Shadow Found (The Shadow Accords Book 6)

by D. K. Holmberg

  13

  The cot in the hospital was clean today. The medicinal stench was no different today, only today there was a scent of sickness in the air. Carth couldn’t shake it from her nose, just as she couldn’t shake the taste of narcass from her tongue, the bitterness of the leaf betraying her.

  She stared at the cot holding Lindy. Carth chewed on a terad root, ignoring the effect of the poison as it attempted to work through her. She surged with her magic, drawing strength from it, burning off the effects of the poison. It was more concentrated than any other dose she had attempted. She practically sucked at the poison within the root, drawing it from it.

  Evie watched her with her lips pursed and her brow furrowed. Carth ignored the glances that she shot her.

  “Alex claims this was evenfire,” Carth said.

  Evie stood in the corner, mashing a compound together. She worked silently, her arms pressing with great force as she ground the necessary components. It was the concoction that Alex had instructed her how to make, one that might bring the woman some respite. The fact that Carth hadn’t perished from the poison was surprising.

  “That’s what she says,” Evie said.

  “You don’t believe that she’s telling the truth?” Carth asked.

  Evie shook her head. “I believe Alex. I just fear what you intend to do now that you know what the poison is. It’s bad enough what you’re doing with…” She watched the way Carth chewed on the narcass and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve been chewing on that root as if you intended to eat it for dinner. Any other person did the same, they’d be dead within moments. I think regardless of what I might have to say, you intend to prove me wrong.”

  Carth plucked the terad root from her mouth and tossed it in the bin at the end of the bed. “I intend to do what I can to find out why Lindy was killed.”

  “Probably the same as the rest. They were trying to do—”

  “No. Lindy was different than the rest. This man was after something. He seemed to think that he’d gotten his target. And if his target was Lindy, I need to know why.”

  Evie set the bowl down and crossed her arms over her chest. “You go chasing after someone like that, you’re just as likely to get killed. If Lindy couldn’t protect herself, what makes you think the rest of these women can?” She fixed Carth with a hard look. “We need you, Carth. We need your expertise, and we need your strength. Without it… without it, I think we might be in danger again.”

  Carth sighed. Lindy had made a similar comment once, telling her that Carth needed to help them become stronger, that she could help ensure that they were safe, but it would require that she work with them. Only, Carth might be able to work with them, but they needed more than that. They needed fighting skill that she wasn’t sure she could teach. Was it something she was willing to teach? Did she intend to turn them into soldiers?

  She turned her attention back to Lindy, staring at her friend’s unmoving body. She was gone. There was nothing Carth could do to bring her back, nothing she could do that would reverse the effects of the poison. The only thing she could do was get vengeance for what had happened to her.

  Carth started to turn when Evie stepped forward, raising a hand. “What do you intend to do?”

  Carth glanced to Lindy before turning her attention to Evie. “I intend to see that this man and whoever hired him are destroyed.”

  As she strode from the room, her gaze touched on the fallen woman. Carth needed to do this for all the women in the city who had been subjected to the violence here, but now it was even more personal.

  Carth trailed the man from his ship. He cast a furtive glance around him, but she remained hidden in the shadows, concealed from him. She felt no pressure of him on her senses, nothing that would tell her that the assassin was near. She hadn’t discovered what his ability was, but he did have some way of fighting well, and she wondered if maybe enhanced speed or agility was part of it. She had some of that with the shadows, but he had not been gifted by the shadows, of that she was certain.

  As this man moved away from the docks and into the alley, pushing his heavily laden cart, she followed after him, keeping a close eye on him so that he didn’t disappear from her. She was tempted to follow him from above, to use the rooftops to trail him, but she preferred not to catch him completely off guard.

  Why had she not taken the time to find the keys to the smuggling organization? Had that been a mistake? It probably had been. Had she taken that time before now, it was possible that she would have known who this was, so that she wouldn’t have to move blindly through the city. Now she felt as if she were wasting time, time that was precious to her, time that was key to finding out who had harmed her friend, and who still posed a risk to the city.

  Someone had hired an assassin.

  Her mind continued to race through what she’d heard. He had said that he had his target. Lindy had been his target. But why?

  The only thing she could she could think of was that Lindy had been targeted because she was felt to be the key to Carth’s network in the city. They had made no effort to conceal Lindy’s role. She had played a prominent part in the city, serving as the person who ran their network, and Lindy had been instrumental in organizing not only the hospital, but also the connection between the taverns. Someone in the city resented that, and had intended to take it out.

  Had they known about Carth’s role?

  Neither of them had made an effort to conceal Carth’s responsibility. She had always been a part of the running of the network, though Carth preferred to work from the fringes, not to be front and center, which was why she had allowed Lindy to take such a prominent role. It was the same reason she had installed Dara in Reva.

  But now, Carth was forced to take a prominent role in Asador. With Lindy’s passing, women looked to her. Carth couldn’t ignore that responsibility, just as she couldn’t ignore the murder of her friend. She would find out what happened, and she would have answers.

