The Tainted City

by Courtney Schafer

  Jylla nodded. “Naidar and his friends liked to take their lovers with them to the Spire when they took a water magic shift.” She gave a little, wry shrug at my incredulous look. “He liked to show off how important he was. Only mages are allowed in the inner spell chamber, but we’d gamble and talk a while in the waiting room, until it was time for their shift and they’d send us out to wait in the antechamber. When the screaming started, Alia went to pieces, but Lisel and Jory tried to get the doors open.” She shook her head, looking disgusted. “Suliyya knows what they thought they could do if they did. As for me—well, I’m not stupid.”

  “You ran,” I said, bitterly amused. Of course she had. Jylla’s sense of self preservation was even better honed than Red Dal’s. “I bet you were down those stairs faster than a red-eared hare.”

  She shrugged without a trace of regret. “Like I said, I’m not stupid. I’d heard the rumors—and if a mage can’t protect himself, well, I sure as hell won’t be able to help. I waited ’til the wardfire vanished, then found a spot to hide in the outer courtyard. I saw Sechaveh’s mages and the guardsmen come running, and heard them talking, after. That’s how I knew Naidar and his friends were dead.”

  Her hands had locked tight around the sun amulet she still carried, though I saw no hint of grief in her eyes. She said, “I also saw the blood mage come, and tell the guards he wanted to question any witnesses.”

  “Yeah, and by questioning them, Ruslan means mindburning them while they shriek their lungs out.” I had a moment of black satisfaction when she flinched.

  Her painted eyes widened, imploring. “I feared as much. Then I saw you, talking with those mages like a born highsider. I knew you could help me.”

  “Help you?” I spat at her feet. “Fuck, Jylla. After what you did, I ought to hand you straight to Ruslan and laugh. Why in Shaikar’s hells would I help?”

  “Because I’ve got information related to Naidar’s death,” Jylla said. “You’re working for those foreigners, right? Don’t you want to get a jump on them, learn something you can use to bargain? Trust me, Dev, ordinary folk like us need every advantage we can get when playing games with mages.”

  A dark voice within urged, Give her to Ruslan. Let him mindburn her, make her pay. I got a vivid image of Jylla, slumped and drooling blood like Torain—and winced, feeling sick. The gods knew I’d wanted her to suffer for her betrayal of me, but that…no. For all my harsh words to her, I wasn’t so vicious. Marten, I’d gladly watch die screaming, but Jylla…if she’d known about Melly when she took my earnings, then maybe. But I’d never told her, too intent on keeping the silence I’d promised Sethan.

  Besides, she was right. I needed more to offer Marten. “Fine. You give me something worthwhile, I’ll see you don’t get mindburned.”

  Jylla glanced down the corridor. “The servants will be back from the dawn markets soon, and I’d rather talk where they can’t overhear. My room’s warded, and I’ve got a quiet-shroud charm there, strong enough no one can listen in.”

  I hesitated. She might still mean to set me up somehow, but I could understand wanting to keep this private. At the first sign of any trouble, I’d use my boneshatter charm on her and run. Warily, I followed her.

  The inner rooms were almost a parody of my expectations of a highsider. Ornamentation everywhere, the walls covered in jewels and carvings, expensive cinnabar wood furniture from Alathia crowding every room. Jylla halted in front of an arched wooden door carved with elaborate geometric patterns. I winced as I eyed the garishly painted statues of leaping pronghorns framing the doorway. Samis probably would’ve pronounced them the height of art.

  “Let me guess, Naidar wasn’t born a highsider,” I said to Jylla.

  She pressed the rayed amulet against the tangle of ward lines circling the door handle. The ward flashed blue.

  “Of course not.” Jylla pushed the door open. “None of the mages in Ninavel were born here.”

  I paused in the doorway, surprised. “Mages can’t have kids, yeah, but some of them must get born here, right? To ordinary parents?” Everyone knew spellcasting made mages sterile, but I’d never heard Jylla’s claim before.

  “I heard Naidar and one of his mage friends talking once about how all Ninavel mages are immigrants. Kids birthed here are never mageborn, only Tainted. Naidar said there’s some big natural reservoir of magic here, so powerful it burns out the minds of untrained mages—he thinks exposure to so much wild magic kills any potentially mageborn babies in the womb. He said that even older mageborn kids brought here from elsewhere can’t survive without special protective bindings until they’re past puberty.”

