“Nicholas, in two years you have gone from being one of the most wayward reprobates I had the pleasure of calling friend, to the most annoyingly pious and faithful.”
Nicholas refused to look at his friend. “It’s just like you said. She changed me. Now shut up. Here we are.” He stopped before a tavern. “We’ll stay here until the evening. Once it’s dark, we’ll look for Appleby.”
As they went inside, Nicholas drew in a deep breath. They would figure out the sailing details later. First he had to find Willard. Then he would find Elaina.
37
Stolen Gifts
Nicholas squinted down the street in the deepening of the evening light. He could barely make out Oliver motioning toward the big storehouse.
Either the foolish young man had really been kidnapped, or he was up to no good. Because the Willard Appleby Nicholas knew wouldn’t be caught dead in a common fish house. Particularly an abandoned one.
Nicholas motioned back to Oliver, then he and Henri darted across the street to the fish house while his soldiers fanned out.
Hoods pulled down over their faces, Henri and Nicholas flattened themselves against the rough wooden wall and peered through the single window beside the door. Several candles had been lit inside, but not enough for them to make out any details through the dirty window. Aside from the flames’ flickers, no movement was made. But surely someone was inside. Only a fool would leave behind lit candles in a warehouse made of wood.
They waited there for much longer than Nicholas had hoped. Suppressing the horrid urge to kick off his boot when he felt something crawl into it, he had just begun to wonder if their contact had been wrong when a shadow crossed in front of the window. Before passing by completely, it seemed to stop and look out the window, leaning into the pane to stare outside. After muttering something Nicholas couldn’t make out through the glass, the figure began to pace again.
“Doesn’t look like a hostage to me,” Henri whispered.
“There’s only one way to find out.” As Nicholas left his hiding place to stand at the door, he had the sinking sensation of familiarity.
Because the last time he’d knocked on a door in Solwhind, everything had turned out so bloody well.
Nicholas glanced around once more before rapping on the door to ensure his men were where they were supposed to be.
Willard Appleby opened it. His look of utter surprise answered any lingering doubts Nicholas had as to the young man’s intentions. He didn’t even need to glance at his friend to know that Henri was thinking the same thing.
“My . . . Nicholas.” He cleared his throat and glanced at Henri. “Henri.” After dropping into a bow so deep he nearly stumbled, he gestured inside to a few crates pulled up beside a small hearth. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you here. Won’t . . . won’t you come in?”
Nicholas walked in, keeping his hand on the knife at his waist. He didn’t like leaving Oliver and his men outside, but he really couldn’t have asked for a better ally to have at his side than Henri.
“Please, come stand by the fire,” Willard said. “It is spring, but the nights still have quite a chill to them here by the water.”
The building was tall enough to fit three levels inside. Wooden crates were piled up against every wall, and there was the distinct smell of fish in the air. No proper floor covered the ground, only dirt. The windows were small and placed high enough that from the outside, peeking through any except the front window would have been difficult, even for someone as tall as Nicholas.
Nicholas stopped beside the fire then turned and folded his arms. “Would you care to explain?”
“Explain?” Willard stared at him blankly. “Oh, you mean my presence here. Yes, I suppose that does need some explaining.”
He began to pace, toying with his clothes and constantly twitching his fingers. Nicholas couldn’t help noticing the vast difference between the arrogant young aristocrat that so often visited his court and the agitated boyish man before him.
“Well?”
“Well,” Willard laughed nervously, “I . . . I was told about a new kind of treasure that could be sought here in Solwhind.”
Nicholas felt his blood simmer. “You don’t mean slavery?” The thought of someone like Willard Appleby owning Elaina threatened to ruin his already tried calm.
“What? Oh, of course not.” Willard traced a long crack in the wall, but his fingers continued to twitch so badly that he could hardly keep his hand on the wood for more than a second or two. “No, this treasure is quite expensive, but far more rewarding.” He let out a short laugh and looked at Nicholas then Henri. “You both look so suspicious! Here.” He held out his shaking hand, palm up. “Let me show you.”
