a backpack and two blankets. Scant provisions for the expedition, but they would have to do.

  She raced back to find Bryce waiting patiently where she’d left him.

  “You were gone a long time. I was worried you were never coming back. Why did you buy all those things? We could have gotten them after lunch.”

  “We don’t have time to eat. We’re leaving now.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Are you sure you know the way to this stronghold?” Carina asked Bryce when they’d been walking about an hour.

  “Yeah, I know it,” he replied. “I would have known it even if the client hadn’t explained. I’ve lived around here all my life.”

  “You’ve been to the mountains before?”

  “When I was a kid, we’d go there to see the snow. By autocar. It was a little faster.”

  They were walking through farmland. Carina had judged it safer than going by road. Sherrerr goons would probably be looking for her. They would have to make an example of her to discourage others from standing up to them. The trip would give her the chance to lay low.

  Giant plowers and seeders were working steadily across the fields. Unmanned, low intelligence machines, they presented no risks providing Carina and Bryce kept out of their way. The machines moved so slowly that it was easy to do. What concerned Carina more was the water situation. She hadn’t noticed any streams along the way, and she couldn’t see the glint of water anywhere between them and the white-peaked mountains ahead.

  “We would stay at a little resort,” Bryce went on, “and go snow-gliding.”

  “Snow-gliding?”

  “You never heard of it?”

  “There wasn’t any snow where I grew up.”

  “Snow-gliding boards melt a very thin layer of snow beneath them. Makes them almost friction-less and super slippery. You can go very fast downhill.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “It was,” Bryce said. “Was it hot where you grew up? What planet was it?”

  “Nowhere you ever heard of. Yeah, it was hot. Hotter than here anyway, though I’ve been to hotter places since. It was a dump and I’m never going back.” There was nothing for her to go back for. When Nai Nai had died, Carina used the tiny amount of savings her grandmother left behind to pay for a cremation. She had scattered Nai Nai’s ashes in the wildlands outside town where the two had spent many happy hours searching for beautiful pebbles to polish and sell.

  “I’d leave here too if I could,” said Bryce.“I want to get out of the Sherrer/Dirksen controlled area and see what the rest of the galaxy’s like.”

  Carina laughed. “The rest of the galaxy’s a pretty big place, you know. I traveled a lot of it when I was working as a merc, and we were never in any area where the Sherrerrs or Dirksens didn’t have some influence. You’d have to go pretty far, and you’d have to be rich to do it.”

  Bryce sighed. “Crush my dreams, why don’t you? I didn’t say it would be easy. I just said I’d like to do it.”

  “Sorry. I’d like to get out of this sector and see more of the galaxy too. It’s just that I found out first hand how hard that is to do.” If she could, she would love to find the birthplace of her clan, but that was an impossible fantasy.

  “If we had our own ship, we might do it,” said Bryce.“We’d only have to find money for fuel.”

  Mildly alarmed about Bryce’s casual insertion of “we” where he’d used “I” before, Carina replied, “Do you know how much even a single-seater deep-space cruiser costs? Those vessels aren’t cheap. On my wages as a merc I couldn’t have afforded to buy one with a lifetime’s savings. There’s a reason everyone isn’t system hopping for fun.”

  “I bet the Sherrerrs and Dirksens have plenty of cruisers. One each, probably.”

  “Yeah, probably. Bryce, do you know anything about the Sherrerrs who live in the estate just outside town?”

  “Not a lot. That place was built around fifteen years ago. Everyone thought it was odd at the time. It seemed strange that Sherrerrs would build a home in a back-of-beyond place. The only thing the town has going for it is the regional spaceport and the splicers. It isn’t pretty or interesting. You would think Sherrerrs would want to live in a city, wouldn’t you? Or at least some place where there was more to do than watch the crops grow.”

  “It does seem strange.” Carina had thought the same when she’d brought Darius home after rescuing him. She hadn’t thought of the Sherrerrs as small town people. “Have you ever seen anyone who lives in the estate? They don’t seem to come into town often.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Bryce replied, “but they used to come out more. Every few weeks the family would arrive in their chauffeured car. I heard they have six kids and they take what they want from the shops. The kids might not even know they’re supposed to pay for things. That’s the only time they leave home, from what I hear. Unless they fly out. They have their own shuttle.”

  Bryce’s words chimed in with what Darius had told her. This branch of the Sherrerr clan had to seem weird to the local population, but Carina could understand the reason for their isolation. Some of them were mages. It was natural that they would keep to themselves.

  “Are you sure you’re okay with doing this job?” Bryce asked, perhaps misinterpreting Carina’s silence as second thoughts.

  “We’re on our way now,” Carina replied. “It’s a bit late to be asking me that. But anyway, I don’t have much choice.” She explained to Bryce what had happened outside the splicer’s shop.

