Dark Dealings

by Kim Knox

  Ava’s hand twitched at the hilt of her short sword.

  Ziskia didn’t notice. “Then when I went down on him, his dick was too wrinkled.”

  Ava closed her eyes briefly, ignoring Heyerdar’s quick grunt of laughter. Taking the skin was a wrap of magic, the form the rendered soul had assumed in life. Their thief had a small dick. Not the easiest of leads to follow.

  “What happened then?”

  “Madam Lunete has said, if anything is odd, get out.” She smoothed her hair again. “You taught us well.”

  Heyerdar wanted her to touch this woman? Touch her and not lose control of a mouth that wanted to twist a fair chunk of her flesh? “And Searlaim?” Ava ignored the captain’s glare.

  Ziskia stayed focused on Heyerdar. “He wasn’t here when Nuno burst back in here. But we reported it to the Guard and the Watch.” Her smile was wicked. “Is there a reward, Captain Heyerdar?”

  “None. As yet. Just the favor of the Left Hand.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Ziskia...”

  Could he flirt later? Whilst she wasn’t in the room? But it was a timely reminder. Put a woman in front of Heyerdar and he kicked into thinking about fucking. They had a contract. Sex for the power to turn Fallon away from Reist. Though if Heyerdar behaved this way, why would she want him back?

  Ava frowned. Both of them were looking expectantly at her. What had she missed? Heyerdar had her thoughts twisted. She needed to focus.

  “Ziskia has agreed to a pull on her memory of Searlaim.”

  He spoke to her as if she were a child. She wanted to kick him. Ava flexed her fingers. She was cold and calm, but the bite of sex in the room—the hint of it in the air, a heavy, warm shadow over the bed—fought her control. The pungent odor of whitebane tea carved a layer through the sex. Ziskia was keeping herself healthy and protected.

  Ava grabbed onto that thought before the sense of sex dragged up her thief. She moved forward and stood beside the woman.

  “Is she a mage or something?” Nerves thickened Ziskia’s voice, and the air around her dropped from golden to yellow.

  “Or something,” Heyerdar said.

  Ava closed her eyes and let the recent sensation of the woman’s past flow over her. Men after and before the thief. Ava focused on her breathing, pulling in cool air, easing it out of her lungs. The edge of sex was always there, pricking at her skin, her thoughts. Fuck. Heyerdar had brought her to a brothel and was now making her live the night of one of its workers. Wet heat, the slid of skin, tongues, teeth, dicks. Fuck.

  The yawning emptiness of her soul ached to feed. Her hand stretched over Ziskia, bending fingers back until there was pain. Ava wanted it. Needed it. She narrowed her thoughts. The fleeting glimpse of the thief in his ill-fitting skin brushed across her senses.

  She tasted his flesh in her mouth as she had tasted all the others. He did smell...uncooked. The shadow of his true self pushed at her—thin, dark, forever wild and hungry. His first day in the city only sharpened his need for meat. He had taken the children, devoured and rendered them. Whole and sweet and—

  Ava staggered back, her fingers curled back into a fist, nails digging at her palm, drawing blood. She clamped her hand to her mouth, let it feed the rise of her thief, feed the clamor for something fresh. Like Ziskia with sex on her skin and the twist of whitebane laced with delicious magic moving through her veins.

  “Get breakfast, Ziskia. Now.” Heyerdar shoved Ava up against the wall, his massive frame pinning her there. He cupped her jaw, making her look at him. Hot gold eyes burned into her. “What did you see?”

  “He ate them. The children. Oh, fuck, they screamed. But they were just so sweet.” Ava thumped her head back against the wall, hating the horror within her and wanting the pain. Even as she ached to lick her lips, her mouth watering. This wasn’t her. She could never—would never... “The toddler. Still filled with mashed food and his mother’s milk, fresh and warm—”

  “Move on, move back. Before Searlaim’s house.”

  Ava swallowed, her throat tight and sore. Tears wet her cheeks. “Before...”

  “Take it.” His thumb pressed to her open mouth. Golden power teased her lips, and her empty soul hungered for him. She had the taste, the blood, of a child on her tongue. She couldn’t consume again. “Bind his memory. Protect yourself.”

