by Wight, Will
As a distinguished guest, Jorin was naturally entitled to the finest accommodations of the Consultant’s Guild chapter house on the western side of the island. But upon being shown to his rooms, he had immediately left, revealing these ancient chambers. The Miners had no record of this place ever existing, and as far as Shera knew, no Consultant had disturbed this room in the hundreds of years since Jorin last woke.
Naturally, the man who built the foundations of the Gray Island would know its secrets. It was a humbling reminder of the depth of his knowledge compared to their own.
Jorin settled into the chair, adjusting his black-tinted glasses. “Shera, welcome back to my humble coffin. Has Syphren been rattling your eaves?”
“Try again,” she said.
His head jerked back as though she’d struck him in the chin. “Do houses no longer have eaves, or stormwinds to rattle them? My oath to eternity, you all sound like Estyr Six. So literal, so straightforward. In the interest of conformity, I too will endeavor to speak like a cart with no wheels, but you should know that I resent the indignity.”
He extended a hand, gesturing impatiently, and Shera handed over Syphren.
More than a legendary founder of the Empire, Jorin Curse-breaker looked like a shady peddler you might find down one of the Capital’s many alleys. His clothes were ragged and worn, covered with pockets and chains that sagged under the weight of a thousand knickknacks. At his side hung a bundle of glass lenses that jangled like a ring of keys, and a shrunken head grinned out from his belt buckle. He wore black-tinted spectacles, which he called “shadeglasses,” even in the dim light of this subterranean room. And, of course, he spoke like a shredded dictionary.
When the green blade touched Jorin's palm, greed coiled around Shera's heart. She clutched her right-hand shear, leaning forward.
The Regent's power glowed in her mind brighter than a bonfire. Syphren babbled, straining to draw the life from Jorin like a starving man reaching for a crust of bread. The prisoners had been nothing; a burst of life and energy, and then silence. But if she could draw his blood, the rush would be like nothing she'd ever felt. Here was a man who stood toe-to-toe with the Emperor, and Shera found herself thinking of him like a feast. He was off his guard, the two of them were down here alone. She could move before he even noticed, and drink deep of his sweet power.
With one hand, Jorin wrapped his bandages around Syphren. The other, he casually reached out and placed on another cloth-wrapped bundle. This one was about four feet long, resting on a crate.
“Strike your sails and weigh anchor, girl,” he said, glancing at her behind his black glasses. His smile was more amused than anything. “I have a difficult time restraining people without melting them to black goo.”
Shera jerked back, sheathing her shear. She had been staring straight at the Regent of the South, blade in hand, leaning toward him as though she meant to lunge. Of course he'd noticed. She wouldn't have been surprised to find drool on her lips.
Heat rose in her cheeks, and she deliberately took a seat on a nearby pile of wagon wheels, placing her palms on her knees. “Sorry, I don't normally plot assassinations right in front of my targets.”
He chuckled and took his hand away from his sword, causing her fingers to twitch. If he was unarmed, then maybe...
She shook the thought away, ashamed. Nothing had ever threatened her self-control more than Syphren, and if it jeopardized her judgment during an assignment, there was every chance she wouldn't survive.
“Comparing my time to yours is comparing heaven and earth,” he said. After a look at her face, he grimaced. “They're very different. But at least one thing is constant. New Soulbound are as choppy as...excuse me. They're unstable. Very unstable. Over time, you'll become used to the passenger in your head, but for now, we can make do.”
Jorin's hands moved as he spoke, wrapping the blade in layer after layer of cloth. With each rotation, the burden on Shera's mind eased, a tide of foreign emotions receding. A cloud lifted from her thoughts, leaving them her own.
When he finished and handed her the weapon, she took a deep breath. “I don't want to kill you anymore. That's a step forward.”
“A Consultant is always gracious, particularly to our clients and our guests.” One of Ayana's lessons that had never quite sunk in. But he deserved some courtesy, so Shera pictured what Meia would do in her situation.
