Such a Daring Endeavor

by Cortney Pearson

  The girl’s fingers fly to the thick metal band around her neck. Ren squints, wishing he knew more of what was going on.

  “Like her new necklace?” Craven says. “Say goodbye, Straylark, since this will be the last you see of your granddaughter.”

  Shasa shrieks and darts forward, but stops inches from Craven as though she’s struck a wall.

  Craven laughs again. “You know you can’t hurt me, Elmscar. Your special powder can’t stop everything. You still belong to me, and when we leave, you’re coming too.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Shasa says with a snarl. “Not now, not ever again. And neither is she.”

  Shasa continues stepping on the sand, but it’s as though an invisible barrier blocks her from moving forward. Likewise, the wizard pushes against something he can’t penetrate through. Craven shoves Jomeini to the sand, and the girl lands on all fours with a thud and a whimper.

  “I’m not ready for you yet,” he says to her. “Go back until I am.”

  Jomeini wipes sand from her chin and pushes to her feet, giving Shasa and her grandfather one last fleeting look before tromping away and into the open shed door.

  Shasa punches the air with a scream of frustration. “You can’t do this!” she cries. “You can’t take her from me!”

  Tyrus did this to Ren once, to demonstrate the depths of the control he had over him. He ordered Ren not to come near him, though Ren tried several times if for nothing else than to smack the Arcaian upside the head. But no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t able to move forward.

  “You must see how foolish this all is,” Solomus pleads, unable to move any closer to the other old man. “It was years ago, Craven, and an accident. Let her go.”

  “Or what?”

  Solomus and Shasa seem preoccupied with a pointless argument. Ren takes a step to the side. Then another, and another. He won’t do what they want him to. Despite what they say, he won’t fight Shasa. He won’t kill this man—a man he doesn’t even know.

  It isn’t long before he reaches the door the girl snuck back into. Shasa, Solomus, and Craven continue to argue, their voices carrying over the soothing impact of waves on sand. None of them sees Ren step into the shed.

  "Hello?” Ren whispers, trying to remember the girl’s name. “Jomeini? Are you in here?”

  The barn is stale and stifling. It’s not as warm as the air outside, but being shut in makes it worse, contaminated somehow by who knows what in here. Wind makes its way in through the cracks, reminding Ren he isn’t as secure as he suspects.

  Cobwebs dangle from a few corners of the dark rafters. And at the end of the lineup of boats, the one currently outside has left a large vacancy. Grease stains and wheel marks smudge the concrete. What in the world that Craven guy is doing hiding out in a boat shed, Ren can’t tell.

  “Jomeini?” he says again, softer. “It’s me—well, my name is Ren. We’ve never met, but I’ve heard a lot about you.” Not true. But Ren has heard enough to know that the wizard and Shasa are here for her, and they aren’t having much luck getting past that psycho out there. If there’s anything Ren has learned, it’s that being held captive against your will sucks.

  Ren steps farther into the barn, risking the shadows. In a rush of wind, the door slams shut behind him, causing him to jolt and whirl around. The wind’s eerie whine continues to flurry in between rafters.

  Movement comes from the far corner, too big to be a mouse. He summons magic, switching it to life as surely as if he struck a match. Ren coils the stream until it helixes in the palm of his hand. The warmth from that single bead of electricity is instant and overwhelming. He follows its light toward the back corner where the small girl sits huddled beneath a dirty blanket on a set of crates.

  Her dark eyes stare back at him, taking in the light in his hand.

  “You shouldn’t do that in here,” she says.

  “Are you Jomeini?”

  “Put it out.”

  Ren hesitates, knowing they don’t have much time until the three psychos outside stop arguing and decide to do something. “My name is Ren. Shasa sent me—she’s a, well, a friend. Will you—?”

  “Put it out!” she shrieks, lunging forward and closing his fingers over the small flame. Her hand is colder than snow. “He knows,” she whispers. “He knows whenever magic is used anywhere near me. He watches me.”

  “Who watches you? Craven?”

  She nods.

  Ren pries his fingers from hers and attempts to pull her to her feet. “They’re taking care of him. Shasa, and your grandfather. You don’t have to worry. But you need to come with me right away.”