  Ava sucked in a breath and pulled his power into her body. A long, golden slide of warmth and so incredibly sweet... It blocked the images of the children, of Searlaim’s ramshackle house. Cleared the insatiable need from her body. She drew air deep into her lungs, scented with him. The sense of freedom, of open spaces, the warmth of the sun against her skin, with no shadows, no shadows anywhere, washed a deep calm over her.

  She let her forehead fall against his shoulder. The familiar odors of leather and him wrapped around her. “I can’t find his name. He turned up here five days ago. Through the South Gate. Him and two others.”

  “There’re four thieves.”

  “The fourth was already here.”

  Heyerdar held her to him, his strong arms across her back. Ava sank against his body, her hands gripping his leather tunic. Nobody touched her. Nobody had ever held her to offer comfort.

  A quick rap at the door forced her to bite back a curse. He wasn’t Reist—he never would be—but she wanted a moment of being normal.

  “Your list, Nahum.” Mairin stopped in the open doorway. “Am I interrupting?”

  Ava heard the amusement in her voice and it stabbed holes into the quiet calmness Heyerdar’s power and touch had thrown around her. She pulled herself free, not looking up at him.

  He took the sheaf of thin paper. “All five men are banking with you?”

  Ava frowned. The silence of the messenger be damned. “Is this building freehold? Or are you owned by the Crown?”

  Mairin’s gaze narrowed and she looked to Heyerdar. “Ziskia said she’s some sort of mage. That she’s unhinged.” Her mouth drew tight. “What have you brought to my house, Captain?”

  “Answer her question.”

  “I have a lease from the Crown.” Mairin bit out her answer and lifted her chin. “My payments to the Treasury are up to date and regular.”

  “Thank you for your assistance.” Heyerdar took Ava’s arm in his meaty fingers and pulled her from the room into the shadows of the corridor. He set a fast pace down the dark wooden stairs, Ava almost stumbling after him.

  “Heyerdar—”

  “You’re not to talk.”

  Ava pressed her lips together, the familiar rise of frustration eating up what remained of his power within her. The scent of sex rushed at her again. It lay thick in the taproom, warmed by the fire. Ava held down a curse. Some of the cheaper patrons fucked the girls in their chairs or over a scrubbed table—the heat, the grunts and moans, the slap of flesh forcing Ava’s heart to beat hard. She averted her eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she did not need that. She had to get out.

  She yanked herself free of Heyerdar’s grip and shoved past the bulk of Nuno on the thick-stepped entrance to the brothel. And welcomed the city stink into her lungs. “You don’t take a thief to a place like this,” she muttered, knowing the advice was far too late.

  Heyerdar put his hand to her spine and she jerked forward. “Did he come for that?” He let out a half laugh. “The atmosphere?”

  “Maybe...” Ava didn’t know. Something itched with the information she’d drawn from Ziskia. But Heyerdar and her reluctance to let the thief’s life roll over her again kept her from digging deeper. Maybe it was a connection she was missing. “We’re headed for the South Gate.”

  “He came through there. I want to check the wards. A thief can’t break them.”

  The thick run of people parted before them and Ava prodded at an older memory. How had she made it
into the city? There was only emptiness, her first memory being of somehow turning up on the kitchen steps of the Institute, ragged but not hungry. The classic taste of an elemental lingered, swamplike, brackish. Fucking elementals.

  Heyerdar stopped and stared up at the black arch stretching around him. The gates stood open, guards to attention, eyes sharp as carts and people moved in and out of the city. His frown deepened. “It’s still wrapped into the stones. Been...rewrapped. But not the way it used to be. Someone rewrote a ward.”

  The disbelief was there in his voice. A rewritten ward. It pushed every other thought out of her head. Wards formed levels of protection. From the all-encompassing spells protecting the city from invasion to the tiny golden ward over the heart of each mage, ensuring that their hoarded power could never be used against the imperial line. It was impossible to break a ward. But somehow it’d been done.

