If the Seekers had killed all the mages, how could he have inherited magic? What was Rat Woman and who had regarded him through the rat’s eyes earlier? Could someone as riddled with magic as he was, be walking around out there causing problems? That would explain the Insect Man he’d dissolved yesterday.
Sarn fetched up against a wall. A gut-wrenching wrongness gripped him.
Unnatural, declared his magic as it rattled its cage. We could fix it.
How? As usual, his magic refused to answer.
A summons wrapped around Sarn. Her call drove out all thoughts save one—he must go to her, now. Everything blurred as he skidded around corners, dodged statues and cut through an arcade, stopping at a balustrade.
There she towered, the Queen of All Trees. Her crown cut through night’s retreating train as she approached. Enchanted trees stepped aside, making a hole so her refulgent presence could pass. Twin circles of menhirs bounded the meadow, barring her way. But her branches arched over them, reaching for him.
Sarn extended both arms to her, and her bark caressed his cheek as the distance between them shrank. Images cascaded across his mind’s eye—a veiled youth in white robes surrounded by a thirteen-pointed star made of candles. Thirteen cairns ringed the sacrifice, and in each one, a young life expired. The pictures shrank into a white pinpoint floating in Jerlo’s black eyes.
“Sarn!”
Who had called his name?
“Sarn get back from there!” A woman's arms looped around his waist, yanking him backward.
Sarn landed in an awkward sprawl on top of Ranispara. Rolling off her, he sat with his back to a baluster and rubbed his temples. What had he almost done? His son waited for him and for the breakfast he still needed to fetch.
“Are you all right?” Ranispara levered herself up and slung an arm over one knee.
Sarn nodded, even though he was shaken. He remembered everything now thanks to the Queen of All Trees, including his half-baked plan, giving him one more rock to turn over.
“I saw you take off like a spooked deer. When you didn’t respond, I followed you.” Ranispara cocked her head to one side, narrowing her eyes at him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Sarn scrubbed a hand over his face. Was he? No, but if he admitted it, she’d drag him to the nearest healer.
“I saw her.”
“Who?” Startled, Sarn let his hand drop into his lap and knead his thigh.
She shot him a look. “You know who I mean.”
Indeed, he did.
“This was her doing, wasn’t it?” Ranispara mimed someone leaping off a balcony.
Had he been about to jump when she’d stopped him? Sarn shrugged.
“Thought so.” She rolled her shoulders and nodded to the arcade fronting the balcony. “C’mon. Let’s get you inside before she tries anything else.”
“Jerlo already dismissed me,” Sarn said preempting her next question.
“I figured.” She rose and extended a hand to him.
Because it was Ranispara offering, Sarn accepted her hand and let her pull him up. “Thank you.”
She shrugged off his gratitude. “No need, you’re one of us, and we look after our own.”
Did they? This ‘us’ had never applied to him in the past. “Could we keep this between the two of us?” Sarn regarded her. He needed a ‘yes’ otherwise tomorrow would feature an infirmary visit.
“I don’t see why not. No harm was done.”
“Thank you.” Sarn let out the breath he’d been holding and sprinted for the kitchen. He had less than a half hour to steal food and chase down his one remaining lead—if he was lucky.
Luck was not on his side this morning. Sarn cursed the baker kneading dough as if his life depended on it. Why was nothing ever easy? When the man turned to grab a pan, Sarn withdrew a burlap sack from his pocket and darted into the kitchen. He filched day old bread from one counter and sausages from another, before ducking behind a butcher-block-topped island.
The baker whistled while he worked and the sound grated on Sarn’s nerves. After another minute of punching the dough, the flour-covered man set it aside and approached the pantry. Sarn shadowed him, skulking from island to column to sheet-draped cart in the aproned man’s wake. Flattening himself next to the door, Sarn caught the handle before it slammed into his side. Once the baker passed his hiding spot, he darted inside and shoveled items into the sack. Ran would eat anything he brought so long as he filched at least one sausage. Thank Fate his son wasn’t a picky eater.
Sarn listened for the cold room’s door. After a moment, the lock clicked. Sarn timed his exit and slid inside before the door closed. Blue lumir lit the room and pumped out cold while he nabbed bottles of goat’s milk, wheels of cheese, boiled eggs and produce. When his bag could hold no more, Sarn cracked open the door. He waited for the baker to turn his ample back then slipped out and almost stepped on a rat.
The vermin darted behind a counter. Its eyes reminded Sarn of Rat Woman’s mirrored gaze. It must be one of her spies. He was too tired for games. So Sarn ignored the creature and disappeared into the transept.
This time no alarm sounded and no guards came running. At least one thing was going his way. Still, he stuffed the sack behind a bushy fern, before racing along the transept to the north exit. Where was everyone? He slowed and took in a corridor full of statues but no pedestrians. Was today a holiday? Shaking his head at this bit of good fortune, he broke into an all-out run.
The bells struck six as Sarn kicked the catch to operate the secret door. It louvered a section of wall aside revealing a staircase and he descended, taking the steps three at a time. One hundred twenty steps down, he touched the wall in the right place to trigger another door.