  “I can’t leave,” she says, her fingers going to the collar at her neck. “He told me I can’t.”

  “You can if I manhandle you out of here. Shasa wanted me to fight her, and we both know I won’t stand a chance. You, on the other hand, without magic…”

  “Without magic, I’m just a girl.”

  “Exactly,” says Ren. “And no offense, but I am bigger than you are. I think I can carry you, even if you struggle against me.”

  “Won’t work.” Jomeini shakes her head and pushes farther back into the dark corner. Her feet scrape against the floor, she loses her balance, and tumbles from the crate.

  “Aah!” she shrieks, streaking to her feet and hugging herself, checking left and right at unseen gazes. With her hair gathered to one side, Ren gets a better glimpse of the thick metal encasing her throat.

  “It’s all right,” he comforts, not knowing what else to do. This wasn’t in the plan—the one he invented minutes ago. He didn’t expect her to want to stay. “Solomus—your grandfather. He’s with me.”

  Jomeini shakes her head again. “You’re not real. You’re a trick. Craven does this, you know. Tests me to see where my loyalty is.”

  “I’m proving my loyalty right now, and I’m telling you, you’ve got to come with me.”

  “Do you know what happens? When he knows? When he senses I’m going against him—even thinking of it? I can’t—I can’t think it. I can’t do it. Ever since Shasa left, it hasn’t been the same. He’s worse.”

  “You can right now. But it has to be now.” Sooner or later, Craven is going to come back.

  More head shaking ensues.

  “Jomeini.” Ren’s trying to keep his patience in check, but this is maddening. Of course she doesn’t trust him. Of course she’s got some serious issues because of whatever this guy has done to her. Ren can’t blame her—he’s a stranger. Why should she want to come with him, especially after he basically said he’d be kidnapping her?

  “You don’t know what it’s like to lose it,” the girl rambles on, rocking back and forth. “To lose yourself. I’ve been alone for months now. I’ve been alone since Shasa left, and it’s worse now. He was never this mean, but it’s worse since she left.”

  “I had my magic taken once,” Ren says, trying to rein in her hysteria. “I got it back, with the help of my sister, Ambry.”

  Jomeini’s eyes narrow, darting to him, looking directly at him for the first time since he came in here. She stills. The insanity cycling there washes out, making room for lucidity to take its place.

  “Ambry?” she says, calmer than before.

  “You Saw her, didn’t you? In your vision?”

  Jomeini inhales, blinks. Slowly, she lifts her eyes to meet Ren’s. She gives a slow, definitive nod.

  “Did that vision tell you anything? About this, about her? I’m here to help you—that’s all I want, I promise. Shasa and Solomus, they’re distracting Craven right now. Shasa said it won’t last—we’ve got to go right now.”

  “And then what?”

  He offers her a hand. “I’ve got some friends out there. I think they’ll help us.”

  “Friends?” Jomeini trembles but allows Ren to slip a hand below her arm and hoist her to her feet. She takes a shaky step. Then another.

  Ren wants to dash to the door, to pick this girl up and ca
rry her. He works to keep his pace slow and digs his aud from his pocket, scrolling through the tabs on the side. “You’re doing fine. But we need to move faster.”

  “I’m unchained,” she says absentmindedly, touching the collar at her throat. Then with more energy, “I need my pack.” She turns away, releasing Ren’s hand.

  Ren glances to the door he entered through. Wind whines through the cracks in the wood. He can’t hear any more shouting. “Okay. Where is it?”

  Jomeini crouches, pulling up tarps and searching behind discarded buckets, tossing aside fishing poles and nets. “I can’t leave it here.”

  “We’ll get it. Let’s—”

  “This way.” Suddenly the girl’s timidity vanishes, and she snatches Ren’s hand with her cold one, leading him through the darkened shed and its various piles. Away from the exit.

  “Jo—we need to—”

  The girl takes Ren by the collar of his shirt, tugging him down until his face is directly across hers. Purpose gleams in her eyes. “I Saw your sister,” she whispers. “And what she needs to do can’t happen without that pack.”

