Inherit the Flame

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  Gatai frowned. “Searching outside the palace is more difficult, especially for a group of people who have, no doubt, gone into hiding. I will send feelers out, and let you know what is discovered. Do not pin your hopes on the results, young master.”

  Detan sighed until he was completely deflated. “I am just so tired of working alone.”

  Gatai squeezed his shoulder. “Young master, you’re not alone any more.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Pelkaia dropped, feather-light, from the rope ladder dangling off the side of the Larkspur and stifled a wince as her bones jolted from the impact. Cursed city had to go and pave all its roads and walkways with the stone they’d carved out to make room for homes. She missed the soft dirt roads of Aransa. Bad for heavy carts, but at least they’d been kind to her joints.

  Above her the crew of the Larkspur slept, and before her the nightlife of Hond Steading thrummed. In the wake of the warden of Aransa’s death, that city had gone quiet – the citizens scurrying to their homes as quick as they could, doors locked and windows shuttered. This city, this place that had remained independent from Valathea and had its own long pride, went out to dance in the shadows of their invaders’ ships.

  Pelkaia prowled amongst them, wearing a stranger’s face. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to get the set of her cheekbones just right, the tilt to her eyes and the small pucker of her false lips, hair carefully scraped back so that she didn’t have to worry about it brushing her skin. She’d gone for forgettable, indistinct. But the truth was she couldn’t shake the firmness of her walk, the confident lift of her shoulders.

  It wasn’t her own body language seeping through. She’d always been a furtive woman, careful and secretive. Such things had been required to survive as an illusionist so long in a society wherein that inborn talent meant death.

  But something of Ripka Leshe had rubbed off on her, and she found she didn’t want to shake it, though it made her illusions more difficult to perfect.

  In every tavern, revelers toasted the health and good fortune of the happy couple. A practice Pelkaia had no stomach for. She could not even pretend to toast Thratia Ganal, even if it meant ingratiating herself within a likely group. She paced the streets, looped round and round neighborhoods, seeking a building with its lights on but a decidedly more somber crowd.

  She found one at last, in a dark little corner of what she guessed to be an artisan neighborhood. Bright lights gleamed in the windows, and figures moved within, but with decidedly less pleasure. They sat hunched over their glasses, not clinking them together nor shouting lewd cheers.

  Perfect.

  Pelkaia slipped inside, remembering to round her shoulders to look less intimidating, and slouched her way over to an empty barstool. A few glanced her way, but quickly wrote her off as beneath notice.

  The bartender gave her a sour look until she slid her a couple of copper grains, then the woman shrugged and poured out what was probably a short glass of cheap ale. Didn’t even say a word to her. Pelkaia’d never met a quiet bartender in her life, but she didn’t mind. Gave her a chance to listen in on the rumble of conversation in the room.

  Which was, decidedly, less positive than the rest of the city. No surprise there – these weren’t exactly happy folk – but the glum tenor she’d expected was laid over barely restrained anger. At the table nearest her, a man with shoulders that’d barely fit through the door clutched his mug like he was strangling a throat and didn’t bother to keep his voice down.

  “I’d kill the bitch myself, given half the chance.”

  “Good fucking luck,” his friend said. “Don’t call her Throatslitter for nothing.”

  “Fuuuck that. She think she can just roll over our city, sack up with the Honding heir, and everything’s fucking grand? Everyone who’s not a moron knows it’s a sham anyway. Ladies don’t usually show up for their wedding days with a fleet and a big ass warship, do they?”

  “My kinda’ lady would.”

  “Yeah. But you’re an idiot.”

  Pelkaia let their bickering fall to the background as she considered her options. This man was obviously no fan of Thratia’s – and by the looks of him he was used to violence – but could she use him? He wasn’t a deviant, but having some dumb muscle on hand might be useful.

  When the man wobbled for the door, Pelkaia trailed him on instinct, sticking to the shadows and subtly altering her face each time she was hidden so that he wouldn’t recognize her from the tavern.