  Heyerdar pressed a hand to the dirty stone and closed his eyes. “It’s been twisted, manipulated. Reist needs to get one of his mages down to fix this.” He stalked over to one of the guards in the doorway that led up into the gate tower. The thin man gave a belated salute, his eyes wide, a nervous tick jumping in his temple. Whatever Heyerdar said, he jerked a nod and scuttled away. Heyerdar rubbed his hands together as he strode back. “To the Treasury.”

  “Wards are inviolate.” Ava’s gut was a knot. Her world was shifting, the fixed facts she knew falling away. “What kind of magic could do this?”

  “I don’t know.” Heyerdar fixed his narrowed gaze on the seemingly blank wall, the pattern of the ward buried within it. He frowned. “A different magic.”

  Heyerdar was as old as some of the Higher Mages and had a wealth of knowledge, and he didn’t know? Ava fixed her mind on the only lead they had. “Are we being pointed to the Treasury? It’s too...convenient.”

  Heyerdar paused and stared over her head. The palace and its supporting civil service lay in that direction. “They want us there. Let’s find out why.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ava stuffed the last of the wrap into her month, licking the slide of blood from her fingers, aware that Heyerdar watched her.

  He nodded to the young guard at the entrance to the Civil Halls. “Are you ever full?” Light edged the arches that curved their way into the central courtyard. Dark-robed civil servants scurried past, most loaded with scrolls of varying thicknesses and leather-bound books. They gave Heyerdar a wide berth. “And I know I fed you.”

  “I need to know more about thieves.”

  “You’re a thief.”

  Heyerdar was being deliberately obtuse.

  “Mostly I know what the mages have wanted me to know.” A smile touched her mouth with a little hint of her thief nature. “Dorien spat on your warrant.”

  “Yes.” His voice was flat, but she could almost taste the anger in it. “Protocol can go fuck itself. We need those books. I’ll get them myself.”

  There was that to admire about Captain Heyerdar. He had none of Reist’s considered carefulness, the diplomacy which masked his ambition. Heyerdar saw a problem and he solved it.

  They crossed the courtyard to the archway that led to the vast doors of the Civil Hall itself. Black-robed men scuttled up to him, darting nervous glances back to her. Had word spread that the Left Hand had a thief trailing after him? The civil servants had always been queasy about her. The deaths in the city wouldn’t help. Heyerdar barked low words and at least one of the cowled men greyed.

  “She’s seconded to the Left Hand. To me.” Heyerdar’s low growl reached her and her gut twisted. The possession in his voice was unnerving. An eyebrow lifted as he towered over the scrawny civil servant. “Are you going to deny me entrance into your Hall?”

  “No...no, of course not, Captain Heyerdar.” The man’s voice came out on a squeak. “But she’s a thief.” He darted a look at her, fear thick around him, and Ava smiled in return. He swallowed, his throat working hard. “We are not mages or guards, able to defend ourselves, protect our flesh, our souls. From her.”

  “You have my word you’re safe.” He leaned in close to the man, who stiffened. “But if she wanted to devour you whole, render your soul and wear your skin, even I couldn’t stop her.”

  Ava swore under her breath. When everything settled, her relationship with the men and women in the Hall would be fucked. She wrapped her darkness around her growing anger and let the thin chill calm her. Heyerdar was forcing out too many emotions, and her nature—worn thin by Reist—was having trouble keeping her focused. She was meant to be a professional. Still, she’d like to sink her teeth into the good captain and have him retract his words.

  He glanced at her and again he knew her thoughts. It was there in the slight pull of his lips. Knowing her. That skill was the most disconcerting.

  “Is Intendant Palban ready for us?”

  “It’s noon, the Intendant is—”

  Heyerdar manhandled the servant through the doors and gave him a light push. The man stumbled, flailed and caught himself. “The answer to that is ‘Yes, he is, Captain Heyerdar.’”

  “You enjoyed that,” Ava muttered.

  Heyerdar grunted. “Civil servants annoy me.”

  He strode away, his boots clacking in a rhythm with the slap of his sheathed sword against his thigh. Ava hurried to catch up with him as his strides ate up the vast space of the lobby. Light moved across him from the windows set high in the dome. The air was fusty and dry, and the lack of magic itched at her. Her visits to the Civil Hall were rare—would be rarer now after Heyerdar—and she had to trust that he knew where he was going.