  Shivers dust all along Ren’s arms.

  “Hurry,” he says, looking behind him. He isn’t sure what Shasa and Solomus are up to out there, but on impulse, he snatches a knife lying abandoned on a shabby wooden table covered in tools.

  Jomeini leads him to a set of rickety metal stairs climbing up to a single door above. She points. “I can’t go in, he has forbidden me. You’ll have to get it. How long have they been out there? How long?” she demands when Ren doesn’t respond immediately.

  “Six, maybe eight minutes, at least,” Ren answers in confusion as she shoves him up the first few steps. Jomeini was just out there herself. He wonders if she’s not all there.

  “Brimstone,” says the girl. “Very well, hurry!”

  Ren opens the door to a dark space reeking of worn socks and days’ old garbage. Blocking his nose with his sleeve, he fills the canteen in the wall with a branch of magic and flicks the switch. A soft glow reveals a dank room with a single bunk, a desk, and a cabinet. From the look of things, they’ve been camping out here for several weeks at least.

  Ren can’t figure that out. Soldiers patrol every inch of the palace. But Jomeini is a wizard. Her magic is more powerful, and maybe with it Craven has managed to keep them concealed in here. It’s not like Tyrus has been too preoccupied with the boats, not when he’s been building his Station and extracting magic from every citizen in Valadir.

  “Check the cabinet.” Her voice follows in a loud whisper. “Get my satchel. Please.”

  Ren hurries to tap the message in on his aud before he kicks through the space and yanks open the door. Inside are several folders and stacks of paperwork. At the bottom of the long cabinet, beneath several rumpled shirts, lies a lumpy, gray satchel.

  His aud lights up with a reply to his request and relief floods through him. Ren lugs the satchel over his shoulders and hustles back down the stairs.

  “This way,” she says when he passes the satchel over to her.

  “No—this way. Trust me.”

  After caution flares in her eyes, she consents and allows him to escort her.

  ***

  “Curse it, where is he?”

  Shasa glances across the beach, but aside from the occasional gull, the muted, golden sand and soldiers too preoccupied to see them from their vantage point on the street, the shore is bare. Figures. He is the tears-stealer’s brother after all. Unpredictability and dishonesty must be family traits. Still, she hoped he would do it.

  The pit of her stomach churns. She played off her nausea earlier as nerves, but this is more than just nerves. She fingers the pouch tucked inside the weapons vest, but it’s empty. She used the last of her banshing powder this morning.

  How could she have thought this would work? Current history should be proof enough that rescue attempts never work—look at Ambry now stuck in the dungeon with Talon. Solomus doesn’t dare attack with what little magic he has left, Talon’s legs are broken, and now Ren has run off like a coward.

  She was so sure he would help too. But why should he? He only met her a handful of minutes ago. And Solomus…

  She remembers the time he tried to rescue Jomeini. The time his bleakfire burned the poor girl because Craven ordered Jomeini to block him with her body. Shasa shivers away the memory of the screams.

  Craven hasn’t moved from his boat’s side. He still clings to it—one hand purpled like lilac petals—as though he’s in the water instead of standing firmly on sand. Wind whips the tendrils of hair along Shasa’s neck, and she clenches and unclenches her fists, trying to figure out what to do now.

  “Hasn’t it been long enough?” Shasa demands, whipping a knife from her weapons belt. “You’ve gotten your vision out of her. Let her go. Let me go.”

  Craven shakes his head, scaling his way along the boat’s outer edge hand-over-hand, never releasing his grip from its sides. Waves worm up and pool around his boots. “Tyrus is crossing the ocean—she told me. She Saw it! And I can’t follow without her to guide my way. She is my compass, Elmscar.”

  “She told you everything you need to know. You don’t need her anymore!”

  Craven’s eyes darken, and he lowers his arms. His coat lashes around him and he steps onto the sand, away from the lapping waves.

  Shasa’s throat squeezes. The churning nausea in her stomach heightens. The last segments of banshing powder fizzle away, and while she tries to keep her gaze on him, to not show the fear streaking through her chest, she has a desire to step back, to maintain the distance between them.