  If the crew of the Larkspur wasn’t willing to bring arms against Thratia, then she needed to find support elsewhere. This big bastard seemed as good a place as any to start.

  * * *

  She tracked his wobbling steps to a dusty apartment complex, one of many hunkered along the stone roads of Hond Steading. Such proud and foolish people, to build so high out of stone when they lived so near to firemounts. Not even the builders of Aransa were quite so arrogant as to build over two stories of stone.

  While the man fumbled with the latch on his door, Pelkaia slipped around the side of the building and hunkered in shadow, considering. To approach the man now might be too forward – she would startle him, and lose his trust.

  A hand closed around her arm.

  She jumped, wrenching herself free, and spun around, hands dropping to the blades tucked beneath her jacket.

  Coss frowned at her out of the dark. He shoved his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. “Pell. What in the skies are you doing?”

  She eased her hands away from her weapons, trembling slightly with the flood of adrenaline, and smoothed her coat back in concealment. “Almost stabbing you, apparently. Why are you following me?”

  He scowled. “Don’t evade the question.”

  “Seeking recruits, if you must know.”

  “That man a deviant?”

  She waved off the question. “I’m not sure.”

  His scowl was back in full force, his voice tight with restrained anger. “Just a random thug, then.”

  “Who wants to see Thratia out of his city. I think that’s fair enough.”

  “Brutes from off the street? Is that what we do now? Is that how you plan to protect the people you claim to have saved, by dragging banal muscle on board? What if he’s anti-deviant – did you even consider that? We’re not exactly on stable footing here, Pell. The Dame tolerates us, but there’s no telling how long that’ll last if the public gets wind. Not a lot she could do against a mob.”

  “Exactly. We’re weak, we must strengthen our numbers–”

  “For what?”

  She clamped her mouth shut, almost bit straight through her tongue, and grated, “You know what.”

  “Thratia. It’s always about thrice-cursed Thratia.”

  “She murdered my son.”

  He grimaced and stepped back from the force in her words. “I know. I know. But that was a long time ago, and you have other charges now–”

  “Charges? Deviants, Coss. We’re all a bunch of fucking deviants. And always will be, unless we tear down those who would label us as such.”

  “We talked about this. They’re not your soldiers.”

  “Which is why I’m out looking for willing hands! Yes, we did talk about this, and I’ve listened – I’m trying something new, aren’t I? But you cannot expect me to do nothing. Gods beneath the dunes, Coss, Thratia is here, a half-mark’s walk away from where we stand. If I didn’t know that palace was brimming with Aella and her lot I’d saunter right in and take the woman’s head with my own hands. But I can’t, you know that. But neither can I let this opportunity pass. She’s so close. Something must be done.”

  “Must? And you would risk the whole crew to get your revenge?”

  “I never said–”

  He held up a fist. “You didn’t have to.” He sighed and shifted his weight, tugging his coat close though the night was warm and held only a gentle breeze. “Take the night, Pell. Think it through. We’re going to have to talk to the crew
, you and I, about all this.”

  “We? It’s my crew, Coss. My ship.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and the sadness in his eyes was a punch to her gut. “And remember we can leave your ship any time we’d like.”

  “It’s safer for us all, there.”

  “Is it?”

  Before she could muster up an answer he turned and stomped back down the alley he’d used to sneak up on her, heavy coat flapping at his dusty heels.

  Pelkaia glared at the shadow of the Dread Wind looming in the cloud-streaked sky above the palace, spit in the dust, and went in search of a room at an inn for the night.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Her name was Sasalai, and Ripka had come here to steal her and sell her into slavery. Though most of the Honding staff lived in the palace, Sasalai’s advanced age and long service had given her a home of her own in the expensive palace district. A humble house, by local standards, but a respectable construction of mudbrick faced in stone. A warm, clean little place in which she had raised her children and, later, her grandchildren.

  She lived alone, now. That would make the kidnapping easier.