  “Huh.” I’d known Kiran hadn’t been born in Ninavel, since he’d told me he’d never had even a hint of the Taint. I hadn’t realized that applied to every mage in the city.

  Jylla’s room was huge by streetside standards, but relatively plainly decorated compared to the eye-searing circus outside. Silk drapes in soft shades of rose and lavender hid the stone of the walls and formed a canopy over the enormous bed. I sucked in a breath as I recognized the collection of little animals cut from quartz, amethyst, and malachite sitting on the inset stone shelf at the head of the bed. I’d given her most of those either as Naming day gifts or to celebrate our reunions after my mountain trips.

  She probably kept them as a trophy of how skillfully she’d manipulated me. Or maybe I’d meant so little to her she’d never even thought to ditch them. My fists clenched, but I held my tongue. She was as clever as Marten; she’d seize any opening I gave her.

  Jylla shut the door, reactivated the wards, and rooted around in a carved wooden chest beside the bed. After a moment, she made a small, pleased noise and stood up, dangling a jewel-studded silver amulet on a delicate chain from one finger. “Quiet-shroud charm,” she said, and slipped it on over her head, careful not to snag the chain on her hairclasp.

  She approached to stand mere inches away. I backed, but she held up a warning hand. “It’s a powerful charm, but we need to stand close for it to cover you as well as me.”

  I gritted my teeth and stared over her head as she slinked up to me again. “You seriously think we need a shroud charm? I saw those wards on the door.” Naidar might have been a gullible, insecure show-off, but he knew how to make wards. Even in my Tainted days, I would’ve had a hard time slipping past wards that strong.

  “If anything, I’m not being cautious enough. Naidar’s magic didn’t save him in the Aiyalen Spire, and I’ve heard the rumors. Mages dying, Tainters vanishing…”

  Startled, I looked her full in the face. “What do you know about missing Tainters?”

  She shrugged. “A streetside friend came to me last week wanting names of mages who might be willing to make highside-strength protective wards sized small enough to be worn by kids. I was curious, so I did some asking around. The handlers have been keeping it quiet, but a bunch of Tainters have disappeared recently while they’re out on jobs, enough so handlers are demanding their ganglords do something about it.”

  Melly. My gut twisted with new worry. I’d thought the killer might’ve snatched one kid to test Aiyalen’s wards, but I hadn’t imagined anything near so widespread. Why would he want so many?

  “I assume you mean the kids aren’t just failing against wards.” One mistake Tainting a powerful ward meant death for a Taint thief. Any bodies found by the wards’ owners were usually dumped along with the rest of the house’s garbage. The muckboys who carted highside trash off to be burned in magefire kilns were happy to earn extra coin by showing handlers the corpses.

  Jylla nodded. “No bodies, no activated wards…the kids go into a mark’s house and never come back.”

  “How many have disappeared, and in which districts?” My feet itched to run go check Red Dal’s den right now, make sure Melly wasn’t among the missing. But if Melly hadn’t returned to the den after last night’s job, Cara would’ve heard about it from Liana by now, and signaled me. The twin-seek charm on my bicep
remained cold and inert, just as it had been all morning.

  Jylla shrugged again. “I don’t know exactly how many. I heard the handlers in Julisi are complaining the loudest, but it’s happened in Gitailan and Baroi districts as well.”

  Julisi district again. Thank Suliyya she hadn’t said Acaltar, but my worry didn’t lessen.

  Jylla said, “My point is, whoever’s out there is grabbing kids and murdering mages like their defensive charms are as useless as devil-wards. I’d say that justifies a healthy dose of caution.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. Disturbing as this was, apparently it wasn’t even Jylla’s real bit of news. “All right, Jylla. I came here like you wanted. What do you know related to Naidar’s death?”

  She took a deep breath, and let it out, slowly. If I looked down, I’d have a great view of the honey-smooth swell of her breasts, held high and tight by that damn dress. Resolutely, I kept my eyes on her face and tried not to think of all the countless times we’d talked like this, planning out a job—and what had come after, when the talking was done.