  I won’t let him get to me. Not now or ever again.

  Solomus sidesteps as Craven closes in on her. She forces her eyes away from the wizard, to give him time for whatever it is he’s trying.

  “It’s you I don’t need,” says Craven. “I only got you to keep her company, Shasa. But you betrayed your friend; you left her to fend for herself.”

  The thought of killing him as purchase for freedom has been fleeting at best. She considered it when he first took her. She even attacked him once, causing him to give that ridiculous order that neither she nor Jomeini could ever harm him. Shasa thinks it through, trying to figure out the best angle to take.

  “Your thirst for revenge has driven you to madness. You’ve let it control you and keep you in the past. You’ve kidnapped Jomeini for her power, tormented her, demanded visions to somehow fix your mistakes and get the revenge you crave.”

  “Stop it. Stop!” Craven yells.

  “Jomeini Saw into your memories once, did you know that? You’ve spent all this time blaming Solomus when he never made you hurt that girl. That was all you.”

  “Shut up!” Craven screeches. His eyes are wild with fury.

  “You’re worthless,” she goes on, “and this little trip you’ve got planned is your worst idea yet.”

  Craven goes rigid. He claws at his face, his arms stiff, eyeballs bulging out. “You shall not speak, Miss Elmscar!”

  “What makes you think—?” Shasa tries to say. Though her mouth still moves, Shasa’s voice escapes her. And in that moment, she feels the last of the banshing powder wear off. It trickles from her body, expulsing like sweat and tiring her energy as though her blood has been drained.

  Craven responds immediately, a smile spearing across his ancient face and cracking out a few more wrinkles. Jubilation glimmers in his eyes, and he arches his back in a strange, victorious stance.

  “Faded off, has it? Come here.” His long fingers circle her wrist.

  The touch sickens her. Biting down her rage, she charges at him. She reaches out her hands, willing them to land around his throat. But they don’t, as she knows they won’t. Craven manages to grab her by the hair; it’s falling loose from the buns she twisted it into earlier. The action makes her scream with pain, with fury, with hate.

  “Ren!” she calls out.

  Craven drags Shasa down into the sand
. She digs for her magic, scraping for it, but not even an empty stream responds. There’s nothing in her bones but marrow.

  A loud crack resounds behind Craven, and the old man staggers to the sand under the pressure, releasing his hold on her.

  “Let her go!” Solomus cries, dropping the oar in his hands.

  Craven’s purple hand snarls with glittering magic. With a sneer he dives for the wizard, shoving Solomus backward. Shasa crumples and attempts to run, but Craven directs the glowing hand at her, luring her back to him.

  Shasa fights. She forces her feet to go the opposite direction, but it does no good. Soon Craven leers over her, his deep set blue eyes burning from beneath a heavy brow. His fingers dig into her scalp.

  Shasa lets out a cry of rage. She scans the shore with pleading desperation, but Solomus lies feet away, unmoving after the blow of magic to his chest. Nor can she find Ren. Reality stabs harder than a knife point. No one is going to help her.

  Her eyes sting as a feeling she swore she’d never harbor breaks through the barrier in her chest. Defeat. It wins out, and she blinks, sensing the strange lack of wetness at her eyes.

  She writhes, but the old man arches her head back, his foul breath striking her ear. “I have one more command for you, Shasa Elmscar,” he hisses. “I command you to die.”

  Shasa crumples, the power of his words folding her in half from within. Her pulse stutters, her throat squeezing, fending off the salty air. She hadn’t thought it possible, that her body could voluntarily end itself, but it’s doing so now, agonizingly. Shasa lets out a scream as the awareness builds, as her heartbeat begins to dawdle, the pulses coming slower and slower.

  Lub.

  Dub.

  Wind flurries around her ears, but none of it makes its way in her nose. Her lungs have stopped pumping. Her throat is closed off as surely as though someone slid a door over it. Her head blacks out, and she falls to the sand.

  Jomeini lifts her face to the sky, and Ren fights the urge to stare at her. He wonders when the last time she saw the sun was, or how she got the burn marks bubbling on her arms and cheek like grafted-in branches on a tree.