  “I don’t like this,” Ripka whispered. She lounged alongside Enard on a bench in a nearby park. The slight knoll in the rock garden’s center gave them a clear view of Sasalai’s path home. Twilight settled on the land like a blanket, bringing with it a soft northern breeze and a brilliance of stars. The night was too lovely, too peaceful, to shelter such horrendous work. Enard squeezed her hand, twining his fingers in hers, and she squeezed back.

  “We won’t let them sell her off,” he whispered in return.

  “We can’t promise that.”

  “I am promising that.” His voice had a sharp edge to it that had been seeping out more and more since their time together on the Remnant.

  “I believe you.”

  His shoulder eased against hers, tension releasing, and she leaned into him, just a touch. If she closed her eyes, or glanced away from the grandmother making her way home, Ripka could almost imagine them out to experience the night together for kinder reasons. But that was a path she dared not let her mind walk. Whatever grew between them, neither could risk the entanglement now. Not with everything drawing so close, so quickly. The slightest distraction could spell either of their deaths.

  But it was nice to pretend, just for a little while.

  “Here they come,” Enard murmured.

  Tibal and Calson strolled down the path toward Sasalai, two well-to-do gentlemen out for a midnight ramble. They slouched, gesturing broadly as they pretended at some good-natured argument, looking for all the world like they were meant to be there, like they were at ease. Tibal did, anyway. To Ripka’s trained eye, Calson looked ready to bolt like a sandrat in a hawk’s shadow.

  “He’s too tense.”

  Enard leaned forward, the muscles of his arm firm against hers. “She’ll see through that.”

  “She’s a grandmother. Her eyesight might not be the best.”

  “She’s a grandmother who spent her whole life hiding a deviant ability while working in the Honding family palace.”

  “Good point.” Ripka slipped her fingers free of Enard’s so that she could settle them on the weapons at her waist. Not that she’d use any of them – even the cudgel seemed exceptionally cruel on a woman as old as Sasalai – but the threat of them might be enough to cow her.

  Might be, but probably wasn’t. In Ripka’s experience, grandmothers feared nothing except running out of honey taffy.

  Sasalai’s persistent shuffling step slowed as she approached the gentlemen strollers. Her arm tightened around the cloth sack slung across her chest and shoulders. She thought them raucous youth, Ripka decided. Possible thieves, definite annoyances, but nothing more troubling than that. She leaned on her cane, tightening her grip in silent threat or anxiety – Ripka couldn’t tell.

  Ripka held her breath as the men approached, biting back a cry of warning. This moment was the very type of thing she’d trained most of her life to stop. She tried to tell herself this was little more than a demonstration, of sorts. The woman would be fine. Enard had promised her that, and Tibal would never cause her harm. But Calson was down there too, a wild card she did not know, and her teeth clenched and ground as the distance closed.

  Tibal swayed, affecting drunkenness, and bumped Calson hard in the side. Calson stumbled sideways toward the woman, arms outstretched to right himself. A brown arc flashed through the air, the heavy crack of bone echoing over the sharp edge of a cry. Ripka was on her feet in an instant, Enard at her side, pounding down the knoll toward the scene.

  It took her a moment to process. Calson lay on the road, curled up in a knot, both hands clasped around a shin that looked… Wrong. Ripka’s stomach clenched as she realized the bone had been neatly bisected under the lash of Sasalai’s cane, the skin intact but the limb itself clearly stepped down in one spot.

  “Fiery pits.” She skidded to a stop on the dusty road and dropped to one knee beside Calson while Enard looped around to help Tibal restrain the struggling granny.

  “How bad is it?” Calson hissed through his teeth. His people crept toward them, hesitant steps shuffling on the dirt as they peeled themselves from their hiding places. Tibal and Enard had the woman well in hand, her mouth stuffed with a gag and her hands tied. If her glare had been able to cut, it would have, but for the moment she was restrained.