  Bryce said, “That was you? I heard a commotion, but I didn’t know you were responsible.”

  “I wasn’t responsible,” Carina objected. “Those Sherrerr thugs were. They were torturing that poor guy.”

  “Okay, but you didn’t have to step in. It isn’t like what you did is going to change anything. They’ll probably come down harder on the splicer now.”

  “Well thanks a lot.”

  “It’s true.”

  They stopped as a seeder trundled across the path ahead of them. When the machine had passed, they continued in silence. The going was easy over the rough, soft dirt of the fields, and the mountains drew steadily closer. By the time the sun was setting, Carina estimated they must have covered around fifteen kilometers and have roughly twice that to go before they would reach the mountains’ foothills.

  When they arrived at a ditch that was relatively dry, she suggested that they stop for the night. Bryce seemed grateful for the opportunity to rest. They wrapped their blankets around their shoulders to keep out the evening chill, continuing the silence that had persisted between them for the previous three or four hours. Carina wasn’t bothered by it. She was used to taciturn mercs who saw no reason to indulge in meaningless conversation.

  After a few more moments, however, the absence of speech appeared to get to Bryce. He blurted, “All right. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry about what I said about the splicer. Now can we please go back to being friends? We’ve got a long wa
y to go and I don’t want you to spend the whole time not speaking to me.”

  Carina, who had been reaching into her backpack for her water bottle, paused and said, “Er...okay. Do you want some food? We should eat now before it gets dark.”

  “Yes. I’m starving. What did you bring?”

  Carina retrieved the dried meat strips, dried slices of fruit, and grainy crackers she’d purchased, which had worked their way to the bottom of her backpack. Bryce chewed hungrily on a meat strip.

  “So what exactly do we have to do when we get to this Sherrerr place?” Carina asked.

  “We have to find out as much as we can about their security arrangements. How many guards, what routines they follow, when they change shifts, and what defense systems and weapons they have. The guy said he asked me because he wanted people who wouldn’t look too suspicious if they were spotted hanging around. We can pretend we got lost in the mountains or something like that.”

  From what she’d seen of the Sherrerr thugs’ treatment of the splicer, Carina didn’t think they would balk at punishing whoever they caught near their stronghold, no matter how innocent they seemed. They would have to be extremely careful.

  Bryce drew his blanket tighter. “Should we light a fire?”

  “We probably don’t want to attract attention.”

  “I guess so,” Bryce said, “but it’s colder than I thought it would be.”

  “Just be happy that it isn’t raining.” Carina hadn’t thought to bring fire starters because she could Cast to start a fire. If she’d been alone, that’s exactly what she would have done, but of course, creating a fire by Casting in front of Bryce would be madness.

  Chapter Ten

  By the time they found the rivulet running down the mountain foothills, they were parched. They’d walked the entire day on only the last of the water they had drunk from their bottles that morning. Carina had been seriously concerned about the situation. The snow line lay a day’s climb above them. She might have made it that far, but she wasn’t sure about Bryce. He'd slowed down a lot over the last few kilometers.

  They sat on the bank and took off their boots before cooling their feet in the water. Bryce filled his bottle on the upstream side and took another long drink.

  “Take it easy,” Carina said. “Or you’ll vomit it up.”

  He let out a sigh of satisfaction and lay back, his arms over his head while his feet rested in the water. The tiny stream was icy. It was melt water from the snowy peaks that now towered over them taking up half of the dusky sky.

  Carina took her feet out of the water and inspected them. The boots that she’d had to buy without trying them on were too big, and she’d stuffed the gaps with dry grass. Her feet were sore in places and her soles were blistered. Bryce’s feet also didn’t look too good. If she got a moment alone to herself, she would Cast Heal on both their feet. She would Heal their heels. She chuckled to herself.

  Bryce sat up. “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing.” Carina wiped most of the water from her feet with her hands and pulled on her socks.

  “Tell me. I need a laugh after that brutal march you made me do today.”

  “I made you? This was your idea, remember?”

  “I know. I didn’t say how fast we had to do it, though, did I? We could take more time about it.”

  “Only if we can survive on grass. I don’t know about you, but I find it kinda hard and chewy.”

  “Ah. Good point.” He lay down again.

  “Where do we go tomorrow?” Carina asked.

  “There’s a pass, away over there.” Bryce gestured vaguely without looking.

  “Where?” Carina looking in the direction he’d indicated. They were in the shadow of the mountains, and darkness was creeping down the slopes. The place Bryce seemed to mean was already in deep shadow. Carina took that evening’s rations out of her backpack and tossed Bryce’s half onto his stomach.

  “Is that it?” he asked as he sat up again. “I’m skinny enough as it is. I’ll be a ghost by the time this job’s done.”

