She blinked away the blurriness that pervaded her vision and tried forcing out the constant, distant, hallucinatory sound of rain. She focused on finding the horses, searching the streets as she hopped between rooftops, her weak legs giving way beneath her each time.
Finally, she spotted the cart.
It was parked between two buildings to her left. Both had sloping, triangular rooftops. Difficult to climb. But she was less likely to be spotted on the roof than in the alley. Until she knew who she was dealing with, she couldn’t risk being seen.
Slowly, she made her way over and climbed onto the roof least likely to break away beneath her.
She crawled to its peak. Peering over the side, she zeroed in on a jug of golden liquid. Her mouth would have watered if it wasn't so dry. The cart was unguarded. The two massive horses—attached to the cart by a system of poles and ropes—were riderless.
She crawled over the peak and inched down, intending to hang off the ledge and drop to the ground beside the cart, when she heard voices.
She froze, clinging to the roof. Her fingers dug into the crumbling gaps between the shingles as she listened.
“How do you know that name?” A man snarled, with the grizzled bass of someone who, she imagined, had seen his share of hard times over many years.
There was a muffled reply. A younger male voice.
“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t know it.” The older man again? His voice was smoother than before. Was this a third man?
“Well, I do.” The younger voice was somehow familiar. “So show me how to find it.” The accent was different, but there was a quality to his voice that tugged at her memory. She knew this person.
“You’ll not be getting directions from us.” The gruff voice again.
She scanned the ground for shadows as the younger one responded. Where were they? They sounded too close to the cart for her to try anything. But she was so thirsty she could barely swallow. The golden liquid winked at her with a spot of sunlight, teasing her, tempting her to jump down.
“You expect us to believe that?” The gruff man snapped. “Go back to your father’s castle, boy. Stop playing games.”
“You don’t get it,” the boy's voice lowered. She missed what he said next, catching only the end. “What other reason would I have to be talking to you?”
A growl. “I can think of at least one.”
“What is the reason?” The smoother voice spoke over the rough one.
Now she understood. This was, indeed, a different man. Her odds were getting worse.
The roof was warming. She carefully shifted her slick hands, then resumed her eavesdropping.
“...that I murdered my mother." She'd caught the end of the boy's sentence.
Her heart leapt. Murdered?
She strained her ears on their voices but they diminished to murmurs. Their words flowed too quickly for her to follow.
Where were they?
She was so thirsty. She couldn’t stand it anymore.
She scanned the remainder of the roof below her. There wasn’t much. She eased her leg over to the next foothold. It was a decent stretch, but she was limber enough to pull it off. The toe of her boot found its place. She tested the shingle’s strength with bated breath. When it held, she risked moving her hand.
As she stretched flat across the roof, the shingles dug into her stomach and clawed at the exposed skin on her legs. She suppressed a whimper. Once she had a firm grip, she risked sliding over. But the strap of her satchel snagged on the edge of a shingle and held her in place.
Her leg dangled uselessly. She couldn’t risk fumbling for a foothold and kicking off bits of shingle. The muscles in her right arm and leg lost strength. As she maneuvered to get at the strap, the smooth-voiced man spoke.
“Excuse us for a moment. My brother and I need to discuss this.”
Someone appeared in the shadow of the building—near the cart—clearly in her view. She held her breath.
The boy—tall, with disheveled, unwashed black-brown hair—had his back to her. What she could see of his black and silver uniform was covered in reddish-brown dirt and grit.
He turned slightly, his gaze on the cart, staring at it as though expecting someone to ambush him. His skin was tan. He looked weary but capable. He ran a finger over some kind of burn on his left forearm. It stretched from the middle of his forearm to the base of his thumb.
She squinted, feeling a sick twinge in her stomach. She wasn’t sure she could trust her eyes, but the burn appeared to be the Fyrennian family symbol. She blinked.