  Jylla said, “Over the last two days, someone was watching this house, and even shadowing Naidar. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that now Naidar is dead.”

  “He didn’t notice someone stalking him? He was a mage, for Khalmet’s sake!”

  She gave a small snort. “He was a mage, sure, but he was blind to his surroundings like any ordinary highsider. More so, maybe, because he didn’t think harm could touch him. When the wardfire started, he scoffed at the rumors. He said the mages who died were just too weak or dumb to protect themselves properly.”

  Yeah, that sounded like the arrogant asshole I remembered. His arrogance wasn’t all hot air. We’d all heard the tales streetside of the ugly deaths suffered by those who crossed mages. A shadow man would have to be either desperate or cocky as hell to take a job scouting a mage. Unless…

  “Was Naidar’s shadow a mage, too?”

  Jylla shook her head. “No sigils on his clothes, but more than that, he didn’t move like a mage. Not even a hint of arrogance. I’m pretty sure he was streetside. Oh, he blended in highside well enough, dressed the part and all…but he had quick eyes.”

  “Yeah, and maybe he had nothing to do with Naidar’s death,” I said skeptically.

  Jylla’s mouth quirked. “Because mages get shadowed every day in Ninavel. Besides, I’m betting your mage friends could use a lead.”

  True. If Marten’s spell didn’t work, the Alathians would be desperate for something to go on. “What did he look like?”

  Jylla’s eyes took on a cunning gleam. “Ah, now that’s a good question. Tell me, Dev, what would your mage friends give in return for that information?”

  I’d been waiting all along for something like this. Jylla never gave anything away for free. “Protection from Ruslan isn’t enough for you? Blood mages don’t need to barter, Jylla, they just take. Ruslan will rip the shadow man’s image straight out of your head.”

  She changed tactics without even blinking. “What about you? What would you give?”

  “Fuck if I’ll give you a single kenet after all you stole from me.” Pain surged, sudden and vicious, sending words pouring from me like blood from a wound. “Besides, nobody can give you what you really want. Not me, not even whatever Khalmet-touched fool of a mage you get your claws into next.”

  “You think so? Then tell me, what do I really want?” Jylla’s smile was kitfox-sharp.

  I bared my teeth in a knowing grin. “Nothing ever replaces the Taint, does it? You think it matters that you’re highside now, acting the jenny-slave to a bunch of puffed up mages? You’re still a cripple with that fucking hole inside where the Taint used to be, dead as the southern blight. How does it feel, watching them cast magic when you’ll never taste it again?”

  Her smile vanished as if I’d slapped her. For an instant her eyes went wide and unguarded, the pain in them an echo of my own.

  “We know each other too well, don’t we, Dev?” Her voice was lightly mocking, but I recognized the bitter undertone and knew the mockery wasn’t all directed at me. She slid closer until her lithe body pressed right up against mine. I didn’t back away. She was trying to get control of the conversation again, and I didn’t mean to let her.

  “Tell you what, Tainter,” she said. “I’ll describe that shadow man for you, down to the length of his eyelashes—in exchange for one, simple thing.”

  “Yeah? And what is this ‘one, simple thing?’” I sneered.

  “Something I’ve missed this summer,” she said, the bitter undertone still in her voice. Quick as an adder’s strike, she wound her hands in my hair and tugged my mouth down to hers.

  She wanted to unsettle me? I’d show her it wasn’t so easy. I returned her kiss. Deepened it into something hard and hungry, and skimmed my fingers along the exposed skin of her back where her dress dipped low.

  She made a small, low sound that jolted straight to my groin. Her hands slid down over my arms to slip beneath my shirt. I caught her wrists, pulled them behind her back—damn it, I wasn’t such a fool as to let her search me. She gasped and rocked her hips against mine, her tongue doing truly wicked things in my mouth, and I found myself backing her toward the bed. I should shove her away, laugh in her face, but it had been so long, her body still a perfect fit against mine, and I knew just where a touch would make her shiver…

  The creak of the door opening broke through the haze in my head. I leaped away from Jylla, one hand snatching for the boneshatter charm in my belt. She’d set me up after all, Shaikar take her, and I’d fallen right into her honey-trap—

  I checked so hard I nearly fell flat on my face. The intruder wasn’t some streetside thug or sneering highsider. It was Kiran.

