Thief of Light

by Denise Rossetti

  “No,” said Prue tartly. “He’s my lunatic, though I’ll grant you he’s pretty.”

  Erik choked.

  Yachi chuckled. “So I see,” she said. She turned to the barrel-chested figure at her side. “Well, Rhio? What do you think? Pretty?”

  Sergeant Rhiomard regarded Erik with disfavor, assessing him in a single comprehensive glance. “No,” he said gruffly. “But I’m bettin’ he’s a fine lad in a brawl.”

  “To hell with all that,” growled Erik. “Shall we get on with it?” Without waiting for a reply, he towed Prue in through the swinging doors.

  But two steps into the fusty, low-ceilinged room he stopped so abruptly Prue bumped her nose on his spine. Before she could recover, he’d let out a pained bellow that bounced off planked walls sticky with the residue of smoke and beer and sweat. “What the fuck—?”

  Seated opposite Dai was a small, familiar figure, one grimy little paw poised over three battered nutshells lined up on the stained table. At his elbow was a small jug of ale and the foam on his upper lip gave him an unlikely looking moustache.

  Erik strode forward, gripped Florien by the collar and lifted him clear off the seat. “You!” Although the boy snarled with outrage as Erik gave him a brisk shake, he was wise enough to hang unresisting in his grasp. “What are you doing here?”

  “What’s it fookin’ look like?” When Erik released him, Florien landed neatly on his feet, tugging his tattered vest straight, huffy as an alley cat in a snit.

  “Leave him alone,” said Dai absently, his gaze fixed on the shells. “C’mon, lad, one more time and I’ll get it for sure. The eye’s quicker than the hand, it has to be.”

  Shooting Erik a glower, Florien clambered back onto the bench. “Didn’t shake ’ands,” he muttered. “No promises.”

  “My mistake,” growled Erik, all grim purpose. “Who gave you beer?” He placed both hands on the table, leaning right into Dai’s space. “You?”

  Not shifting an inch, the swordsman met a furious blue gaze. “Boy buys his own. He’s no trouble.”

  Caught between horror and amusement, Prue took her underlip firmly beneath her teeth. If she laughed now, three male egos would never forgive her.

  Besides . . . she threw a quick glance over her shoulder . . . the place was packed with off-duty guards, mercenaries and sailors, harlots of both sexes providing splashes of color. They were gathering an interested audience. This was what he had come to do.

  “Erik.” She planted a sharp elbow in his side and rolled her eyes at the crowd.

  A harried serving wench emerged from the kitchen, carrying two brimming tankards. “In a minute,” said Erik.

  When he caught the woman’s eye, her face bloomed into a tired smile. Immediately, she swerved in their direction, slapping the beers down without ceremony at a rowdy table of guards. Eagerly, she bent to take Erik’s order, her opulent breasts spilling out of her bodice right under his nose.

  For the Sister’s sake, was that the wench’s navel? Prue averted her gaze, so she was surprised to hear the woman’s bark of laughter. “Dunno if’n we got any of thet.”

  Still chuckling, she made her way back to the bar, swerving to avoid the clutching hands of a swarthy sailor with the ease of long practice.

  Erik fixed the boy with a flinty stare. “Want to stay?”

  Florien didn’t lower his eyes. “Yah.”

  “On my terms. Understood?” Erik grabbed Florien’s ale jug and drained the last of it in a couple of swallows. He slammed it down so hard the nutshells skittered about on the table as if inhabited by many-legged insects. “Understood?”

  Finally, resentfully, Florien nodded.

  When the serving wench slid a tall mug into the boy’s eager grasp, he stared into it, then sniffed, his brow furrowed. Cautiously, he stuck his tongue out and tasted. Turning an appalled face to Erik, he said, “What t’ fook is it?”

  “Milk,” said Erik firmly, passing Prue a cup of wine. He took a small, appreciative sip of his own ale. “It’s good for you.”

  Prue chuckled, but something broke inside her, something warm and melting and foolish. Dai snorted with amusement. Florien scowled and pushed the mug away, but he said, “Ye gunna sing?”

  Erik nodded and rose, rolling his shoulders and sizing up the crowd. With his usual easy grace, he hitched one hip on the cleanest corner of the table and rested a booted foot on the bench. Prue realized he’d done this many, many times before.