  The man turned down a side street towards the center of the city, and some of the more prominent tradesmen. Asador was unique in that it had a council comprised of tradesmen as well as elected officials; there was no singular rule for the city. Because of that, each area had its own distinct needs, and issues. Those issues often were different from place to place, enough so that conflict occasionally occurred.

  The man glanced around him before hurrying on.

  Carth smiled tightly to herself. She maintained her connection to the shadows, remaining hidden within them. The shadows, and this time of day, were hers. She could stay hidden in the darkness, could stay hidden in the night, and no one would ever know she was there. There was power in that. The only people who recognized her presence had been another shadow blessed and the assassin. Even those of Lashasn didn’t have the same ability to detect when she moved within the shadows.

  Carth followed him as he entered a shop.

  She paused at the door, scanning the street and finding it otherwise empty. This was a blacksmith shop, and a prominent one by the looks of the sign. The shop was well built and freshly painted, and had a clear glass window in front, inviting shoppers in.

  On either side of the blacksmith were other similar merchants. On one side was a metalsmith, one with exquisite jewelry. On the other was a fletcher, likely someone who worked with the blacksmith.

  She trailed the man as he went through the back of the shop and through another door, and Carth realized that it connected on the other side to another building.

  It reminded her all too much of the interconnectedness that she’d discovered in Hoga’s shop. There had been similar connected buildings when she had searched for her friends after they been captured. Was all of Asador connected like this?

  Carth moved more carefully now. With the shadows around her, she worried that it would appear more like an inky fog. She had to be careful that she didn’t reveal herself. She didn’t want the smuggler, or whoever he worked with, to recognize her pre
sence.

  She was in a large room, empty other than a few long benches. They were angled together, looking like a meeting had recently been held here. The hearth in the corner of the room still held the occasional glowing ember. The air smelled of smoke, but of something else too, a familiar sweet scent that reminded her of the perfume Lindy had preferred. The memory made her heart lurch, thinking of what had happened to her friend.

  The man had gone through a door on the opposite side. Carth followed, and when the door opened up, he was gone.

  How had she lost him? How many disappeared so quickly from her?

  Better yet, how had he recognized that she’d trailed him?

  Carth stood on the street, scanning in every direction, hopeful that she would find him once more, but he had truly disappeared.

  She swore to herself and, pulling on the shadows, she jumped to the next rooftop.

  14

  Carth clutched a pair of the poisoned blades in her hand, holding them by the tips, ready to throw them were she to come across any of the smugglers. They seemed to know that she was there and to be prepared for her, although Carth didn’t know why that should be.

  How were they able to detect her presence?

  She moved silently, holding on to the shadows as she did, barely making any sound.

  The darkness fit her mood and her mindset. She had felt nothing but darkness in the days since losing Lindy.

  She followed the smuggler more closely than she had the last few. She wasn’t about to lose track of him, not like she had the others. There had been two nights when she had followed smugglers, and both times they had disappeared before she’d managed to find out who they were meeting with. She’d grown increasingly frustrated by that. There had to be something about the smugglers she’d missed. Either they recognized that she was there, or they were disappearing someplace else. Using her magics, she hadn’t been able to find out where they disappeared to.

  This time, Carth was determined not to let this man escape from her. When she saw him pushing his carts from the docks, she jumped on the roof of the building, landing in front of him.

  She jabbed up with her knife, practically piercing the underside of his neck. If she were to break the skin, poison would flow. She didn’t have narcass to reverse the effect. She wasn’t sure she was interested in reversing it anyway.

  “You’re going to take me to your organization.”

  The man’s eyes drifted to the knife before darting up to her face. He nervously licked his lips. “You can have it.”

  Carth shook her head. “I think you misunderstand me. I don’t want what’s in your cart. I want to know where the others are. I need to meet the man who leads you.”

  “I can’t. They’ll kill me.”

  Carth twisted the knife. It was barely beneath the surface of the skin. She surged a hint of the flame through it, enough that he could feel the heat from the blade.

  It was effective. He jerked his head back.

  “What makes you think that I won’t kill you?”

  His eyes widened. “You don’t understand,” he started.

  “Perhaps I don’t. Which is why you’re going to take me where I tell you. Then I’m going to have a little conversation with your boss.”

  The man’s gaze shot to the knife again before turning back to her. He licked his lips again and finally nodded.

  Carth pulled the knife back only a little, but held it out, keeping it close to him. The smuggler would not escape her. Unfortunately, there was no way to keep her presence hidden. Not only would they know she was here, Carth meant to find the key to the smuggling ring. If she didn’t play this the right way, she envisioned others armed and opposing her—and the women who worked with her.

  The man weaved through the city, still pushing his car, his back stiff as he made his way along the streets. Carth noted he went in a different direction than the previous two had. The first man had gone to typical traders, then disappeared somewhere around the blacksmith shop. The second man had gone along the shore, making her think that there was perhaps another place he might’ve hidden, one similar to what Guya had done when smuggling women out of the city before disappearing.

