No Earthly Treason

by Genevra Black

  Marius turned quickly, trying to shove the box under the bed—but she had already seen. Tiralda stood there, staring him down, her usually beautiful face twisted, angular like a sea serpent about to strike.

  “You worm,” she snapped, coming forward and seizing him by the back of the neck like he was a misbehaving pet. “What in Njord’s name do you think you are doing, Vivid?”

  Marius didn’t resist her. It would only cause him more trouble, make her more likely to hurt him. He said nothing, either; there was no excuse he could give that wouldn’t just make her angrier. He simply grunted in pain and glared at her.

  She dragged him down the stairs and out of the tower, shouting the whole way and demanding what business a lowly mortal had rifling through her things. As they crossed the green to the temple, people stopped to stare at them. Some were wide-eyed; others simply watched, wary, as if unsurprised that the Radiant’s only son had finally snapped and disobeyed their laws. A couple scurried ahead of them, probably going to alert his father of the situation. Marius grimaced.

  Tiralda’s ranting only continued as she yanked him up the stairs toward his father’s private library. “I ought to remove your other hand and feed it to you!” she said, throwing open the library doors and tossing him in.

  His father was already descending the stairs to the library’s first floor, and Marius fell at his feet. Eirik looked from him to Tiralda, brow drawn tightly. “What in the Wolfbinder’s name is the meaning of this?”

  The sorceress glided over to Marius once more and took a fistful of his hair, jerking him around. “Eirik! You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “For conceiving such a stupidly audacious failure of a son!”

  Eirik motioned sharply for her to let Marius go.

  After a moment, she released the vivid. Her piranha-like underbite was becoming more prominent the angrier she got, her needle teeth gnashing as she shouted. “I caught your whelp pawing through my belongings. Touching my things! Going through my personal documents like a lowborn rooting for treasure! I had forgotten how primitive humans were.”

  The Radiant bent slightly and braced Marius’s arm with his left one, lifting him to his feet. He looked in his son’s eyes for half a second before looking back at Tiralda. “You have my apologies. Did he take anything?”

  “No,” Marius whispered.

  “And how are we to believe you, Vivid?” She gestured to him, glaring at his father. “Where I come from, he would be mutilated. Scrounging around for something to take back to his den. Perhaps sell!”

  “I didn’t take anything,” he snapped back.

  “Stop.” The Radiant’s tone was severe, and it shut both Marius and Tiralda up. He drew himself up a bit, mouth in a tight line, and walked past Marius to open the library door for the sorceress. “I will deal with my son privately. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

  She paused before gliding past him with a last imperious sneer at both men. “Very well. I need not speak of this any further. I dismiss you.” She turned and left, head held high.

  Radiant Eirik shut the door softly after her, then ran a hand over his carefully twisted hair. After a moment, he turned to look at his son, and Marius stiffened, bracing himself for the severe admonition to come. His father wouldn’t yell—he never did—but the disappointment would be so heavy that Marius would wish he had. He’d been through it a thousand times before.

  To his surprise, however, the reproach never came. Eirik simply walked past Marius and sank into a nearby leather chair, then motioned for his son to sit in the chair next to it.

  “Marius…” he began after a period of silence.

  Before he could go on, the vivid answered: “I’m sorry, Father, but I didn’t take anything.”

  “I know.” Eirik sighed. “Is this the investigation into your traitor?”

  He nodded stiffly.

  “Can’t I convince you to drop this crusade?”

  His father looked more tired than agitated, so Marius told the truth. “No.”

  Eirik looked at him solemnly. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  He sank back in his chair a little. Marius watched his expression go from concern to deep thoughtfulness, then even out. “What made you suspect Tiralda? What would be her motive?”

  “Money, an old grudge?” The vivid shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps it isn’t her. She was only my first choice because she was an outsider. It could be anyone.”