  Shadows enfolded her and her breathing eased. Sconces cast thin light, the tiny lick of magic taunting her as she passed them.

  “Never sated.”

  Heyerdar’s words reached back to her, and the warm promise in them pricked her skin. She was not connecting him and sex. Not until the day was over. They had business to transact. Her heart tightened and she ignored the quick jump in her belly. He was business, not pleasure. Reist was the man she wanted, the man she loved. Once Heyerdar...used her, her body was for Reist. Not the captain. Why was it so hard to remember that stark fact?

  “His worship has agreed to see you in here.” The man Heyerdar had almost shoved over pushed open a double set of doors onto a long room. Candles thickened the air with smoke, narrow windows offering only a thin cut of white-gold to add to the flickering lights. Scrolls, books and ledgers piled on shelves blackened by soot.

  Candles? Ava frowned. Why did a man who was an Intendant, one of the more senior men in the Civil Service, not have mage-light in this office?

  Scuttling forward, the robed man bowed low before Palban. The Intendant’s vast lunch littered the table at which he sat. “The Left Hand and the Right Hand’s thief wish an audience.”

  A low growl burned from Heyerdar, echoing in the vaulted hall.

  “Captain Heyerdar.” Palban waved a chicken leg, indicating the two stools that shadowy figures were scurrying to place before the wide table. The odor of strong spices and well-cooked meat twisted Ava’s stomach. Palban picked up a corked bottle. “Wine?”

  Heyerdar gave a brief shake of his head. “Information was sent to you yesterday. You need to add Madam Lunete to the list.”

  “Ah, the luscious Mairin.” Palban lifted his eyebrows, his temples wrinkling. Small, dark eyes drilled her. She held his gaze. Was she meant to be intimidated? With a half smirk, he threw the chicken bone onto his platter, wiped the shine of animal grease from his chin and hands with a white napkin, and clicked his fingers. “Clay!”

  Another body scuttled out of the shadows and handed sheaves of paper to Palban. Without looking at them, the Intendant passed the papers to Heyerdar. He gave a heavy shrug. “There is nothing connecting these men, besides the Crown leasing them some diseased hovel in which to d
rag up their broods.”

  Heyerdar tensed, and the spark of power thickened around him. Palban didn’t notice Heyerdar’s sudden shift, but the servants removing the platter and Clay hovering at Palban’s rounded shoulder hurriedly stepped back. Clay almost disappeared into the heavy shadows.

  “Clay.” And there he was again, his thin face caught in candlelight. His hands knotted and he stooped before his superior. “Find the good captain more information on the holdings, the lease, the transactions of the always hospitable Madam Lunete.”

  “Of course, Your Worship.” The shadows swallowed Clay again.

  Heyerdar was frowning. “This is all you have on the lives of these five men?”

  “These are little men, Captain.” Palban waved his hands. Rings gleamed. “Their press on the world is infinitesimal.”

  Heyerdar stood, his stool scraping back over the flagstones. Palban blinked. “Have whatever you can find sent to my office.” His frown deepened. “These men are your priority. Understand that fact. Dig deeper.”

  He turned away, his jaw set, and paused. “Why candles?”

  So Heyerdar had noticed it too. Palban pulled a face, his jowls wobbling. “The Institute has yet to offer its services to explain why mage-light never burns bright in my modest office. I’ve sent numerous missives, have I not, Clay? They’ve ignored every one. For too long, months, I’ve been choked with candle soot like a commoner.”

  Heyerdar muttered something under his breath and in a few strides was almost out the door. Ava stared after him, before getting to her feet, weathering Palban’s smirk and running to catch up.

  Heyerdar was cursing as she drew level with him. He gave her a chilled smile and power crackled around him. “On to the mage library.”

  “Heyerdar...” What was she doing? Warning him? What did she care if he went head-to-head with Dorien? The old shit deserved it, and it wasn’t as if any of the mages could really harm the elemental. No, she wasn’t worried about him. It was all for Reist. The Left Hand didn’t encroach on the territory of the Right.