Her arm shook, reminding her that a toe and four sunburned fingers were all that supported her. As carefully as possible, she worked the strap free and slid toward the edge, gaining her other hand and footholds, the burden of her weight redistributing evenly.
The boy moved toward the horses. The men whispered not-so-quietly in the shadows.
Ariana pried a hand free of the shingle and flexed her fingers. She rolled her wrist, easing the ache that had built in the joint. It popped.
The boy straightened, cocked his head. Ariana froze.
How had he heard that?
He turned, scanning the other side of the street.
Please don’t look up.
He looked up. Directly at her. His swirling brown-grey eyes were clear, alert, and deadly.
Ariana sucked in her breath. “Hunter?”
In her surprise, she forgot—for an instant—where she was, and tried to move away with both feet at once. She slipped. Gravity yanked on her, peeling her fingers from the shingles, sucking her downward, heedless of her attempts to stop. Her hands grasped for something, anything. But there was only air.
An electric rod of pain drove into her heels and up her legs, branching out through her spine and—as her head whipped back, slamming into the ground—exploding into fiery blackness inside her skull.
“She with you?” was all she heard. Then silence.
Chapter 12
Ariana dreamed of rain. Of lightning striking the back of her head. She screamed, but the sound left her lungs with the high-pitched squeal of wood on metal. Thunder followed. The strong, calloused hands of the wind were on her cheeks, her lips. Cool liquid flowed down her throat. The pressure in her skull, a spot of lightning that lingered, burning, finally eased.
The clouds spoke to her. They asked her name. She answered, the wind whipping the words to a whisper.
Lightning struck again. Her skull broke open. White-hot energy pooled beneath the bone. The world shifted. She fell backward. The rain turned to daggers, razor sharp points driving into her, tearing muscle, piercing bone. She cried out, tried to get up. But dark, man-like shapes formed in the mists and held her down. She flailed wildly. Her heart slammed against her ribs, mimicking her fight to break free.
Icy water pooled in the wounds where the blades had thumped into her, then froze. The relief was immediate, intense—painful. She gasped, and this time she heard herself.
She forced her eyes open. The man-shapes wavered in front of her. The sound of the rain shifted to the snorts of horses, the heavy breaths of the men. Night moved in behind thick grey clouds, flashing saffron.
“Blue eyes.” Surprise was evident in the voice of the clouds, now the voice of the man holding her head.
The shadows abated from his face as Ariana’s eyes adjusted to the moonlight, and to consciousness.
His dark, graphite-streaked hair was tied in a low ponytail. He had a gentle gaze set on his worn, sun-browned face. Heavy wrinkles settled into his forehead and the corners of his rusty green eyes. He slid her wet hair off her face, his skin scratchy against hers.
Wet. That was odd. Her face was wet, the front of her hair, too. But the rest of her was bone dry. And she was lying in a cart, atop bundles of something incredibly soft—fabric, perhaps, though she couldn’t see much from this position. She lifted her head. Streaks of pain converged on a single point in the back of it. She yelped. The sound came out as
a cracked whisper. As she reached for the blazing rift in her skull, the man grasped her wrist. Between his fingers and her skin was cool, damp gauze.
“Don’t,” he said. “It’ll make it worse.” He looked at the other man, still nothing more than a silhouette rifling through something near Ariana’s feet. “Harold, the Kaktos juice, please.”
A jug of gold liquid passed between them. Ariana’s memory poured back into her. This cart was the one she’d followed. These men had been talking to the boy. The boy who looked like Hunter. Who—her stomach turned—had killed his own mother. Where was he now? Not with the men, it seemed. But who were they? Brothers. She remembered that much. Allies?
“Drink,” said the man at her head, holding a small metal cup to her lips. “It’ll heal you.”
She took a tiny sip. It was cool and incredibly sharp, with a hint of sweetness. She wanted more. But couldn’t help wonder if it might be poisoned.