Before they could respond, a thin layer of sand began to grow in the palm of his hand. The layer became a little mound, then a pile, growing until it began to slide off his hand and onto the floor.
Nicholas closed his eyes. Why couldn’t these encounters ever go smoothly? He’d never had so much trouble with gifted folk until the non-gifted had begun to help themselves. He started to walk back to the door to call for Oliver, but what he hadn’t counted on was Henri.
Henri was on top of Willard in an instant, using one of his powerful hands to hold the young man still while his other hand pressed his sword against Willard’s throat.
“Where did you get such witchcraft?” Henri shouted.
“What do you mean?” Willard squeaked.
“I have had the misfortune of knowing you for most of our lives, and you have never had that power!”
“I bought it!”
“It had to come from somewhere!” Henri bellowed. “The only way to transfer that kind of power is through an evil like you have never imagined! Now where did you get it?”
Nicholas stared at Henri, unsure of what to do. Interrogation had always been a possibility, of course, but Nicholas hadn’t imagined it escalating quite like this. Henri was supposed to be the calm one, the one with a cool head, but Nicholas had never seen him so enraged. Nicholas needed to regain control of the situation. He also needed to get Willard back in one piece, preferably alive.
“I bought it! I swear! That’s all! See?” With a shaking hand, Appleby pushed his unkempt hair out of the way for Nicholas and Henri to see the two scars in his temple.
Before Nicholas had decided what to do, Willard flicked his hand, and gritty sand filled Nicholas’s eyes. They burned so intensely he dropped his knife as he tried unsuccessfully to clear his vision. But the sand continued to swirl around him, biting his skin like thousands of little gnats. He stumbled and struck his shin against something sharp. As he tried to get up, still unable to see, he felt hands grab him around the shoulders and drag him along the ground. Nicholas rolled and kicked, but every time his vision started to clear, more sand filled his eyes. His backside hit something hard. Then again. And again. Were they going down steps?
“Henri!” he called.
“I can’t see a blasted thing!” came Henri’s reply.
Before he could use Henri’s voice to find his bearings, the hands let go, and Nicholas was dropped hard onto something metal. It clanged shut as footsteps ran away.
He must be in another room. But where?
Nicholas got on his hands and knees and began to feel around until a few moments later when his eyes began to clear. Henri’s shouts continued from above, sometimes punctuated by a cry from Willard. But steps eventually approached again, as did the sounds of a struggle and more of Henri’s curses and threats.
Nicholas squinted at Henri’s blurry form as it was shoved into the cage with him. But by the time he could focus enough to stand, the gate was shut and locked. His eyes continued to blink and tear furiously as he tried to make out their surroundings. From the look of the earthy, windowless room around them, they were in the cellar.
“Henri?”
“I’m working on it.” Henri, still blinking hard with tears rolling down his face, had summoned a ball
of blue fire that hovered over his hands and was pushing it against the lock.
“How did he get you down here?” Nicholas could understand someone with a new gift taking advantage of him. But Henri?
“Goes to show what happens when your father never lets you out of the training room,” Henri growled. “Now let me focus.”
It hurt to stare at Henri’s hands directly, as the flame was full of what looked like miniature lightning strikes. But Nicholas couldn’t help peeking. Though Henri had shown him the gift a few times when the boys were younger, Nicholas hadn’t seen it in several years, and Henri’s ability to control his gift had magnified significantly.
Unfortunately, as powerful as the fire was, it wasn’t strong enough to melt the lock. At least, not with the urgency they needed.
“Willard, what are you doing?” Nicholas called out. The young man was sitting cautiously on one of the dirt steps that led up into the room they had been dragged from. “Do you think a few days in an abandoned fish house is going to give you what you need?”
“It’s unfair for a few to have all the power,” Willard said, staring at the ground.