Outside the sun had already lifted its golden head, and Sarn flung himself down the mountain's north trail while Nolo’s icon toiled up the southern one. Good, there’d be no run-ins with either master since Jerlo’s icon remained in his office. Let the man stay there for another hour. Stretching his senses out, he searched the meadow for Will.
“I need to talk to you.”
Will turned, his concerned eyes snapping to the bandage peeking out of Sarn’s sleeve. “Is something wrong?”
Sarn held his wounded arm behind his back. “I’m fine. I need some information.”
Will digested his statement with a couple of incredulous blinks. “You need something from me?”
“Yeah, I need you to look at the harbormaster’s books. I need to know about two groups of people and whether they passed through the harbor. Can you check?”
“Yes, sure, anything you need but when should I look? I mean what days or span of days? If you need me to go back more than a month, it might take me awhile to dig it up. Paytor—he’s the harbormaster—files away his books after a month and starts a new log.”
Sarn’s mouth dropped open. How far back should Will search? A week? A month? Three? Maybe he'd gone about this all wrong, but using magic had netted him more questions, not answers.
“There was a boy with one group. He’s older than my son—maybe eight years old. He had eyes like my son’s. They were washed out, but they were still green.”
“You mean he was like you?”
Sarn nodded and scuffed his boots on the rocky shore. “Yes, he was.”
“What happened to him?”
Trust Will to pick up on the obvious.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” And for a moment, words rose to Sarn’s lips and threatened to spill everything that had happened, but so much of it had involved magic. Sarn swallowed the words, letting the sun dawn on the third day of a problem that was his alone to solve.
Will must have sensed his exclusion because he cast hurt eyes toward the river. “You’re afraid whatever happened to this boy will happen to your son.”
“How did you know?”
Will shrugged. “I know you, and I know how much you love your son. Hell, we all love him. None of us—the Foundling
s I mean—would ever let anyone harm him. You know that, right?”
Did he? Sarn shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Yeah, I guess I did, but thanks for confirming it.” How the hell had the conversation slipped so far from its original topic? “Am I that transparent?”
“About most things, yes, but I like that about you.” Will heaved another shrug. “So, I’m looking for a group with an unusual child. How many were in his party?”
Sarn shrugged. “I don’t know. There were two parties, and I think thirteen in all, but I don’t know how many were in each party. I didn’t get a good look at them.” At Will’s sharp look, Sarn raised both hands in defense. “What? I can count.”
“So can Ran. We can’t get him to stop counting thanks to you.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. When should I look for this group? From when to when?”
“I don’t know.” Sarn massaged his forehead to soothe the ache building with each question.
“You want me to look for an unknown number of people with one child—it was one child not two, right?”
Sarn shook his head. Was there another child? “I don’t know.”
Will gave him a skeptical look. Sarn regarded the sunlight spilling over the mountains. He should have questioned Nolo instead of arguing with him.
“I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’m sorry.” Sarn turned to go, but Will stopped him by grabbing a handful of his cloak.
“I’ll look, for you, as far back as I can even though I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“Thanks, but you don’t have to. This was a fool’s errand. I just didn’t realize it until now.”
Nolo’s words came back to haunt him: You must drop this. It’s not healthy to obsess over it. Was his master right? No, giving up meant allowing the creature masquerading as Hadrovel to win.
“I’ll let you go, get on with your work. See you around.”
“Wait, I need to ask you something.”
“No, you don’t.” Sarn yanked his cloak out of Will’s hand and stalked away without saying another word.
Sarn fetched the sack of food and descended to the Lower Quarters, and the only person who loved him as the bells struck seven. If the answer was inside him, as the magic had insisted earlier, then he wanted to hold his son while he searched for it. Fates knew he missed the boy’s smiles.
Chapter 20
“No, Papa’s coming. I want to stay here.”
“Well, you can’t. You’re too young to stay by yourself.”
“Not by myself, Papa’s coming.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not here, and I have to leave for class so—"
“No!” Ran shouted as Sarn pushed open the door.
Miren froze.
“You’re back!” Smiling, Ran escaped his uncle’s grasp and rushed, arms extended for a hug.
“Yeah, and I brought breakfast.” Sarn pulled out a small bag he’d stopped to pack and tossed it to his brother. He set his sack down and caught his son in a tight embrace. All his cares melted away under the warmth of his son's smile. “I missed you,” he whispered into his son’s downy hair.
Miren caught the peace offering but his gaze riveted to the gauze wrapping Sarn’s wrist. “What happened to you?”
“I forgot to don a bracer, so the bowstring flayed my arm.” Sarn shrugged.
“It hurts a lot?” Ran pointed to the bandage.
“No, a nice lady applied a salve, and it took the sting out of it.”
Ran leaned into his father, happy to be held.
“I know it was stupid. I don’t know how I forgot such a thing. It just felt good to hold a bow again. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it.”
“Did you hit the target? Or were you so rusty all your shots went wide of the mark?” Miren set his bagged breakfast on the table and organized his books for school and his arguments too. A storm brewed in those dark eyes waiting for the opportune moment to unleash itself.