She gave him a seated bow. “Thank you for your valuable time, Regent. It is...most appreciated.” Meia would surely have said something more polite, but Shera couldn't bring it to mind right now.
He pointed to the knife. “You're twisting my leg, aren't you? This is the most interesting thing I've done in years. Certainly since I came out of the box. Most of what they have me doing nowadays is posturing and playing like a thunderhead, to show what will happen to rebels. Politics, I tell you. Give me cursed daggers and unstable Soulbound from dawn to doomsday, but keep your politics.”
“Pulling my leg,” Shera said. He gave her a blank look. “You either pull my leg or twist my arm, you don't twist my leg. It doesn't make any sense.”
“And why not? A leg can be twisted as easily as an arm. Give me your leg, and I'll show you.”
He actually beckoned for her to hand him her leg, which made her wonder if he was serious. She kept her feet on the ground.
“You wanted to learn modern speech, I can help you. If you don't, that's fine, but don't say I didn't hold up my end of the bargain.” That was one of the conditions he placed on his help: that she occupy him by teaching him the speech of the era. The deal was already laughably unequal—his time was priceless, and he was here to allay boredom and explore the island as much as to help her—but Kerian had instructed Shera to treat this like an assignment for a top-level client. So she would.
Jorin snatched his pipe from his mouth and shook it at her before patting his jacket down, looking for matches. “In a way, it's a marvel that the language has stayed as steady as it has. A hundred and forty years asleep this time, and I wake up to find everyone speaking like a flock of Estyrs. I suppose the Emperor can keep vocabulary standardized, but still, you'd expect some where did I put those fire-sticks?”
He tore through his pockets, dumping out scraps of paper and a pile of dried leaves.
“Matches,” Shera said, and he nodded to her.
“Best invention of your time, I daresay,” he said, still rummaging through his coat. “Firearms are nice and all, but we had cannons and rudimentary muskets last time. I'm a little disappointed in your progress, my oath to eternity on it. I had a bet with Loreli that you would be launching alchemical rounds by now, but still just lead. And you could forge a sword in the time it takes to reload. Disappointing.”
The Regent sighed and gave up, looking to the ladder leading aboveground. “I had a couple of Consultants following me around, catering to my every need. Itched like a nettle in the britches, so I ducked them. Wish I had them around now, though. Come on, then. Let's go rustle up some matches.”
Having a conversation with Jorin Maze-walker was a bit like talking with the Emperor. Your ears got more of a workout than your tongue.
Shera preceded him up the ladder without thinking about it. You always entered and exited a room before your client, even in safe territory. Good practice.
The shroud of twilight hung over the Gray Island, but it was far brighter than usual for this time of night. She could even see a handful of stars, and hear the distant ocean.
Usually, the Island was wrapped in the embrace of a blue-gray wall of fog—the supernatural Bastion's Veil. It concealed them in a layer of mystery, and apparently protected them from the gazes of Elders. But in the battle against Nakothi's Handmaiden, Kerian had collapsed the Veil to sweep an army of Elderspawn from their shores.
Only a few wisps of gray hung in the air, barely visible. Bastion's Veil would recover eventually, but for now the Consultant headquarters stood exposed.
Shera preferred it this way. She'd
never realized how oppressive the permanent cloud was until it vanished. Also, she had never fully understood the point of concealment: they were on a Guild-owned island at the edge of the Aion Sea, surrounded by water. Surely there couldn't be too many observers. Besides, practically everything on the island was disguised.
The lack of gray around the Gray Island wasn't the only new feature of the landscape, to her eyes. This time, even with Syphren sealed, she could distantly feel the presence of Consultants crawling all over the terrain. Most of them were beneath her, or gathered around the chapter house on the western end of the island, but some were closer. One was only fifty yards away, sitting in the underbrush nearby.