  Ripka peeled one of his hands away and tried not to let her shock show as she examined the break. “The skin’s not broken,” she said, the most positive comment she could muster, “but you need an apothik.”

  “Shit shit shit,” he groaned, and thumped the back of his head against the road.

  “You.” Ripka jabbed a finger at the buck-toothed woman. “Do you know where the nearest apothik is?”

  “Just down Lighten Way,” she said.

  “Good, then you lot,” she waved a hand at all those approaching. “Get a litter together to carry your boss, will you? Sooner this gets set, the better his chances of survival.”

  “Survival?” Calson asked, all the color draining from his face.

  “Broken bones are dangerous.” She mustered all the gravity she could and layered it thick into her voice. Clearly this man hadn’t experienced so much as a cut requiring a stitch in all his life.

  Enard, that beautiful man, was quick to catch on to her plan. “Hurry up,” he said, stripping his jacket off. “Take my coat, it’s long enough. If one of you grabs each corner, you should be able to carry him.”

  “But what about the mark?” Buck-toothed asked, squeezing Enard’s jacket between her fingers.

  “Kill her,” Calson growled.

  “Hasty,” Ripka chided. She pushed to her feet while the others hesitantly set about laying out Enard’s coat and rolling the writhing man onto it. “The job still holds. Dranik knows where to find your contact. Don’t worry, we’ll get her there.”

  Wariness lined Calson’s face, but shattered under pain as they jostled him onto the coat. “If she fights you–”

  “I have her,” Tibal said, letting his disgust with Calson’s need for revenge show plain as a clear sky.

  Calson sneered, but whether it was due to pain or Tibal, Ripka couldn’t tell.

  “Aren’t you glad you brought us on after all?” Enard said, flashing Calson a smile, and that time he definitely did sneer.

  “Hurry, he’s looking too pale,” Ripka threw in, just to get Calson to shut up and get his lackeys moving. With nervous glances all around, the awkward litter-bearers shuffled off with their wounded boss, throwing glances back over their shoulders at Ripka all the way. She had to resist an urge to flash them a rude gesture.

  “Well,” Enard said once the others were out of earshot. “That worked out well.”

  The old woman scowled around at them all.

  “We should probably get off the main street, anyone could see,” Dranik piped up. Sweat dotted his forehead despite the cool night a
ir.

  “Which way then, lad?” Tibal drawled, and the color came back into Dranik’s cheeks full force as he flushed with embarrassment. “Right. Right. This way.”

  He angled toward the south end of the park, a narrow little lane Ripka had scouted on her way in and found mostly deserted at this time of night. A good enough move for now. She allowed herself to relax, just slightly, eyeing the woman Tibal led along by her bound wrists. She wanted to peel that gag from her lips, to explain herself and her friends – to tell the woman she was safe, and that her only trouble tonight was a bit of momentary discomfort and fright. But, despite Enard’s confidence, Ripka was not so sure. They needed inroads to Thratia’s network, and every time you knocked on that woman’s door you risked losing the hand you knocked with.

  “Who is this contact, anyway?” she asked as they padded along the dark lane.

  “We don’t know her name,” Dranik said, “she’s called the Songstress.”

  “Fuck,” Ripka said.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Detan told himself he wasn’t hiding. He was regrouping, settling in, recovering, preparing himself for what was to come.

  He’d never hide when there was work to be done. No, not Detan Honding.

  He pulled a blanket over his head, and stared at the false stars his adjusting eyes made of the light seeping through the fabric. He breathed deep of the musky-warm aroma of the blanket. The harsh soaps of his childhood filtered through to him, reminded him of sneaking through the laundry rooms as a child for a hint of what went on in that mysterious, steamy place. And the memory of being cuffed on the back of the head for getting in the washers’ way.

  Bundled away in his old bed, the mattress permanently dented in a shape that was much like his own, only smaller, he could pretend for a while that stealing a sweet pie was going to be the greatest adventure of his day.

  But then reality had to go and ruin it all.