That’s null, Ariana, she scolded herself, if they wanted to kill you, they wouldn't waste their energy helping you. She opened her mouth and let him tip the contents in.
Icy liquid coated her throat. Sparkles of energy traveled through the nerves in her brain to the back of her head, where they wrapped around the pain and quelled it.
The man had another cup full and ready before she asked for more. This time, she gulped the liquid as fast as he poured it. More icy cold in her throat. Less pain in her head. “I think it’s working,” she croaked.
The man nodded.
“Check her,” said the other one.
Another nod. “I’m George Stratton.” He capped the jug and set it in the cart beside her. “And that’s my brother, Harold. We need to make sure you didn’t knock anything loose when you fell. Do you remember your name?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Say it aloud, please?”
She hesitated, remembering her dream. “Haven't I already said?”
George nodded. “But I want to confirm it, if you wouldn't mind.”
No use lying, then. She told him.
“And do you know where you are?”
She gazed beyond the horses, careful not to lift her head. White-orange light flashed in the clouds, illuminating the barren landscape. Helede. But that answer would be telling him a lot more than he’d asked. She felt like Hunter, suddenly, when they'd asked him where he was from. She stuck with the simpler answer and hoped it'd be enough. “Your cart. In the middle of nowhere.”
A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, smoothing the furrows in his brow. “How’s the pain?”
Ariana assessed the damage. When she focused, she noticed how much actually hurt, and she marveled at the fact that nothing seemed to be broken. “In my head it’s duller. Throbbing, I guess.” She looked at her arms. They were so dry they seemed blanketed in a layer of dust. But beneath that layer she was bright red. “My skin’s giving off a lot of heat.” She held up her arms to indicate the cold gauze and noticed the deep scrapes along the whole of her inner forearm. “These sting.” The memory of the injury swept through her. The bite of the broken shingles. The tearing in her arms and—she was hesitant to look at the wounds on her thighs. But she knew she must.
They looked as though she'd been mauled, the exposed flesh worn from thorough cleaning and stained red with blood. She hadn’t the stomach to examine any further. She set her arms back down and shifted a leg. Pain seared the bone, thrusting the breath from her lungs in a strangled cry. Yes. Exactly the pain she’d expected. Those wounds were bad. They’d hurt when she’d acquired them, too, now that she thought about it. She sucked air through gritted teeth and steadied her fluttering heart. “Lawks. That is not pleasant.”
The lines in George’s forehead returned. “We’re working on that. The wounds are deep. We’ve disinfected them, but…” his expression shifted into something foreboding.
Harold came closer and she could finally see him clearly. He matched the gravelly voice she’d heard from the rooftop. His age showed in his close-cropped, grey-sprinkled hair and weathered face. If George was in his mid-forties, then Harold was in his early fifties. He was slightly taller than his brother, and more muscular. Pale emerald flecked his brown eyes, giving the impression of jewels dropped into a mud puddle. They were neither warm, nor reassuring.
“Need answers first,” he said.
“You need… answers before you can help—Oh. That's nice,” she scoffed. They were going to deny her full treatment until they got what they wanted from her.
“Who sent you?” Harold fired the question like he’d been interrogating her for hours.
Ariana recoiled. “What?”
“Who. Sent. You.”
Was he trying to intimidate her? She pushed herself off her back, ignoring her pain, and glared at him. “No one.”
George hung back, his arms crossed. “So you weren’t with the boy?”
With him? That murdering Hunter lookalike? “Absolutely not.”
“But you know him,” Harold pressed.
“I—” Did she? She knew Hunter. Not well. But she knew him. And that boy definitely wasn't Hunter. He couldn't be. Unless somehow he was, and then… she didn't know him at all. “No. Who is he?”
“Not your concern,” said Harold.
Ariana huffed. “How do you figure? I mean, you are accusing me of being with him.”
“If you don’t know,” Harold insisted, “we’re not telling you.”