  This man headed south.

  South of the city, the streets began sloping downward. Carth hadn’t spent much time exploring the side, but knew that it headed inland, toward the flat plains outside of the city. Shops began to dwindle, giving way to small houses. The entire streetscape was dingier, and she wondered where he brought her.

  He moved quickly and with purpose. When he stopped at a house with a plain wooden door, Carth studied it before noting that it was connected to several others. Everything was darkened around her, and if not for her connection to the shadows, she doubted she’d be able to see much.

  He pushed the door open, sliding his cart inside, and waited.

  Would he try to bolt? He made no effort to try to escape. Instead, he waited, seeming to know that she could reach him were she to want to.

  When she stepped inside, she noted a hint of pine in the air. It covered another scent, one that reminded her of the hospital. It was the same kind of scent that reminded her of Alex’s shop, that of different powders and leaves and other plants.

  Carth looked over to the smuggler. “Here? You’re bringing me here?”

  “This is the place. I tell you—”

  Carth pointed the knife at him. She didn’t really want to use the knife, but she needed to know whether he was leading her astray.

  “I’ve followed several others. Some of them ended up in other parts of the city than this. Why here?”

  The man shook his head. “Come with me. You’ll see.”

  He left the cart in the entryway of the room and moved through the building. Carth followed him until he reached a doorway with stairs leading down.

  Carth frowned. Was this why she hadn’t found the others? They’d gone beneath the street level?

  Another doorway to the bottom of the stairs, and he pulled it open. A long tunnel stretched into the darkness. With sudden understanding, Carth realized that this must be the same set of tunnels Alex’s building rested on. It was the same set of tunnels that had been beneath Hoga’s building. Those tunnels connected beneath the city.

  Carth felt her heart racing. Was this going to be the same as what she had discovered before? Was she going to find women chained to the wall with an intent to smuggle them out of the city much as Guya had done?

  She wasn’t prepared for that kind of fight, but she would have to be. If women were trapped, they deserved that from her.

  The man started down the tunnels, and she followed him. The ceiling arched over her head, reaching several feet above her, enough that she couldn’t easily touch it. The tunnels had been made for someone much taller than her. Carth was of average height, and so was the smuggler, as well as most of the people of Asador. Only a few people were much taller than that. The green-eyed man who had attacked her was much taller. The man who led the Hjan had also been tall.

  Carth hesitated. She’d been working under the belief that the man had been after her because of her desire to break up the smuggling ring, but what if that weren’t the case? What if she had been attacked because he worked for the Hjan?

  If so, that meant they’d violated the accords.

  Carth doubted they were interested in that. For now, they were interested in the protection, but it was possible that something had changed that she didn’t fully understand.

  They continued along the Hall, and Carth noted doors leading off. They were connected, likely to places overhead. Now she understood why other smugglers she had followed had disappeared. They had all come here, only they had followed a different pathway to these tunnels.

  There was a certain sort of sense about such a plan. Using the tunnels, having people enter from different directions, took attention off them. She could imagine how easy it would be to track some of the smugglers if they all used the same entrance, or even if
they came to the same section of the city. Finding buildings like this to reach this network of tunnels would keep the attention from them.

  The tunnel began to widen as they went. More doorways lined the tunnel, with likely more buildings entering here. There was a look of activity here, the stone heavily trampled, and bits of debris dropped along the corridor. This was a place others frequented.

  The long hall ended in a section of what appeared to be a blank stone wall, mortar cracked in places, and some of the stone crumbling. There was moisture damage to the wall as well, water seeping from the stones, trailing down to the ground.

  Carth watched the smuggler, curious what he might do here, and he tapped a series of stones. When he did, there was a soft rumbling, and then a section of the wall pulled away.

  Had Carth not been with the smuggler—had she not forced him to bring her—there wouldn’t have been any way she would have known how to open the section of wall. Even were she to reach the tunnels—which she thought she could, especially accessing them by Alex’s shop—she would never have known about another room on the other side of the wall.

  As the wall slid away, light spilled out. The smuggler led her through it, and pressed on another set of stones on the other side, letting the wall slide back into place.

  Once done, he looked over at Carth, concern plain on his face, before nodding to the rest of the room.

  Carth surveyed the room. This was a more ornate area. A massive staircase with a wide banister led down, made of some dark metal. The flooring here was planked wood over the stone, giving it a more formal air. Paintings hung along the wall, as if this were an entry parlor.

  “Down the stairs. That’s where you need to go,” he said.

  “You’re going to take me there.”

  The smuggler shook his head. “Please. Don’t make me.”

  Carth surged the A’ras magic through her knife, sending heat through it. He took a step back. Briefly, she wondered whether the heat damaged this knife, or damaged the poison on the blade. It was something she hadn’t a chance to test.