  “If you don’t end up a real ghost, count yourself lucky,” Carina replied. “What we’re doing is crazily dangerous, you know. I take it the person who gave you the work is linked to the Dirksens?”

  “He didn’t mention them,” Bryce replied, “but I guess it’s obvious.”

  “No one else I know would be interested in security at a Sherrerr stronghold.” Carina was getting drawn into the Sherrerr/Dirksen conflict again. It was a deadly place to be. Yet, despite the peril, she was feeling more lighthearted than she had in a long time. Perhaps it was because she’d finally decided to move on after trying for so long to penetrate the secrets of the Sherrerr estate, or maybe it was because she had some kind of purpose after months of inactivity.

  She also enjoyed spending time in Bryce’s company. For the last couple of years, all the people she’d known had been mercs. They didn’t exactly make agreeable companions. She’d discovered that if they weren’t out-and-out psychopaths, they had other personality problems or were deeply psychologically scarred by their experiences.

  “What are you thinking about?” Bryce asked through a mouthful of dried fruit.

  “Some people I used to know.”

  “Before you came here? Who were they? Were they friends?”

  “Not exactly. The men and women I used to work with.”

  “How did you get to be a mercenary?”

  “By invitation. It isn’t a very interesting story. How about you? You said you used to come to the mountains to snow-glide when you were a kid. What happened? How did you end up on the street?”

  Bryce paused a moment and looked up into the darkening sky.

  “A couple of years ago, my dad had an accident and my mom lost her job. Both in the same week. It was months before either of them could work again. We all had to stop taking the preventative medication. It was either that or starve. If you don’t take the pills, you stand a one in five chance of developing the disease. Out of my parents and brothers and sisters, I was the unlucky one. My mom and dad didn’t have the money to pay for the cure. They could only just afford the medicine that controlled the symptoms. Then they couldn’t even afford that any longer.

  “They abandoned me. I woke up one morning and the house was empty. They’d left during the night. While I was trying to figure out what had happened, the landlord came around and told me I had to get out—that the rent was overdue and my family had been seen boarding the city shuttle. I don’t know where they are.”

  Carina sucked in air through her teeth. “Harsh.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t blame them anymore.”

  “You don’t?” Carina stared at the young man, his face dim in the half-light. He seemed to mean what he said. “I don’t think I could forgive anyone who did that to me, especially not family.”

  “The way I see it,” Bryce said, “they had an impossible choice to make. They didn’t have the money to pay for my treatment, and the cost of my medicine was slowly bleeding them dry. They had to choose between sticking around while all of us ended up destitute, and when we couldn’t afford my medicine anymore, watching me slowly die; or saving themselves and my siblings and sparing themselves the sight of my death. The end would be the same. It was only a question of who I brought down with me and how long it took. The way they left spared us all a painful parting. That’s the way I see it.”

  Bryce’s revelation raised him in Carina’s eyes. Her Nai Nai would never have abandoned her in the way Bryce’s family had, but if she had, Carina wasn’t sure that she would ever have been able to understand or excuse it. Whether Bryce’s take on what his family had done was compassionate or only an attempt to protect himself from a grim truth, she wasn’t sure, but it told of a depth to his character she hadn’t imagined. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You didn’t give me this damned disease. Anyway, it’s okay about my family. I was angry at first, but I got ove
r it when I saw their point of view.”

  Carina wondered if her gems were worth enough to pay for Bryce’s treatment. She was young and healthy and could find work if she needed to. Though she’d only known him a short time, she felt like Bryce was a friend.

  Fear gripped her. What was she thinking? She was a mage. She couldn’t afford to have friends. Nai Nai had told her she must never trust anyone, that the knowledge of her powers would turn the nicest, kindest people into selfish, grabbing devils.

  “What’s wrong?” Bryce asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your expression suddenly changed. You looked okay, but now you look angry about something.”

  “You like studying people, don’t you?”

  “It’s a useful habit when you depend on others’ generosity for your survival.”

  Carina pulled her blanket out of her backpack. “Nothing’s wrong. We should get some sleep. We have a long climb ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Bryce also got out his blanket. They wrapped themselves and lay down, putting their backpacks under their heads as pillows.

  “How about you?” Bryce asked.

  “What about me?”

  “Does your family know you became a merc? Are they still living on your home planet? Do they know where you are?”

  Carina paused before answering. “My family all died a long time ago.” Her history was a story she could never and would never tell him. “Good night.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Sherrerr stronghold looked impregnable. Carina and Bryce were lying on their stomachs, peeking over a ridge that looked down on the fortress.

  “Here, suck on this,” Carina said, passing Bryce a handful of snow.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  When he’d stuffed his mouth with the snow Carina explained, “It’ll stop our breath from fogging and giving us away.” Then she did the same. The guards patrolling the stronghold’s walls would have been trained to look for signs of watchers.