“So you’re buying yourself some. But at what cost?” Nicholas really wasn’t sure where he was going with the conversation. He just needed to get Willard talking. He had a bad feeling about their location. Down here, several dozen candles were lit and placed on the dozens of crates that edged the cellar. Why would Willard have several dozen candles lit already? And why did he have a cage? He couldn’t have known they were coming.
“Who owns this place, Willard?”
The young man just shuffled his feet.
Nicholas took a calming breath and suppressed the heat boiling up within him. Twenty-one years was far too old to be acting like a sullen child, but there was little Nicholas could do about Willard’s behavior from the cage.
“Too bad my mother’s not here,” Henri muttered.
Nicholas opened his mouth to ask Willard again, but he could hear the door in the main room open, and Willard scrambled to his feet to greet the hooded, masked man coming toward the steps.
Halfway down the steps the figure froze then immediately reached up to tug the cloak further down its face.
“Your Eminence,” Willard said, “I used the gift you gave me to trap—”
“I can see who they are!” the hooded figure shouted in a whisper. “What possessed you to think you should imprison King Everard’s son? Or the Ashlandian prince, for that matter?”
Why was he whispering? Was he afraid of being recognized?
“I . . . I know he isn’t the girl who talks to the stars,” Willard stuttered, “but perhaps you might have a use for the Destinian prince.” He suddenly looked hopeful. “I could help you harvest his gift. Then perhaps purchase it?”
Nicholas felt sick as the hooded figure turned to examine Henri once again. Not only was Elaina still being hunted, but now he had put his best friend in mortal danger.
“First let’s do what we came to do. This gift will be no good to us at all if he’s dead.”
Willard nodded, and the hooded man hurried back up the steps. When he descended again, he was dragging a very large, heavy sack. As soon as he had placed it in the center of the little room, just out of reach of the cage, he opened the top to reveal a dirty, disheveled man with a fresh wound to one eye and blood all over his nose. The man moaned a little as he curled up in a ball on the floor, his eyes shut and his breathing shallow.
“That cage won’t hold them for long,” the cloaked figure whispered to Willard. “You’ll have to help me if we’re going to get this done in time to keep them subdued.”
Henri continued to press his blue flame against the bars, but Nicholas watched the two men outside the cage. He got the feeling a lot of questions were going to be answered very soon.
The hooded man pulled out a dagger. It was an odd-looking thing, unusually short for a dagger, but it had an opaque ball the size of a marble attached to the end.
Only then did Nicholas make the connection. This weapon must have given the Order of the Dagger its name. This man must be the Shadow.
The Shadow used the dagger to carefully cut two slices into the unconscious man’s temple, about an inch long each. The man on the ground moved a little, but Willard held him in place as the hooded man kept working. The Shadow held up a little clay jar about the size of Nicholas’s fist and removed its cork.
“Hold his head to the left,” he told Willard. Willard obeyed, and the hooded man tilted the jar until a single drop of viscous black liquid, much like ink, oozed out and disappeared into the man’s first cut. He repeated the process with the second cut. “Keep him still,” he ordered.
“I know.” Willard said, a bead of sweat running down his face. “I remember from last time.”
“Did you empty yourself the way I told you?”
Willard grimaced. “I tried.”
“What do you mean, you tried?” the Shadow asked. “I told you, for the Sorthileige to work without driving you mad, you need to first empty yourself of all your preconceived notions about—”
“I tried! Alright?” Willard cried out. “You had years with enchanters to teach you! I got one hour with you.”
“For your sake, I hope you were successful.” The Shadow shook his head before muttering, “They never believe me about the madness.”
The two men positioned themselves on the unconscious man’s body just as he began to twitch.
Henri’s fire had ceased, and he stared open-mouthed as the man’s twitches turned to convulsions.
“Nicholas, we need to get him out now!” he shouted.
Nicholas knew his friend was right, but he couldn’t help watching for a second longer as the Shadow grabbed his victim’s head and twisted it so that the cuts were facing down. He held the dagger’s orbed end beneath the unconscious man’s head as blood began to drip out. As the blood hit the orb, it disappeared into the knife itself.