Even Ran sensed it, judging by the way the child clutched him. Decision time, did he want to send his son to the Foundlings for a few hours while he rested? Hell no, he wanted the boy’s company, his smiles and the soothing patter of his speech.
“You and I should do some shooting this Sunday. I’ll sneak some bows out of the Training Room. I found where they keep them. If you want to—” Because he had no idea when the Rangers would give him that day off.
Likely not anytime soon since to them, he was still that scrawny boy tangled in their net. Nolo and Gregori had taken turns dragging it without ever giving their quarry a single glance. Sarn blinked away the memory. Why hadn’t they looked?
Because they didn’t want to get involved. They wanted to hand you over to Hadrovel and be done with you.
Sarn shoved the angry voice of that trapped kid away and refocused on breakfast. The instant he set Ran down, the boy disappeared into the bag. A moment later, Ran emerged with a fistful of bread, an immature All-Fruit in his mouth, a triangle of cheese in his other hand and a sausage poking out of his pocket.
Sarn laughed at the amusing sight his son made. Even Miren’s lips twitched.
“You’ll divvy it up?” Miren waved to the food.
Sarn nodded. “And I’ll take the larger half to the Foundlings.”
“Good, I’ll take him so you can rest.”
By ‘him,’ Miren meant Ran. His brother wanted to take the boy to the Foundlings who would babysit him in exchange for food.
Sarn opened his mouth to argue the point then shut it when a shadow darted under the table. No whiskered snout met his hurried scan and no ghosts either. Had he imagined it? “What about this Sunday? Do you want to shoot, if I can nab two bows?”
“Let’s discuss that later. You need to sleep, and I need to take Ran to his babysitters. You look like a rag wrung out too many times. They’ll watch him, and he’ll be fine. You can fetch him when you wake up.”
“No, I stay here with Papa, and we have ad-ven-tures.” Ran folded his arms across his chest and pouted.
“It’s only for a few hours.” Concern shadowed Miren’s eyes when he cast them on Sarn.
Ran shook his head and shot Sarn pleading looks.
“You promise?”
“Yeah and we’ll have a small adventure—I mean outing—when I wake up.” His word change did nothing to mollify Miren whose face had mottled at the word ‘adventure.’
Miren slammed his books into his rucksack making Ran jump at the sudden noise. But the damage had been done. Nothing Sarn said now would soothe his brother’s jealousy, so he swallowed an apology before it could escape. Sarn covered his face for a moment and shook his head. He'd lost this round. Whatever he said or did, he always alienated one of them. There was no middle ground anymore.
Dragging his nephew, Miren headed for the door. Ran shot his father pleading looks, punching holes into his resolve until the door closed behind them.
Miren fumed as he hobbled. One hand held his crutch, and the other towed a recalcitrant child digging his heels into the ground.
“If you make me late for school, your father will be mad.”
Ran ceased fighting him and walked under his own power. About time too since eighth bell would ring any minute now. As soon as it did, Miren had to be on his way to school not dealing with his quarrelsome nephew.
When he reached the Foundlings’ door, Miren recalled a conversation about Metran. If the jerk sniffed around the Foundlings this morning, he'd see Ran. Miren stomped his good foot in frustration. Damn, he’d meant to come up with a brilliant plan to protect the brat. But a full day of school and a night spent writing essays had driven the problem from his mind.
Miren glanced at his nephew who kicked the door. He had to do something. Metran could walk off with Ran tucked under his arm. And the asshole would too if he ever laid eyes on Ran. Metran hated Sarn, and the enmity was mutual.
“Look at me, I have to tell you something important, but you can’t tell your father abo
ut it.”
His grave statement captured Ran’s full attention. “Why?”
“I need you to hide from anyone you don't know, okay?”
“Why?” Ran tilted his head and regarded his uncle from a different perspective. But the new view failed to further the lad’s understanding. Maybe he should use smaller words to explain the situation.
“Do you remember what Will and I talked about the other night?” Miren waited for the boy’s perplexed nod before continuing. “Well, he said a bad man visits the Foundlings. If he comes, you hide, okay? You don’t let anyone you don’t know see you. Do you hear me?”
Scowling, Ran nodded. He received this exact instruction from his father about three times every day.
“You’ll do what I say?”
Ran delivered another kick to the door and shrugged.
Miren glanced down the hall, but Sarn remained in their cave. His brother was likely still dividing the food up and obsessing over the proportions. He should have done it and spared Sarn the grief.
“This is serious. The man Will mentioned is a bad person. He doesn’t like your father.”
“Why don’t he like Papa?”
“No, it’s—oh never mind promise me you’ll hide if someone you don’t know visits.”
Ran considered his request.
“You’ll be helping your father if you do this.”
“How can I help Papa?”
“By not letting this bad person see you. Oh, and you can’t tell your father. It's a surprise.”
“Okay Uncle Miren, I’ll hide from the bad man.” Without uttering another word, Ran pushed on the door and slipped inside.
Hitching up his rucksack, Miren hobbled to the nearest staircase and his first class.
How many visits would it take to turn Metran from a stranger to an acquaintance? What if it had already happened?
Eighth bell rang. Miren cursed but kept plodding. Ran would have to be okay.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 29