Shera glanced in that direction, but saw nothing. It wasn't likely a threat, and at the very least, an attacker wouldn't have line of sight from that position. She signaled Jorin to come up.
He hadn't waited for her signal, which didn't surprise her, and was already halfway up the ladder. His cloth-wrapped sword had been strapped to his back, his unlit pipe clenched in his teeth once again.
The Regent reached the top, brushing dust from his coat. “Which way to the nearest alchemist?” he asked, when a crack of thunder interrupted him.
Only when he staggered back did Shera realize what the sound meant.
A gunshot. Her client had been shot.
CHAPTER THREE
To prevent the rise of the Elders, no sacrifice is too great.
—The Emperor
~~~
Ten years ago
What Shera lacked in quality of sleep, she made up for in quantity. She slept often, but lightly: a remnant of Maxwell’s ambushes, combined with years of Gardener training. Sometimes she would wake in a panic, facing the gleam of a knife…only to realize that the light was really a slice of the moon, drifting through the window.
Tonight, she didn’t wake until her captors drew the bag tight around her head.
Shera reacted before she was fully conscious, tucking her chin to her chest to stop the lip of the bag from catching her throat. Blindly, she reached under her pillow for the sheathed knife she always kept hidden. She found only cool sheets.
Fear splashed her in the face like a bucket of ice water, and she flailed around, reaching for the peg on the wall where she hung her shears. Her knuckles cracked against wood, sending pain flashing up to her wrist.
That was the last chance she had. Rough hands grabbed her arms and forced them behind her back, ignoring her struggles. They tied her wrists together with cord, only a little thicker than garrote wire.
She gulped in air through her mouth, eyes widening to try and catch the slightest glimpse of light. The bag was flawless. She couldn’t even see the weave of individual fabrics. Nothing but absolute darkness surrounded her as she was marched out of her own room and down the hall, feet slapping on the floorboards.
An unfamiliar sensation seized her, like a noose tightening around her neck: panic. Her breathing quickened, and she jerked against her kidnappers with a desperate lack of control.
Shera could have fought them. She could even kill them. But not if she couldn’t see. Not if she was helpless, with no weapons, and no idea what was going on. She was going to die confused and blind, with no chance to ask questions or defend herself.
Worse than the looming specter of death was the fear. She hadn’t been so scared facing down the hordes of Nakothi’s living corpses, nor even fighting the Emperor himself in the heart of the dead island. In those cases, she’d faced the threat with a knife in her hand. She’d had options.
Here, all her options had been taken away.
The men grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her as they reached the outer doors. Warm, wet air surrounded her, heavy with the smell of the sea. They had carried her out of her quarters on the Gray Island, and no one had woken up. No one was coming to help her.
They put her back down outside, and she stumbled as her feet hit rough stone. There was a steep flight of stairs outside the Gardeners’ quarters, which wound down the Gray Island’s hills until it eventually met the docks. Was that where they were taking her? Would her body end up in the ocean, food for the uncountable monsters in the Aion Sea?
The choking darkness of the mask brought back a memory of last night, still fresh in her mind.
Black water, all around her. A cloud of bubbles rushing into her face. Which direction was up? She couldn’t tell. The cold bit into her skin, but there were worse threats here than freezing.
Pale hands reached out of the darkness, a cluster of them with impossibly long arms, reaching up to grab her and pull her down. The hands rushed at her like ghosts in the night, opening and closing in hungry anticipation. Fingers brushed her ankle.
Shera could almost see them coming at her from the depths of her mask, but she didn’t scream. In her entire life, she had never screamed in fear. She froze instead.
The men carrying her stumbled a little as they carried her down the stairs. They caught their balance, but one of them grunted.
The point of a knife pressed into her back. She wasn’t wearing the blacks of a Gardener, but a lavender nightgown Kerian had provided. It offered no protection against the knife.
And as the weapon pushed into her flesh below the ribs, prodding her to move forward, almost forceful enough to draw blood, Shera relaxed.