  He didn’t bother with preliminaries, simply opened his mouth and let the notes pour forth. But this was different, as far from opera as it was possible to get and still be music. Erik roughened and deepened his voice, belting out the rollicking rhythm, framing the words in a drawl so suggestive, so sensual, her jaw dropped. The beat had a wicked thrust to it, as explicit as the regular plunge of a man’s strong hips and thighs. Sweet Sister, she could still feel him deep inside, cramming her full, thick and silky and fiery hot.

  She shifted a little in her seat, as warm as if he’d reached out and cupped his hand between her thighs, watching the hush fan out like beer spreading from a leaky barrel, heads turning, mouths agape, one person nudging another. It reached even the shadowed booths at the back favored by those with nefarious business. Like that one, for instance, a figure so completely enveloped in a cloak it could have been male or female, fork poised over a steaming deep-dish pie. The pale face was the merest glimmer in the gloom, rapt like everyone else.

  He moved on to a sea shanty next and by the end of the second verse, the sailors were roaring the chorus and banging their tankards on the table. When a skinny old man produced a penny whistle, Erik strolled over and helped him up on the table, all without missing a beat. He grinned when the serving woman wiped a grimy rag down the bar and went clean off the end, she was so enthralled. Prue’s heart gave a nasty little lurch. He was so at ease with the attention, the adulation. Like all born performers, he needed it. Prue McGuire would never be enough for Erik the Golden.

  She stiffened her shoulders. She knew that. She’d known it from the beginning.

  It didn’t take them long to realize who he was. Between numbers, Prue saw heads together, whispering, speculating. After “The Milk-maid’s Jugs,” Erik paused to wet his throat. “Hey, mate!” called a guard, a grizzled veteran. “Ye got the balls for the ‘Seelie Song’?”

  “You bet.” Erik chuckled. “I’ve got more than that. Help me sing it and I’ll tell you.”

  He sang it solo, a trio of drunken sailors stood on a table and sang it, the whole tavern sang it together, Erik and the whistle player did it as a duet. The walls of the Sailor’s Lay reverberated. People streamed in from the street until the room was packed, the air so thick with excitement and sweat and heat, it swirled, making Prue’s head swim. Her pulse pounded. Gods, he was amazing!

  “Let’s hear it then.” Sergeant Rhiomard’s parade-ground bellow cut easily over the applause, the stamping of feet. “About the seelies.”

  “Oooh, I love me a bedtime story,” called a dark-skinned sailor, fluttering his lashes.

  Not at all discomfited, Erik sprang onto a bench, anchored by two husky workingmen on either side. As if he were relaxing by the fire-side with a few friends, he told how he’d swum with the seelies, seen the rotten stem of the titanplant. Prue discovered she’d grown a little more accustomed to his extraordinary gift for theater, not least his innate sense of timing. But neither was she surprised to note the rolling of eyes, the suppressed chuckles, Rhiomard frowning with his arms folded.

  Pushing to her feet, she worked her way through the crowd to Erik’s bench. When she tapped him on the knee, his eyes widened with surprise, but he grasped the hand she offered. A single easy heave and she was standing at his side.

  “Prue, what are—?”

  Prue slipped her arm around his waist and faced the crowd, her heart beating double time, feeling the hard strength of him all down her side, the cage of his ribs solid beneath her palm. “I saw them too,” s
he said.

  “ ’Course you did, lovey,” called the sailor. He leered at Erik, the lamplight striking gleams off the heavy gold loops distending his ear-lobes. “An’ no wonder.”

  “Listen, idiot, I—”

  The sailor scowled. He rose, a little unsteadily, supported by a couple of grumbling shipmates.

  “One more time!” Erik’s trained voice carried easily over Prue’s. His fingers tightened bruisingly on hers.

  Another hasty verse of the “Seelie Song” and the moment passed. A bow and a casual wave and he pulled Prue back to their table.

  “Could’ve been nasty.” Calmly, Dai finished his beer.

  Prue bit her lip. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Can’t abide a fool.”

  Erik tipped up her chin with his fist. His sea blue eyes glowed, softer than she’d ever seen them, mesmerizing. “Thank you,” he said, a deep purr that thrilled along her nerves. “Again.”

  Prue caught herself before she tipped forward right into his arms. “I keep my promises.” Gods, she sounded prissy!