  The Radiant watched him, gaze soft, brows drawn together. “Marius. Trust me when I say I thoroughly vet anyone I let within our temple. If she had any connection to our enemies or anyone that might want to hurt us, I would know.”

  He leaned to the side slightly. It looked like he wanted to reach out for Marius, but he didn’t. He breathed a long, thoughtful sigh, then looked into his son’s face. Marius wasn’t prepared for his next declaration.

  “My Aurora is your Aurora, don’t you see? You are my light. I would never, never let in someone who might hurt you. I would die first.”

  On a realistic level, Marius knew his father loved him. His father was overbearing and expected much; they bumped heads, and Marius often wondered if his father was truly proud of him, but of course he knew that he loved him. It was just that he rarely said it so explicitly.

  Marius wanted to look away from his father’s earnest gaze, but found he couldn’t. “The title of Radiant isn’t hereditary,” he murmured. “Someone else could take the job. Someone else should. I’m not ready.”

  After fighting his father for so long, it felt strange to admit that.

  Eirik nodded. “When the mantle was passed on to me, I felt the same way. How could I live up to the Radiant before me? How could I dare? I was only a vivid, and your mother died so soon after I was appointed….”

  Even though Eirik was dignified and battle-ready in his gleaming armor, he suddenly looked very weary; haunted, as he always did when he spoke about Mother. Marius couldn’t blame him. Eirik had been the only one to survive the siege that had killed her and the innocents they had sworn to protect.

  “How did you get through it?” Marius pressed after a moment.

  Eirik looked past him, at something drifting in time, something only he could see. Then he looked back at his son. “It was you.”

  Marius raised a questioning brow.

  “When you’re called to lead, it is because someone needs you. You were still a baby. You needed me. The Aurora needed me. Radiant Geir was dead, Kata was dead, but there were things I still had to do.”

  Finally, he reached out and grasped his son’s wrist, drawing his gaze.

  “Marius … there are so many things I wish I could tell you. There are so many mistakes I wish I could rectify. But for all I’ve done, I have learned this: When you aren’t sure you can carry on, when you don’t know if you can do what you need to do … you do the things you know you can. You try to be the person they loved. You try to be the person they trusted. Most important of all, you keep the ones still alive safe at any cost, and you never let them go.”

  Marius looked down, silent for a few moments. When he raised his head again and searched the Radiant’s face, he detected a hint of desperation in his expression. With a sigh, Marius placed his hand over his father’s. “That’s what I’m trying to do; that’s why I’m searching. I’m trying to keep my loved one alive.”

  The desperation prevailed, then … fear. It was jarring to see. Nothing scared his father. Eirik’s gaze was almost pleading, and he lowered his voice to a tremulous whisper. “So am I.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Since Edie had fucked up her connection with Cal, she’d been able to keep him out of her head; she couldn’t get into his brain, and he couldn’t get into hers. Today, though, that certainly didn’t stop him from freaking trying.

  As she and Sissel rode the subway into Springwich, there was an insistent niggling in the back of Edie’s mind. She had gotten used
to what it felt like when he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to break through the walls himself.

  He hadn’t made any progress then, and he wasn’t making any progress now. Still, it meant he was definitely looking for her. They only had a limited time to do this thing.

  When they exited the subway station, Sissel paused outside to tie her boots while Edie had a look around. They were surrounded mostly by four- and five-story brick buildings, though a few single-family houses meandered here and there as the streets curved downward, toward the more suburban parts of the city. This was the last stop on the Yellow Line.

  In some ways, Springwich reminded Edie of her own neighborhood. The smoky green stains creeping up the bases of buildings, the litter compacted into the potholes lining the road, windows painted shut. It all spoke of a low quality of living for moderate rent at best.

  At least her neighborhood was central. She could walk a couple blocks and pick up anything she needed, have any kind of food she wanted to eat. Parks, museums, and a college were only a stroll or a train ride away. A “bad” neighborhood this far away from the center of the city? No one cared if the people who lived here could get where they needed to go, or buy what they needed to buy, or if they had had a vegetable in the last month. No one cared that most of the buildings here had wooden fire escapes, if they had any at all.