What was he, a five-year old?
He stared her down like fresh prey. “But I think you do.”
Ariana shrugged. “He’s…” she waved a hand, “vaguely familiar,” then glared at Harold. “Reminds me of someone I don’t trust.”
A fork of light struck the ground in the distance, casting a sickly yellow glow over the Strattons’ faces. Harold lifted one thick brow. He pulled a small vial from his pocket and freed the stopper. George took a step toward his brother, almost involuntary.
Smoke rose from inside the vial as Harold hovered the open end over her damaged leg. “Don’t believe you,” he said.
Her throat clenched. But indignation coiled around her fear, boiling her blood. Now he was threatening her. She was prone in a cart, completely at their mercy, and he planned to torture answers out of her? Ridiculous. “That’s your problem, you raver. Get that thing away from me.”
Harold’s eyes lit with a fire of green flecks, then narrowed menacingly. “Think you’re some sort of princess?”
“No. But I think you’re some sort of—”
George cleared his throat. “Harold. Please.”
Harold's eyes held venom for his brother, then he turned it on Ariana. “Why were you in Gruum?”
Where the Helede was Gruum? That town? Where else, Ariana?
“I followed you there,” she admitted.
This seemed to confirm some suspicion of Harold’s. “What are you after?” He hadn’t closed the vial.
After? What did they think she was, an Elite Operative? “That,” she snapped, jabbing a finger at the jug of juice.
They followed her finger.
George sounded nothing short of baffled. “Why?”
She turned her glare on him, too. “I was about to die of thirst. Why else?”
Harold moved, the sky glowing behind him, and tore Ariana’s attention from his brother. “Stop toying with us, girl,” he said. “We saw the documents. The drawings. The books.”
Ariana’s mouth clapped shut. They went through her bag. Her eyes combed the cart. Where was it?
“How could you have followed us all that way?” George asked. “It was a two day ride.”
At least George wasn’t so accusatory. Regardless, she couldn’t answer that. She leveled her gaze on Harold. “Where’s my satchel?”
“Safekeeping,” Harold answered. “Collateral,” he added, as if that explained everything.
“I want it back.” Without it, she’d be stuck in this gorsed place forever.
“Answers,” he insisted.
“The answers you want, or the truth? Because I’m not lying to you.” Just omitting some things.
Harold thrust the vial into view and tipped out a drop.
George was at her side in a blink. But it wasn’t fast enough. The droplet hit her raw flesh, already sizzling. Ariana howled. The acid-like liquid burrowed into her skin. Her eyes watered. Her muscles tightened painfully. Her heart, her lungs, her brain shut down.
She was vaguely aware that George and Harold had squared off—like great bears locked in battle.
“What ruptured in your brain, Harold?” George shouted into his brother’s face. “I told you she wasn’t ready for that. It’s too strong!”
“She’s fine,” Harold snarled. "Starts working in an instant."
George whipped his head around, his ponytail spreading like tail feathers, and regarded Ariana, his eyes wild.
She blinked away the tears invading her vision, but her muscles were locked. She couldn’t move.
“Oh, you’re right.” George’s arms flailed in a gesture of annoyance, his words dripped with sarcasm. “She’s perfectly healed now. One drop and one instant later, her wounds are sealed, her skull’s not cracked, and she’s so far from heat-stroke she’s practically swimming in the drinking water.”
Harold responded with a bull-like snort out his widened nostrils. “Stop pampering the little snit,” he growled. “Do your job or find a new one.”
George pressed himself close to his brother, their noses touching. “Oh? Shall I join the Guild with you?”
Harold looked ready to throw a punch. A static built between them. The heat beneath Ariana’s skin flashed over with icy apprehension.
“You think it was an accident she and the boy both found us on this trip, George? This trip?”
“I don’t care if it was planned down to the last injury. That’s not how we treat prisoners.”
Great. She was a prisoner.
The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) Page 12