  Chapter Fourteen

  (Kiran)

  “What are you doing here?” Kiran blurted, one hand still raised and his mind entangled with the energies of the door wards he’d just broken.

  Dev’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat. “Marten—Captain Martennan, I mean—asked me to interview Naidar’s associates.”

  Kiran damped out the last of the ward energies and focused more closely on Dev and his companion. Amusement displaced confusion as he registered the flush on the woman’s cheeks and the abnormally rapid flicker of both her and Dev’s ikilhia. Clearly Dev’s method of questioning was far kinder than Ruslan’s. “She’s one of his…associates, I take it?”

  A courtesan, more specifically, if the enormous bed and the elegant artifice of the woman’s appearance were any guide. Kiran had read in books that some lesser mages took nathahlen as lovers. Ruslan viewed the practice with utter contempt. Kiran had to admit he didn’t see how a mere physical encounter could compare to the depth of union he’d experienced with Ruslan and Lizaveta.

  “Associate, yeah. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know anything.” Dev peered warily at the open door behind Kiran. “Is Ruslan here too?”

  He must hope to avoid subjecting the courtesan to Ruslan’s version of interrogation. Kiran couldn’t blame him.

  “No,” Kiran said. “He sent me and Mikail to…examine the dead mages’ workrooms.” If Dev asked for specifics beyond that, he would refuse to give them. Kiran knew Ruslan’s dismissal of the Alathians before explaining the spell he hoped to cast was no coincidence. Kiran already risked Ruslan’s anger in speaking to Dev again—but so far, he thought the conversation easily defensible. Ruslan would want to know what a representative of the Alathians sought in the murdered mage’s house, after all.

  “This isn’t the workroom,” Dev said, with a lift of a brow.

  “Mikail’s there already,” Kiran said. “I sensed the active wards here, so I came to check…” He trailed off, not wanting to reveal he’d been looking for newly-made charms. He’d thought perhaps the wards protected a secondary workroom. Some mages preferred to keep a separate area devoted solely to charm creation.

  Instead, he now had an excellent opportunity to s
peak to Dev unobserved by either Mikail or Ruslan. He badly wanted to discover the truth behind the oddity of Dev’s reactions to him and Mikail. Yet fear of Ruslan’s wrath and the presence of the nathahlen courtesan combined to leave him tongue-tied, unable to think of a properly innocuous question that would coax Dev into revealing what Kiran wanted to know.

  He settled for a foray on a lesser matter. “How do you know her?” he asked Dev, indicating the courtesan. Even aside from what Kiran’s entry had obviously interrupted, Dev’s repeated glances at her, and the way he’d edged in front of her, as if to block Kiran’s view, had Kiran convinced she was more than some newly-met witness. He wanted to know what tie a lower-city man could have to a wealthy mage’s courtesan—and if Dev lied and claimed they’d only just met, that would be instructive, too.

  “We used to work for the same man. A long time ago.” Dev said it casually enough, but this time his glance at the courtesan was dark. The courtesan kept her eyes downcast, as she had ever since her first sight of the sigils on Kiran’s clothes, and stayed silent.

  If Dev spoke the truth about a shared employer, it couldn’t be that long ago. Both Dev and the courtesan looked to be close in age to Mikail, only a few years older than Kiran. But if Dev had once worked for someone in the upper city, another mage perhaps…that might explain some of his unusual ease around mages.

  Before Kiran could press for more details, Dev went on. “If you’re looking for something here in the house, maybe I can help.”

  Kiran hesitated, torn once more between curiosity and worry. He couldn’t risk revealing what he and Mikail sought here. But how could he squander the chance to question Dev further?

  “Have you learned anything of interest?” If Dev had even a hint of relevant information, Ruslan couldn’t fault Kiran for continuing the conversation.

  “Actually, yeah. I’ve something to share. Why don’t you and I head toward that workroom?” Dev gave Kiran a pointed look, tilting his head toward the courtesan. She raised her eyes to give Dev a sharp, quizzical glance.