  Edie hugged her new jacket closer, thinking of the medical bills she kept getting, like the hospital thought she wasn’t acutely aware of how much she owed. She and Mercy weren’t even living good lives, and they were still lucky to be where they were. There was something so fucked up about that.

  Sissel straightened. “Okay, where are we going again?”

  She brought Edie back to reality with her cheerful voice. All right, cheerful and a little strained, but that made sense. After exerting most of her energy controlling those security guards, she’d practically fallen asleep on the subway.

  Edie squinted, looking up at the sky. They would lose daylight in a couple hours, and Sissel was already weakened from their ordeal.

  “You really should go home,” Edie said, glancing at her young companion.

  The girl shook her head, standing her ground just as Edie had known she would. “No way, fam, I’m seeing this shit through. You’d have already got arrested, like, twice if it weren’t for me.”

  “Yeah, but it’s only going to get more dangerous from here. This guy clearly doesn’t want to be found.” Edie sighed. “You need to go back home to your dad and forget about me.”

  “I’ve been through way worse stuff.” The smiling teen either didn’t pick up on or was ignoring the seriousness in Edie’s voice. “I’m not leaving, so you may as well accept it.”

  She couldn’t exactly force Sissel to leave. Clearly, nothing anyone said would deter her, and there was no way Edie was going to physically remove her from the situation. You said you wanted to protect the innocent, she thought. They’d just have to be extra cautious.

  “Which street are we looking for?” Sissel continued. “Cardinal?”

  Edie nodded, already walking, and the teen quickly fell into step with her, cell phone at the ready. She was already pulling up directions to Cardinal Street, chattering about how she had to have an unlimited plan because she used the GPS app for work. Edie zoned out a little, glancing at street signs and letting her eyes rove over the area. It was the tail end of rush hour, so people were pouring out of the subway station after them; others were walking home, some hand-in-hand with their kids. Everyone was way too busy to acknowledge the two lost-looking girls roaming around their neighborhood.

  Except….

  As they rounded a corner, Edie noticed a subtle change on the sidewalk across from them. A group of people she had assumed were strangers on their way home paused all at once. The one in the middle made eye contact with Edie when she clocked the movement, and the others followed suit.

  Edie looked away quickly, touching the back of Sissel’s arm. “Don’t look behind you. There’s a group of Watchers. Can you find another route to Cardinal?”

  The teen didn’t look up from her phone, simply nodding and tapping a button, instantly rerouting. Without warning, she turned sharply down an alley, and Edie followed. She wished she had a way to hide her appearance a little. She usually wore a hoodie under her jacket for warmth, but the new one was high quality with quilted lining, and she’d figured she didn’t need the extra bulk. She was regretting that decision now.

  They emerged onto another busy street, and this time, Edie stayed alert, looking closely for any anomaly or pattern in the crowd’s movement. As people reached their homes, the rush was thinning, which meant the Watchers wouldn’t have anywhere to hide. Unfortunately, it also meant they’d be able to find Edie and Sissel more easily.

  Edie spared a glance over her shoulder and watched as the group emerged a mere thirty feet behind them. Sissel led her around another sharp corner, across the street, and down another alley, keeping her head down the whole time.

  “Have you done this before?” Edie asked, looking the kid up and down.

  “I’m a fifteen-year-old girl who walks around by herself for half the day, almost every day of the week. What do you think?”

  She shrugged. “Your home life sounded pretty wholesome. How the hell did you learn this?”

  “Practice.” Sissel grinned. “Besides, my dad isn’t the only person I talk to in the whole world. That would be fucking boring. I have friends! I know a lot of older couriers who taught me stuff.”

  “Huh. Thank god for that, I guess.”

  The teen nodded wordlessly and pointed to another side street.