There was something simple about a knife at her back that boiled her situation down to its bare essentials. Here was something she understood: two enemies, at least one armed, representing a clear and present threat. Her arms were bound, she was unarmed and unarmored, and the two men could have any number of accomplices. She didn’t hear any other footsteps, but it was always possible that these hypothetical enemies could move without leaving any sound.
Reality reasserted itself. It wasn’t a nightmare scenario; it was only a gang of grown men who had kidnapped her from her bed. Nothing to worry about.
It was kill or be killed, as the knifepoint reminded her. She was in her natural element.
Her mind filled with frost. Her fear froze, growing gradually colder until it finally blew apart like snow in the wind, and all she felt was cold.
Finally.
Shera matched her captors step for step as they moved down the stairs. The Gardeners’ quarters were sparsely populated these days, as there were only a few Gardeners in the entire Guild, so it wasn’t unreasonable to think they could have entered unnoticed. But they had come straight into her room without waking her and carried her out immediately, which meant they knew the building’s layout. Their footsteps were quieter than hers, their hands were gloved, and they hadn’t said a word since grabbing her. She couldn’t even hear them breathe.
Consultants, then. Probably Shepherds. Possibly fellow Gardeners, though she couldn’t imagine Kerian—the head of the Gardeners—authorizing something like this. If Kerian wanted Shera, she would have asked directly.
Besides, a Gardener would have slit her throat and been done with her.
That left Shepherds. They would be trained in observation and reconnaissance, not combat. They still had the advantage, but it wasn’t like she was being carried away by the Imperial Guard. She still had a chance.
And she doubted they had orders to kill her, but there was one easy way to find out.
When her captor nudged her with the knife to prod her forward, she fell back.
The blade cut straight through her nightgown, slicing a thin line from her spine outward. The Shepherd jerked the weapon back before it could cut too deep, seizing her shoulder to steady her.
Shera didn’t make a sound, ignoring the pain. As she’d expected, her attackers had been ordered to take her somewhere, not to kill her.
Which meant she still had options. For one, Shepherds typically wore very thin shoes.
While the man behind her was still unsteady, having drawn his weapon back and planted himself to stop Shera from falling, she raised her knee up.
From that position, she drove her heel down on his inste
p.
She heard something crack, and he grunted in his attempt to muffle a scream. Her heel felt bruised, but she was confident that she’d hurt him worse.
Now his partner would be worried Shera would use this opportunity to run. He would step forward and seize her by both shoulders, trying to grab her and use his body weight to keep her in place.
Blindly, she stepped to the left instead, feeling the wet grass beneath her bare feet. He would have to follow her, putting him on a predictable path.
She dropped low and spun into a kick, aiming to hit his ankles as he stepped from the stairs to the grass. The side of her foot hit the ragged edge of a rock, gouging her flesh. It was a flesh wound. It would bleed.
They’ll be able to track my footsteps now, she thought. The wound itself didn’t concern her.
A gloved hand grabbed between her wrists, taking a fistful of the cords binding her hands to her back. With one hand, he lifted her almost entirely off the ground.
This pain she couldn’t ignore. Her arms were levered up behind her, her wrists twisting, elbows screaming, shoulders burning red-hot. Both arms felt like they were being stretched on a rack, each muscle drawn out for maximum agony. Her ribs drew tight, and she felt as though she couldn’t get a full breath.
She was stunned for a moment as he dragged her forward, still silent. Her mouth gaped open, straining to fill her lungs.
But his motion had knocked her head forward. Shaking the bag loose.
She snapped her head back and forth, grabbing a mouthful of cloth. It tasted like dry leaves and ink, so it must have been freshly dyed, and probably newly woven. They had created this hood specifically for her, for tonight. Why? New bonds were standard procedure when capturing a Reader, because they had very little Intent to manipulate. But anyone who knew her well enough to take her from her bed on the Gray Island would know she was no Reader.