  Over Erik’s shoulder, she saw the serving woman bearing down on their table with a flirtatious smile, a huge tankard clutched in both hands. When a tall, cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows and into her path, she tottered, the vessel slipping from her grasp. With a muttered apology, the man steadied it, gripping her elbow with one hand, the tankard with the other. The servant brushed him off, her eager gaze still fixed on Erik.

  “Here we are then.” Smiling, she set it down before him and put her hands on her blowsy hips. “On the house, like.”

  When Erik rose and bowed his thanks, as graceful as any courtier, Prue could swear the woman simpered. But then he sat and pushed the ale aside, absently slapping at Florien’s reaching hand.

  “Don’t you want it?” said Dai. “They serve a good brew here.”

  Erik shook his head. “I don’t drink when I sing, or much at all really. A question of control.” Something bleak flickered in his eyes. “Go ahead.” His lips quirked in a wry smile. “We’ll carry you home.”

  The swordsman’s handsome, merry face creased in a grin as he raised the tankard in salute.

  Erik stroked the back of Prue’s hand. “Promises?” he murmured. “Sweetheart, I—”

  With a dull thud, the ale jug slipped from Dai’s fingers, spilling across the table in a frothy stream, splashing Prue’s sleeve. Dai clutched his throat, his eyes stretched so wide, she could see the whites all around. He made a noise she had never heard before and hoped never to hear again, a wet, clotted gargle.

  24

  Erik lunged, grabbing his shoulder. “Dai!”

  Dai’s eyes rolled back in his head. Foam flecked his lips, stained a virulent, iridescent purple.

  “Fook!” whispered Florien. “Fookin’ prettydeath!”

  The swordsman staggered, then crashed headlong to the filthy floor, body arched in agony. His bubbling screams carried clearly over the rumble of conversation.

  Frozen, Prue sat staring. Erik exploded past her. He wrenched Dai’s jaw open. “The milk! Quick!”

  Florien slapped the mug into his hand and Erik poured the contents down the swordsman’s gullet, planting a knee on his chest to keep him still. Dai flopped like a landed fish.

  The ensuing ten minutes were hideous. Milk. Then water, pints of it, then milk again.

  His eyes huge, dark pits in his ashen face, Florien inched closer until his small, trembling body touched Prue’s. She put an arm around his narrow shoulders and snugged him into her side, glad of the human comfort, the grounding reality of his light, quick breaths. Despite the heat in the tavern, she was clammy and cold, her skin prickling with shock.

  Eventually, the noise died away to pained whimpers, as if Dai were trying to scream through a throat full of broken glass.

  “That’s enough, man.” Rhiomard laid a hand on Erik’s shoulder. “I’ve sent one of the lads for a healer.” He looked down at the twitching body of the swordsman, his face grim. “You saved his life, though I doubt he’ll thank you for it.”

  Erik wiped his forehead with his sleeve. His shirt was splattered with an unholy mix of blood and milk and the purple remnants of the poison. Even over the stale beer and sweat in the taproom, Prue could smell the evil of it, an acrid, metallic odor with a cloying undertone. Swallowing hard, she suppressed the urge to gag.

  Slowly, Erik got to his feet. “Prettydeath?” he said. “But how—?” A startling sapphire blue in his pale face, his eyes met Prue’s.

  She wet her lips. “You,” she whispered. “Sweet Sister, it was meant for you!”

  The moment stretched endlessly, everything around her slowing to a crawl, as if mired in mud. That could be Erik lying there on the floor of the Sailor’s Lay, his beautiful eyes glassy with pain, the magnificent voice silenced. Gone from her forever.

  Sister have mercy, she wasn’t ready for that, she’d never be ready.

  Her heart beat, on and on, a relentless lump of muscle, keeping her alive, while her soul shriveled and died at the thought of a world without Erik. Prue couldn’t seem to move, to think past it, her brain heavy and slow with the stunning impact.

  No more of the charming smiles that weakened her knees, no more of the infuriating way he could make her laugh despite herself, no more of the abandon only Erik the Golden could coax from her. No more of that strange sense of safe harbor she felt in his arms. He’d blown into her placid, uneventful life like a whirlwind, his presence intensifying every sensation—colors were brighter, flowers sweeter, wine more intoxicating on her tongue. Yet with all of that, she found him so easy to be with, such good company. Perfect—with all his flaws.