  Edie caught the barest glimpse of their pursuers as they turned down it. Nervously, she muttered, “Let’s pick up the pace.”

  Sissel obliged, at a trot now. “Cardinal Street is after the next right. So we better lose them before then.”

  Losing them was going to be pretty hard when Edie didn’t even know which house Khenbu was staying in yet. There was no time to go door to door and ask, not that anyone would answer them truthfully. Edie’s hairs began to stand on end.

  Finally, they reached Cardinal Street. It was lined exclusively with brick buildings. Balconies and fire escapes covered the faces of the apartments, though most of the buildings’ ground floors were occupied by businesses. At a glance, Edie noticed a pawn shop, a corner store, and something called DE LITES, outside of which a greasy redheaded kid sat ripping obnoxiously enormous clouds from his vape pen. No sign of Khenbu.

  “Maybe the pawn shop?” Sissel suggested, glancing behind them to make sure their “friends” hadn’t shown up yet.

  “No … he’s a collector, not a pawnbroker. And I’ve never found anything rare and magical in a pawn shop, have you?”

  They only had a handful of seconds, at most, before the Watchers joined them on Cardinal. Edie cast her eyes upward, trying to get a peek inside some of the windows for a clue, though she had no idea what she thought she’d see.

  She was about to give up when, as she scanned the apartment building next to her from the top down, she caught something. There, on the edge of the roof, barely visible—and on the edge of the stone balcony, too … scratches. She clenched her fists, remembering the scratches on the balcony in Khenbu’s downtown apartment.

  “There.” She pointed to the building without further explanation.

  Sissel followed her gaze and, though she seemed confused, followed Edie as she hunched under cover of the arched doorway.

  Edie tested the door handle and found it locked. “Dammit. Stupid bird.”

  “I’ll check the back. There’s probably a window open.”

  She nodded, but glanced down the street. Their friends would be turning the corner any second. “Hurry up.”

  The teen was already gone, sprinting around the corner without another word. Just as she disappeared, the Watchers emerged from the side street, scanning in both directions.

  Edie’s heart leapt into her throat. S
he turned away and wedged herself into the corner of the stoop, praying to god they wouldn’t notice the half of her arm she couldn’t hide from view.

  She closed her eyes. Sounds of footsteps scraping slightly against the uneven pavement reached her clutching ears, but she breathed slowly, determined to stay calm.

  The footsteps stopped. Then, a voice: “You.”

  Her breath hitched.

  “Did you see two girls walking down this street? Dark hair, one of them wearing a leather jacket?”

  Edie assumed the next voice belonged to Greasy Vape Kid. “Uhh, yeah, I guess.”

  “Which way did they go?”

  “I dunno, man. I think they, like, went into one of the apartments or something.”

  Whoever was speaking for the Gloaming group sounded agitated. “Which building?”

  “I don’t fuckin’ know, man. That way, I think.”

  More footsteps.

  Edie almost gasped when she heard a click next to her—then relaxed when Sissel opened the apartment door. She practically fell in, and together, they closed and locked the door as softly as they could behind them.

  Edie looked at Sissel. “How’d you get in?”

  “There’s a laundry room in the back. They left the door open.”

  They were standing in a hallway with a staircase immediately to their right, a peeling door labeled 1 to their immediate left. Edie leaned to the side, looking up the stairs. “There must be a dozen apartments in this building. How are we supposed to find Khenbu?”

  “Yeah,” Sissel said, “but look.” She gripped the doorknob of 1 and turned it. The door opened with only a slight push, and when she glanced in, Edie could see it was empty. The only thing left was the lingering smell of something stale.

  “Abandoned?”

  “There were a couple apartments back there that I checked. I think they’re all empty.”

  Well, that certainly made things easier. Hopefully, they’d just have to open every door until they came to one that was locked. They split up and tried every doorknob, but Edie was troubled to find that every apartment seemed to be empty.