Henri was once again trying to use his fire to melt the bars, but Nicholas had seen enough. He grabbed Henri by the sleeve and yanked him to the back of the cage. Leaning back, he gave the door a good solid kick.
Henri’s fire must have weakened the lock because it snapped and the door flew open.
Willard let go of the thrashing man and began to summon more sand, but Nicholas was expecting it this time. Throwing his cloak over his face, he blindly rushed at Willard and knocked him to the ground. When he turned to look for Henri, however, he saw the Shadow dart up the steps. Henri was right on his heels.
“Henri, no!” Nicholas let go of Willard and dashed up after his friend.
Thankful that his legs were longer than Henri’s, Nicholas caught him at the door and grabbed his arm. When Henri turned to face him, however, Nicholas felt his confidence waver.
Henri’s eyes were glowing with the Fortiers’ legendary blue flame, and his face was twisted into pure rage. Nicholas could feel him trembling through the sleeves he was gripping.
“Let me get him!” Henri shouted. “I can stop him!”
Nicholas, praying for the strength to overpower Henri, should the need arise, shoved his friend up against the wall. “I need you to help me save the man downstairs!”
Henri continued struggling, so Nicholas shoved him against the wall again.
“Listen to me!”
Finally, Henri blinked a few times. The fire in his eyes began to die down just a little.
Nicholas silently thanked the Maker. “Henri, I need you to save that man. You know about whatever it was that the Shadow put inside him. I don’t. If you don’t stop it, he will die.”
That, and it was the last thing Nicholas needed for the Destinian prince to get involved with his rebellion’s warlord. Forget Nicholas’s own father. King Everard would be the one to have his head.
After what felt like ages, Henri nodded and numbly began to walk back toward the cellar steps.
Nicholas followed. Willard was gone when they reache
d the cellar, but he was the least of Nicholas’s worries now. When Nicholas began to kneel across from Henri on the other side of the dying man, however, Henri shook his head.
“Go sit on the step. I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to hurt you while I try.”
Nicholas wanted to argue, but decided to obey. Henri seemed to know what he was doing. “What was it he put into the man’s temple?”
“Sorthileige.”
Nicholas shuddered. He’d heard of the dark substance of pure evil, but had never seen it with his own eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“I need to get rid of it.” Nicholas took the man’s head in one arm and placed his other hand beneath the still bleeding temple. He held the man’s head for a moment and closed his eyes. When he opened them he shook his head. “My father can put his fire into blood to devour sickness. But I don’t think I can burn it without killing him. It’s too thick.”
“Is there anything you can do?”
“I think . . .” Henri drew a shaky breath, sweat clumping the blond hair on his forehead. “I think I might be able to draw it out, though.”
The unconscious man’s chest moved less with each breath, but still Henri hesitated. Nicholas shuddered again. What kind of evil was this? He said another prayer for his friend.
Finally, Henri took his palm and held it against the two incisions. Blue fire began to emanate from his hand and move into the man’s head. At first, it merely looked as though Henri was waiting for the bleeding to stop. But the longer he held his hand to the man’s head, the more Henri’s whole body began to tremble.
“Henri?”
But Henri’s eyes were squeezed shut, and his lips were turning a ghostly shade of white. A groan escaped him. Blood trickled from one nostril down to his mouth.
Nicholas was off the step in a second and at Henri’s side. He didn’t care what Henri had told him to do. He had brought his friend into this mess, and he wasn’t going to leave him alone now. Placing his hands on Henri’s shoulders, he tried to hold him upright as Henri began to lean forward. As they touched, a burning, nauseating, sickly sweet sensation began to move through Nicholas’s hands and up into his arms and shoulders, and Nicholas had to fight the sudden desire to collapse. Instead, he gritted his teeth and tried his best to hold Henri upright.
Cinders, Stars, and Glass Slippers: A Retelling of Cinderella (The Classical Kingdoms Collection Book 6) Page 28