  The bottom dropped out of her stomach and the taproom creaked back into focus. Her fingers dug so hard into Florien’s shoulder that he yelped. With a muttered apology, Prue loosened her grip. Sister save her, how could she have been so blind, so hopelessly, comprehensively stupid as to think she could keep any part of herself aside? What had happened to her supposedly cool, logical brain?

  I never learn, she thought savagely. Fool, fool, fool!

  Slowly, Prue shifted a little way away from the boy and wrapped her arms around her shivering body. Gods, she was cold!

  So much for self-preservation.

  There wasn’t even a way to shift the blame. The responsibility was hers, and hers alone. Erik was what he was, a force of nature, dangerous in the same innately casual way as a wild animal like a tygre. She’d known all along how foolhardy it was to take the risk, but she hadn’t had the strength to resist. The blood rushed in her ears, the wind of disaster whipping through her hair as she plummeted, farther and farther into the abyss. Oh gods, she’d given everything that she was—her foolish heart, her ordinary self—to a man who’d leave her tomorrow without a thought.

  But no, that wasn’t fair. In his own careless, charming way, Erik cared for her, she didn’t doubt it. Unlike Chavis, Erik Thorensen was a man of substance, honor. Nothing would deflect him from his purpose. He’d simply set that stubborn jaw and persist in his mission to save her city from disaster.

  But someone didn’t want him to do that, because they were trying to kill him. And if they succeeded, she’d die too.

  Because she loved him.

  The only saving grace was that he didn’t know. He must never know.

  Utterly appalled, Prue came to her senses with a jerk.

  “An assassin,” the sergeant was saying thoughtfully. “Prettydeath’s a Guild weapon.”

  And she remembered.

  Prue leaped to her feet, nearly unseating Florien in the process. “I saw!”

  “Who?” Erik grabbed her arm. “The assassin?”

  “Yes, yes!” Frantically, she spun around, searching the room. “Tall, in a big cloak—There!” She pointed.

  Half-concealed by shadow, a figure leaned against the wall near the door, watching, swathed from head to toe in a cloak like a tent. At Prue’s cry, it started, the hood slipping back to reveal a glimps
e of a pale face. The assassin lurched out the doors, almost colliding with a lean, broad-shouldered figure coming in.

  Prue knew that hawkish profile, the thick braid of black hair trailing down the man’s back.

  “Walker!” she shouted. “That man—catch him!”

  A split second’s hesitation and Walker spun on his heel and vanished into the street. With a curse, Erik charged after him, shouldering people aside right and left, forcing a ruthless path through the crowd. The doors creaked, swinging to and fro with the speed of his passage.

  The two men returned a few moments later, empty-handed. “Fuck it,” growled Erik. “We missed him. Nothing out there but a mangy dog.”

  Walker looked up from where he knelt over Dai, his obsidian eyes bleak as death. “It was a woman,” he said. “Near as tall as me, paler than a fish’s belly.” Gently, he touched the swordsman’s wrist, but Dai made only that pathetic mewling noise.

  Walker straightened, one hand going to the worn pommel of the sword at his side. “You have a healer coming?”

  When Erik nodded, Walker said, “Dai works for me. Carry him to my House of Swords. I’ll take care of the woman.”

  “Not if I find her first,” said Erik grimly.

  Blue eyes clashed with black.

  “You won’t,” said Walker softly. “Because she’s mine.”

  Prue shivered. In all the years she’d known Walker, she’d never seen him smile, though he was unfailingly patient with the courtesans he trained in The Garden’s fighting salle. His reserve was so deep a pool of silence surrounded him, his step so quiet it seemed he had no footfall. She had no idea how old he was. Though silver threaded the sable of his hair, he moved with the supple grace of a man in his prime.

  If she hadn’t been so wild with rage and terror, she might have pitied the unknown assassin. As it was . . . Breathing hard, she watched Walker turn without another word and glide through the press of bodies to the door. People made way for him without seeming to realize they did so. He’d looked grim and tired and suddenly, she remembered he’d been ill.

  The Sister send you strength and good hunting, the Brother guide your blade. No doubt prayers from an unbeliever were a waste of breath—certainly hers had always been—but there was no harm in trying, even if the thought had been a demand rather than a plea.